Happy 4th Birthday, Austin!

I say this every year and with every new season, but I just can't believe that our firstborn is 4 today! What an awesome year this past one has been for him! From starting preschool and being in his 1st programs to wanting to explore and know everything he possibly can about the world around him, Austin is one amazing-full-of-energy-boy! He is so smart and blows us away with more depth than I think a little boy of his age should have. He also always keeps us on our toes and the house is never quiet if he is in it, but these are things that make you fall in love with our mess of a boy. I am positive that 4 is going to be my favorite age yet!

Speaking of keeping us on our toes - we had our 1st ER visit with him right before the New Year. We were at Fuddrucker's with my family finishing out our Christmas celebrations and Austin ran smack dab into the corner of the self-serving area on our way to the table and hit the corner just right and hard enough to where he sliced his head open. It was very scary for us with all the screaming and blood, but thankfully he just needed a couple of stitches and we were good to go. A-town handled it so well and even on our way to the hospital, he was trying to convince us that he was fine. (He really handled the whole thing better than I did. I was a mess the whole night. So hard to see your baby hurt...) Austin was the talk of the ER and just like his style, he charmed every one in that place and had nurses coming to meet him before we left. It was hilarious (in a were at the ER kind of way. :) That's our boy!

Here he is just a day after his accident and he already has his adorable smile back on his face. LOVE this kiddo!

Austin, Daddy and Mommy love you so much and we are so proud of you! Happy 4th birthday, son!

And the Christmas fun continues!

Like every year, I didn't get near as many pics as I wanted to, but here are some quick pics of Christmas with our families for 2009:

This was the best picture I could get of all 5 grand kids on the Werley/Blevins side. E for effort. :)

We love our cousin Peyton!

Audrey and Grandpa Werley playing with the nativity. (Audrey carried the baby Jesus around with her all day. Too cute!)

Graham and Alisha (Andrew's sis:)

Great-Grandmother Werley and Austin having a chat about his school.

Sweet girl is so excited. This was such a fun Christmas for her.

LOVE that sweater on my cute boy! (Thanks Grandma Werley!:)

Kind of a weird angle, but such a precious face!

Just love this pic with the excitement on his face! Priceless!

Austin fell in love with all things Rudolf this year and was VERY excited to get him as a present. (Thanks JG and Big T! This was also the toy that helped him get through our 1st ER visit later that night with Austin - will blog about that crazy experience later...)

There is no one like our Aunt Zuzu!

Mauritzen Christmas = a messy and fun time!

Papa was such a good sport to open ALL of Audrey's toys. (She didn't want anyone else to! Lucky Papa! Gotta love those toy packaging jobs! :)

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and Happy new year! Our family sure did! We are so blessed!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

We enjoyed a wonderful and low key Christmas this year. It was a very fun weekend filled with memories that will last forever! Here is our Christmas day in pictures. Enjoy!

THIS is what we woke up to Christmas morning! Just doesn't get much better than a white Christmas!

The trees and the manger with baby Jesus on Christmas morning.

The kids waiting to go and open gifts. (Ainsley slept until 9 that morning!)

Look! There's baby Jesus!

Funny story: Baby Jesus was actually Audrey's baby Abby swaddled in a blue blanket. We didn't fool this girl! She is explaining to me here that this was her baby Abby. It was a cute moment.



Opening presents time! Oh the excitement!

Austin is way into Spiderman this year.

And Audrey got a dollhouse and princess dolls.

Both have spent much time playing with this fun dollhouse. (Notice that spiderman is "saving" the princesses as A-town usually tells us. Daddy is fine with the dollhouse thing as long as Spidey is involved. :)

Austin also got a Zippity play thingy that he loves. I love how interactive it is for him when he plays while learning. We call it the toddler wii. :)

Singing happy birthday to Jesus.

This girl doesn't ever waste time getting icing all over her sweet little face.

Ainsley finally woke up and of course both of her siblings had to open and "show" her the gift she got by demonstrating. :)

She LOVES her new toy! What a wonderful day!

Christmas Week

The week leading up to Christmas this year was a busy one full of lots of A-Team family time, shopping, cooking and just good old fashion fun! We tried to keep this year as simple as possible and as much about Jesus as we could. Yes, we still watched all the "Santa" movies along with Veggie Tales and Rudolph (Austin was WAY into reindeer this year:), but we just decided that the focus in our home was on Jesus and His birth, and not the "big guy in the red suit." We did advent and the kids loved counting down to Christmas and talking about all the details of Jesus' birth day. It gave us so many wonderful opportunities to talk about the gift of Jesus and answer any questions that Austin had since he is starting to "get" so many things about our Savior. Here are some pics from the week:

How cute is this pic?! I just love cute Christmas apparel! We took this after Church on Sunday.

LOVE these kiddos!


Ainsley in her "Jolly" dress from JG. :)

Okay, not the best pic, but Daddy just looks so handsome! I am one lucky girl!


Now on to our Gingerbread house decorating!

A sweet family in our Church brought over an already made gingerbread house with all the yummy treats to decorate it! That was great for us b/c the hardest part is putting the house together! (Thanks, Seagos! :) Here is Andrew icing away and being such a great Daddy!

The kiddos loved decorating (and eating!) with all the candy and treats.

Here is our finished project and the sugar high. So fun!


Christmas Eve

Nana came on Christmas Eve and brought a whole bunch of presents. This is such a cute pic of how excited the kids were. I think this picture pretty much sums up Christmas this year. Isn't it amazing how much excitement is involved in the anticipation of Christmas Day? One of the many reasons why I love this time of year!

We have a little tradition on Christmas Eve where we open up "red gifts". It has to be a red gift wrapped in red paper and it usually is pj's and cute slippers. Here are the kiddos in their new pajamas right before we left for the Christmas Eve service at out Church. (Also love that all the children go to the service in their pj's! Fun tradition!)

It was completely snowing outside and very weathery as we drove to Church, but we were all loving it! It just doesn't get much better than a white Christmas here in Texas! The service was wonderful and then we came home, tuck the kids in bed and Andrew got to work putting together a doll house. It was a great night! More pics to come...

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas celebrating our Savior's birth!