DeArton Christmas 2007

On Christmas Eve we headed over to Kim and Gregs. We were served a delicious chicken dinner and then we had a reading/performance of Luke 2, as seen in the following video:





This time around, Dallis got to be mother Mary, with baby Graham as baby Jesus



The 'enactment' of the Christmas story basically consisted of the cousins hovering over baby Graham and kissing his head.

We all opened pajamas and then after getting the kids to bed broke out some games. Brynn wouldn't go down so she stayed up for quite awhile.



After she was really worn out, she finally nodded off on the couch.











We all slept over, and the next morning our kids woke up first (of course). We went out to the tree to find our stockings packed with gifts. The girls each got a princess doll in their stockings. Pretty soon, everyone was up and gathered around the tree. We took turns opening gifts, and everyone was pleased and had a good time. The best part was how our girls got more dolls, princesses, and barbies than I can count but it seems they spent all of Christmas Day playing with Thomas and his Robosapien! Go figure =)
































After that calmed down, Pop-Pop took Dallis and Thomas outside for some sledding. He hooked up an old tire to a chain behind his tractor/lawn mower and they got to ride on it. This movie will help you get the idea.



Of course the highlight of Christmas this year for us was having our new baby boy Graham with us. We hope you enjoyed reading about our Christmas as much as we did experiencing it.

Pre-Christmas and Baby Blessing at Grandma Roberts

To kick off the Christmas festivities, we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Robert's place on Sunday. The occasion was the blessing of my sister Heather's new baby, Jordan. And, since we weren't going to be back over on Christmas day, we did gift exchanges as well.


Here's a picture of Brynn with Jordan in her blessing outfit.



The cousins sang "Families can be Together Forever" before the blessing. You can see how involved Dallis was, and Hadley is conspicuously missing from this picture.



The cousins also dressed up to perform the nativity. Our girls were wisemen, which Dallis was excited about. Brynn loved her tunic so much that she kept it on the entire time!



Kyla holding Grahammert.



Brynn loves her new pillow!

We received great gifts and had a great time with everyone, especially Heather and Dallas and Katie (Brandon left early) whom we don't get to see too often. We played Mormon Mouthful, a new game that my Mom gave me and just hung out.

Did we say Marcus? That is spelled g-r-a-h-a-m

Yeah- we realized after four days of 'Marcus' that we had not chosen the right name for our little boy! Jana- our sister-in-law- came over for a visit and reminded us that we had really liked Graham before we knew the supposed gender of our baby. As soon as she said it I knew that there was no way I could keep calling our new one Marcus.
That night I asked Todd if he was totally sure about the name- then brought up Graham. It turns out neither one of us was very in love with the first name- but we had no problem getting excited about Graham Jacob Freed! We were able to get Graham home from the hospital last night. Dallis has been a little confused with the 'loss' of Hazel and the switching to Graham. She has decided his name should be Graham Marcus Jacob. All the girls are so delighted to have him home- even Brynnie seems to be happy about it! Here are some oxygen-tube free pictures so everyone will have an easier time noticing how dang CUTE the boy is!! A-M

Um . . . what the heck is THAT?

Until just a few days ago, I was perfectly contented to be immersed in a sea of pink for the next twenty years. At 20 weeks pregnant, Ann-Michelle and I visited the doctors office for the ultrasound when they reveal the sex of your baby. While pointing out and naming the pertinent female body parts on the screen, the tech informed us in no uncertain terms that in her entire career she had only been wrong about baby gender four times. Little did we know that we were about the bust the curve!

On Sunday while getting ready for church, we realized that we needed to get to the hospital. At 36 weeks our baby was still a little early, but we were hopeful that we could have the baby this year. On zero notice we were able to pack the girls off to Grandma's (thanks Kim!) and get checked in at labor and delivery. Ann-Michelle endured about 9 hours of pre-labor like a champion before our newest finally arrived. The baby wasn't about to wait for the doctor, however. Whether he was impatient or the doctor was slow I will leave to the judgement of the reader, but when he arrived I saw something utterly unexpected. But . . . we have that pink carseat in the car, I said to myself. And a brand new pink diaper bag, and pink clothes, and . . . and my man-child was born!

