2009 Christmas Card

I have been bitten by the digital scrapbooking bug. I love it but it's time consuming. Much slower than slapping stuff down on the page with some stickers. Here is what I came up with this year for our Christmas card. I absolutely love "Just So Scrappy" designs so here is what I did:



You gotta love the fact too that Costco allows you to print your own designs on their blank cards. Love it!!! Might just have to do this next year as well! So cheap but yet so cute!

Hopefully in the new year I will find some more time to scrap my favorite subjects!!

Thanksgiving

For the second year in a row, I had the entire week of Thanksgiving off. what a relief. we took the motorhome out to Palm Springs and enjoyed the week out there with the kids' godparents. The weather couldn't have been nicer and we had a great time. I think I took a nap almost everyday with the kids.

Janet and I decided to do a super easy turkey dinner....we all got reservations to the clubhouse dinner that they were having. Made clean up a real breeze. bummer was, no leftovers.

Janet was great with the kids and did crafts with them and also brought them pooping turkeys. The kids thought that was great fun. I was waiting for them to tell someone that they were eating poop!!

Janet also made a run to the super walmart one day and came back with a golf set for the kids. the back part of our spot was right on the golf course and a putting green. The kids had a blast with their golf set. although, they played more like it was hockey. can anyone say "happy gilmore!"

here are some pictures from the week:

It was a great week and we all packed up and headed home on Friday. The kids and I were all sick on the day we left. We spent the rest of the holiday weekend resting and getting ready for the next big holiday...Christmas! I just can't believe how fast the year is going.

Big Boy...This Ones for YOU!!

I saw this layout and had to post it. For whatever reason, Kyle has been walking around telling us, "gobble, gobble." Guess it's a little different than, "quack, quack." They are learning about Thanksgiving at school which makes sense. I can't believe we are already into November. My how the time flies.

As we were coming home from school yesterday, I was explaining to the kids about how at Thanksgiving, we look at all the things we are thankful for. I started it off and made some statement and then Brooke told me she was thankful for her cat and dog. Too cute. Kyle hadn't quite caught on but he gave me a silly answer this morning about being thankful for a toy. We'll have to work on that one!

We are going to go to the Harvest Carnival today at their school. Don't quite know what to expect so we'll have to wait and see. Hopefully they will have plenty of stuff for 3 year olds to do.

Trick or Treating

Halloween was such a blast this year. First of all, my parents came down and went trick or treating with the kids and I. We also had the neighbors over for some traditional stew dinner before we went out. We left the house about 6pm and didn't return until 7:30pm. My original intent was to just go down the block a little bit but the kids really got into it....especially Kyle. He had told me for about a week before that he didn't want to go trick or treating even after I told him that he would get candy. He was still afraid of the Halloween decorations at night. He was fine with them during the day but night time was a whole new ball of wax. He did great! He was even saying thank you to the people who were giving him candy without any coaching from mom! I was so proud of him!! After awhile though, their bags got pretty heavy with the candy and grammy and I ended up carrying them and handed them off to the kids when they went up to a house. It was a great family night. We came back to the house to have some cupcakes that our neighbor Laurie had made, hung out with family and friends and handed out candy until almost 10pm! I will post some pictures of the night later.

Let the Fright Fest Begin!!!!

OK, so Clark Griswald has apparently given me some pointers on decorating for the holidays. As my neighbor friend Michele told me last night, "it looks like Halloween definitely threw up on your lawn!" Too funny! I have been having a blast with it. It's always fun to make the holidays special for the kids. I just really want to teach them about being together for the holidays and making it special with family. When they grow up, I want them to have the same special memories that I do as a child. Here are some pictures of the outside of the house:


Ok, so my update now shows the pictures. I have 3 large inflatable scary things. Steve put the skull on the roof and it's mouth opens and clothes as well as the eyes spin around. The horse carriage is 15' long and 7' high. Love it AND it makes noise. The archway that the kids walk through is from last year and it also makes noise which is scary. I bought a new fogger this year and it is hooked up to a timer and the fogger has an attachment tube that has 3 hoses coming off of it. It hooks up to the 3 tombstones so the fog comes out of the mouth's of the guys on the tombstones and onto the grass which is my graveyard. I have 2 motion activated ghosts that dance around, a flying reaper which has yet to be hung, a skeleton hanging in the tree, and let's not forget the talking witch on the front porch. she dances back and forth while stirring her pot. She has that scary witch voice. Loved her from the moment I saw her. I will try to take some video and add it on here. It will be hard to capture it at night as we have strobe lights strategically placed. Should be a SPOOKTACULAR good time on Halloween. Kyle was surprised tonight on our way home that trick or treating meant that he would get candy at people's houses. Gotta love kids.

