Sweet Surprises!

Each year, our kids celebrate the holidays with one specific tradition...trying to catch Santa Claus. Cristian started this when he was about two years old, and the tradition is still going strong. He loves inventing new ways to try to trap Santa so that he can see him in person. Well, this year, he got a special surprise...

He wanted to use the camcorder to try to sneak some video taping of Santa. We got everything all set up, prepared the special plate of cookies (and carrots for the reindeer, of course!), read "The Night Before Christmas," and tucked the kiddos into bed. Once they were asleep, Brady and I got to work. When reading another blog, I was turned onto the most amazing website! It's called "Capture the Magic," and is located here. You take a picture of a room in your house, choose from hundreds of Santas, place the chosen Santa into the picture, and viola! You have proof that Santa has visited your house! Let me just say that this was the most fantastic way to make sure that the belief in Santa is rock solid! Cristian was beginning to question Santa's existence, and now we have him hook, line, and sinker! Check out the picture!


This is Santa next to the milk and cookies on Kourtney's princess table. :)

It was wonderful to be woken up that morning to, "Mom, Mom! He was REALLY here! Look was he left us!" I can definitely say that the picture will now be part of our family tradition! While there was a small fee ($9.95) for the picture, it was worth every penny!

We hope you all had a lovely Christmas! I'll post more about how we celebrated the holidays later, with more pictures. I promise!

Family

Everyone knows that family is the most important thing in my life. I am so incredibly blessed to have such an amazing family. It was frightening to think about how little I would see my family once we made the move to Roseville, but in all honesty, I think I see them more now than I did when I lived in Victorville...especially my mom.

Because of Brady's work schedule, we are unable to make the trek down to Southern California to be with family this year for the holidays. Well, my parents took that into their own hands and came up for the weekend to visit us. It was wonderful!!! The kids had a blast baking with Nana, and watching football with Papa. Last night, they got to open their presents from Nana and Papa, and let me tell you, I don't think I've ever seen them more excited about the gifts they received. It was so neat to see them jumping up and down, yelling and screaming about the special surprises that Nana and Papa had for them.

Unfortunately, my parents had to leave first thing this morning to head back home...to all that snow! I am so sad to see them go...I miss them dearly, and it's only been an hour and a half since they left.

Christmas will be a bit lonely this year, as this is the first year that we haven't been around ANY family for holidays. But, I'm sure the kids will keep us hopping. I can already envision myself putting Star Wars Legos together for the rest of my life, once Kieran opens his presents. And, of course, there will be My Little Pony to play with, and Bakugans to transform. It will be a busy day, I'm sure! Let's hope it starts sometime after 4:00 in the morning...maybe we could even hope for daylight before anyone gets us out of bed! I doubt it, but there's always hope!

May each of you be blessed this holiday season with my love, peace, friendship, and family!

Busy Busy Busy

Things have been incredibly busy around here for the last few months, and life definitely isn't going to slow down any time soon. Brady's job continues to be miserable, although he has finally made it to Sacramento. He's still working 14-16 hour days, as well as most weekends. He's completely exhausted by the time he gets home, sleeps for a few hours, and then gets up at 4:00 in the morning to head back in. It's such a bummer. We really thought this was going to be such a great opportunity for him to do something that he would really enjoy, but so far, that hasn't been the case.

With him being so unhappy, we have come to the conclusion that it's time for me to go back to school for my BSN in Nursing. While I really enjoy teaching, my first and strongest passion has always been in the medical field. I miss the thrill of responding to a 911 call. While I won't go back to the ambulance, the thrill of helping sick or injured people will always be there for me as an RN. I have 11 prerequisite courses to take before I can get into the nursing program, 5 of which I will be taking in January. This means that Kourtney will be going to preschool three days a week from 8:30 - 12:30. It will be great for her, but I'll miss her during the day! I've really enjoyed being at home with her, but am excited about going back to school. It will be nice to have some grown-up conversation during the week! LOL

Other than that, life is continuing on as normal. Both boys are loving school, and are excelling in gymnastics. Two weeks ago, Kieran's coach asked him to move up to an advanced group so that he can start training to work with a competitive team. He loves it! It freaks me out, though, to see him holding himself upside down on the rings, or swinging his body around on the parallel bars! Cristian loves gymnastics as well, but goes more for the social time than the sport. He's really looking forward to starting football in the fall.

