Easter baskets from Nana

The kids got their Easter baskets from my mom today, and they were way too excited to wait to open them.  They got lots of fun stuff!  They all loved the glasses Cambria got and wanted to get pictures in them.

I told them to make a silly face, and Cambria refused.  I guess princesses don’t make silly faces.    Kyrie and Asher were happy to oblige, though.

Here’s a hilarious video of them opening the baskets!  They all got a little crazy, of course, and I quickly realized we should have opened them one at a time.  You’ll also notice Cambria gets just a little excited about some of her gifts.    And Kyrie was so cute – she had just asked me for a couple of the things she got only the day before, so it was really neat for her to get them in her basket from Nana (who, ironically, had NO idea Kyrie had asked specifically for those things!). 

Thanks, Nana! 

New Year’s Eve

Today was a fun day full of cooking!  The kids were allowed to stay up to ring in the new year, so Kyrie picked out some snacks from one of her new cookbooks and helped me cook.  Here she is crushing up some Oreos for a pie crust!

We ended up making Space Potato Spuds (twice baked potatoes filled with different toppings), mini tacos (they had a cutesy name, but I can’t recall what it was!) with guacamole for dipping, deviled eggs, and an Oreo pudding pie for dessert.  Here’s our spread!  Kyrie did the majority of the work – she’s getting to be a real pro in the kitchen!

We threw a table cloth down on the ottoman in the family room and ate our yummy food while we watched a movie.  The kids were so excited. 

After the movie we burned our Christmas tree.  The kids have been looking forward to this for days and even started asking about it on Christmas.  That thing went up in flames crazy fast and then burned out just as fast.

I caught this picture of Derk….he’s a bit of a pyro!    As soon as that bad boy lit up, he started dancing around the fire like this, moving his arms up and down with the flames, screaming, “Yeah!!!  Yeah!!!!!”  haha

After that, we pulled out the laptop and let the kids watch the ball drop in Times Square.  Poor Bri was super exhausted by this point, and Derk was just sick of having the camera in his face.   

 

Bri crashed right afterward, but Kyrie and Asher managed to stay up until midnight.  Just before midnight we went outside to watch the fireworks from our driveway.  We counted down the seconds on our phones, and then the kids went crazy shouting, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!” at the top of their lungs.    Here are Kyrie and Asher watching the fireworks.

It was straight to bed for all of us after that.  A very busy but fun day!  We’re excited to see what 2012 will bring for our family.  We wish everyone a very happy new year!

Homemade bread from now on!

I have had my eye on a specific Zojirushi bread maker for MONTHS. I think Derk was sick of hearing me talk about it, honestly. I have been making our own bread for years now, and while I love it, I was very sick of being at the beck and call of a loaf of bread. It’s a 4 hour process where you can’t leave the bread’s site basically. So I would go in spurts where I’d make all our bread for several weeks in a row and then would get sick of all the work and start buying bread again for a few weeks. Then I decided to do some research on bread makers because that’s an investment that would pay off in no time. I read up on so many different brands, and this was by far the best one. You can make every kind of dough imaginable in this baby, you can make jam, you can even make meatloaf (I won’t use it for that, though). It has a delay setting that you can set for up to 13 hours, so you can put the ingredients in at night and wake up to a fresh loaf of bread in the morning. I could go on and on. After months of dropping hints, I got it for Christmas!!!!!!!! It was a couple days late arriving, but it’s finally here! And I’m so very in love. Isn’t she beautiful?!

When the UPS guy rang the doorbell to deliver it, I seriously squealed like a little girl and started jumping up and down. In front of him. He laughed at me, of course, and said it made his day to see someone so happy to see him. I didn’t burst his bubble by telling him it wasn’t HIM I was excited to see. Anyway, I brought it straight inside, opened it up, and made a loaf right away! Asher tested it out as soon as it was done, and he gave it a huge thumb’s up. Yummy! It makes the most perfect loaves. And the very best part? I can throw in the ingredients and go about my day as normal, even leaving the house if I want/need to! Fantastic.

My husband is the best.

Chuck E. Cheese, Target, and Claire’s

Today is Grandma and Grandpa’s last day with us, so we decided to make the most of it!  The kids got some gift cards for Christmas from their Aunt Abby, so we decided to go spend those.  The stores were definitely a bit crowded but weren’t nearly as bad as we feared.  We had lots of fun at Chuck E. Cheese!  Dad and I played several rounds of basketball.  I wish I could say I whooped his butt, but he definitely beat my score.  I did hold my own, though, and didn’t do too bad!  Then Mom and I played a round, and she surprised herself by doing really great! 

