Our Christmas Pictures

So here is the professional pictures that we got from Sears. I love it!!! Plus for only 4.99 for the package, it couldn't be beat!!!

Santa Claus, HO HO HO

Here is Benny reading his Christmas Card from his Grandma C.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!! We had a good Christmas. This was the first year that both kids were really excited and interested in what Santa brought so it was so much fun to see their faces...We did have to take a break in the middle to get a snack and play with some toys because they were getting a bit overwhelmed.



This year we didn't do too many individual gifts. Since Ashley and Ben are so close in age most of the toys for one work for the other. Benny loves his Radio Flyer Big Wheel. So much so that he didn't want to share it at all. But it was quite humorous to see him "flintstone" it around the house.



The kids both loooved the V-Motion gaming system. They both played for a bit and were excited at the selection of games that Santa and Grandma and Grandpa sent.



Another huge hit was the train table given by Mike's dad. Its really quite a bit bigger than I was expecting so I will have to do some rearranging to find it a home. But it still astounds me that will over 150 town pieces they still managed to pick a fight over a 3 inch section of track...haha



The one and only thing Ashley asked for was a teddy bear, and Grandma and Grandpa M. happily obliged. She loves it...



We also went over to visit our neighbors, the Hollands, for dinner. So yummy....let me tell you I have never once tasted stuffing like what she made...I will have to get the recipe. It was awesome!!! Ben was eating it by the handful. It was nice to have a chance to hang out with another couple! But it did make me realize how incredibly "hands-on" and into everything my children are! Wow!

Merry Christmas Everyone

Christmas Shopping

So yesterday we went downtown and one of the stops we made was the dollar store. Mike took Ben and I took Ashley around the store so they could pick something out for each other and mom or dad.

I didn't want to spend a lot but I also wanted them to get to do some shopping without us picking it for them or prodding to change their minds. So here are their selections:

Ashley picked out a flashlight for Mike. "Because daddy's is broken, he needs a new one."


Benny picked out a little basket for Ashley.


Benny picked out a weird pitcher for me. I think it will be great for pancakes or waffles...but it reminds me of a hospital puke bucket or water pitcher.

Ashley picked out a rubber squishy piggy bank for benny and grabbed one for herself too.


And the final pick was a a flower flyswatter from Ashley to Ben..


It was really fun and they seemed to enjoy getting the chance to pick something all by themselves.

Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies

So, I have started buying whole wheat flour now. I haven't baked with it before but I thought it was a great way to make our diet a bit more healthy. So my first trial was some sugar cookies. The dough was quite sticky and thus I had a hard time cutting them into shapes even after chilling them. So instead I rolled them into balls and smooshed them.

The kids had fun decorating them with icing and let me tell you...they were beautiful! But it was a fun activity for them to do and honestly the clean up wasn't too bad!! Plus if they are going to eat cookies, they might as well get some good grains out of it.

Christmas Pictures...

So today we took an impromptu trip downtown. I threw together a quick bag of dress clothes, hair brush, and snacks...just in case sears had an opening at the photo studio. I have had 2 appointments scheduled already and had to cancel them because of a blizzard and 10 inches of snow. So no appointment today just thought I would try when we got to the mall. Surprisingly we walked in and they lady was sitting in a chair, no customers to be seen. So she fit us right in! Whoohoo. My goal was to keep it under 20 bucks...a big challenge when they always try to sell you everything under the moon and sometimes more.

I had a few coupons and managed to walk out the door with my pocket only $10.61 lighter..Holy Moly!!! We had to pick one pose only and got a 10x13, (2) 8x10, (2) 5x7, 16 wallets, and 16 minis and included in that grand total was 5 bucks to extend our super saver card for another year. Not bad! I will of course post some when I get them back..

Oh and another thing...the pictures are due back on Christmas Eve...wow, that is fast!

Cheer up!

So I've noticed that my last few posts have been rather dreary. I'm not quite sure why since overall I'm not feeling like that. But I do think that my blog is a way for me to vent my frustrations without pissing off those around me. So today I gathered my happy pictures to make up for apparent ill moods :)



Here is Ashely chilling out in front of the tree playing with her Dora legos. I swear for a fairly cheap toy they have kept the attention of both of my kids.

Dancing of course!

Now Benny is surely a boy....No matter how many times i wipe his face clean it seems to dirty itself in 2 seconds flat. I can't seem to snap a picture of him with a clean face...how frustrating. I feel like I am chasing him around all day with a washcloth (he of course thinks its a game).


