We hope everyone had great holidays and 2009 is treating you well so far. The holidays here were fast and lots of fun for the kids. We had 2 gatherings at our house between Jeff's family and Becky's family. We also had an invitation from Jeff's cousin's family. So Christmas lasted for over a week. Gracie had fun opening all her gifts and other's gifts too. She was very good around the Christmas tree. We just told her it was a pretty and for the most case she left it alone. She loved getting her picture taken in front of the tree. Every time I pulled out the camera she told me to wait and she would run in front of the tree and say "Cheese." She did not take to Santa like I thought she would. We took Logan and her to visit Santa and she would not sit on his lap. So being the good big brother Logan is, he sat on Santa's lap (mind you he requested not to sit on his lap when we told him we were visiting Santa) and Gracie sat on Logan's lap. The visit was a success. Logan is on the fence about Santa. We think he does not believe but he may feel he may not get as many presents if he tells us. This is probably his last year of (sorta) believing. My little boy is growing up.

Logan's birthday is tomorrow Jan. 15. He will be 10 years old. He made it to the double digits. He stills seems to like us and obeys us for the most part. I believe we only have a few more years of that. I keep hearing all my friends who have teenagers that their child has become obnoxiuos and act like the parents are the stupidest people in the world. God help us!!!! He is on a basketball team now. He practices every Sunday for 2 hours and comes home very tired and sore. He starts playing games at the end of this month. We are very excited to watch him play to see how well the 2 hour practices have helped his skills. He really enjoys it and his coach is a great guy who is tough on the boys. School for Logan is busy. He is getting A's and B's and tries very hard. He is still growing and loves to hear people tell him he is tall.

Gracie amazes us daily. She learns things very fast. We have not worked real hard with her on numbers but she can tell you what numbers 1-10 are when you point them out. We are working on letters which are not so easy for her. She can recognize approximately 8-10 letters. She knows several colors and shapes and continues to adore Barney. She has a great memory. When I introduce her to a friend we see often she is able to tell me her/his name the next time we see them. She is a charmer. Everyone seems to enjoy being with her. We are going through a tough time getting her to sleep right now. We started putting apple cider vinager on her thumb at bedtime so she would stop sucking her thumb. Well it worked too good. She has stopped but we believe she has a problem soothing herself to sleep without the thumb. So we have had some long nights. We are hoping this is a short phase. She still has only the one tooth missing and looks so onry without it. Potty training is slow process for her. She would rather put Elmo on her potty instead of herself. In due time I believe the light will turn on for her to go potty. It is hard to believe she will be 2 years old in 3 weeks. She is still my little baby and always will be.