Joy to the World!

What a great day. While we started off a little intimidated by all that Santa and friends and family had left under the tree for this morning, we quickly gained our composure and dug right in!

Hopefully Santa brought everything that our hearts desired!

We enjoyed a day full of fun, happiness, family, playing with cousins, and singing happy birthday to Baby Jesus.

While it was still very cold today, we couldn't have asked for a more perfect Christmas Day!

As always, the blessings just never stop for our family.

Since we were so busy it is hard to tell what the hit of the day was. But the Leapster Games were the big request to keep at hand wherever we went.

It's Christmas Eve once again.

And I count every day of the past year with E&R a true blessing. They have given me a renewed purpose in life and have become more important to me than I could have ever imagined. All I want is for them to have the time of their lives tomorrow. That is all the gift I could ever need or ask for. I never knew how empty life would have been without them!

Sappy or not, it is true. I love you geckos!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

Our 3rd Birthdays!

Forgot to mention that in November we celebrated E&R's 3rd birthdays. They took 11 of their friends & cousins to McDonalds for 2 hours of running, climbing, eating, and FUN.

Everyone had a blast and our two little birthday children fell asleep in the car within 5 minutes at 6:00 at night! They were quite worn out but they still talk about it over a month later! While better food and cake has been had at many other birthday parties, it was a dream come true for these two!

The "Flushing"

Well, it's not a very timely posting but about 3 weeks ago we had our first "flushing" incident. Earlier in the year I believe we had an incident where some boy (not to mention any names) dropped his shoes in the toilet and got them wet. And we had an incident where some boy (again no names) was learning how to go while standing up and fell head-first into the toilet and got wet and pride hurt. BUT......we finally had our first incident that almost required a plumber.

One morning, I sent some boy (no names needed by now!) to the bathroom to go and then to come back into their bedroom to put his clothes on for the day. Mind you this is 7am in the morning and we need to leave by 7:10 so that I can attempt to get to work on time. I was assisting E in getting her pajamas off when I heard "mommy, mommy help, my underwear is stuck, my underwear is stuck". I then promptly heard the toilet get flushed 3 or 4 times.

I went dashing in there to see the pair of Incredibles underwear stuck going down the toilet. Just a little corner was sticking out of the bottom and I was able to get a pair of needle-nose pliers and snatch them out of the toilet before they were permanently lodged out of reach. Thank goodness, no plumber needed but I was late to work!

I can't hear my book!

Today while everyone was using the potty, I started singing Christmas carols to try and speed up the process. (good luck on that one!) E was sitting on the potty reading a book and in the middle of a good "fa la la la la, la la la la" on Deck the Halls she told me that I was too loud and she couldn't hear her book! Excuse me for singing! Hilarious!

R & I just laughed our heads off at her!

Where to begin??????

It's been nearly a year since I did my last blog posting....so much has happened since then.

The kids: turned(ing) 3 years old! Developing their personalities. POTTY TRAINED. Yeehaw!!!! Left the cribs behind and in toddler beds. Developing senses of humor. Love to play dress up, with cars, dolls, drawing, balls, swings, parks, sit n spins, watching Dora/Barney/Wiggles/Veggie Tales, had some outpatient dental work done, been thru normal kid illnesses (a LOT of them), got a new cousin, getting dressed on their own, becoming quite the personable and popular preschoolers!

The family: we passed our 1-year mark of being a complete family this past April. The kids have now been living with us for exactly 1/2 of their lives. Can't wait to say they've been with us longer than they were without us. We completely gutted and renovated our main bath and kitchen. Fabulous but messy!!!!!!

Daddy: still going strong at his job and learning to be a great daddy!!!!

Mommy: endured about 3 minor and 2 serious illnesses this year which is why the blogging came to a halt! Also made it through the merger at work in time for another one coming in 2009....will I survive this cut?

That's the 5-second wrap-up. More to come so stay tuned! I promise to try again to keep up on this......but life as a full time mom, wife, and employee is very time consuming and at times stressful!

Powerless Again

Tuesday brought extreme wind gusts and snow flurries. It also brought a downed power line which meant we had no power come Tuesday afternoon through the evening!

After I picked up the kids from daycare, we arrived home to find no power. So I quickly started packing some bags so we could go to grandma & papa's house. E&R loved running around in the dark house holding a flashlight and hiding from mommy. It was a crazy evening as we packed up the car with Daddy's help then headed to pick up McDonalds to eat over at grandma's. Just as we finished eating & baths, our power back home came back on so it was back home we went!

Nothing like a totally unproductive evening to put a spark back in a normal weeknight routine! :) For our first power outage as a family, it went pretty smoothly and quickly - thank goodness!!!!!!!

This was our fourth power outage in two years - we're starting to think a generator might be a benfecial purchase.

