2008 in Pictures

December 

Gulf Shores - July

April

February

January 19, 2008

Welcome to the world Caleb Thomas

These pictures don't even begin to describe 2008.  What a difference a year makes!

Do we really need to say just how incredibly awesome and wonderful 2008 was for our family?  It has definitely been a roller coaster year, but we can happily say we had more ups than downs.  Caleb Thomas has been the biggest blessing to us and it's so amazing to see how God answers prayers.  We cannot believe this year is already coming to an end and that Caleb will soon be a year old.  The time has literally flown by.  We feel so incredibly grateful and blessed that we have been able to share this year's journey with each of you.  We are constantly reminded and thankful for every prayer that has been prayed for our family and for our sweet son.  There is NO way we would have been able to survive without each of your friendships and without God's love for us and for Caleb.  HE is so good!  We know God has awesome things planned for us in 2009 and we wait with anticipation to see what His plans are.  

We wish you all a blessed New Year and pray that God will do mighty things in each of your lives in 2009.  

Blessings,

 Patrick, Kasey, and Caleb

First Family Zoo Trip

Caleb and daddy looking at the gorilla

Caleb trying to tell mommy about the big creature staring at us!

"I love the zoo!"  

We decided to take advantage of the sunny day and the warm(er) weather here in Louisville and make a family trip to the zoo.  This was  not Caleb's first trip to the zoo, but it was our first trip as a family.  We had a great day and Caleb enjoyed looking at all of the animals.  He seemed to enjoy the gorilla house the most, as they were the only animals to acknowledge his presence.  They were very interested in Caleb (so was the Siberian Tiger, but that's a whole other story...).  Last time we visited, Caleb really enjoyed the penguins.  However, on today's visit it was time for the penguins to eat and the zookeeper was apparently running late, as the penguins were putting on quite a noisy show in protest and Caleb was not fond of their obnoxious behavior!  We don't blame him...they were kinda loud!  Overall, we had a great time and have already gotten our money's worth out of our zoo membership. We will definitely be making another trip soon and love that we have such a fun place to visit so close to our house!  

Blessings!

Caleb's First Christmas

Caleb loving on Elmo

Not too fond of the hat...

Obviously, this was one of the most memorable Christmases ever!  Caleb is absolutely the best gift we could have ever received this year and we are so incredibly blessed that God chose us to be his parents.  How amazing!  We had the best day and Caleb was ready to start the festivities EARLY this morning.  He woke up at 4:50 am (after going to bed at 10:30) and he was ready to rip from the beginning.  I thought I'd be able to get away with not letting him open gifts until everyone got up and Patrick got home from work at 7 am, but that was wishful thinking on my part.  Caleb spotted Elmo and went crazy!  He immediately went towards it and started "talking" to it.  I had to let him open it!  He loves Elmo and it was super cute to see his little reaction to it.  Santa was very good to Caleb this year, but we're definitely going to have to talk to him about assembling the gifts BEFORE he drops them off next year.  It's not fun having to put them together while little hands are trying to play with him.  Obviously Santa didn't know what he was doing this year:)  

Today is also an important date for Patrick and I.  Eight years ago today, Patrick proposed to me.  It's so hard to believe that 8 years has already passed.  It seems like yesterday.  Time flies when you're having fun and when you enjoy the one you're with!  

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your families and spent some time reflecting on the true meaning of this holy day!  We are so proud and happy that we serve an awesome God and that we can freely honor this day and the birth of Jesus!

Shalom! 

Caleb's First Christmas Present...

Caleb had a great time opening his first ever Christmas present.  He got a music table from Granddaddy and Janice.  He LOVES pressing all of the buttons and watching the lights and listening to the music.  We even caught him "dancing" to the beat a few times...the boy has rhythm already!  Initially, he was more interested in the wrapping paper and the crinkle sound it made, but once he realized the table lit up, the wrapping paper took a back seat.  We can't wait to watch him open more gifts on Christmas morning.  There really is something magical about seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child.  

Blessings!

New Blog

Our family blog now has a new home.  Our other blog site is about to expire and the current budget/economic crisis prevents us from paying for another year's subscription:)  So...we decided to try the FREE blog (we get excited about free things).  It also helps that we are both done with classes for the semester, so we now have free time to actually post an update!  We KNOW we have been lax with the postings and for that we apologize.  We will be more faithful with the blog in 2009, as we know lots of good and exciting things will be happening and we'll want to keep everyone in the loop!    

Things continue to go well with Caleb and he just amazes us everyday.  It seems that with each passing day he learns something new (right now it's spitting and trying to talk).  He is still growing like a weed!  He is now 19 pounds and wearing 12 month clothes.  If someone would have told us back in January that Caleb would weigh this much and fit in big clothes, we would have laughed at them.  Needless to say, we are VERY thankful that Caleb is doing so well and has had no significant issues or setbacks since being home with us.  God is good!  

We are trying to prepare for our first Christmas as a family.  So far, Caleb has shown little interest in the tree or the general festivities of the season.  We are sure, however, that Christmas morning will be a fun day for him simply because he'll get to play with all of the wrapping paper.  The child is obsessed with ANYTHING that makes a crinkle sound (newspapers, aluminum foil, cereal bags, etc).  We are looking forward to spending this Christmas with extended family as well.  Granddaddy (Patrick's dad) is coming up for a visit next weekend and then my family is coming up Christmas Eve.  We are very excited and we're hoping Caleb will get excited too:)  

We do have some super cute pictures of Caleb underneath the Christmas tree and as soon as we can figure out how to post them, we will do it!  

Blessings!