Road Trip to Lemon Cove

We headed up to Lemon Cove for the weekend to spend it with Steve's Aunt & Uncle and his cousin Susan and her family. Lemon Cove is about 20 minutes east of Visalia. Steve's uncle lives on some land....Twelve Oaks, and the kids were going to have the weekend to explore.

I decided to play hookie on Friday at work so we could head out the door. We waited out the traffic and piled 300 pounds of crap in the car. Thank God for big suburbans! You gotta love traveling with kids. I'm not any better as I packed the same 5 cup coffee pot we took on the cruise. The great thing about Uncle Bob and Aunt Jo's is they have little "casitas" on their property. We got the 2 bedroom on. We arrived about 2:30pm and the fun started. Uncle Bob had the electric cars out and ready to go. The kids jumped in the John Deere tractor and were off. They have a huge lawn that the kids could run around on and not hurt anything. Love it! It's so much better than telling the kids to be careful of the cars parked in the street at our house.

A little while later, Uncle Bob asks if the kids want to get on the "breezie." I have NO clue what this is. Well, it's a quad. Let me tell you, Kyle wanted nothing to do with it and of course after 2 minutes of riding it, Brooke wants to "do it by herself." The thing I love about Uncle Bob is that he is just a big kid himself and truly loves running around with the kids and playing. This is a 79 year old man who doesn't let green grass grown under his feet.
Susan and the kids arrive after she picks Bobby and Kelly up from school. They too also go to a private Christian school. It's a super hot day so we decide to head to the pool. In true fashion, we have every pool town in the pool and the kids are loving the swim boards that squirt water. Of course I am loving the fact that Susan is making margaritas and serving them up at the pool.

To the back of the pool is a pasture that has a horse named Blaze and 2 donkeys named Coco and Gus. Uncle Bob asks if Brooke wants to feed them carrots. Well of course she does. She goes over there in her bathing suit and isn't afraid to walk right up and give them some carrots. She sits on both donkeys and the horse all the while she is wearing a bathing suit.Steve brings over Kelly and Kyle in their bathing suits as well and here is Kyle standing on the fence with his water wings still on. Too funny!We decide to get dressed and go find Auntie Jo who is in the house. It was too hot for her to come out. We enjoy a great meal with family all sitting around the table talking and sharing stories. When it's time for bed, I think it was Bobby who asked his mom something and she said he would have to ask us. Well, he wanted to have a sleepover. Well, the entire theme for the weekend from everyone was, "Oh they're kids...let 'em do it!" So we said what the hell and all 4 kids piled into one room. Kelly is 6 yrs old and I believe Bobby is 7 yrs old. Of course, Kelly sacked out the first and Kyle was the last one to bed at 11:30pm at night. Oh well, it was their first sleepover and they were with their cousins having fun and watching movies.

The next day, almost all of us piled into Uncle Bob's truck to go out and see the cattle he has. I think he told us he has about 50. I am just tickled pink as we are having this good ole country family fun weekend. When we get out to the cattle, Steve and Bob are trying to get the bull....yes the BULL, to stop long enough so they can get a stick out of it's foot. The kids are in the back of the truck standing on the hay. It was a super hot day and there was absolutely NO breeze whatsoever! Plus I had told Brooke not to close the truck door and she looked right at me and did it anyway. Good thing it closed softly as her finger was in the door. It still got her pretty good and at this point she is loosing it since she was up so late last night. We headed back to the house to cool down. Susan was going to show us her and Rays house while the kids hung back. They live in a gorgeous house.Later on after the kids took a much needed nap, we all went in the pool again. I so wish we had a pool at our house but we don't. The kids love the water and are just animals in there. Good thing Ray was going to be cooking up some of his food since we all worked up an appetite. He was cooking ribs! Yummy! Before dinner, we headed out to the lawn since Ray brought out the kids' motorcycles. I think Steve had more fun on it. Brooke of course wanted to ride it by herself. It scares me that she is not afraid of hardly anything. After a superb dinner, we all called an early night as we were all exhausted for a busy day. But what a great day!

