The Zhao Family

Our Christmas was great this year! The kids had a lot of wonderful presents from family and relatives.


Cayleigh got her own rocking chair from the Halls


Grandpa Hall supposed never hold babies, so this maybe a Kodak moment here. Cayleigh sure enjoys it.




Who's happy with his present?


It's an electric motorbike!! You think he's happy with it?


Cayleigh's hopping on the ride too.


Brennan's got his own bean bag! But what he's enjoying most is a game that mom gave him called Rush Hour TraffiJam Puzzel where you have to get the red car out of traffic. He's been playing with it all day everyday since Christmas. So far he's on level Intermediate 18 out of level 20 from Beginner to Intermediate, to Advanced to Expert.


Grandma's enjoying her time with Cayleigh.


A little over joyous with presents?


Mine mine mine!!!..running away with his presents.


Enjoying time with mom!


Grandma with all her grand children!

May you and those around you have a blessed Holiday Season!

Once in a while it's so nice to see them actually cooperating!

with the help of our cousin, David, we had a lot of fun putting up our Christmas tree.

Last week it snowed and we absolutely had a lot of fun! We even drove in the snow to go swimming. I think this is Cayleigh's first snow. She seemed to really enjoy it quite a bit. The boys had a lot of fun!


It was snowing beautifully when we were still at the swimming pool. Couldn't resist not taking the picture.


See how happy she is!


Snow fight!!! Da's getting hammered by Clayton.


Then by Brennan.


Mom just waits there and look all pretty with Cayleigh.


See how wonderful she looked!


And of course there's cleanup afterward.


This is serious work.


And of course there's still time for some fun!!

So Da got a new camera lens and took some photos of the kids swimming. This session we actually had all 3 kids swimming, however Clayton didn't like it as much so we took him out. However Brennan and Cayleigh seemed to enjoy this session and the new lens seemed to capture it quite well.


A secure moment, Cayleigh "Let me see who's holding me"
"No worries, I am here for you" -dad


Cayleigh loves chasing the duckies, in fact that's what got her kicking her feet most of the time.


Here's her kicking to chase after the duckie...with her tongue out like she's going to eat it alive!


Like father like daughter.


So it's Brennan's turn. He looks so much bigger in this picture.


Mastering his free-style


He's getting ready; big fat cheese first


Sprint off the wall!


Back stroke, hey at least he's beating the boy next to him.


My favorite photo so far. So the new lens is worth something.

So long Thomas, Clayton and us will miss you. Take care.

Today marks a sad day for Clayton. He's lost his friend, Thomas. At around 5:30PM, this afternoon our Thomas has given up his life. Thomas is our Japanese fighting fish. We have two Betta fish, one red named Julia by Brennan and one blue named Thomas by Clayton.

These fish were given to us by my brother-in-law in the Spring and Abbey's been keeping them fed and healthy and even change filtered water periodically in each of their own bowls. Somehow after we came back from New York, the last couple days Thomas' water seemed very dirty and then his skin started to peel off and today he finally stopped all activity.

I noticed it and told my wife then Clayton overheard it can looked at it. He got real sad and started balling, a lot and very loud. He didn't stop for at least 15 minutes. Poor kid seemed like he lost his best friend. The whole night he was sad and every 5/10 minutes he'll mention about Thomas again. He lost his appetite and didn't even eat his dinner. So the whole night we tried to calm him, distract him but didn't seemed to work. And Brenna started to tear up and he said that he'll miss Thomas too. Luckily a couple weeks back we read a Berentain Bears story to them about a loss in the family and it was about a loss of a fish too! So tomorrow the boys will have a burial in our front yard for Thomas after school. Very interesting how kids this small know of such losses.



Julia


Thomas