12.28.2011

I'm really excited about a new app I just discovered called Diptic. It makes it super easy to combine photos into a collage.



I love these crazy kids so much!!

I also love instagram. It's an app that transforms photos by changing it's effect to make them more fun. I love it. Here's an example. Yesterday I took a picture of the kids and Ollie hanging out in the back of the car.


...and filtered the color a bit by using instagram.


Way cooler, right? iphone's are so fun.

12.27.2011

On Christmas Eve, Sam & I played some tennis, we took the kids on a walk, T rode his scooter.. (the weather was so nice! The kids have been asking for popsicles on our walks lately! ha!) and they got to open a few presents. Thanks to Sam's parents for the jammies and cool flashlights for the kids!!








We had some good friends over for dinner. (Sam & Erik grew up practically next door to each other, so we've known them for a long time. We're so glad the Peterson's live here too!) Sam made a delicious ham and we decorated cookies for Santa.




Christmas morning Sam woke up at 5am to make his traditional delicious cinnamon rolls. (big thanks to Becki, he's used her secret recipe for 3 years in a row)


A few pictures of Christmas morning around our house.
Our kids are at such fun ages for Christmas. I knew T would be into it, but Maizie surprised us and was just as into it as he was. haha. It was such a fun morning.






















All T really wanted was a new "little key." (We lost his a few months ago) We're pretty surprised how into it he is. We weren't expecting him to love it like he loved his old smelly, ratty one. He still favors his big key but he's giving his new blanky a chance.


We missed our families this year, but boy we are so blessed to be here with a good job and healthy, happy kids. We hope everyone had a happy Christmas.

12.21.2011

We've had a lot of really fun days at the zoo, but today was the best, most fun zoo day we've ever had. We went down around 12:30, hoping to beat the rain that was supposed to come, ride the merry go round and come home, but we stayed until 4:00...and the merry-go-round wasn't even running! haha. When we pulled up there were 4 cars in the whole parking lot, so I figured the zoo was closed. But good thing we stuck around because we had such a blast!! The kids were so happy, and happy kids=easy kids :)

I loved today. The stars aligned for us and everything worked out perfectly. Maizie loved walking around and I loved that I didn't have to worry about her crawling on the nasty zoo floor or losing anybody in the crowd. T wore big boy underwear and even told me once that he had to go potty so we found a bathroom at the zoo for him to use! (slowly moving out of the underwear at home and diaper when we're away phase....) It was super cloudy all day and kind of dark so we could see all the cool Christmas lights (we were happy they were turned on!) but never rained a drop. Anyways, we couldn't have picked a better day to go.
Wish I would've brought my real camera..but here are some phone pictures.












After all that zoo fun, both kids were bathed and asleep by 6:30pm so Sam & I watched a non-cartoon movie, peacefully, all by ourselves! If today ended up being groundhog day and I lived it over & over again I wouldn't be one bit sad. It was a good day. Plus that would mean my kids wouldn't grow up anymore, and that would be perfect because I love 'em so much right now and I'm not totally convinced I like all the growing up they've been doing lately. What happened to my little babies??

12.18.2011

I was online a few weeks ago, searching for cute Christmas jammies for the kids and I came across these non-Christmas but so cute jammies (they say "Moose Caboose" on the bum. ha! I love 'em).


..and I love her!


I'm totally bummed out that they were sold out of T's size. But I'm going to keep checking back and get them when they come back in stock.

12.15.2011

Her hair is getting so long! So today I tried putting some pigtails in and she looked adorable.


I can't get over how fast she's growing up. She hardly crawls anywhere anymore, she's walking all over....and getting fast! I love her so much, I can't even stand it.

12.13.2011

Tonight we went with some friends to see the lights at the zoo. Wow! I was super impressed. There were lights everywhere and Santa was even here visiting from the North Pole. T was really excited. It was super fun.


Our friends have twins that are a few weeks younger than Maizie. A boy & a girl. They are SO cute.

12.10.2011

T loved meeting Santa. He told him that we were going to make cookies for him and when Santa asked what T wanted he said, "a new little key," (blanket, like his big blue one but it's little. He used to have one but he lost it back in the summer somewhere). Anyway, it was news to me! It actually kind of broke my heart, I didn't know he was so torn up about losing it so long ago. I really don't know where he got the idea to ask Santa for a new one. haha. Funny guy.