The next morning, we got up, had some breakfast and started to get our stuff together. We did fly some kites on the back lawn again and took a few more spins on the breezie and the John Deere. I even went out the horse pasture and up a hill with Brooke and was teaching her to lean forward and to lean with the bike. We packed up the car and headed home. It was a really fun weekend and we have already made plans to head back for Easter. What a great Easter egg hunt that is going to be on that back lawn!! I told Susan we'd have to get together before that since the kids had so much fun playing together!

Fall is Here

Fall is officially here so I thought I would have the blog match it. Too bad the weather is not cooperating. It is still HOT here in SoCal even though we are a few days past Labor Day. We are still hitting the 100 mark. The kids have started back to the fall session of pre-school and are already excited for the pumpkin patch field trip. The kids just LOVE school and I have a hard time getting Kyle out of there when I come to pick them up. He just doesn't want to leave. Guess it's a good problem to have. Halloween is already out in the stores and we already have our Halloween costumes. Brooke is going to be....wait for it....BIG SHOCKER.....a monkey and Kyle is going to be a spider. Which he pronounces, "sphighter." They came in the mail and I let them try them on and now they want to wear them all the time. Too funny. Hope everyone had a great 3 day weekend and hopefully somewhere they are enjoying the fall season!

Brooke & Kyle's 1st Fieldtrip

Brooke and Kyle went on their first field trip with school. Toward the end of the summer session, they all went to the Santa Ana Zoo. The kids wore their new green Ontario Christian t-shirts and loaded onto a yellow school bus and went to the zoo. I looked it up online to show them before they went and Brooke was super excited that this zoo was home to 50 monkeys.

In true scrapbook form, I went to the store the day before the field trip to get some fun cameras for the teachers to take with them in order to take pictures. If I couldn't be there, then I wanted to have some pictures of the kids and their classmates having a great time. I haven't gotten them developed yet but I did get a CD the other day from a mom who did take some pictures. Apparently my son was the total ham and got in front of the camera. I have taught him well!! I will post some of those pixs when I get the cameras developed.

The kids had a really great time and fell asleep on the bus ride home. I didn't worry too much about them since they were in good hands with the school. My little babies are growing up, going to school and going on field trips!!

First Day of Pre-School

On August 10th, Brooke and Kyle started pre-school at Ontario Christian. We have been talking about this day since April when we all went down to Ontario Christian for a visit and decided they would go there. It was an early morning for everyone. I got up at 5:30am to get a head start before I had to get the kids up. I woke them up at 6am to get them moving, dressed and fed. You know Kyle is tired when he doesn't just POP out of bed and still just lays there. I bought little closet organizers where I could place the entire week's worth of clothes. We had packed it up the night before with the clothes and I had shown them where they were to get their clothes so they could help in the morning by getting dressed. Worked out really great and I didn't have any "issues" with what clothes they were going to wear. Typically I have this type of discussion with Brooke since she is pretty head strong on what she wants to wear. Gee, I wonder where she gets that!

We were doing pretty good and got downstairs for some breakfast. While the kids are eating, I make their lunch and pack it in their lunch sacks. Auntie Janet got Brooke a super cute monkey lunch sack that is right up her alley. The kids are pretty simple with what they want. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I pack their lunches instead of them buying lunch at school. All they offer is crappy food like pizza, mac n cheese, chicken nuggets, etc. You know, all the stuff that kids like to eat. I still have my kids fooled into eating stuff that's good for them. We cheat but I don't need them eating it ALL the time. Plus, this way they can swap food with their friends like back in the good ole days.

