It's been a long time!

Wow, it has been a really long time since I last posted.  We have been so busy with work, school, activities, trips, and just having fun that blogging has been on the back burner.  With our second snow day in a row, I thought I'd take a few minutes to write a little about what we've been up to.

Disney

In December we visited Disney World and had a blast.  Reese and Will were tall enough to ride some new rides, including Tower of Terror, Test Track, and Soarin'.  The weather was nice and we even were able to swim a couple of days.

Olivia looses two teeth!

She finally looses her first two teeth within two days of each other.  She was so excited.

Will joins a hockey team

Will has joined the IYHA hockey league and is on the mini-mite squad!  It is for ages 4-5 year olds and is so much fun to watch.  They have 3 games this winter and practices twice a week.  

Snow day

We just went through a pretty bad ice storm the last two days and the kids were out of school.  This morning when we went to play for an hour or so outside (on the ice), the kids decided that they wanted to put their ice skates on to ice skate in the yard and in the cul-de-sac.  They had so much fun!

Those are just a few of the things we've been up to lately!  Hopefully, I'll be back on posting again soon.  Stay posted.

We're off to preschool!

Reese and Will started preschool about a month ago and absolutely love it!  They are making new friends and learning so much already.  Here they are on their first day.  The backpacks were a hit and they feel pretty special wearing them.

Happy Easter

Wow, it has been a long time since my last post!!  

I am now finished teaching for the time being... I loved being at Olivia's school and I ended up really liking special education.  It did feel good to finally do something with my master's degree!  I'm back home and back to my old routine so hopefully I'll be back to blogging.  I am still pretty busy with my last online class to renew my teaching license, but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel!

I wanted to post a couple of pictures of the kids on Easter - if you look real close you can see Kula in the left window peeking out!

Here the kids are with their Alvin and Brittany beanie babies (from the Squeakquel movie)! 

I hope you and your family had a wonderful Easter!

My own little hiatus!

As the title indicates, I am taking a break from blogging.  I have been back to work for about a month teaching at Olivia's school and have come to the realization that time is something I don't have a lot of right now. I have decided that blogging will have to be put on the back burner so I can focus on "everything" else!  I will try to stay in touch with family and friends through email - let's cross our fingers I remember. **wink, wink**

Have a Happy New Year!

Christmas Picture

Believe it or not, we actually got a pretty good picture of all 3 kids for our Christmas card this year!  We had them wear the traditional Santa hats and crossed our fingers that when they sat next to each other we would have smiles and not grumpy faces! It only took 5 shots and this is what we have.......

Thanks to Renee at Busy Bee Paperie for the wonderful selection of Christmas cards!  I loved ours this year and will definitely be ordering again next year.

Crib Free!!!!!

After a little over 5 years, (long pause) I am proud to say our house is CRIB FREE!  Reese and Will's new "big kid" furniture arrived yesterday and I couldn't be more excited. They seem to love their beds, and knock on wood, haven't dared to get out of them!  Here are a couple of pictures from their rooms.

Reese doesn't have a theme yet for her room and Will's room has a pirate theme.  Decorating their rooms will now be easier since they have permanent furniture.  Hopefully soon I can share pictures of their completed bedrooms!

Elfie's not for everyone!

So this is Elfie our house Elf! He is one of Santa's elves who will be calling our house home for the month of December. Santa sent him to watch over the kids and report back every night on if they have been naughty or nice.  Elfie has strict orders not to talk to us but we can talk to him.  Also, we cannot touch him or else he'll loose his Christmas magic and won't be able to return to the North Pole every night to talk to Santa.

All of the kids love Elfie.  They love finding his new hiding spot every morning and Olivia especially loves talking to Elfie - telling him all the things Reese and Will have done wrong!  It's nice too because I talk to Elfie telling him bits of information to take back to Santa.  I tell him good things the kids have done but also he hears when they aren't being very good!  You better believe Olivia and Will shape up if I tell Elfie of their "naughty" behavior!!

Reese on the other hand is a different story.  She loves the idea of having Elfie around the house.  She loves finding him in the morning and talks about him occasionally throughout the day.  The problem is, she isn't fazed by the fact that he is telling Santa how she has acted for the day!  She'll be talking mean to Will or not playing nice with Olivia and I'll say in a most dramatic voice, "Oh, boy Elfie, I would hate for Santa to find out that Reese isn't sharing with her sister."  Reese will just look at me like I'm the crazy one and continue on with what she was doing!  I give up!

I guess Elfie's not for everyone!