He also told Santa that Maizie wanted a baby because she wasn't telling him herself...haha. She didn't want to touch him with a 10 ft. pole. (just like me when I was a kid...hey, can you blame us?)

12.6.2011

It started snowing last night after Maizie had gone to bed, so T & I ran outside to play for a few minutes!!


He loved it, but I think he loved the hot chocolate after even better.


After the kids went to sleep last night, Sam and I turned on some Christmas music and each decorated our own gingerbread house. It was so fun to be able to make it just how I wanted...haha so selfish. Really though, it was a blast. I think my favorite part was watching Sam decorate his. He was concentrating so hard on it hahaha, it was so cute. Oh man I love him. (Sam said he wanted to add something to his so I didn't take a picture, but it's in the next picture anyway...)
Here's mine.


OK so here's the part that I'm not proud of....as we were decorating, T got out of his bed and came down and oh man I'm never going to forget the look he had on his face when he saw Sam & I at the table, munching on candy, doing gingerbread houses & having a party without him. He was so confused. It was heart breaking. Course he wanted to help and I gave him a gingerbread cookie to decorate but I wouldn't let him touch my house!! ahhhhhh I'm embarrassed to say that. What kind of a mom am I? hahaha Seriously! (He was actually quite happy with the cookie, but I still felt bad) Anyway this morning while we were out, I grabbed him one and let him & his friend Lily have at it this afternoon while she was over playing. So now we have a whole gingerbread village gracing our home. (complete with a gingerbread train-not shown)



This morning we went to Costco. Maizie started getting a bit fussy so I grabbed this giant bear to ride around in the cart with us with no intention of buying it (is that bad? Does anyone else do that, because I do it all the time) Anyway, when we went to check out, she had clearly bonded with the bear and had a MAJOR melt down when I took him away. After finding out it was 8 bucks and change, I decided it was worth my sanity to buy the thing. He did look pretty darn cute riding in the cart next to Maizie. (Don't mind her mullet....I need you ROO!)


We made a snowman today. T wanted to name him Frosty. Clever huh? haha. Unfortunately Winston thought Frosty was an intruder or something & his life was cut short. He was tackled down to the ground shortly after I took this picture. Darn dogs.


She didn't mind the cold or snow one bit! She just sat happily in the snow and watched all the action. ha ha i LOVE HER!!


My neighbor (& friend) was in a bind today and had nobody to watch her kids while she went in to work, so I watched them. I had (including mine) 4 kids. TWO, 3 year olds, a 13 MONTH old and a 4 MONTH old, all by myself for 5 1/2 hours. Apparently T thought it was the coolest thing ever and kept saying stuff like, "I want a baby like Jackson. He's so cute. Maizie is way bigger then him. She's not as cute as he is." hahaha. Ironic, because I was thinking all those kids at the same time was great birth control and here T is talking about a baby brother. Sorry to break it to you T but you're probably not getting any more siblings. Hopefully he can get some cousins soon though?? haha. Really though, siblings. Get on it :)

12.2.2011

Health Care REIT had their Christmas party on Friday night. It was fun to meet some new people that Sam works with and to see some friends that we hadn't seen in a while, but my favorite part was getting out of the house alone with Sam & no kids. hahaha. It's always a treat. (Not that I don't LOVE the kids but ya know!) As we walked through the door a photographer snapped this super cheesy picture & gave it to us. We we laughing so hard that she would pose us like this. I kinda think we look like we're 75 years old. hahaha.

Sam makes me laugh so hard. I love date nights.

12.1.2011

I stumbled across a picture of a kids treehouse bed and emailed it to Sam saying something like, "how sweet is this? I bet you could make it." And before I knew it our garage was transformed into a workshop and he'd gotten to work! I couldn't believe it. AHH what a great dad, I married so well! In less then a week, Sam made this amazing bed for Tucker. There were a few nights where he came home from work around 6pm and worked on the bed until 1-2am. (You normally won't find us awake past 9 or 10 so it was even that much nicer of him!) Anyway, I have been so impressed with him all week, I knew he was handy but, man! What a guy. Not that he needed to because T already looks up to his daddy so much, but he scored some major points with T this week. Thanks Sammy! Amazing job! Here are so pictures that I snapped along the way...













Finished!! Complete with Christmas lights. We spent hours hanging out in it this morning. So fun!