2009 Year End Review

2009 gave us a lot of great memories....

The arrival of baby Shane....the missing piece to our complete family!

Visits with family in Michigan.

Potty training.

Big boy beds and a Moses basket.

Swimming and sledding.

Parks and picnics.

Date nights.

Books and games.

Hugs and kisses.

and Lots and lots of love.

If 2010 is half as great as 2009, then we have a lot to look forward to this coming year!!!

Homeward Bound

Tomorrow we are heading back home. We packed the van up tonight and are planning on leaving first thing in the morning. It will be a long trip and we are hoping that we don't have to stop much, but I doubt it!

Sammy has digressed in the potty training arena. When he is really into playing he doesn't want to stop and go pee on the potty so he just pees in his pants. He is very lazy! He is driving John and I crazy. Yesterday I think that he peed in his pants 3 times! I have started making him sit on the potty every hour or so again just like he did when he was first potty trained and that seems to work. But I have a feeling that the trip home may be challenging!

Shane has a new trick. He plays peek-a-boo. When you say "where's Shane?" he covers his eyes until you pull them down and say "peek-a-boo" and then he laughs and laughs. It is super cute. The funny part is that about half of the time he doesn't actually cover his eyes and covers his nose or forehead instead. I am planning on getting it on video later this week.

There are just no words to describe the obsession with money that the kids have going on right now! They got a cash register for Christmas that is fueling their money craziness. There are containers and containers of money all over the place. The kids are worried about keeping everybody away from their stash so the hiding spots are getting more and more creative! It is like living with a bunch of old ladies with Alzheimers disease!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 12th wedding anniversary! It is hard to believe that it has been so long since we got married! I remember feeling like we planned the wedding forever and then it was over with in the blink of an eye. I felt like I wanted to freeze it all so that I could enjoy each minute. I was so happy to have so many photos and the wedding video to look at later to cherish all of the wonderful memories from that day.

There has been a lot of change in the last 12 years. We started and finished our doctorate degrees. We graduated. We said goodbye to our friends and family. We got jobs and moved out of Michigan. We got a dog. We met new friends. We had kids. We moved again.....And there will surely be a lot of change in our future.

But one thing has not changed. We are still madly in love with each other and I don't need a picture or video to remember that. We can't wait to see all of the new things that God has in store for our future and we are so thankful to be enjoying it together!

The Weather Outside is Frightful!

Yesterday we drove across the state of Michigan just barely ahead of a huge ice storm that hasn't let up since! We left my parents earlier than planned so that we wouldn't get stranded somewhere on the side of the road on Christmas Eve. It worked out perfectly and we arrived in Grand Haven just before the storm dumped freezing rain and snow over West Michigan.

Fortunately Santa was able to get his sleigh through the ice and managed to drop off a bunch of presents for our boys at Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bills house. A few of their favorites were the bounce house, sleeping bags, and LL Bean duffel bags. This is the third round of Christmas gift opening in a week and the kids were well behaved and thankful for their gifts this time (it only took two practice runs to get it right!).

We also visited with Great Grandma Rodgers, Aunt Mari, Triston, Uncle Mark, and Uncle David today. It is so nice to catch up with family and makes me a little sad that we don't live nearby but we look forward to seeing everybody that much more every time that we come to visit!

Merry Christmas 2009!!!!

We celebrated Christmas with Grandma, Grandpa, Aaron, and Christina today. We also had visits from Aunt Candy, Uncle Mike, Aunt Julie, and Uncle Ronnie. There was food, gifts, games, and lots of excitement!

Grandpa made a creation for the kids that was filled with presents and the kids loved it! Mom made each of the boys an art apron to use for "painting their weasel" (painting on their new art easel) and they were really cute! Aaron and Christina got the boys flashlights which were huge hits because you can never have enough flashlights!

Tomorrow we are planning on making the trip across Michigan to visit John's parents if the weather is good. They are supposed to get an ice storm tonight so we will be watching the weather closely tomorrow before deciding when to leave. It will definitely be a white Christmas in Michigan!

