some fun pictures of 2011

Natalie's one year photos, taken by an old high school friend, Nicole Miller Smith. She did such a great job!

Natalie diggin into her first birthday cake!

Introducing our little ones to the Air Force Academy..."this is where Daddy and Mommy said "I do."

Ruidoso Sprint Tri. The kids were happy to be up and going this early!

Whitesands, NM. Priceless father and son moment. This was after many rolls down the hills.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! Thank 2011!

We are back in business

Ok, so after a much to long hiatus, we are back and we are better...ok, so that is probably up for debate, but we are bigger. We are a "full up" family of four. We will start with a little update... We have moved and are back stateside. We bought a house, purchased two cars and went to work. Ryan started his new plane and is truly enjoying it. With this change, may opportunites have arisen and he is feeling blessed. He will compete in his first Ironman this spring. I have graced with the wonderful career of staying home with Micah and Natalie and teaching them as much as I can, while I cook , clean, run errons and keep a crazy busy social life...lol. I also am able to teach a few classes at our local YMCA during the week. Micah is in 3 and is in Preschool. He loves it and is really getting into the whole "friends" thing. He prays everynight for his friends and thanks God for them. Natalie is a daily suprise. She keeps us all on our toes and adds to our entertainment constantly. She is full of smiles and laughs and nonstop mischief. We don't know what we would do without her. Micah is lost if she is not around. We are super excited to see what the New Year of 2012 will have in store for us. We will do our best to post more and keep your more updated with the wonderful things God does in our lives. Cheers to all of you!

faces of Natalie

Ok, So the first two photos are some of my favorite Natalie photos. She is my flower. As precious as can be. Snips and snail and puppy dog tails are what little boys are made of...I have lived that the past two years, but sugar and spice and everything nice, is even that much sweeter! Ryan and I are blessed beyond our wildest imaginations! Thank you God!

A recap of our adventure in Japan

These were some fun times. They took our photos in Kimonos and even got both kids to smile at the same time. I tell you, as a photographer, this is a real challenge, especially when you are in a costume of sorts!

Wow, it seems crazy that our days of living in Japan are quickly coming to an end. This past year has been a whirlwind. With Ryan deployed during my final months of pregnancy, Micah kept me on my toes and definitely away from blogging. So here I go in a sad attempt to catch up. Miss you all and see you soon in the states, or if you are in Japan... Mata Ne

Baby Natalie is Here!

Natalie Lillian Cross, born Monday, 19 July 1534: 6 lbs 9 oz, 19 3/4". We just got home from the hospital Wednesday morning and we're starting to get situated. Everything is going well, thank you for the thoughts and prayers.

Christmas 2009

This Christmas was very different for us since we were not close to family. I really thought we would wake up Christmas morning and not know what to do with ourselves. Obviously that was not the case, God provided us with a wonderful day of watching Micah experience the magic of Christmas. Both of our families have given us wonderful traditions and we have mixed them together to make our own Cross family traditions. One that you will see below is baby Jesus's birthday cake. A friend of ours did a fantastic job making us a magnificent cake and on Christmas Eve we had friends over after church to sing and eat cake. The day after Christmas we went to a bed and breakfast a few hours up the road near a ski resort. We loved it. Micah enjoyed his time in the snow very much. We have now decided we have a beach and snow baby.....what to do, what to do?!? We love it. Well, as we head into 2010 our most exciting news is that we will be adding another one to our already crazy family. I am 15 weeks pregnant and we are thrilled. Micah is pushing on my belly button all the time, it's already starting to pop out. We tell him there is a baby inside, but he still does not seem to understand. He will be two when the new one arrives and hopefully by then he will be a little more prepared. We'll continue to work on it. Best wishes for this New Year and God Bless.

Some Micah Pictures

Hey everyone, so it's been forever since the last blog update. We're better about keeping facebook updated with the personal stuff and we've been using Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/cross-photo/) for the photography side of things, so the blog has taken the back seat lately. But since some people might still check up on us every once in a while here, I figured that I would try to keep this more up to date.

We've been pretty busy around the Cross household, but things are getting back on track since Sarah has returned to full-time mommyhood at the beginning of January. Here are a few of our favorite pictures from the past month around the house.