This has been an eventful year for us. We had a new addition to our family, Alexandra Adriana Blanchard, who was born on January 24th, 004. She has been a joy and has such a quiet, peacefulness about her.

Jennifer was offered a great job and we decided that I would stay home with the kids and Jen would work! Jen loves her job. She is working for a real estate developer in Las Vegas and is learning new things each day about how some people make their money work for them and other people work for their money!! It has been a great experience and she loves her job! In the meantime, I am staying home with the kids and am a Mr. Mom! It has been a great experience and has also been a learning experience. I never realized that 'a Mom's work never gets done'! No matter how long you are at it, there is always something else that either needs to be done, or should have been done. I always thought that staying home would be great, and very easy! It's not!!! I recommend that every father has the opportunity of staying home and taking care of his children and the Mom's responsibilities for at least 3 months and you will have a brand new appreciation for what a mother does on a daily basis.

Aaron, our oldest, is in 2nd grade this year. He just received a reward for excellence in reading. There were only 3 children at his school that received this award and he was one of them. He also has an amazing mind for numbers, pretty soon he will be better at math than Mom. He loves to play on the play station and would sit and play games all day, if he could. Aaron plays soccer, sports are not first on his list, play station is and spending time with his dad.

Samantha is in kindergarten this year and loves school. She is playing soccer and is one of the best players on the team. She is very aggressive and doesn't allow any other player to push her around. She is also taking dance and loves her dance class. She likes to be the boss and takes every opportunity to let her brothers know that she is in charge! She tries it with her dad too, but that doesn't work to well.

Shawn is our 2 year old and has his own language (we are still not sure which country he comes from!). If he wants to let you know what he wants he can speak very clearly and make himself understood. He is very smart and very curious. He can get "anything" he wants, he just pushes a chair to whatever is high up and climbs until he gets what he is looking for. As a parent, he is a challenge to keep up with. He is his Dad's best bud and loves to go wherever his dad is going. We have to be careful to keep the doors locked (with the lock very high) or he decides that he is going to find out what is out in the world to see!

Alexandra is our baby and is very observant as she watches her older brothers and sisters. She 'scoots' wherever she wants to go. She would rather walk, but she hasn't quite figured out how to do that yet. She is a very loving baby and we enjoy her very much.

Mike is going to school working on becoming an attorney. This will be a long haul but well worth it when I am done.

We want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!