Drawing Faces

Last week, E demonstrated that she can now draw faces!!!! This girl loves to draw and she was using a magna doodle board and said "look, look!". I came over and she had drawn a circle (distorted though they can be) and put eyes, a nose, and a mouth in it! It was quite plainly a face!!!!

I was SO proud of her! She has been drawing them ever since.

Plus, both of them can sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on their own with no assistance. And Pop Goes the Weasel as well.

4 Cavities and a Block Tower

Saturday, E&R went to the dentist. R did great - he loved getting his teeth cleaned and at the end they gave him a balloon since his birthday was just a few days ago. All weekend, we were unable to separate him from that thing - he loves it!!!

E on the other hand did not have such a great time. She now has 4 cavities related to the same "bottle rot". She remembered the dentist office from her first traumatic visit there and freaked out the entire time we were there. Anyways, she will be undergoing some dental outpatient surgery to fix the cavities, etc. Which is a better option than going back to the dentist office for more traumatic experiences to fix them.

E did however have an amazing afternoon. We got out one of our Christmas presents which was a lacing kit of blocks of various size and shapes. She managed to stack a tower of them taller than she could reach - in fact she used every single block in the lacing kit! The only help she had doing it was Daddy lifting her up so she could reach the top of the tower. We were completely amazed at the wonderful job she did stacking blocks so high! Check out the picture, it is very amazing.

Death of a Christmas Tree

On New Years Day, our artificial Christmas tree came to a tragic end for the season. That morning, I was in the kids room changing a very stinky diaper for E and R was off playing. Suddenly I heard a crash and a cry from R. I peeked around the doorframe to see R trapped in a corner with the Christmas tree lying on it's side on the floor! Since he wasn't trapped under the tree, just behind it, I finished changing E and then tortured R a bit longer while I ran and got the camera to take a few pictures of the dirty deed. There was no avoiding this crime - he was caught red-handed!!!! After I took my pictures, I managed to lean the tree back up against the wall until this coming weekend when I will take down all of the Christmas décor. The tree is pretty misshapen and all the ornaments are all jumbled up but I think it will survive to be put back up for next Christmas! Thankfully, we were smart and only put kid-friendly ornaments on this year so nobody got hurt and nothing was broken! Daddy couldn't believe it when he saw the pictures of the event…

The Purse

One of the gifts that E received for Christmas was a purple purse with a play phone, keys, credit card, and lipstick. E loves the phone - it looks a lot like Mommy's (they're both pink). She has learned to chat pretty well on it! But the real prize is the lipstick! Both E&R love to walk around pretending to put on this lipstick. They put it on their own faces, each other, toys, and anyone else that is around.

Christmas with the Relatives

E&R's first Christmas here at home was quite exciting. The day after Christmas, Mommy took E&R on an 8-hour car ride to visit her family for 5 days.

E&R were complete angels on the drive to Grandma & Grandpa's house. The last 1 1/2 hours was even spent driving through a snowstorm but they were so good that the drive was still easy! Once we made it to our destination, we had time to settle in and then it was time to celebrate the holidays with Grandpa's side of the family. Several aunts, uncles, cousins, and cousins kids all came over for the annual Christmas soup/chili dinner. This was our first experience playing with a large group of cousins and only a small percentage of that side of the family's cousins were there! E&R did pretty well playing with everyone and they were so pooped out by bed time that they fell asleep and didn't wake up until 7:00 the next morning. Mommy was in heaven!!!

The next day was just a day to relax and hang out with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt A. Friday, we headed to Aunt K's house for Mommy's immediate family Christmas. Aunt K/Uncle E, Uncle P, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt A, and Great-Grandma were all there too! E&R loved playing with Aunt K's cat Spike - they would chase him down the hallway and then he'd turn around and run after them! Uncle P also brought his little dog Gypsy so there were tons of animals to play with!

Saturday morning was the celebration with Grandma's side of the family. Again lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, and cousins kids were all at Great-Grandma's house to play, exchange presents, and of course eat! Learning to play with the cousins part II. R was not feeling too great and was running a fever, but E had a lot of fun being a total ham and giggling everywhere. Saturday afternoon during naps, Mommy, Uncle P, and Aunt A tried to go catch a movie leaving Aunt K & Uncle E to babysit. Unfortunately the movie we wanted to watch was sold out so we went to Target instead to hang out. And wonder of wonders what did Mommy find there????? Barney house-shoes for the kids (gasp)!!!! E was delighted and loves to wear hers - R is a bit more hesitant and freaked out at his at first. Probably Mommy was more excited about them than anyone......

Sunday was the long drive back home to see Daddy. We made it despite having two sick children in the backseat. The three of us had a great time visiting all the relatives, but it sure was nice to get back home to our own comfy beds and familiar toys!