Happy Thanksgiving!

We had much to be grateful for over the Thanksgiving holiday. It was the first time in 3 years that I had been home amongst my family for the holiday, and it had been 5 years for Adam. We hosted this year, and it did not come without challenges!

Apparently my husband was quite the celebrity. 

I think it's because he chose to play with the kids over watching football. :)

We caught a bad stomach bug--it started out with R on Sunday night and had gotten to me by Tuesday. We had friends traveling from Ohio who arrived Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning, and I was not ready for that by any means! Luckily, my mom and sister helped Adam finish cleaning and getting the guest room ready so it all worked out in the end.... until M got sick on Wednesday. Then Adam and Dan on Thursday. My mom, sister, Curt, uncle, cousins, brother, nephew.... it was a domino effect.

Although we battled sickness and spread it like wildfire, we enjoyed being surrounded by our friends and family. We were especially grateful for our friends, Dan & Ashley, who drove from Ohio to spend the holiday with us. Dan and Adam deployed to Iraq together in 2007 and he and Ash are like family to us!

Looking forward: we are hoping Christmas will be much healthier for us! :)

A morning exploring!

A Morning with Cousin Daxxon!

Daxxon came to our house Thursday morning because Kyle had to go to work early. So, the kids had an early morning play date and had SO much fun! They love playing together and go non-stop -- makes for a wonderful afternoon nap!

School!

Today was Makaylin's first day of "school"! Her and I go to this class once a week and get to do all kinds of fun activities for an entire hour. Today we painted our hands and made handprints, tore up some paper, sorted toys, played with the water table, sang songs, danced, and even had a snack! M loved her time in the ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) classroom and she was pretty good with the other kids (who, by the way, are all her age). The only mishap we had was when she was trying to steal another girl's sippy cup. Mommy bringing M's sippy cup=FAIL. haha! I learned my lesson this time!

I didn't get any pictures of her in the actual classroom because I was trying to keep up with her and soak everything in for the first day. BUT, I did get a picture of her at home before we left and then after in front of the school. I even busted out the point and shoot camera... there was no way I was taking my professional camera into a room with 10 crazy one year olds! Unfortunately, the photos are super blurry...and I'll take my semi-fancy camera next week. At least my Canon is coming in handy for something. :)

Rewind: Part 2

Leaving California didn't seem real-- we had been talking about leaving for SO LONG, and something always came up that pushed it back. I never thought I'd see the day when we would really have to leave...

So, although the Marine Corps screwed us over and we had to stay in a hotel in San Clem for 2 extra nights, I was happy to still be in California. :) The nights in the hotel were kinda crazy-- it was us, the kids, our 2 dogs, and Adam's parents. Thank goodness for his parents being able to fly out and help us... the whole situation would have been 10 times more stressful without their help.

This was the first time the kids had been to a hotel, so they had a lot of exploring to do. They fell in love with every curtain they found-- it was perfect for "peek-a-boo"!

[M making goofy faces in the mirror. She was excited about her new Dora jammies!]

[R hangin' with the g'parents]

[R's 2 paci rule--still in effect at the hotel.]

While we were staying at the hotel, we were able to say good-bye to a very, very dear friend of ours, Vanessa. Ok, I'll try not to get too emotional about this, but it was extremely hard to say good-bye to her! First off, let me just say that Vanessa has been a complete blessing to our family. She was there for us through my entire pregnancy--bed rest included. She was at the hospital the night I had the twins and stayed until 1 a.m. after I was out of recovery. She has been in the kids lives... well, their entire lives. :) She watched them go from 4 lbs. to 20 lbs. in their first year. She gave me much needed mommy nights out. We could not have asked for a more caring, loving, and fun person to come into our lives while in California. We miss her SO much, and can't wait until she visits us!

[We miss you big time, Vanessa!]

Rewind: Part 1

During May and June I really didn't have time to blog about the kids or our adventures because of the move. I've been meaning to blog about those times, but we've been so busy with the house and spending time with friends and family that blogging has taken a back seat. Luckily, I finally have a night of downtime and I'm ready to rewind and update!

I guess I'll start with our prep for the big move. We spent almost a week in our house without furniture, dishes, laundry machines, etc. We pretty much only had the essentials! Most of the kids toys were in the moving truck, so they had to use their imagination...which proved to be very easy! They enjoyed opening and closing all the cupboards, crawling inside the cupboards, playing in Ella & Baxter's kennel--pretty much doing everything they couldn't do before! We spent a lot of our time cleaning and literally finished minutes before the inspector arrived. We were very happy, yet sad, to be leaving our house. I was a bit emotional since it's where the kids spent the first 14 months of their lives and a lot of memories were created inside those walls.

[no table=high chairs on the floor]

[while this photo isn't perfectly taken (blurry!), I had to post because Ryker's face is priceless!]

While I wasn't thrilled about living without pretty much EVERYTHING, it did give us an opportunity to use our last days in California as productively as possible. We ventured to Sea World as well as the beach during our last weekend in my favoritest place in the world. :)

[Hangin' at San Clemente Beach]

[lunch at Sea World]

[watchin' the fishies]

[feeding the sea lions--M wasn't sure what to do... and R got scared!]

I'm sure there will be many more "parts" to this Rewind project I started--come back soon! :)

Lake Life

We headed  "up north" last weekend with my parents, sister, and Curt for a long weekend. My parents always rent a lake home for a week in the summertime, and we were finally able to go along this year! It had been many years since I had been able to go "up north" with them because I've been living in different states for so long-- I was really happy to be able to go and take the kids and Adam along, too!