Thursday, December 30, 2010

2010 Christmas Card and Letter

Here is our 2010 Christmas Card and letter that we sent out. I apologize to those that didn't get one. As funds were short this Christmas, we mostly only sent them to family. I really wanted to send them to friends too but this will have to do.

The Card is a beautiful product of Shutterfly.




This year, 2010, has been a wonderful year for our family. On January 24th, we welcomed twin boys, Patrick and Payden to our home in Covington, Washington. Since their birth we have realized how grateful we were for a good night’s rest but rose to the task of raising our two sons

In April, Christian was offered a job with Therapy Works in Lawrence, Kansas. Through time and prayer, we knew that this is where the Lord wanted us to be. We were excited about the offer of a good salary, a substantially lower cost of living and also the close proximity to Christian’s family in Lenexa. On the other hand, we were very sad about the friends that we would miss in Washington and the close distance it was to Valerie’s immediate family. In the first week of May, we made the journey to Lawrence to begin our new life together.

Patrick and Payden are now almost 11 months old and each day are learning new things. They love their pug sister, Maddie, and love to pull her tail while she licks them in order for them to release it. Patrick is full of so much energy and is always talking up a storm. If it isn’t screams and grunts, it’s Mamama and Dadada. He absolutely loves his Johnny Jump up and will just jump and jump and jump; of course screaming all the while. Payden has just learned to sit himself up unassisted from his stomach and has a silly grin on his face each time he does it. He is so close to crawling; it is only a matter of time until he is crawling all over the room. We know once he does, life will be forever changed. J He has also started saying what sounds very much like Hi and always does when Christian gets home from work.

As for our life now, it just keeps getting better and better as parents of these two little boys. We will be forever grateful for them and what a memorable year they have given us!

We love you!

Merry Christmas!

Christian, Valerie, Patrick, Payden, and Maddie Benedict

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Do you love Shutterfly?

This year, Shutterfly is offering 50 free holiday cards to bloggers, and I can't wait to upload a few of our pictures and see which card looks best with one or two of them.

Christian's sister, Lindsay takes wonderful photos and has offered to come to our home on Saturday to take some pictures of us and the boys. Christian's mom even bought the boys some Christmas overalls that will be so cute! The plan is to use those to make some Christmas cards to send out to family and friends. I am so excited for this and since we don't have the money, 50 free cards sounds absolutely wonderful to me!

Here are a couple of my favorite cards from the Shutterfly site.

Click the photo and it will take you to that card on the website...

To find out more about Shutterfly's free 50 cards to bloggers. Click here.