Our life as we know it!

We have had an eventful month. My parents came the last weekend in October for a couple of days. It was so much fun to have them here. I made my parents go up to Palymra, NY with me and my dad, bless him, had to drive us home in a snow storm. We do not have the mountains they have in the west, but the snow was just the same in the Poconos of PA. My kids had a fun time dressing up for Halloween and going door to door for candy. T started saying "trick or treat" and "Happy Halloween" in his little garbled speech. I have to say it was pretty darn cute! M was Tinkerbell and T was Peter Pan. I had fun making their costumes. I copied Make it and Love it's blog tutorial. We have had fun keeping busy. We went to the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA a couple of weeks ago and to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia today. Anyways, I know what everyone wants is pictures, so here you go!

Musings of the last month

So, a lot has happened to our little family recently. Brett left and will be gone for a little while, M started kindergarten and loves it, and T had a very minor surgery for which he was awesome for and is doing great. So M started kindergarten and loves going to school all day (well, I love her going to school all day!). However, she did today tell me that there was too much work, and it was too long and it made her tired. She is starting to read and I am so excited for her to read. I hope I have planted a little nugget so she will love books as much as her mother!! T did have a minor surgery to fix a hernia. He was a champ and never cried at all. The nurses were impressed and thought he was super cute, which he is! Brett is doing well. He has a routine so that makes things easier. He has almost been gone a month and I must say time really can fly. So, that is about all of our happenings of late. I have been trying to not go insane with my crazy kids. I must say I am so glad that we live on base and have an amazing ward. I have the best of both worlds when I have members of the Church who are also military. They know what I am going through all the time and are so willing to step in and help me whenever I need it. I definitely have a family here. And now for the part that (at least my mom) you have been waiting for: the pictures!!

Hurricane Irene

As some of you know, Hurricane Irene hit us Sunday morning about 1 am. I am not sure if it was still a hurricane when it hit us or a Nor'easter. Anyways, our power went out at 2:30 Sunday morning. We finally got our power back today at 2:30 pm. We were without power for 36 hours. I have to say, when Brett and I found out we had power, we were jumping for joy! M went around the house and turned on all the lights and keeps saying she is so glad we have power. From all the worry and stress of preparing for a hurricane to hit, I realized how much I was and wasn't prepared. I also realized how much of our food requires heat to be able to eat it. I do have 72 hours worth of food for each of us, but we didn't have enough water stored or a regular 72 hour kit. Luckily, we had running water the whole time and we had enough non perishable food we didn't have to get into our food storage stuff. We are also lucky it ended up being a much smaller storm than originally thought. I know after this experience, I am going to start building a 72 hour kit and become more prepared. I never thought I had a need before because I haven't lived where there are earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Well, this last week proved me wrong. We felt an earthquake from Virginia, and also survived a hurricane. You never know what can befall you, no matter where you live.

Summer Time!

We have had a fun and eventful summer. M's last day of preschool was on June 17th and on June 20th, we left for Utah. We had fun driving the 2200 miles to visit Pa and Grandma. M and T were actually pretty well behaved. There were times we were all ready to get out of the car. We were able to stop and see some friends we hadn't seen in many years. It was so fun to see the Chris and Jenny in Missouri and stay the night with our friends the Harper's in Colorado. I was so excited when we finally crossed the Utah border and knew we didn't have much farther to go. While in Utah, we had 2 family reunions to help with. It was so much fun to see my extended family. Some of them I haven't seen in years. Living so far away limits the number of people you get to see! Brett had to come back to NJ early and so I made the trip to OKC with the kids. We did pretty good and I didn't completely lose my marbles. The kids and I were excited to get to OKC and spend time with Nana and Grandpa Joe. M and T stayed in OKC for about 2 weeks. We did get to see our cute new niece/cousin Calley. She is so cute. I made the trip back to NJ by myself and had just over a week to do whatever I wanted to do. It was kind of nice. Brett and I switched some rooms around so the kids each have their own bedroom. We also went to Atlantic City and walked the boardwalk. We can now check that off our list. Since the kids have been back, we have spent our days at the pool, the zoo, children's museum, and the aquarium. It has been fun and adventure packed. I am so ready for school to start in 2 weeks. M is so excited to start Kindergarten. She has been working in work book for the last couple of weeks. I hope she always loves school as much as she does right now. Brett is going to be leaving us soon for a while. Thus is the nature of being in the military. He is going to pretty safe place, so we are excited about that. So, that has been our summer. Crazy, busy, and at times, pretty low key. Here are some pictures. My mom would probably disown me if I didn't put some pictures with each post.