By a little after 7am, we are in the car and on our way. We have the little talk in the car to remind them that they need to listen to their teacher and follow the rules. At this point, I don't' think they have a clue but I am not too worried. We get to school and pile out of the car. We have the backpacks all packed up, the lunches made and the kid looked adorable with them on. I have them stand in front of the pre-school sign and take their picture. My babies are growing up. Today is a learning experience for all of us as I need to figure out where they go. I know they are in room 400 with Miss Kara. We get into the classroom and I get them signed in. Kyle at this point throws his stuff down and heads for the Thomas the Train table. There are some other kids playing and both kids are in NO way bothered by the fact that I am going to leave them there all day. Kyle gives me the, "BYE mom" and a wave and he's off. I give them both a kiss and I'm out the door. That was super easy. Now I just pray that they use the bathroom all day and I don't get a call from school to come and get them.

When I get back to school to pick them up, they are on the playground playing and having a great time. Kyle tells me that he "loves school". This makes me really happy. We pile in the car and head home. A total success! The kids are in a safe learning environment and I don't have to worry about them being parked in front of the TV all day.

Havasu #2

We had so much out in Havasu that we decided that we would go back out for another week before we headed up to Washington. When I asked Brooke and Kyle if they wanted to go back out to the lake, Brooke answered, "can we go right now?" Now that's when you know as a parent that they really loved it. This time around though we didn't drop the cash to rent another boat for a week. One of Steve's friends was nice enough to let us borrow his boat. Also, before we went, I loaded up the kids and drug them out to the EZ Up factory out in Colton to buy an EZ Up. We were looking at the temps out there and it as going to be 115! EEKS! Can I just tell you that it was the best 100 dollars we ever spent!!

The kids were animals in the water this time. They were so used to it from the other week we were there. Kyle thought he was Michael Phelps without his life jacket on. He and Brooke both were swimming around in the channel with their faces in the water and everything. It was so great to see.



We decided one day to get out of the channel when we looked at the weather and saw that it was going to be 119. We went up river to Park Moabi. It is so nice up there now plus it was much cooler. The funny thing that happened was that once we left from up there it took us about an hour to get back to the channel. We hit the channel and ran out of gas. Couldn't have been a nicer place to run out. The kids and I hung out there and swam and steve headed out for some fuel. We ended up having a boat pull in next to us and they were firemen/firewomen and we hung out with them until 7pm. The kids were having a blast and the parents of the year didn't have dinner until 8:30. Gotta love the river! Brooke is ready for us to buy a boat and Steve continues to prod her telling her that we need to buy a boat. We'll see what happens there. I am vying to go back out but to stay in Park Moabi. Maybe sometime in August we will go.

Havasu

Schoooooool's out for Summer!! Yeah! I finished school on a Thursday and we left for Lake Havasu City Arizona on Sunday. We stayed out there for a little over a week and rented a pontoon boat. The kids absolutely loved it. They were total river rats by the time we left.

Auntie Janet and Uncle John joined us at the Islander on the following Tuesday and they towed out their son's boat. Brookie just loves her "auntie!" We had a great time on the water and it was really great to see the light finally click in Kyle's head on swimming in his life jacket.

Once he finally got it, he was a swimming fool and was swimming around in this cove going over to everyone floating on a raft.

Once Jason and Jess got there, they brought some jet skis. The kids got on them with both Steve and I and they werent afraid at all and they even understood how to drive them.

It was fun to be back out in Havasu. It's not the same anymore but we did see a few familiar faces. Of course Steve was back to his ole haunting grounds and was happier than a pig in poop!!

Happy 3rd Birthday!!

OK, I am sooooo behind in posting here. Things were really hectic toward the end of my school year at work. No more excuses.

It was a great 3rd birthday party. It was only supposed to be our family and the godparents and my parents were in town. That's it. Well, in like a flash of a second, it turned out to be 27 people. WHEW! Oh well. Plenty of food and drink and it went well. It was so nice to have my parents in town for the event. We started the day by giving the kids a motorized car. I was more excited to give it to them than anyone.There is still a bit of a learning curve but they will get it. The dang car even has a REAL working radio. Thanks to PopPop and Steve for putting it together. We only made a ton of noise trying to get it upstairs to hide it before their birthday.

