Aunt Lynsie

Monday, January 11, 2010

One of my favorite presents I got this year for Christmas was having my little sister Lynsie stay with me for a week and a half after all of our family left. It was the best surprise! After all the presents were open my mom told me I had one left to open but it was hidden in the big suitcase. I figured it must be something that was too big to wrap or too difficult so I opened it up and out popped Lynsie! We had such a great time with her here and miss her so much already. She was such a wonderful helper with the boys and a perfect companion for me during the day. She made me some cute new burp cloths for Cannon and played with Jackson endlessly!

While she was here we celebrated Macie's 5th birthday.

Thanks for such a great visit Lynsie! Come back soon!

(The only picture we took together...right before the big championship game. Hook'em horns!)

Cannon's Blessing

Cannon Jon Gardner was blessed on December 27th in our home ward. Jordan did a great job and we are so thankful to our family and friends who came to support us.

The little guy all dressed up.

The Leinbach side

The Gardner side

December Events

The most wonderful time of the year?...most definitely! We started the month of December off right with our 3rd annual Christmas party. We've done this for the past three years now and this year had to be the best by far. We are so lucky to have such great friends who make it so much fun. Some highlights of the party...yummy tri tip dinner, the MOUSE (yes, a real live mouse) Jordan opened as a white elephant present, the jumping pictures (who knew it would be so much fun to do something so silly) and the game of hide and go seek in the dark (I know pretty juvenile, but oh so fun!)

Jordan's parents came out again the week before Christmas. Jordan and his dad spent the majority of the week working on converting the playroom into a movie room. To make a very long story short, the guys did a great job installing the speaker system but because the TV Jordan ordered got "lost" in the shipping process we never got to fully use the new room while our company was here. These are just a few pictures of the work in progress. More to come of the finished product!

My whole family arrived Christmas Eve to spend the holidays with us too. It was one full house (10 adults and 2 kiddos) but so much fun! We had a relaxing Christmas Eve reading the Night before Texas Christmas and putting out cookies for Santa. Jackson was really into Santa this year which made it so much fun. Christmas morning was priceless as we all watched Jackson open his presents. I think he got spoiled this year having both sets of grandparents here as there were still presents he hadn't opened the next day! He was too into playing with his new toys from Santa to care about opening more.

We enjoyed having so much family here especially my siblings. This was the first time in the almost 5 years that we've lived in Texas that my whole family was here at the same time. Thanks Bry, Derek and Lynsie for putting up with us and for sleeping on the floor. It was great having y'all here!

As always when we all get together (which doesn't happen too often) we have to take a family picture. Pretty good looking group!

Derek, Lynsie, Jackson, Jordan, Cassie, Cannon, Bryant, Meggie and Papa Jon

Catching Up

We've been very busy since Cannon joined the family and have a lot of great things to catch up on. This is what went on in November.

My parents (Meggie and Papa Jon as we like to call them) spent a wonderful 2 weeks at our house after Cannon was born. It was so great to have them here to help with Jackson and to be involved with the arrival of Cannon. We definitely could not have survived without their help! Jackson loved every minute of it and was just about as sad as I was to see them go back home. Five days after they left Jordan's parents (Nana and Papa) and his sister Lindsey came out for the weekend. We had a great long weekend with them as we celebrated Jordan's 32nd birthday, put up the Christmas decorations (thanks to Lindsey), worked on some vinyl projects and enjoyed Papa's crepes and Nana's cooking! She and Lindsey spent an entire day cooking freezer meals for us to use once our company was gone!

Just two days after the Gardner's left Carrie and Tracey came out to spend Thanksgiving with us. Jordan deep fried a turkey for them and we had a wonderful (and small) thanksgiving dinner. We must have been having way too much fun, or we were way too tired to document their visit because I don't have any pictures to post. They were a huge help and we hope that they come back again soon!

whew...believe it or not that's just the beginning of our visitors!