Hamburger

In just a couple of days, we are headed to Utah to see my family. I am so excited to see everyone, but I am also excited because my mom and dad are nice enough to give me as much hamburger as I want! I am known as the "hamburger snob" by my NJ friends. I just wish I had a bigger freezer....

Updates!!

I had every intention of posting these pictures last week, but I got online to blogger and it was down. So that is one of my excuses for being even later with these pictures. So much has happened lately. My little bug is not so little anymore. She turned 5 a couple of months ago. Where did all the time go??? She drives me crazy, but she can be a complete sweetheart. M loves going to school and gymnastics. She practices her handstands all the time and she is definitely getting better. She likes to get her own way, but is working on sharing and trying things another way. She loves T and loves to play with him. They are each others buddies. One day we were getting ready to go somewhere and M said she just wanted to stay home and play with T. I thought that was so cute. I love that they love each other so much. Now if they could only remember that when they are fighting with each other. M loves to ride her bike and is going to start trying to ride it without training wheels!! (If only we can get daddy to take them off!) She is still the friendliest little kid around. She has friends everywhere we go. At church, I swear she gives a hug to everyone there before we leave. M went with her Daddy to a dance last month on base. She was so excited and had such a fun time. Brett could dress either in his blues or in a suit and M chose a suit. (I really wanted the blues!) M loves to have a campout with dad on the living room floor. It doesn't happen as much as before, because dad has to work, but she is so excited every week. M is such a happy kid and is growing up way to fast! Love you bunches and bunches M!!Next week my little man turns 2. He has a personality that is hilarious to watch. He loves to watch me cook and spends more time playing with M's kitchen than M does. He loves M and loves to go and get her off the school bus. He loves playing with his jumbo leggos and loves building things. He has decided that he is a big boy and will walk down the stairs because that is what everyone else does. T gives the best hugs and will grab my face and give me a ton of kisses. T likes to have everything how it is suppose to be. He will get up and get something for me because I am suppose to have it. He knows where everything goes and loves to help unload the dishwasher. T loves to go on walks and will sit in the stroller until we leave. I have decided that you know when T is getting ready to do something he shouldn't do because he will look at you with the biggest grin on his face. He is starting to talk better, but most of what he says still sounds like it is from a foreign country. T is my cuddle bug and I have decided there is nothing like those little chubby arms around my neck. I can't believe you are going to be 2. It seems like only yesterday you were my cranky, gassy baby and now you love to laugh and are so happy. Love you tons T!Here is a picture of M and T in their Easter outfits. I am very proud to say that I made their clothes and it cost me about $10 for both of their outfits!! I have a lot of fun making clothes for them. I guess I have a little of my grandma in me!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's day from my little leprechaun's.


(I made the pants T is wearing. They are made out of some funky looking old man fabric, but look so cute on him!!)

Sister and Brother

So lately I have taken some pictures that I am sure T will truly hate when he is a teen, but they are so cute, I had to take them. T loves M so much that he puts on her backpack, coat, gloves, etc so he can go to school like her. He has done this a couple of times and it cracks me up. I am so glad they love each other!! Of course, if T gets his picture taken, M has to have her picture taken too. My kids love the camera and love to say cheese! Here are a couple of pictures of the snow we got last month. And of M and Brett both building their first snowman.

A Happy New Year

I can't believe it is already Jan 4, 2011. Time sure did fly. We all went to Utah for Christmas and had so much fun. M and T had tons of fun playing with their cousins. Three of the 4 grandchildren are within 4 months in age. It was interesting to have 3 little ones running around getting into everything. Thankfully, the house was still standing when everyone left. For Brett and I, there were many late nights full of name calling and "Pounce" yelling. We played games the whole time we were home with my brothers and their wives. Our game of choice was Pounce! Unfortunately, we can get pretty competitive. It was so much fun to be home and spend time with my family. Time went by way to fast. After I got home, I realized that I had hardly taken any pictures at all. I guess we were all having too much fun to remember the cameras!! As much fun as Christmas was, I think we were all ready to head back to Jersey and to our own beds. M started school again on Monday and was so excited to see her friends again. I have been busy with my new church calling. Right before I left on vacation, I was called to be the 1st counselor in the Primary presidency. With a new year starting, we have been having a lot of things to do. My week started with a list that has just kept getting longer.

With the new year, I have been thinking about what I want to accomplish this year. I have decided that instead of having a ton of goals, I wanted to find a word that would describe how I would like this year to be. My word is "Healthy". I want to be "Healthy" physically, mentally, and religiously. So far, I am doing fairly well except with the physical part. I just can't seem to get to the gym, but I am going to keep trying until I can make it an important part of my life.

Oh, so I did just think of a couple of pictures to post. Here you all go:
We had a few sick people over Christmas and some uncooperative kids, but what a good lookin' bunch!!