I continue to be very busy with the virtual academy. While it's been great to be able to work from home, I have found it difficult to separate my work life from my home life. I'm very conscious of it, though, and am constantly reminding myself not to work when the kids are home. That's especially challenging now that Brady is home at night because that was when I used to get most of my work done. Now, I'm trying to manage getting up with him in the morning so that I can stay caught up...That's definitley not easy for me, but I'm working up to it...slowly...

Time seems to just be flying by! I can't believe that Christmas is already nearly here, and that we'll soon be in 2010! That's just crazy! We're just trying to love every minute, even the hard ones...

Hope all is well with you and yours! I'll try to post some pictures soon...really...

Potty-Training

Well, Kourtney has finally decided to bite the bullet, and stop wearing diapers (for the most part, anyway). Over the weekend, she took on the new role of princess underwear super model, and has only had 1 accident since! The old saying that they'll do it when they're ready is so incredibly true. I've been trying to get her more interested in potty training for the last three months, and now that she's decided to do it, it's been a breeze. She wore underwear all day today, and didn't have any accidents. And, boy is she proud of herself! She has no problem letting everyone know when she's gone pee in the toilet and needs a candy (yes, I'm a terrible parent and I give my toddler chocolate when she goes pee on the potty). :)

I have to say, though, that potty training is both a blessing and a curse. I love the fact that the diaper dollar signs are getting smaller and smaller by the minute, but it just about killed me tonight when she refused to go to sleep until she got out of bed (she's still in a crib, mind you) and tried to pee at least three times. The third time, she sat there for nearly ten minutes before I convinced her that she should give up for the night. And then, of course, we had to argue about why she couldn't wear panties to bed. I'm not ready to go quite that far yet, seeing as how we're only on day 3 of going on the potty. I won't even take her out of the house without a diaper. I know, I know...I should just get over it. But I can already envision the chaos it would create if we couldn't get to the potty fast enough, were in the car, etc. I think we'll just save that adventure for next week.

In the mean time, Brady continues to miss out on all the fun around here. He got up at 2:30 this morning (after a crappy night of sleep for the whole stinkin' house!), and made the Monday trek out to Hayward (about 2 1/2 hours from home), where he'll "live" until Friday or Saturday. At the moment, his job really stinks. We keep hoping it will get better once he's in Sacramento, but here we are almost two months after the day he was 'supposed' to be in Sac, with no end in sight. Three months is a long time to never see your family. We are blessed because he has a job when the economy is in such horrible shape, but we wouldn't mind some extra prayers that maybe he can get over to Sac soon so that we can see him for more than one or two days a week. It would certainly be a nice change!

I suppose I should attempt to get to bed. The thing that really bites about Brady being gone is that it takes me three or four days to get used to sleeping without him, and then he comes home for two days, which is just long enough for me to get used to him being there. All in all, it amounts to me not ever getting any sleep, with the exception of Thursday nights because, by then, I'm so exhausted that I pretty much pass out. I can't complain, though...At least I get paid to work from the comfort of home! There's always more caffeine in the house!

Here's to a terrific Tuesday! :P

Spring Break ~ Yahoo!!

