Favorite Christmas Pictures

Rucker Christmas 2

After a nap at Mom's house and taking them to the airport, we headed home to our own small Christmas.

Check out our Christmas jammies!!

We are exhausted, but feel so blessed to have so many people to spend time with!

Stuart Christmas

Early Christmas morning, we packed into the car and headed for Bella's house for the Stuart/Dunham/Rucker celebration!

Of course, Mom needed a new camera to capture it all!

Thanks to my (probably twisted) sense of humor, we gave the boys the same toys Jen and Joshua duked it out with!

What a cutie!

Rucker Christmas 1

We left straight  from work on Christmas Eve (1pm) and headed to the lake for Christmas number one!

A few photos....

These were from December 23, when we opened our Christmas PJ's!

Chad's expression for when he found out he was getting  an Oshie jersey!

A waterproof-shockproof camera for me!

We also played some minute to win it games!

Celebrating Mr. And Mrs. Spaw!

The sweet couple!

Us before the wedding!

Thankfully their plane left on time for their honeymoon! 6 inches of snow and some ice!

Making Sweet Memories

We had a family baking day at Mom's house and it was so fun!

This is what the guys did while we baked...

Sometimes we wear our apron as superhero capes...

Landon was a VERY good, patient helper!

Showing off his creation...

Emmett helped by wearing his cape and eating as much sugar as he could sneak!

Trays of treats! We almost ran out of room in the kitchen!

He told me getting his hands in the chocolate was an "oops!"

Christmas Card 2013!

A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Blessed New Year to all of our Friends and Family!

R- Rushing around every morning to get ready for work: Chad at North Campus of Edward Jones and Amy at CTI, Inc. We do get to ride together most of the time, a money saver and extra quality time together!

U- Under our Christmas tree this year, we would like to see out first home...but we will settle for starting our home search in earnest after the holidays!

C- Celebrating just over 18 months of marriage!

K- Kicking debt out of our lives, (modified) Dave Ramsey style! We have LOTS of student loans, and would like to get them GONE as soon as possible! It's a work in progress, but we are definitely helping!

E- Every weekend of ours is filled with family time, sports on TV, and catching up from busy work weeks!

R- Really missing all of our family and friends near and far! Our home is always open to visitors, so please come see us!

Sometimes God Changes Our Plans!

Remember how we spoofed you all into thinking we were having a baby?

But really we had "adopted" another World Vision child?

Well, we had picked that child because his birthday was the same day we got engaged, so we wanted to share it with another exciting moment!

No sooner had we sent him a birthday gift than we got a letter in the mail stating that he moved out of the program and they had assigned us a new child...

Enter our SWEET new boy Edgar de Jesus!!

World Vision offered us him, or said we could choose another.

It's amazing when we know the Lord is working, because we both said instantly that THIS was our boy, and we weren't going to choose another just because we wanted to have his birthday be a certain day.

THIS is our boy!

He is a wonderful part of our family now!!

Edgar is four, and he lives in Sendero de Esperanza, El Salvador.

Sendero de Esperanza means "Trail of hope" in Spanish.

I think that name is wonderful!

Anyways, about Edgar...

His full name is Edgar de Jesus.

His birthday is February 25, 2009.

He is an only child, and his dad works as a farm laborer.

He is healthy and will be going to school soon.

LOOK at those EYES!!!

I just adore them!

Chad is an FA Now!

Chad is a financial advisor now!! 

We had to celebrate, so we went to the Brazilian steakhouse in St. Charles!

Happy Birthday Mom!

We had lunch as a family, and then she opened gifts and we ate dessert!

Family photos were a must! We are so thankful for mom!!

(Not so) Baby brother's football season!

Along with playing on the sophomore team, baby brother is the long snapper for the varsity team!

You could say we're a little bit proud of him...

After all, we have been waiting to watch him play football ever since we heard "it's a boy!"

He's a champ for taking pictures with us after his game!

Josh and his #1 coach and fan!

(Mom is his number one fan too, just not from the coaching standpoint!)

I call this last picture "okay guys, show me your tough football player guy face!"

You may be a big strong football player now, but to us you'll always be "baby brother"!

Emmett is TWO!

How did he get so big so fast?

And since he's growing like a weed, it only made sense that we had a farm party for him!

Complete with presents...

And farm animal cupcakes!

Happy birthday, sweet boy! Thank you for all the joy you've brought to us in the past two years, and we can't wait to see what you do next!