No No No!

Walked up the stairs and saw this!

In case you can't read this it says,
"No Reese
and Will
No tuch
No No No"!

My kindergartner is learning to write her brother and sister notes!

My little Cherub Singers

Last year Olivia was in the Cherub Choir at church.  It was the cutest thing EVER seeing her belt out her church songs as loud as she could.  I couldn't wait for this year to come so Reese and Will could join Olivia up on stage to sing their little hearts out too.  

They've been practicing the same two songs for 2 months now every Wednesday night.  I have been lucky enough to sit out in the hall to listen to them practicing and everything was going great.  We sang our songs at home and to everyone we knew.  I thought, "Yes - they are ready!" 

This past Sunday was the moment of truth - Olivia, being the old pro she was, had no problem getting her robe on and ran right in to get ready.  Reese and Will seemed a little hesitant and really wanted nothing to do with their robes. The one thing that was working was their "bribe"!  

Let me back up - before we left for church we told the kids that if they were really good listeners and sang really well in church, they could pick out 2 pieces of candy from their trick-or-treat bags!!  We even brought their candy bags in the car so they could pick something out as soon as church was over. :)

Anyways, we dropped them off after trying to take a few pictures and waited for them to enter the sanctuary.  To our surprise, in they walked as quiet as could be and stood perfectly in their rows.  They all three sang great and looked so adorable!  I was so proud of them.  Of course the first thing they said when we picked them up was, "Do we get our candy now?!".

I blocked out all of the faces except Olivia, Reese, and Will.  Olivia and Reese are in the top row right in the middle and Will is in the bottom row, far right!

Not your typical Disney pictures!

I would like to start off by saying we had a FANTASTIC time at Disney World! 

I mean, who wouldn't??  

It is the most magical place in the world! Am I right?  

I am finding myself already planning our next trip in my head and we've only been home a couple of weeks!  Going through all of our pictures I found the traditional "character" pictures - which are great this time since Reese wasn't scared and is actually smiling!  But I also had many other great moment pictures.  I have decided to post some of those off-hand pictures so you can see what else we were up to - besides hanging out with Mickey and the gang.

Dessert always tastes better when it is shaped like a mouse!

We love hanging out at the Beach Club.  Playing in the sand is so much fun.

I love this picture not only for Cinderella's Castle, but wow - it really isn't that crowded! Olivia is dressed up as Mulan!

Since we took it easy on this trip, we had plenty of time for the carousel! 

The highlight of the trip was finding out that Olivia was tall enough to ride the Rockin' Roller Coaster!  She loved it and rode it twice.  (That's my girl!)

Reese and Olivia LOVED dressing up together at the parks.  

Every time we visit Disney, Olivia gets her hair wrapped!  Reese wanted to as well but I think I saw that you had to be 5! *wink*

We were so lucky for warm weather.  Not only were we able to go to the water park one day, we were able to have fun at the hotel pool as well!

Who doesn't like eating chocolate covered ice cream on a hot day!

I love this picture!  Will looks like he was caught doing something he shouldn't have been doing!  He was watching a lady make funnel cakes at the Boardwalk!

OK, so I had to put one character picture in the bunch!  Here is Olivia with Mulan.

SHARK!!!!!

The teacups were a favorite of all 3!  We went super fast every time.

Even waiting for a parade to start the kids had games to play!  Everyone's always happy at Disney.

Well, until next trip........

Halloween Fun

We had so much fun this Halloween with several opportunities to dress up in our favorite costumes. The first was the annual twins club Halloween party which is always a hit. There were many fun crafts, a cookie decorating table (which was Will's FAVORITE!), a snack table, and some awesome goody bags. We met up with our friends Michael, Logan, and Aiden who looked smashing in their costumes. For this party Will choose to be a football player and for everything else he was Buzz Light Year.

Olivia's school had a Kindergarten party where the kids were able to dress up, play games, do crafts, and watch an animal show put on by Silly Safaris. Again, another fun evening had by the kids!

And the night we were all waiting for, Halloween. Tonight, Olivia wanted her face painted like Mulan does in the movie and she looked stunning! We walked around with our friends and my niece came over to walk around with us as well. She looked adorable as a ladybug and guarded her bag like it was worth a million dollars! All of the kids did great Trick-or-Treating despite the chilly weather and came home with a TON of candy. Luckily the demand for candy is dropping more and more each day just as I am sneaking candy out of their bags to make it look like they have eaten it! (Ok, so maybe I've been eating a little here and there!!)