It was really dead while we were there, which was nice.  Here are both the girls begging Grandpa for more tokens. 

And some fun shots of everyone playing.

Claire’s was having a huge 10/$10 sale, so the girls scored lots of fun stuff.  After a fun-filled day, Cambria was all tuckered out and instantly fell asleep….wearing her new sleep mask!   I knew you’d get a huge kick out of this picture, Abs!    Kyrie got one, too, but she forgot to put hers on before bed.  This picture had Mom, Derk and I cracking up!!!

We’re so glad you came to visit, Mom and Dad!  You made our Christmas so fun.

Christmas 2011

This year we were so glad to have Derk’s parents here for Christmas!  It’s loneliest here around the holidays, so it was very nice to have company.  They ended up being able to stay at Derk’s grandparents’ mobile home, which I’m sure was a lot more peaceful for them.   

**If you have little readers reading this right now, you may not want them to read this part!!**  Kyrie got to stay up late on Christmas Eve to help us finish up the last few preparations.  This was the year she figured out there wasn’t really a Santa.  Well, I guess I should rephrase that.  I think she’s known for a while but just wanted to believe still.  But about 3-4 months ago she finally told us she knew it was us.  It was really cute because she stopped, got this shocked look on her face, and then said, “WAIT!  That means YOU and DADDY put together the trampoline a few years ago?!”  lol.  She thought that was super cool that we did that.  Anyway, this year she helped me fill all the stockings, which was fun.  The kids also write a letter to Santa every year that they leave by the plate of goodies, so this year Kyrie wrote the response letter back to the kids.  She LOVED that.  I didn’t get any pictures of her helping, but that was on purpose – I didn’t want Asher or Bri to see them!  **Okay, it’s safe to have little readers from this point on.  ** 

Right before bed, we opened our traditional Christmas Eve present – jammies!  Derk and I didn’t get any this year, but the kids did.

On Christmas morning, the kids woke up around 6:00.  We came out and opened stockings while we waited for Grandma and Grandpa to come at 7:00.  When we got into the living room, the kids were surprised to see that Santa had left footprints next to the stockings and Santa presents!!  It was magic snow that doesn’t melt, and they loved it so much they begged me not to clean it up for the whole day. 

The empty plate and note from Santa.  The note says “Thanks for the fudge.  Here, I got too full.  It’s in three pieces for each of ya.  Merry Christmas.  Santa.”

Here’s the tree with all the presents!  The white dots on the tile around the fireplace are from where the stockings were hanging before they were filled. 

Aside from stocking stuffers, Santa gave everyone a new comfy blanket and a couple new Wii remotes.  He obviously knows the kids fought A LOT over the 2 Wii remotes we had, bless him.    Along with the Wii remotes, there was a package of new wrist straps in fun colors.  Asher claimed the blue one, and Cambria claimed the pink.  After stockings, Grandma and Grandpa arrived (about 10 minutes early, thank goodness – those kiddos were EAGER!  ), and then we got started!  I mostly got video this year (go, me!), but here are a few pictures.

It was a bit hard to buy for Kyrie this year since she’s at an age where she’s basically outgrown toys but is still too young for teenager stuff.  I mostly centered around her new love of cooking and got her quite a few cookbooks, which she is obviously super excited about!  She was also thrilled about her new digital camera, some new nail polish….and her own sewing machine from Grandma and Grandpa! 

Asher got some K*Nex, roller blades, a big box full of clothes (that’s what the diaper box is in the background of one of the other photos…no, we are NOT pregnant ), several other cool toys, and a new gaming chair.  You can see by his face that he LOVED the gaming chair!  He wouldn’t even get out of it and opened all the rest of his presents from that spot.  When he opened a book from Nana, he kicked back and read it in his new chair! 

And Cambria just loved everything!  She got some new outfits, which she immediately had to model for everyone.  As she opened each gift, she’d excitedly scream, “Ohh!!  I LOVE IT!!”  Then a few seconds later, she would say, “What is it?!”  lol!  It was hysterical.  She finally got her own gaming system – a Leapster Explorer.  I just loved her reaction because seriously for every single gift she opened she thought it was the BEST thing in the world.  So fun!

And LOTS of videos!

A little backstory about this last video.  Asher only really asked for 2 things for Christmas – one of which was a new pair of slippers.  I looked EVERYWHERE for slippers, and they were seriously totally sold out!  The very last place I dragged my poor mother-in-law to (Walmart of all places!) had ONE last pair in his size, and they just so happened to be Transformers slippers!

What a wonderful Christmas it was.  We sure love you, Mom and Dad, and are so glad you were here to spend a few days with us.  <3