Michigan Christmas Part 1

Did I mention that we put up our Christmas tree this year? It is the first time that we have put it up since we lived in Pennsylvania. It is 12 feet tall and fits perfectly in our 2-story front hallway. We have had to move a lot of the ornaments up to the middle of the tree to keep the busy hands away, but I am pleased with how well the kids have done with having a decorated tree in the house.

The stockings were hung over the stairs with care instead of the fireplace. They actually looked very pretty hanging in the front hall and the kids didn't bother them either, so we may continue that tradition next year as well!

But we are at my parents house this week and John is coming here tomorrow. My Dad and I drove to their house together on Sunday morning. Thankfully it was an uneventful trip and we arrived safely.

I am not sure who was more excited to play with Grandpa's train set... Grandpa or the kids! The golf cart that Grandpa is fixing up in the garage is a big hit too... as are the huge maglight flashlights that the boys carry everywhere. (Mommy LOVES waking up in the morning to kids with flashlights!) The kids have gone to work with Grandpa, sledding, swimming, and to the library. We are running out of hours in the day!

I have already been to Meijer and I decided that it is still my favorite store. I honestly think that I know my way around Meijer better than any store in Pittsburgh even after 3 years. I love that you can get it all in one place...even alcohol. (The alcohol laws in Pittsburgh are RIDICULOUS!!!) The isles are wide and the carts have CUP HOLDERS!!!! What's not to love???

I also made my signature cheese ball tonight....and Grandma Bolles cranberry salad. We read the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and the Gingerbread Man.

So we've been busy! And everybody is going to bed exhausted.....especially Grandma and Grandpa. They aren't used to these boys and their never ending supply of energy....well then again...neither am I!!!!

Santa Came!!!!

Santa came to our house this morning! He brought the boys each a bright yellow shovel and about 4 inches of snow! It was a fun morning opening presents at our house. The boys favorite gifts were flashlights and the toy cell phones that Santa brought. Its too bad that Santa didn't know how much they would like the flashlights and phones because it might have saved his elves a lot of time and money trying to find the right trucks and cars!

John and I exchanged presents. It turns out that we each got each other a cheese grater without knowing about it. It's a strange gift to both get for each other. What does that mean?

Tomorrow I am heading to Michigan with the kids and my Dad. We will be hitting some snow, but hope that the traveling goes well!

Happy 29th Birthday Kathie!!!!!!

Wyatt has a new favorite color...pink! He wants pink everything from Santa including a pink lamp for the playroom that "the boys can not touch"! I am not worried because I think that this obsession with pink comes from not having pink stuff around the house. With 4 boys I don't envision ever having a big collection of pink stuff either, so Wyatt will probably be obsessed with pink well into adulthood. His wife will appreciate the fact that she can paint rooms pink in their house someday without him throwing a fit. So, it will all work out in the end!

I took the kids bowling this morning with some friends and their kids. All together we had 3 adults and 9 boys. It was a lot of fun. My friend Kasey's boys have never been bowling before and she said that they can not stop talking about it now! My boys should become professional bowlers someday. They are passionate about hitting all of the pins and actually pay attention to the score. It is a perfect sport for active preschool age boys! I may just start a league!

At the bowling alley todayI had a woman come up to me ask if we were a preschool on a field trip. It was funny. I said "Nope, we are just all moms of twin boys!".

I'm a Keebler Elf

I can not even begin to describe how many cookies I have baked this holiday season so far! I still have 7 dozen to make for tomorrow and then I will be done! Today I made 3 different kinds of cookies for Wyatt''s preschool teachers and aides. Then I baked cookies for my friend Megan who has been driving Wyatt to and from preschool two days a week. She is a lifesaver!!! Eventually maybe I will get around to baking some cookies for us!