Oh and when you add teething to the mix...you get nice drool shots!




Buckets and buckets of snow! We have gotten at least another 6 inches since this picture was taken if not more...Holy moly!

Hello Again!

So this past week has been a bit crazy.

On Saturday evening with a storm approaching we drove downtown to do a bit of shopping. Oh and we had to hit up Taco Bell... Mike and I had been craving Taco Bell for a while so it was a treat. We love Mexican food and we really haven't found any restaurants here that live up to what we had back in WA. We've tried all of them here and found two that were good but they both managed to get shut down quite quickly...one for sanitary reasons (ewwww) and the other for illegal hiring practices... We've had bad experiences at Paradiso numerous times and were totally turned off by the gravy they serve on burritos at Mexican village. So that is one thing we are really looking forward to when we move back to WA.

Anyway we did some shopping and made a quick visit to Santa. We didn't have our camera and they didn't take anything but cash so we didn't get pictures but we plan to go back this weekend to snatch a few pictures. The kids were both facinated by Santa.....No tears what so ever. Ashley even made the funniest comment when Santa invited her to sit on his lap. At first she was a bit hesitant but by his 2nd offer she decided he was suitable. Once she got up on his lap she procliamed quite loudly..."look, he didn't hurt me at all". Everyone got a chuckle out of that one. Mike then took the kids so I could try some pants on and she informed him that "Santa isn't real...well some are real...but some are not". I thought that was a perfect explanation for a 3 year old to grasp.

Saturday night the weather got pretty nasty and lasted all day through Sunday. It was so darn cold. We didn't get a whole lot of snow...but what we did blew around like crazy. We could see the grass in the backyard but in the front we had 3 1/2 feet of snow all around the cars. That was quite fun to shovel..:)

Oh I had my birthday on Monday. We didn't do much cause Mike had to work but I was able to relax quite a bit and we devoured a triple chocolate cake, yummo!

This Saturday we are taking the kiddos to Sears to get pictures taken. I had scheduled them for Monday on my birthday but the windchill was -45 so I canceled. So I will get to post some new pictures soon.

Christmas Bulb Countdown...:)

So I finally put the Christmas Tree up. Mike and I had decided not to do it because we thought our tree was ruined from the basement flooding. But I decided today to pull it up and see if it was truly that bad...Thankfully only the outside of the box was affected. So I put it all up with help from the kids. Trust me it was quite fun.

I'm not quite sure what inspired me to put the bulbs on it with a 1 and 3 year old running around but I did. Within minutes I had to move the bottom half of the ornaments to the top of the tree to keep fingers off. Then I went to the bathroom...I should have known better. Moms are not allowed to leave the tree unattended for even a quick trip to the bathroom :). I came back to find a kids chair pushed up next to the tree and Ben sitting on the floor with a shattered ornament that he was inspecting. Sweet. He managed a small cut on his hand and a scrape on his foot but overall no other injuries... Thank goodness since they were both in bare feet.

So I have now started the bulb count down...1 down...more to come

Seriously???

So today was one of those days....Nothing too serious just all those little things that happen that make a decent day go down the drain....

So here is my list of little things...are you ready?

1. I had an appt. at 9:30 am that no one called to tell me was canceled so I drug the kids out in 5 degree snowy weather....thankfully they were able to squeeze me in between other people since it was their fault.

2. then I drove over to the library, unpacked the kids again and walked up there to drop off my overdue books and get some more only to find out they are closed until 10 am. So I piled the kids back in the van, yay

3. The we tried to scan in 3 checks to our bank account and of course they are all rejected by the bank to be scanned so we have to mail them in....and I hate sending signed checks in the mail...not to mention that we then have to wait like a week for the money when we were planning on having it now

4. I started feeling yucky so I laid down for a nap and woke up with horrible cramps. It was so bad it reminded me of labor...yikes...it brought tears to my eyes..and then.....

5. while I am waiting for the motrin to kick in and the heating pad to warm up ben grabs the floor lamp and tilts it back and then lets it go....and the glass shade slams into the wall and shatters...there goes one wedding present :)

6. then ashley comes out of the bathroom with my glasses on...which are now all bent

7. Then I go to throw out the garbage in the garage and and hug mike bye and come back in and find ashley as proud as can be..."mommy, i cleaned the bathroom" insert groan here :). I walk in and find that she poured 1/3 of my bottle of new shampoo in the sink and made bubbles to clean it up....sweet

8. Then I find ben with my glasses again...bent some more

9. and finally, greys anatomy is a rerun...and I so needed some relaxing in front of the boob tube.