I have started the tradition with the kids that on the actual day of their birthday, I get them a little cake of their own and we sing just to them. For the past 3 years, they have had a mutual party but their day was celebrated separately.Thanks to Grammy and PopPop for running around looking for the perfect cake!!! Saved this stressed out mom 1 less task!

The day of the party with everyone there was fun. We all had a great time and I was actually able to relax and enjoy the event!

A day in the life of a working mom

OK, I was thinking back on my day I had this past Tuesday. Whew! Just another day in the life of a working mom. It wasn't a lot but here it is:
Wake up at 6am and go to work all day.
Leave work and get home to 2 ramped up kids excited to see me! Which of course is the best part of the day.
Once home, the kids are quick to tell me that there is a DEAD rat in the kiddie pool! Lovely!
Get a bucket from the garage and have the dead rat float into the bucket. There is NO way I am touching this thing.
Dump the dead rat into a trash bag and quickly throw him in the trash. The whole time I am listening to Brooke as if she can see it.
Dispose of the dead rat, get the kids back into the house and get their shoes on.
We are now off to the store because the pastor of the church is coming over and I want to have some cookies and goodies to munch on while he is there.
Race through the store in the cart that has the car attached in the front. Stop a few times to tell the kids to stop yelling and fighting with each other or I will remove them from the car.
Get checked out of the store, kids loaded back into the car, get home, unload the kids, get the groceries unloaded and put the kids up to the table for dinner.
Feed the kids dinner, get them cleaned up and out back playing so I can straighten up the house and backyard a bit.
While I am doing all of this, I turn the oven on and throw some chocolate cookies on a sheet to bake in the oven and put the rest of the goodies on a serving platter.
At 7pm on the dot, the pastor and Carlos show up to the house. Welcome them into the house, get them some water, take the cookies out of the oven, get the kids in the house and sit down. Steve gets home from work and is there to help. Whew!
We sit and talk with the pastor and he leaves around 9:45pm.
10pm - Fall into bed and pass out! Gotta get some beauty sleep so I can get up and start the process over tomorrow!

This One's for you La La!!

Our little LaLa likes monkeys and elephants. For this year's birthday party, we are going to have a monkey party for her and a Thomas party for Kyle. I needed to change the background and get Easter off of here since we are in May now. I found the monkeys and just coulnd't resist.

Well, the flu/cold bug is still at our house. Kyle has now come down with it. Poor little guy has this aweful cough. As a mom it's so hardd for me to see them suffer or be in pain. Hopefully he will bounce back soon.

That's it for now.

Pre-School Bound

Well, it's official. Brooke and Kyle will be starting pre-school at Ontario Christian starting in August. We took them down on the Friday before Easter to check out the school and to look around. We got the paperwork and I just turned it all in. They will actually be placed in the 4 year old room and they will be placed together. I am so excited for them. They were excited to look around. We showed them that they would have their own cubbie where they would place their things and they would be able to meet new friends and learn. The school even has mini toilets and lowered sinks. It was too cute.

The only thing now is to turn in the pastor form and the doctor papers. Yes, you read that correctly, the PASTOR form. The Bierbaum Family is now a member of Grace Fellowship of Alta Loma. We went to church this past Sunday. It was actually pretty nice. I found the gentleman who married us and this is the church where he works. The kids were able to go with his wife and play back in the rooms while we sat there. I am thinking I am going to have to get the "cliff note" version of the Bible. Pator Roy kept referencing it and I have to admitt, I have never read it. Perhaps we will have to learn right along with the kids. The church is a very small church and there were only like 15 people in there. They all seem like nice people and the kids and I will be going again on Sunday. Steve is working for the next 4 Sundays in a row. When Janet called and tried to get ahold of me, her son jason jokingly told her we were at church. She about passed out when I told her he was correct.

Anyhow, that's where we are at right now. I am looking forward to summer getting here and having the time off. I am ready for some cocktails and bathing suit time.

Potty Training Boot Camp!

Friday, April 17th
Kids are informed that as of tomorrow, they will NO longer be wearing diapers during the day. They seem OK with what I am telling them. However, I am guessing they had NO clue as to what I was telling them.

Saturday, April 18th
The kids get up around 7am and I again tell them that they are NO longer wearing diapers during the day. Brooke tells me that she doesn't want to wear underwear. TOO BAD! Potty Training Boot Camp has officially started!