We attempted to keep the big surprise a secret so that we could see people's reactions when they came to see the new baby. Both Grandma's had a classic reaction. Kim was laughing like we must be joking. Diane said, "But, what is she doing wrapped up in a blue blanket?" Priceless.



Marcus Jacob


Ann-Michelle stayed at the hospital an extra night to be close to Marcus, and I brought all the girls in to visit her.


Unfortunately, with Marcus being born a little early we haven't been able to have a ton of alone time with him and consequently don't have as many pictures as we would like. We also haven't been able to bring him home yet. His breathing is improving every day though, and we should have him home soon.

Normally, we don't wax spiritual on this blog but we have received untold amounts of love and support over the last couple of days and just want to say thanks. We are very grateful. We have felt and seen Heavenly Father's hand through the Christlike example of service shown by our dear family members in the birth of our new baby, who came just two days after I finished school, one day after we got our new car (big enough to transport our new family size), and even a week before Christmas. What an answer to prayer!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

The CHRISTMAS LETTER

Happy Holidays and thanks for checking out our blog-style Christmas Letter! 2007 has been another eventful year for the Freed family!

Todd and Ann-Michelle

This year we thought that adding to our crazy schedule would be fun- so both Todd and I enrolled as full-time students at BYU-Idaho. We began our action-packed adventures in January, and while I am enjoying time off this fall, Todd has continued on in the Fast-Grad program. This moves his graduation date up by a year, so we have that to look forward to! Todd is still enjoying working at DocuTech, and manages to do well there in addition to school. We bought our first home in March. I started on painting walls as soon as possible and almost have them finished 8 months later! We put a fence up in September and will happily recommend our fence-guy for anyone who is interested! We were happy to discover that another baby will be joining our family and even excited to discover that it will be another girl! We hope to be sending baby announcements shortly after this letter is read!

Dallis

What a year for our oldest princess! Dallis completed her year at dance classes in May. She has been practicing writing her name and counting. Dallis performed in her first Primary program- happily playing instead of singing! We are glad she didn't start crying! Barbie has made her grand entrance into Dallis's toy box- a fact that still makes me sad. It feels like the sign of Dallis's constant dedication to growing up before I am ready. She is such a friendly one, too! She is the little girl at the grocery store that strikes up a conversation with anyone passing by. Of course topics usually consist of which toys she is wanting at the moment or the main characters of the latest Disney movie we just watched (5 times in a row). Dallis is also very happy to help whenever I need Brynn or Hadley to come to me- she will drag them back to me almost every time! We are really enjoying our Dallerina and all of her little spark!


Hadley

Hadley remains the opportunist of our little band- from permanent markers on the wall to helping herself to an entire gallon of juice. She still hasn't put together that an 8 oz cup can't hold all that liquid. Of course she is just so sweet we can easily forget the entire roll of toilet paper in the toilet incident(s)! Hadley is still very cuddly and, when feeling lovey, will give the very best hugs! She is Dallis's constant playmate, from Ponies to Barbies to pretend phone-calls- these girls really keep each other occupied! Of course, pulling hair has to fit in there somewhere, as well! Hadley loves to 'sing'- doing the cutest toddler falsetto you ever heard! We love our little fire-cracker and do our best to keep up!!


Brynn

Of course there is much to be said about Brynnie's accomplishments over this last year! She started the year with no teeth, barely a crawl, but the sweetest smile ever! The smile faded only a little as she began cutting teeth. We loved Brynn's take on crawling- imitating an army crawl rather than a toddler one- pretty funny! She started walking in September and is now a full partner-in-crime with her big sisters, whom she loves. We sometimes worry that she is getting left out, but she seems completely content to sit back and giggle with(or at?) her big sisters. Brynnie has picked up a few words like 'thank you' and 'cheese!'-for the camera of course- My favorite is 'Haddy', which covers both sisters! She has also started sleeping in a toddler bed recently. We are having so much fun playing with our Brynnter-bean and watching her personality develop!



As a tribute to our adventures in 2007, we have put together a video slideshow of the year's events. We hope you enjoy it.


(audio by The Smashing Pumpkins)

We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and wish you the best in 2008.