Christmas 2010

long overdue, but want to document it nonetheless...we once lost a lot of pictures off of our computer (we are terrible at backing things up) and our blog saved the day as I had posted many of our favorites on here.

Christmas Eve w/ the DiCos...

DiCo cousins!

I guess every family insists on taking pics of all of the kids even though it's practically torture! :-)

Christmas Eve service (the first time we've been able to go in several years - it was so special and I don't think we'll miss one again - so great to take time out of the busy-ness and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas - it's really not just a cliche!)

Christmas morning at home...

think they're excited to get a Wii?!!!

The day after Christmas, we made the long trek (15+ hour drive) to WI!

so exciting to meet our newest nephew & niece - Ezra & Naomi - born on October 12th!

the awesome chefs of our family!

My awesome Grandma Lowery was there!

Even Grandma got into it with the help of her walker! :-)

Our (short!) time with our best friends, the Martys:

the kids were coming out of their skin w/ excitement!

Fall 2010

Our fall was consumed by caring for Jon's dad - he has had liver disease for 19 years and his health really began to decline this summer. By the end of the summer, it was clear that he was going to need a liver transplant in order to live (he is only 64). We felt it was really important to get him and my mother-in-law out of their home because of the amount of stairs there were to navigate - also, we weren't sure what his care-giving situation was going to be like and we needed him in a handicap accessible place. We really pulled together as a family and quickly found a place for them to live and moved them out of their home of 37 years. That was in early September. On October 8th, after only officially being on the liver transplant list for 2 weeks and 4 days, we got the call that a liver was available! The surgery was successful and the recovery has been amazing. We are so grateful to God for granting us more time with him and extremely thankful to the donor and his family for their sacrifice (the liver he received was from a 75 year old man who had died - we did not receive additional details).

This is a picture of our kids with their Pop-Pop on his birthday (September 16th) - he was in the hospital for several weeks and was released shortly after this picture was taken to wait at home for the call for a transplant.

It was quite the experience to go through as a family and really brought us all closer to each other. I don't really have any pictures from much else over the months of September/October because we pretty much lived and breathed this situation and didn't have time for much else.

At the end of October, my sister Darla and her little girl Ella came for a visit, so I will do a post of that and then I'll be pretty much up to date and will try to stay more on top of my blog now!

Lizziepalooza!

For Lizzie's 40th birthday, she had a weekend-long celebration. It was very fun to celebrate someone who is such an important part of our family. The girls (sister-in-laws) headed up on Friday night for a Girls Night Out on the town!

birthday girl

Elizabeth & Erin

Elizabeth & Dawn

Elizabeth & Shannon

I love this picture because we were having such a good laugh on our way into the city. We were on the bus and were trying to take self-portraits and one of them came out so funny and this was right after we viewed it. (I won't be sharing the one we were laughing at) :-)

Merle and E

Cindy and E

A couple of E's good friends joined us as well and it was fun to get to know them.

Liz was able to secure some very hard-to-get reservations at Po - a restaurant in the west village that was started by Mario Batali.

the food was AMAZING

if you ever get the chance to go, save room for Panna Cotta!

The next morning, the guys came up with all of the kids, along with Liz's parents and we spent the day at the Liberty Science Museum - a great place for kids. It was a really fun day together as a family.