So now, the kids are in bed and I am sitting back with a cup of tea, hoping to relax the day away........

An Early B-day/Christmas Gift!!!

So the other night Mike unveiled my birthday/christmas gift. A new computer...a much needed computer as mine was quite ancient. A little early, yes...but he built it himself and thus needed lots of time and space to get it set up and running well. So he knew he wouldn't be able to do that and still keep it hidden unless he waited to assemble it until after....Who likes to get a gift they can't play with immediately...not me!

So he started putting it together before work on Thursday and Finished last night. Oh my, I am in heaven. It is so much faster than "old man gray" as we nicknamed it. Plus it has a super big monitor and is upgradable so we can add lots to it later.

I'm so excited! Yay

My new niece, Summer Anne Handley

Introducing my neice, Summer Anne Handley. She was born this evening at 5:12pm by c-section. She weighed in at 7lbs 7ozs (same weight as Ashley and their cousin Hailey). She was born by c-section because she wouldn't descend into the pelvis and apparently has quite the conehead to show for it. Congratulations Kerri and Chris!!!!

HeadStart!

I applied for Headstart last summer even though Ashley was only 3. They were full then but today I got a phone saying that they have an opening starting after Christmas break. So January 5th will be Ashley's first day of school. How cool is that. Its the morning class so at least that will get me to get my butt out of bed at a decent hour. She is so excited. It will only be for about 4 months with us moving but during the stressful months coming I am really jazzed to have a break! Whoohooo

Benny singing ABCs

Benny has started to sing the ABCs. He does it better than the video shows but I think he had some stage fright. But for your viewing pleasure :)

Baby Blankets

So here are a few of the baby blankets that I have been working on. I donated a big bag of finished ones to the family support center for the baby bundles and these ones I am sending to my sister and sister in law who are (or have had) babies this month.

I'm a college graduate, Finally!!!!

YES! I finally got my diploma in the mail. I had not heard anything from my school since I finished my classes and so I was getting a little anxious thinking maybe I had missed a requirement or something. But no, it is official I am now a graduate. And to top that off I graduated with Summa Cum Laude honors! Whooohooo, go ME!!!

Boys will be boys!

So my little Benny sure does give me a run for my money. I am really beginning to understand all the sayings like "boys will be boys". So his chin hasn't even healed from his last crash and now his poor mouth is suffering again.

This time Ashley was sitting in the office chair and sweet little Ben was taking his turn pushing her around. They think that is quite fun. Anyways, as she was spinning (quite slowly too) one of the arm rests caught Benny right in the mouth. It was bleeding a bit but didn't look too bad.

About 15 minutes later I was getting them in jammies and brushing their teeth when I noticed swollen lip. Wow and this is quite a swollen lip.



But thankfully I took a picture (even though he didn't want me to) and now this morning his lip is back to normal. So I have a picture of how awful it looked just in case anyone didn't believe me.

Prayers for Colleen

This week I found out some saddening news. My friend Colleen (one of my bridesmaids) was diagnosed with a brain hemorrhage. She had been having some serious headaches and ended up going to the ER where they located the problem.

It turns out that it was a congenital defect and was almost like a ticking time bomb for problems. She is awaiting brain surgery this next week to remove the affected area.

Please pray for her quick recovery!

Chin Pictures and my attempt at making hats...

So I tried to get a picture of Ben's chin and tooth like 20 times and this was the best I could manage. Most of the ones I got ended up showing his ear because he turned his head as quick as I could push the button... But you can see the scratch on his chin, but nothing else. Its all healing up quite quickly. This picture was taken 2 days ago and it is already roughly the size of a pencil eraser now.


I found a bag of fabric scraps in my basement when I was cleaning up the flooding basement. I dug in this week and decided to see what I could do it. I whipped out a few scarfs, a few rag-type baby blankets and some Nemo hats for the kids. The hats turned out alright, but are actually a few sizes too big for them both. So I might dig in and try to make them a tad smaller but they love them.

Hahaha....Revenge

I was just playing with my template cause I needed something different and I wanted to put my links back on my page. But I figured out the coolest thing with the new blogger...wanna know?

