Christmas Pics of the Kids

Here are some pictures we took of the kids in their Christmas jammies in front of our tree. We do a picture similar to this every year for a yearly photo ornament.

This is Jason acting out the nativity story with the Little People Nativity set while reading the Christmas story from one of their Bible story books. The kids really enjoy watching and hearing the story.

Christmas Cookie Decorating

While my parents were here we also did some Christmas cookie decorating. The kids had a lot of fun. They each decorated in their own way. Joel was quite the artist with his cookies. Hannah used the same colors and lightly decorated her cookies. Noah dumped as much as he could on each of his. It was hard to keep them from eating them all. I think Noah had at least a bite out of each of his cookies.

Oh Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas tree a couple of weeks ago with Shannon's parents. The kids had a lot of fun helping decorate the tree. In the second to last picture you can see the ornaments are really clustered in sections at the bottom of the tree where the kids can reach :)

Anonymous at Abuelo's!

Shannon and I had dinner out at Abuelo's (mexican food) last week with Lydia while Shannon's folks kept the older 3. Abuelo's is one of our favorite mexican food restaurants. We were really surprised when our waitress brought back our check and credit card to tell us someone had anonymously paid for our meal! We have no idea who it was but if you happen to read our blog - thank you so much!! It was a real treat and blessing!

Family photos with Lydia

Here are some pics from a little family photo shoot we did last week getting ready for our Christmas cards. Lydia is continuing to do well. Today was Shannon's first day at home just her and the 4 kids and everything went great.

P.S. This is for Jason U. !!

Blankets from Nanah and Nana

Here are some pics of Lydia wrapped in a beautiful pink blanket given to Lydia yesterday by my grandmother, Nanah. The lovely quilt under the basket was made by Shannon's grandmother, Nana, and given to Shannon when she was born. We supplied the baby!

Our Precious Lydia

Baby Lydia is continuing to do well at home. She's really been a good baby so far. She's is usually very content unless she's hungry or needs a diaper change. Here are some pics of our precious Lydia!

Flowers from Jason

Here is our attempt at being creative with Lydia and the flowers Jason gave me when Lydia and I came home from the hospital. They are both beautiful!

Babies are better than I thought!

The kids met Lydia at the hospital Thanksgiving evening. They were all really excited about their new little sister! They each brought her a gift and Lydia had a gift ready for each of them in return. While at the hospital, Joel looked really proud to be holding his new sister and said "Babies are better than I thought!". She cried some while they were there and when Noah got his turn to hold his crying sister he said "Stop crying!". After we came home, we asked all the kids what they were thankful for this Thanksgiving and they each said "the baby". They are all quite smitten with her and hover around her constantly. They love to "pet" her head and give her kisses. Hannah frequently says "I wuv Wydia". These pics are from shortly after we brought Lydia home.

Lydia Hope Hedges

Lydia made this our best Thanksgiving ever! She was born this morning at 2:12am. She weighs 7lbs. 4oz. and is 19 1/2 inches long. Shannon and Lydia are both doing great.

Christmas Came Early

Christmas came a little early for the kids this year. We buy gifts for the kids from several other family members, so this year we decided to pool some of the money from everyone and get them this play set for Christmas. It required around 14 hours of Jason's time to put it together. Since Jason could not do that Christmas Eve night, we wanted to give it to them early. Joel loved getting to build it with Daddy. Jason said it was worth all of the work for them to get to do the project together. It also allows them to have a new fun toy in the backyard for them to play on when the baby is born. They love it and have spent many hours playing on it already.

Maternity Pictures

Here are more of the maternity pictures we took a couple of weeks ago.