I did some research a bit earlier in the week and found a wonderful little ebook online. It's from the potty training expert. It basically prepares the parent/adult who is going to do the potty training and it has the child going to the bathroom every 20 minutes. You set a timer and when it goes off, the child knows. I am here to tell you, this method TOTALLY worked for us. I came down and set the timer and every 20 minutes, the kids were on the potty. At first I gave them a teddy graham if they sat on the potty and a fruit chew if they actually went pee in the potty in addition to a sticker on their chart. At one point, I gave them a small container of cranraspberry juice. BAD IDEA! From about 10am - 11am, I was chasing pee pee EVERYWHERE! It was nightmare. Once we got rid of that, we had lunch and I put both of them down for a nap. At this point, Brooke was telling me that she had to go to the bathroom. Low and behold, they both made it through naptime without peeing in their underwear. Things definitely were awesome after naptime. I actually even took them to Target to get another toilet seat adapter for Kyle for upstairs. I set my phone for 20 minutes and by this point, they totally know when the timer goes off that it's potty time and they even yell it.

I am so surprised that the kids are so good at this and that it is so much easier than I had anticipated. I think I made this potty training thing out to be a monsterous task and was just not quite up for it until now. My main motivator was the kids going to school this next fall. In order for the kids to go to pre-school, they have to be potty trained.

Sunday, April 19th
Steve comes home from work and is amazed that the kids are doing so well with using the potty. We go the ENTIRE day without an accident and Brooke is telling us quite frequently that she has to go potty. Again, we venture out to Costco with the entire family and again we set the cellphone. We do our major shopping trip and don't have any accidents. We are religious with the 20 minute deal and the kids are doing really well. What a breeze!

We are now on day 7 of potty training and it is still going really well. I still put a diaper on the kids during the nighttime but they are already to the point that they want NOTHING to do with a diaper. They actually cried the other night because we put diapers on them. I am so glad this was not the monsterous task I was making it out to be. Brooke is actually doing so well that the other night I was on the phone with my girlfriend getting a salad recipe when I heard her come back up the stairs telling me that she went pee pee. Here she is in her Thomas shirt with nothing else on coming up the stairs. She knew she had to go so she went downstairs, took off her pants and undies and sat up on the toilet all by herself. These 2 never cease to amaze me. We couldn't be more proud of them. They are growing up so fast right before our eyes!

Happy Easter

A few days before Easter, Brookie got sick from God only knows what. I came home from the cruise on Thursday afternoon and that night I actually had a mommy 1st, my daughter threw up on me....2 times! Oh the smell! Good times! She made it threw the next day OK but had some MAJOR runny diapers. On Saturday morning while she was sitting at the breakfast table, WHAMO! Projectile. Nice breakfast for the in laws to see. That afternoon, after calling the nurse line, I took her to urgent care on their recommendation. She had been acting a bit better so on a whim, I decided to swing by the mall on the way home and have them both sit on the Easter Bunny's lap. From last year to this year, what a difference. They look so big with the Easter bunny. Of course Kyle is smiling and Brooke sort of has this half smile. I'll give it to her that she was not feeling 100%. It's still a cute picture though.

Easter was Sunday and the kids had a blast and I had a blast watching them. When they woke up, they had Easter baskets from Grammy waiting from them. I told them the Easter bunny had delivered them from Grammy and Pop Pop. After they opened those up, Steve had come home by then and we let them come downstairs and find their baskets from us in addition to finding the real eggs. We had decorated them on Friday and told them that we were going to leave them out so the Easter bunny could hide them in the house. We had a ton of eggs. We decorated 16 of them and then I stuffed 30-40 plastic eggs for them to have an Easter egg hunt outside with. Steve gave them their buckets and told them to run around and pick them all up. Kyle had been a champ that morning finding all of the real eggs. This time it was Brooke to take the lead and she won by collecting a lot. Uncle Dave made the most appropriate comment stating she was preparing herself for shopping since she found all of the ones with money in them. I had stuffed a lot of them with candy so we let them have a few pieces but mean mommy took the rest to work. Watching the kids on sugar is funny. Talk about hyper.