Well, today marks the "official" start of Spring Break in our household. The kids and I are all off of work/school until Monday! Brady, unfortunately, does not get the pleasure of enjoying the week off with us, but we know that he is with us in spirit. :)

We started the week off by visiting the San Diego Zoo today. It was an incredible amount of fun! The kids loved seeing all of the animals, and having some quality time with Mommy. We hiked (literally) all over the park (I'm confident I have completed enough exercise today to last me the next several months!), and checked out the many fun creatures that the zoo is home to. The boys' favorite place to hang out was the Reptile House, and Kourtney especially enjoyed watching the flamingos. She cried when it was time to leave the "pink ducks." By the time the day was over, they (I should say "we") were all exhausted. Kourtney managed to take a small ciesta in the car, but the rest of us were in it for the long haul. All in all, we made it home in one piece, with lots of stories to share with Daddy.

The picture above shows Kourtney sharing her python expertise with some poor kid that somehow got roped into listening to her. I'm not sure how or why that boy was forced into listening to a two-year-old explain all that she knew about those huge snakes, but somehow, she managed to capture his attention. Fortunately for me, he didn't seem to notice as I snapped a picture of this teaching moment in progress.

This picture is of the brotherly love that Cristian and Kieran were sharing today. It's such a rare thing to witness that I had to snap a picture! Actually, despite their many tiffs, they do love each other dearly. You can never find one without the other practically attached at the hip!

Here's to a great rest of the "week off" for us!

Okay...So I'm a Slacker...

I know, I know. I promised everyone I would use this as a tool for keeping everybody up to date on all that goes on around here...But seriously, life has been crazy since I first thought about doing a blog. My vision of blogging beauty quickly went down the tubes as the holidays came (and went), school and work started again (after a much-needed break), basketball season started...Life does not offer many "spare moments" in order to keep up with "one more thing." It's not for lack of effort, though!

The holidays came and went all too quickly for us. The kids were spoiled with three Christmas celebrations. The first was in Washington, where we spent 16 days enjoying the rain and cold weather. It was awesome to spend so much time with Brady's family, as we normally only see them once a year. Cristian spent as much time as possible on the riverbank fishing with Grandpa. Kieran, on the other hand, preferred to hang out indoors and play with his toys. Kourtney had a blast entertaining everyone and keeping the grandparents busy. We were blessed with a few instances of snow, and even got to go sledding one afternoon for a few hours. The kiddos definitely enjoyed that!

Once we got back home, they were happily surprised to see that Santa had not only managed to find them in Washington, but he had also left some goodies for them at home, including an air hockey table for the boys and a kitchen play set for Kourtney. Mommy and Daddy had a few hours of peace to unpack and get laundry going while the kids entertained themselves and each other. And finally, they had a third Christmas at Nana and Papa's house the next day. It was fun to watch them open their gifts and enjoy their family...Although we're still trying to figure out where to put all of their new stuff!

Now, everyone is back to the grind. Work is as busy as ever, as we're gearing up for CAT-6 testing in just over two months. While it's great to have the two boys in school (and at my same school site), it's challenging to find time for all the homework and extra projects in between basketball and other things. Brady's company seems to be doing a bit better on the production end. They're gearing up to do a full furnace rebuild beginning January 3, 2009. As it creeps closer, I'm becoming more aware of how little we will see him during that three months. Fortunately, he only works 5 minutes from home, so we'll figure out how to find time together one way or the other.

Speaking of time together, Brady and I just got back from celebrating our wedding aniversary in Las Vegas. My parents took the kids for the weekend, and we spent two days relaxing with no children! It was great, although I did miss the kids by the second day. It's funny...I swore that I was going to catch up on my sleep with no little ones to get me up early or in the middle of the night, and we were still both up by 7:00, despite being out late. How sad is it that, once you have kids, you can no longer sleep in...even when they're not there! Sheesh!

Now, we're working on getting all of the kids healthy, as they all managed to get hit by a winter cold this week. Kourtney was hit the hardest, and is still struggling to sleep because of the cough. The inhaler definitely helped her to be able to breath, which is fabulous...It would be wonderful if it kicked the coughing as well. Maybe next time.

Well, that's it for now. I'll try to figure out how to post some pictures from our vacation in Washington later today. I have high hopes that I might actually find the time!