Happy 2nd Birthday to Chase!

Can you even believe he is 2?  It goes by so fast!  Here he is on his slick new tricycle.

He enjoyed opening presents, he loves to rip one thing after another out of the bag and toss it aside.  :)

Olivia enjoyed this balloon for quite a while.

Brenna was very crabby, but there were enough people there to keep her mostly happy.

Olivia loves Aunt Robin.  :)  The big kids were there too... they mostly played with games in "their" room, and I mostly sat in my one spot and just took pictures of people in my vicinity.  (2 more weeks to go!)  Then hopefully I will be back to chasing everyone around and getting really good pictures of all of the action.  :)  Happy Birthday Baby Chase, we love you!

He's Back!

After a couple month break from Tae Kwon Do, Jaden is back in action.  He was thrilled to start back up again.  We switched over to the southwest location because it is just so close to our new house, and his old coach is coaching there now also.  He was very happy to see Jaden and made him feel special by introducing him to everyone and making a big deal about how much better he had gotten since he's seen him.

I was worried that he might not like it as much since all of his normal friends weren't there.  He asked me, "What about Luke and Caleb and (tall blonde kid I'm blanking on right now)?"  I said, "Well, you will just have to make new friends in this class."  As I said it, I was cringing, knowing full well that it would not have done a thing to make me feel better... I am terrible at making new friends.  He surprised me as usual and said, "Oh, yeah, I love making new friends!"  Then, went along on his way perfectly happy.  I'm so glad he is the complete opposite of me, he will have such an easier time in life.  :)  He came home with stories of all of his new friends, funny things his coach said, and a sparring victory he was very proud of.  I'm glad he is back!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Kids

Just because there haven't been that many posts lately... Here are a few recent pictures.  :)

My boys with their fresh haircuts:

Baylee:

The three musketeers:

Brenna enjoying lunch:

Olivia (I never want to forget this sweet thing she does at every meal) clapping and saying "Yay!"

Kid Quotes

At lunch today, Jaden and Baylee were in an argument about a toy, I was choosing to postpone addressing that as I was in a heated debate with Tony about Carol Sorrell... I felt this little hand on my arm and looked down to see Aubrey (the only one who actually does what we always tell the kids to do and touch our arm and wait for acknowledgement before asking their question.) I say, "yes Aubrey?" He says, over all of the noise, in his sweetest little voice "Excuse me Mommy, it is just getting a little crazy in our house right now." And walked away. :) We had to agree, there are a lot of people that make a lot of noise in our family right now!

Sneads Photoshoot

Well, in case our lives couldn't get any more strange, or busy, Tony was asked to be in a photoshoot for Bakersfield Life Magazine in a story about Sneads.  He had to go down there and wear his casual clothes (they must have replaced his shirt with this Bakersfield one, because that is not what he took with him) and they were supposed to do a "makeover" on him and dress him all up, which, in reality, did not happen... he just put back on the clothes he wore to the office that day.  He is a very snazzy dresser.  They did give him a tie though, since they wanted everything in his outfit to actually be from Sneads, so he was stoked about that.  I thought the tie I picked out was better, but clearly it is not my fashion sense that is being admired here.  :)  They had a few other guys do the same thing and they interviewed them all... it will be in the March edition of Bakersfield Life Magazine.  I am looking forward to reading it while I am at Dr. Walker's office the first week of March for hopefully my LAST prenatal visit!

Christmas 2010

Better late than never, right?  I did take a few pictures of our Christmas this year... it was  a very fast, and a very fun blur, we enjoyed it very much.  :)  Here is our mantle:

Here is our very dead Christmas tree:

Here is Aubrey, very excited about some Star Wars figurine he got in his stocking.  :)

Here is Baylee enjoying her new little doll house:

Here is Brenna, of course, enjoying the wrapping paper more than the gifts:

And my Jaden, finally getting to play with his battleship:  (he knew for a couple of months that he was getting it, at least he was pretty sure.)

Aubrey was thrilled to be a might knight, I remember when all Jaden wanted in the world was to be a mighty knight... he still has his moments.  :)  I love boys.

I made a concerted effort this year to take less pictures and just enjoy the moment.  We had a blast Christmas morning, and yes, Livie was there.  There were a couple of pictures of her crying but I thought it would be best to leave those in iphoto.  :)  We went up to my mom and dad's that afternoon and had a great time.  Hopefully my mom has some pictures  of that, because apparently I don't.  Well, either way, Christmas was a hit this year and no one had more fun than Tony and me!  :)

January...

So, I just realized that I haven't blogged Christmas yet... we did have Christmas, and I will get to that soon, hopefully.  I think that we would honestly say this is the busiest time of our lives, this month has brought a whole new slew of things to do and unfortunately blogging has been way down on the list.  But, in an attempt to catch up a little, here are a few pictures of recent things:

The kids have been working hard with Brenna and Livie trying to get them to walk, no success yet, but they can both cruise like champs, stand up by themselves, and love to walk around the house with the big kids like in the picture above, which is a huge help for me.  (Except for the big kid who doesn't "get a baby" and feels left out... not for long though!  Soon, we will even out the baby/big kid ratio.  :)  Did I mention on here that we are having a boy?!  Yes, that is going to even some things out too, which we are very happy about.  :)

These kids love their little sisters!