Steve's parents were in town so everyone came over and we had a BBQ. It was a fun day topped off with a little Wii at the end. The day flew by and it was a nice ending to my spring break. I will have to post more pictures of Easter and the Easter egg hunt.

Spring Break

Whoo Hoo! Spring Break is finally here and I am outta here. No more teachers, no more books, no more.....ANYTHING!!! Steve got my girlfriend and I a carnival cruise for Christmas and it's finally time to go! It's a four night trip down to Ensenada Mexico and back. Let's hope the banditos will leave us along long enough to let us get off the boat and get our drunk on at Whosongs and Papas and Beer. If not, we are bringing plenty of stashed liquor in a luggage and I'm sure we can find a way to terrorize the discotec!

Steve's parents are also coming in tomorrow for a visit. We will celebrate Easter when I get back. I of course was running around like a chicken yesterday getting all the easter basket stuff together so when I get back and am going through withdrawl, I will have everything here. We are going to decorate Easter eggs and stuff the plastic ones with tons of goodies. They are going to love the ones with pennies in them. They just love money!!

Also in the works is to visit a pre-school. I am ready for the kids to move on from a nanny. It's a huge long story but I just LOVE my iPhone. There is a program that allows me to monitor the house and I have 3 cameras set up and I can check in whenever I want to from my phone. I love it and it's been a huge eye opener. Funny! Steve turns them off when he is home!

The kids are coming along so wonderful. Kyle already knows his entire alphabet in the uppercase. I made a poster board that hangs on the pantry door which states the letter of the week, number of the week, shape of the week and color of the week. Both kids already know all of their shapes, even a pentagon. They also already know all of their colors. I went to this teacher store and got them all these cool learning games and flash cards and have even made quite a few games myself for them. They are eating it up and want to play "games" all the time. I made the alphabet on clothespins. I took my hot glue gun to Parent Teacher Conference night at work and I sat there and hot glued. Let me tell you what a kid magnet I was with the little ones. I work at a high school so the big kids could've cared less what I was doing. Anyhow, the kids take the clothespin alphabet letter and pin it to the correct lamenated card. They love it and I am excited that they are so excited to learn.

Well, I am going to put the finished touches on my packing and CRANK the tunes cuz I am OUTTA HERE! VIVA MEXICO!

Happy St. Pats Day

Happy St. Patricks Day. I just couldn't resist getting t-shirts for the kids. Steve was nice enough to take a picture and send it to me at work. I wore little head bangers that day and my green shirt. I made cupcakes and of course Kyle was in heaven since they were GREEN. Green is his favorite color and everything he asks for has to be green. St. Pats Day was right up his street!
I did however flake on the dinner part though. We had burritos. It's a new Irish meal. With the last name of Bierbaum no one thinks I'm Irish. YUP!! Although I don't like Irish Whiskey. Oh well! The thing that I think both Steve and I thought about on this day was that exactly 2 years ago, we were boarding a plane and flying to Russia to pick up our babies. Now, they are wearing cute little t-shirts! Gives me warm fuzzies. I can't believe it's been 2 years already. My how time flies!

I have one of those kids....

Like the post title says, I have one of THOSE kids who likes to shove things up their noses!!! Yup! The kids were finishing up their dinner the other night and were eating the rest of their raisens. Brooke told me that it was stuck. I look over and she has her finger up her nose. At this point, I am a bit confused. I just simply told her to take her finger out. I then told her to not put her finger up her nose at the table. I walk over to her and she is still telling me that it's stuck and once I am near here she is nasely. I look at her again and she tells me that the RAISEN is stuck. OMG! I tilt her head back and there it is....a raisen stuck in her nose. I plug the opposite side of her nose and tell her to blow really hard. She actually does it and the raisen goes flying. The funny thing is, she looks at me and says, "thank you mommy." I then lecture here about shoving things up her nose. Good God!!! Motherhood is definitely NOT boring. There is never a dull moment with these two!!