We are babysitting Keith's puppy Cali for a few days while he is out of town. She is really cute, but I forget how much energy a puppy has! I may not have to run on the treadmill tomorrow or even the next day!

Christmas Books

The boys LOVE all of the Christmas books that we have around the house right now! Even Shane is starting to enjoy stories about Santa!

Rolly

I am so relieved that Friday is finally here! This week has been crazy. Today was the third day in a row that the kids didn't nap! I need a break from these crazy sleep-deprived boys!

This week Shane has also turned rolling into an olympic sport. He could win the gold medal tonight! This kid can roll from one end of a room to another in 1.2 seconds flat!

This week I found him playing in the kiddie potty (it was full of pee too!), under the Christmas tree, and all the way in the playroom. He has tried eating play dough, a piece of backpack, orange peels, the phone, the remote, and just about anything else on the floor within rolling distance!

In between giving the boys time outs and doing finger sweeps on Shane I have barely had time to pee this week! Shane wants a ball and chain from Santa for Christmas!

Pioneers

Today we pretended to be pioneers. We lost our electricity two different times today for a total of about 5 hours due to some high winds in the area.

The first time we lost power was right at naptime and the second time was at bedtime tonight. It is amazing how hard it is to get kids to go to bed when the house is pitch dark. The loss of electricity causes a lot of emotional turmoil.

So we let the kids go to bed with flashlights. They each have an animal flashlight that makes noise when you open the mouth and turn it on. We have a rooster, a horse, and a cow.

You can imagine what it sounded like upstairs tonight at bedtime. Between the crowing, neighing, and mooing I was ready to go out and buy a generator!

In between the power outages we visited Santa again at the community center. I was hoping to get some more pictures of the kids possibly with smiles this time, but it wasn't meant to be. My camera's memory card was full and wouldn't allow me to delete any pictures so I ended up using a friend's camera. She is going to email the pictures to me.

Needless to say I didn't get much done from my to-do list today, but tomorrow's another day...as long as we aren't pretending to be pioneers again!

Plastic Surgery Anyone?

I made an appointment to see a dermatologist tomorrow to take a look at a weird spot on my face. I am sure that it is nothing, but I will feel better if a doctor tells me that it's nothing. My appointment is at 12pm so that John can come home and stay with the kids during his lunch hour and I don't have to bring them along. Nice!

When I set up the appointment the receptionist gave me an internet link to print out new patient forms ahead of time so that I could come prepared. I thought that it was a good idea too so I went to print them out today and be all Mrs. Prepared.

Then I got on the website and realized that the doctor that I am seeing is a plastic surgeon. There is a dermatologist there too, but I am scheduled to see the the plastic surgeon tomorrow. Weird huh? What is even weirder is that the website had a lot of before and after plastic surgery pictures on it. I completely forgot about printing out my forms and got all wrapped up in looking at the before and after pictures of the breast augmentation surgeries. It's fascinating!

There I am sitting in the den looking at all of these torsos of before and after surgeries and Wyatt comes in and catches me red-handed. He looks at the computer and then gets this shocked look on his face before looking back at me. Then he says "Mom, where are their heads?". I said "I guess that they got cut off huh? Ok, lets hop out of here!". Now that doesn't happen every day does it?

So tomorrow I will be going to my plastic surgeon to get the spot on my face checked out. Who knows? Maybe he will try and talk me into a face lift while I'm there. Maybe I will have my own before and after pictures to show off too!

The Latest Buzz

Yesterday John called me from work to tell me that he heard about a 2 day All-Clad factory sale that he thought we could attend. Since we had plans for Saturday I told him that we could drag everybody there after work and eat dinner at a restaurant on the way home. Sounds easy right?

We drove an hour to the sale and arrived at approximately 4:30pm. It was basically a huge warehouse FULL of All-Clad cookware in every shape and size that you could imagine. There were tables and tables of pots, pans, utensils, cookbooks, and bowls stacked as high as you could imagine all priced at about 60% off retail price.