One day Aubrey randomly fell asleep on the ottoman, he made sure his little makeshift knife was by his side.  :)

Baylee with my glasses, Jaden commented, "Wow Baylee, you look so beautiful!  Just like one of those girls who sings the blues!"

My favorite first grader.  :)  We are having a fun year and learning so much.  It is true what they say about the teacher learning more, even in first grade!  I might be having more fun than he is, but I guess it just depends on the subject.

And lastly, we bought a house!  This has been keeping me occupied, we close in a few weeks and should hopefully move in before the baby is born.  :/  That is assuming the baby is cooperating.  We are so excited, but very busy!  Looking forward to a very quiet and relaxing summer, that's for sure.

Kid Quotes

"Mommy, I really need to dump out all of the toys so that I can find the remote control to the eighteen fire missle." "Ok Aubrey, but you have to pick them all up when you are finished, ok?" "Well, there's just one problem, that is really hard work, and I don't really like really hard work."

Funny Business

Real Life at our house. :) Baylee with no shirt, Brenna screaming in the background... but too cute to pass up, especially after how long it has been with no post. Life is good, just busy, hope to catch up soon!

Christmas Party

We had our annual Beer Financial Group Christmas party on Saturday.  It was ok... neither of us felt very well and it was a late night, but always good to see everyone and catch up.  I think this may be the first pregnant picture of me (with this baby anyway) so here it is: 27 weeks.  12 more to go!  *do not convert that into months please*

Happy Birthday!!!

Well, we finally celebrated Brenna and Olivia turning one!  :)  Mark my words, these two are going to have the 2nd birthday to end all birthdays... I feel so guilty about how this one played out.  Still, I know that they are only one and have no idea.  They had a great time, and that is all that matters.  With Tony having pneumonia, we postponed their party until the week after their birthday, and even at that, the whole thing was thrown together in a matter of hours... maybe not even plural.  The candle on the cake, so to speak, was both of them getting runny noses the day before... they were like little faucets the entire time.  :(  Brenna especially, doesn't seem like she can breathe at all through her nose and seems miserable, although she is still happy.  They are such good girls.

Grandma got them this adorable dragon walker thing, which I'm sure will be the new hit around here... the big kids are already breaking it in.  :)

They both love to sit on it, Brenna tried to walk a little, but was more interested in sitting and playing the music.

Tony picked up their cake about an hour before, instead of having them write on it, he opted for a #1 candle as the sole decoration.  He is so funny, I asked him if he only got one #1, and he said, "Well, they aren't turning 11!"  This is true, I guess they really do need to get used to sharing things.... but I had to give them each a stick candle, even though Jaden was the one to blow them both out.

He did do a great job getting them balloons, and they loved them!   They each got their own, slightly different bouquet.  :)   Which of course, were dismantled and passed out to the other kids shortly after arriving home, but they did get to play a little with them.

Brenna figured out quickly how to get a hold of her bouquet... Livie just yelled at hers, I assume, willing it to come to her.  (Note the clenched fists in their regular position proclaiming that no effort will be made on her part.)

Poor baby, you can tell she feels pretty horrible.  She went after her candle and so Jaden quickly swooped in and blew it out for her.

Initial reaction to the cake:  not so yummy.

But then, a change of heart.

Olivia also tried very hard to grab the candle, so again, it was quickly removed and she got to dig in to her cake too.

No hesitation on her part...

She enjoyed every last bite!  (this is one thing she is willing to put forth some effort to enjoy)

By the end, this was what it looked like, and it was even worse in their laps when I took their trays away.  I decided that whomever was responsible for this tradition did not have twins.  It was quite a disaster... in fact I am still washing cake saturated clothes and seat covers, and plan to remove their braids tonight to get all of the little crumbs completely out.   (Although, thankfully, their hair did fare pretty well overall)

Sweet little Chase-man.  He had a good time seeing his cousins and showing us how he can walk almost totally by himself.  I love his hair, it is getting so thick and is the cutest color.

After a lengthy clean-up, it was time to open up their gifts.  They both got some pretty adorable little outfits.  They are in 9 months now, whoo hoo!!

Brenna liked to grab all of her stuff and put it in her mouth.  She had fun slobbering and sliming everything in sight.

This one was full of spunk, maybe all of that cake?  Or, maybe just because she is princess lulu... she was NOT happy about bedtime.

Brenna cried for a minute at bedtime, but she seemed much more willing to rest.   I rescheduled their picture people appointment to avoid the snotty pictures, hopefully soon I will have some sweet 1st bday pics to share.   Now you know why you never received a birthday invitation to a big 1st birthday bast... but save the date for next year!  :)