We are winding down from Ella’s birthday party. Ella is down for her nap and we are in the processing of cleaning up.

Ella did better than expected after a shakey start with no nap. She enjoyed opening her presents, but took her sweet time reviewing everything that she opened.

I hope you enjoy some of the videos:

I have some pictures to share from Ella’s Birthday Party as well as her birthday on Friday.

The other day we put Ean’s minifigures all together on his Lego table.

I was pretty surprised at how many that he had. 116 is the final count that I had, but there were about 4 or 5 more that we couldn’t locate at the time.

He plays with them all, we just run out of room to store them all.

Winter has hit the wonderful Markle area. When the first day came that was actually decent, Ean wanted to go outside and play in the snow. He was actually crying when we wanted him to come back inside to eat.

I didn’t get dressed up so I didn’t go with him when he played on his slide, but he had a blast and it was funny watching him go down the slide full of snow. Thanks to certain grandparents, he also throws snowballs as the windows and doors.

Our little baby is turning two today. We can’t believe it has happened so fast. Next step, she brings home her first boyfriend.

It looks like April’s great crafty skills has helped the Indiana McIntosh family win the 1st McIntosh Holiday Challenge.

Great job, April! I know how much you disliked the putting the icing on and the fact that you wouldn’t let me bloody the horses head and have the other animals eating it.

Although 2009 may not have been as good to some people, we came away with several firsts and many positive things in our life.

Ean started school (which he loves), April reconnected with old friends, Dylan connecting with some gaming friends, Ean’s first dentist trip, Ella walking/running/eating/getting into everything/talking/laughing/feeding herself, Ean letting us eat at Rainforest cafe, Cocoa Beach, Ean riding a bike, Dylan working 120 hours a week to start up a major project, and April trying and liking sushi, which has become a regular item on our menu now and many many more things.

So as much as we enjoyed 2009, we also look forward to 2010. We get to work on Ella potty training, Ean and homework, getting the house ready to sell and many other projects.

For those that were in our lives this past year, we thank you and we appreciate everything that you have done to enrich our lives and our children.

For those that were not in our lives this past year, we wish we had more time together to share our lives with you and learn from yours. I hope that 2010 brings us more opportunities to be together.

Here are just a few major moments from the past year in pictures.

I know – crappy home videos that people dread watching, but I wanted to share them anyways.

Ean’s preschool class made a trip to the Christian Care retirement community before Christmas to help spread some Christmas cheer and some of their excitement. The kids sang a couple of holiday tunes, handed out cookies that they helped decorate, and show off some of their favorite toys to the residents.

I was really surprised at how open Ean was in sharing and talking to the guests. He tends to shy away from the large crowd type of activities. Maybe he is growing up after all.

Well, our Christmas holiday is wrapping up and we are working on retiring the old stuff (clothes and toys) and moving the new toys/clothes into the rotation.

Other than the snowy and cold weather, our holiday was a good one. Ella wanted nothing to do with unwrapping presents, but loved pulling socks from the stockings. Ean, on the other hand, loves opening presents so much so that he was unwrapping his presents and not waiting for anyone to watch him.

We still owe a couple of gifts and should get them out hopefully by the beginning of the new year.

I hope everyone had a great holiday as well.