Now I have a list of all my bloggin buddies and it automatically adjusts them so it shows the person who posted a blog most recently at the top and those that have waited longer....those who have been neglecting their blogging buddies... are at the bottom of the list. How cool is that....Ok so its not really that cool but it does making checking for blog updates a lot quicker, YAY.

One of those days....

So today I dyed my hair back to red. I was tired of the brown...especially mixing with the red roots. This is still quite a bit darker than my normal red but it was something different. Yay

Yesterday the kids were dying to go outside and play in the "snow" (if you can call it that :)). So we all bundled up and went out for a few minutes. Since Ben has had a fever the past few days I was only going to let them play for 10 minutes or so. Well it only lasted about 5, just enough for me to snap a few pictures.

Poor Benny saw something that fascinated him and he went chasing after it. As soon as he hit the driveway he slipped and came crashing down on his face. I ran over there and picked him up and his face was covered in blood! I grabbed him and pulled Ashley inside so I could have a better look. Oh I felt just awful. I gave him a lollipop so he would calm down so I could clean him up and see the damage. Oh boy. I could tell he chipped his tooth and the two front two were loose. There was lots of blood but I really couldn't find where it was coming from. I called the base peds office just to see what I should do and they told me to call the base dental clinic. So I tried that, and they wanted me to bring him in right away. So off we went to the dentist. Thankfully they didn't find anything too terrible.

The rundown:
1. chipped front tooth (only enamel deep, so there shouldn't be any sensitivity)
2. knocked the two front teeth loose (but she didn't think that he caused them permanent damage, so we are on the lookout for changing colors if he did)
3. Skinned up chin
4. and the bleeder...it turns out that he tore the little skin flap/muscle thing that connects your lip to your gums. Go ahead and stick your tongue up there and feel it...I know I did :) Yup he ripped it almost completely. But the good news is that it quit bleeding within a few minutes and really doesn't need any repair .

I'll post a picture of him post-fall maybe tomorrow.

This Week:

Last night I tried a recipe from my little sister , Delicious Chicken Pot Pie. It was great! #10744 on recipe zaar if you are interested. It takes a little time because everything is fresh so you have to chop it and all but fresh is best. The kids actually devoured it, which is shocking for them both lately. I usually hear "I don't like that" before the dish even hits the table and once one starts the other chimes in too. But this was a winner.


Benny has been sick again. This time its been a high fever (staying around 102-103 for about 3 days now), a slight runny nose, and a horribly cranky, cuddly, needy boy. We took him in on Wednesday thinking that it might be an ear infection but it turns out both ears were fine. So a virus or something to just wait out. Fun times. He appears to be doing a bit better this morning. I haven't given him any medicine since last night. So hopefully he is on the upswing of this one. It is so frustrating though. This has been our longest cold season. It seems like one gets it and as soon as he/she is feeling better then the next one comes down with something. And what is weird is they seem like different illnesses too. Ashley had the pukes for a day, then Ben came down with a high fever. Ben has had croup 2 times this last month and a half....Ugh it is just no fun. I am just hoping and praying that they have caught everything there is to catch so we can have a few months of no colds....not likely though!

Here is Benny sleeping off the fever. He required a blanket too. I took it off him once he fell asleep so he wouldn't overheat more than he already was. It was so cute too, I told him lunch was ready and asked if he wanted to eat....his response was, "No, I'm sleeping" and then I grabbed our plates and set them on the table and sure enough he had passed out in the 20 seconds it took for me to do that.


I swear Ben is just like my little brother. When they get sick you can just tell by looking at them. Ben's pale skin just turns blue almost, especially under the eyes. His eyes get super puffy and he really looks just washed out. Poor guy.

Oh and it is snowing a bit this morning....anyone jealous? :) hahahah

crayon surprise

Boys can't multitask? I beg to differ :) Here is Benny proving it wrong. Walking the dog and chatting on the elmo phone. How cute

And Ashley trying to be a hairdresser...if you could only see the mess of rubber bands and clips she left in her wake.


Our crayons had taken a beating and most of them were now small pieces that I was lucky enough to pick up off the floor daily...sometimes multiple times. So I peeled off the wrappers and threw them in my muffin tin. The final outcome is pretty fun. Ashley enjoyed them last night and maybe this way Ben will be less inclined to eat them...just maybe.