Merry Christmas

Oh what a wonderful Christmas. It was a picture perfect morning AND snow decided to fall. It couldn't have been better. Well, I could've won the lotto!! Anyhow, it was a very great morning and we were so glad to be spending it at my parents house. My sister and her husband came over on Christmas Eve and stayed all the way through the weekend. We had so much family fun it was great! After the entire morning was done and we had some breakfast, we decided to pack up and head over to the sledding hill. The snow that was coming down was huge and WET! Everyone went but Steve and Grammy. We had a snowball fight, sledding down the hill and lots of laughs! Here are some pictures:



I took so many pictures and video that I put a mini little 20 minute video together of just our stay up in Bellevue. I think the video and the songs I put on there are like my Hallmark card. I had just such a great time with my family. It was definitely a Christmas to remember. The kids were able to make a snowman with Pop Pop in the backyard, sit in front of a roaring fireplace and watch the train "choo choo" around the Christmas tree.

Leavenworth

We flew into Seattle on December 18th. Thank God since it had snowed the night before and that town doens't know what to do when it snows. Our flight was 3 hours late. Good times in the airport with TWO 2 yr olds. We got to Grammy and Pop Pops house at 11:30pm.

The next morning which was Friday, we loaded up mom's car and headed over Stevens Pass to a small Bavarian town called Leavenworth. I have always wanted to see the lighting ceremony. I was super excited since it had started to snow a week before we got there. It was going to be much colder than we were all used to. By the time we pulled in to town around 2:30pm, it was a whopping 15 degrees. We hit the starbucks and checked into our hotel. It was in a super location as it was right across the street from the lighting ceremony AND the sledding hill. We dumped off our stuff in the room, dressed the kids in their warm clothes and we headed out with our sleds.The lighting ceremony wasn't until Saturday night so we had the rest of Friday to goof around.

We got over to the sledding hill and of course Brooke loved it. Kyle was OK with it and went a few times. He was more interested in playing on a snow hill. It didn't take Brooke long before she was asking to do it all by herself. Our little daredevil.


After awhile of sledding, we decided to take the kids back over to the hotel to warm them up in front of the lobby fireplace. The kids have never had hot chocolate before so we decided to let them try it. They liked it. So they sat in front of the fire and had hot cocoa.After a little warm up, we headed next door to have some pizza. I loved it when I asked the waitress what type of wine they had and she told me they had a "chardonaid." Love it...I'll take a glass. I swear when we walked out of the pizza joint to walk next door the air was so cold it hurt my lungs to breathe. What a SoCal whimp!!

The next morning we got up, had some breakfast and headed back out to the sledding hill and to play in the snow. After awhile, we decided to go into this tent. Well it had some spiced hot red wine called Gluwein. It was pretty good. It was super cute while we were in there, Kyle found his breath. I could see him out of the corner of my eye playing with his breath so I of course grabbed the camera to start filming. It's so fun to experience those firsts with the kids. While we were in there, we heard this calling. We had no idea what it was so we looked at one of the guys that was in there working. He told us it meant Santa was coming. We quickly dressed the kids back into their warm clothes and headed back over to the gazebo where everything was happening. It was perfect. There weren't a lot of people there yet so the kids got to see Santa, Father Christmas, St. Nick, Frosty, Rudolph, etc. We got pictures with all of them.I could go on forever about the weekend and this would be the longest post yet!!
The lighting ceremony was that night. WOW! Mother Nature picked a grand time to be freezing. It was in the low single digits and it was COLD! Everyone gathered around the gazebo and the streets right there and one by one, they turned on the lights while singing silent night. It was really cool to see the entire town lit up.
Needless to say, after the ceremony, we left to go get warmed up.

Our other eventful thing was that we went on a sleighride. Talk about cold! About 10 minutes into it and my feet were freezing. We went on the dinner sleighride so our ride was about 25 minutes or so and then we came back to eat dinner at the lodge. It was fun.

It was so quiet while we were out there in the woods and of course we all had to sing jingle bells! It was very beautiful being out there with all of the snow covered trees...it was just COLD!!! We stopped by a fire when we were almost done and got some hot cider. I basically wanted to stick my feet in the fire they were so cold. The kids won't remember it but it was a fun family outing.

The next day was Monday and we were headed back to Bellevue for the rest of the trip to stay with my parents. I just couldn't believe how much snow was there. I was hoping for a white christmas.