There were tons and tons of people walking around with loads of stuff to purchase. I very quickly assessed that it was going to be hard to keep an eye on all of the kids with so many displays and people around. John went to check everything out and I stayed in one spot with the kids. We ate snacks and talked and then the kids got bored.

It was literally impossible to watch everyone if they were not holding on to the stroller, so I had to be really stern and force them to stick close. Then we started checking out the tables of merchandise. There were so many people around that somebody could easily snatch one of the boys away and escape unnoticed. I was a little stressed which is why I wasn't really paying attention to John when he talked about getting some new pots.

He said that he was debating between this and that in this color or something else. He said that we need something bigger. I was thinking about keeping the kids together and if anybody was going to need to pee. I was thinking about where we were going to stop for food on the way home and how I was going to nurse Shane. I was thinking about maybe skipping the kids baths and sending them straight to bed since it was getting so late. What I wasn't thinking about was how BIG the pan was that John finally decided to buy!

It is a 16 quart stockpot! Do you have any idea how big that is? This is how big it is. (It was only after taking this picture of Shane that I realized that he had something in his mouth and subsequently realized that it was a piece of felt off the bottom of the kitchen chair legs. Nice!) We are going to need a new stove now and a garage to store this pot in when we are not using it. John told me tonight that after bringing it home, he decided that it is a big pan after all. He can't find a place to store it. I told him that most people hang those kinds of pots from utensil racks in the ceiling so that they don't need to use up all of their cupboard space. He said that if the pot fell it would kill somebody! Death by stockpot. What a way to go!

This morning we took the kids to see Santa. I signed them up for cookies with Santa at the local community center. The kids got to visit with Santa, decorate and eat cookies, and make a couple of crafts. There were only about 25 kids there so it was nice and organized. Wyatt was awestruck by Santa. He told him that he wants a big red car and trailer for Christmas. Sammy repeated Wyatt's exact words to Santa as his wish list and Jonah only answered yes or no questions about what he wanted for Christmas. Shane hated Santa period. He's probably on the naughty list now.

This afternoon I decided to run out and do some shopping while the kids were napping. Right before I left I heard Sam talking in his bed and decided to bring him along. I took him to Toys R Us. He was so thrilled to be out with Mom by himself at the "choo-choo store"! He was honestly the LOUDEST person in the entire store and the store was packed! "Mom, Sponge Bob" "Mom, Diego" "Mommy, we have this at home" "Mom, I want this for my birthday" and on and on and on. He is an enthusiastic little guy! People thought that he was adorable. His excitement is actually very sweet even if everybody in the store hears us coming. You can not be shy if he is your child! I had a good time and I think that Sam had a lot of fun too!

Tonight after the kids were in bed John and I had a cookie making marathon. We each picked out cookies to make and played Christmas carols in the background. We ended up making 5 different kinds of cookies. John made Hanukkah cookies (not sure why he picked those but he hasn't converted or anything) and date roll cookies and I made peanut butter Reese's chip cookies, shortbread cookies, and chocolate covered Oreo cookies. I want to package them up for gifts but John wants to eat them all. Unfortunately I don't think that he will have any room left in his belly for cookies after he cooks tomorrow's dinner in the new stockpot! He's making corn chowder and I have a feeling that we will be eating it for weeks!

Advent Calendars

We busted out the advent calendars yesterday. This year I got each of the kids a playmobile advent calendar where they open little boxes that contain pieces to a holiday scene every day until Christmas. I was fortunate to find the sets from the past 3 years so each kid has a different scene that is unfolding.

It has been a huge hit. The excitement is palpable. What is going to show up in tomorrow's box? You never know!

John and I decided to celebrate Christmas early here with the kids this year so that they can still experience the Christmas morning tradition at home before we travel to Michigan. So Santa will be hitting our house on December 19th this year. The advent calendars are on fast forward now and the kids are opening more than one box per day...whoops!!!!