Christmas and Birthday Prep, with bonus recipe!

Prep for birthdays and Christmas have begun. We took a quick trip to NC in order to get our Christmas decorations, and a quick trip it was, about 25 hours to be exact... kiddos did awesome! We were able to see old friends and co-workers, attend an awesome kiddos party which involved mad lab science experiments and was just frankly amazing! The minute we got home we went to a local tree farm and let the kids pick out a Christmas tree and immediately I sorted through our ornaments that went along with our decided silver and gold theme for the year, turned on some Christmas music and decorated the tree that very night. Here are just a few shots :) The kids loved helping this year and sang along with the songs that they knew all night, when the music ended they just sang jingle bells over and over and over again... good thing they are so cute or I may permanently despise that song. 

Next up was shopping for their birthday party, now we don't really have a lot of new friends here for them that are their age, so we will be having a small birthday, unless of course we can throw something for them at their new preschool that they are starting this week, but no matter what we wanted them to be able to pick their own themes, so off to Party City we went! We found a wall of silly glasses and had to try multiple on, here are two of my favorites of that modeling session!

So what did they choose, to many this will be no surprise, Randi went back and forth from Minnie Mouse, Merida and finally settled on hello Kitty, which mommy is super excited about because I just think she's adorable :) Ryan of course was all about Spider Man, no one else was even in the running! Here are just a few items we got that day, banners, and Mylar balloons are to come.

 

We finished off this past week with multiple trips to the library and our community park, seriously... look at these two cuties? They are such characters! I cannot believe that my babies are about to turn 4! My grandpa told me growing up "Life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end the quicker it goes" and I now understand that, because I have no clue where my last almost 4 years have gone, they have flown by too quickly and I no longer have my babies, but two little people that have their own minds and personalities and some days I just stare at them in amazement of their smarts and capabilities... 

Finally because it's been so long since I've done a Food blog, this is a quick recipe for anyone who loves candied nuts! I'm not sure where my mom got this recipe, but she sent Carl some candied pecans and well they were so good I didn't even get to try one, so I got the recipe and made candied pecans and almonds myself!

6 Cups of chosen nuts (I did 3 C pecans, 3 C almonds)

1 egg white per 3 cups, so 2 egg whites

1 Cup white sugar

1 Cup brown sugar

2 Tbls cinnamon

I added a dash of nutmeg

 a buttered cookie pan

whip the egg white until fluffy, add 3 C of nuts, add in half of sugar mix pour onto cookie sheet, roast on 250 degrees for 1 hour, turning/mixing nuts every 15 minutes

I did mine in two batches and they are amazing! I am sharing them with my secret santa at work in hopes that everyone wishes I was their secret santa :)

Enjoy if you try.... if not... I'll add a new recipe of mine that I've tried recently soon! That's a promise!

Old and New traditions

Every family has holiday traditions! One of ours is opening a present on Christmas Eve (which is always jammie related and Jessica's side has done it since she can remember) another is taking a meal to a family on Christmas Eve (we put a basket together of everything they need for a meal, drive to a lower income area and knock and run, makes us feel grateful for all we have, thankful to have enough to share with others, and hopefully will teach our children that giving is more important than receiving), we donate clothes, canned goods, and now old toys to anywhere we can and we have others... but we adopted a new tradition this year... starting after Thanksgiving...

First we wrote letters to Santa, for the kids this is their first year where they could write their letters on their own, mommy helped by spelling everything out and teaching them spacing, but they did it on their own and we are so proud of them!

Close up of their letters

The next morning they had a present from SANTA! With a letter stating he received their letters and was sending them a special gift to remind them to be good and that he was watching them even more closely until Christmas. They were so excited and immediately opened Elf on the Shelf, we read the story and had to name their elf, Randi wanted "Chris" and Ryan wanted "the elf" so there we had it "Chris the Elf" :) 

Aren't they cute? Not that I'm bias... so far Chris has been found drinking some water out of a festive straw, snuggling by the TV in Randi's baby doll sleeping bag, and using the fire truck arm to putting up decorations (seen below)

I'm excited to see them continually find their elf, a few other places we have conjured up are coloring, brushing his teeth, reading a book, baking, taking a bath, playing xbox, climbing the Christmas tree, making snow angels (in flour), playing UNO, driving the dump truck... etc... and many more since I still have 27 days to do it! Wish me luck!

Finishing off with adorable photos of the twinkies new hats... enjoy!

Whirlwind of a Life

Well I've been a complete slacker the last well... 6 months... everything about our life has changed... So where to start... I guess at the beginning

In May we were fortunate enough to travel to Idaho for Carl's beautiful sister's wedding (Wendee)

Kira and Dad made the trip down to ID and so we were able to get the cousins together for the first time and even attempted some shots of them... this is one of the few... it is very difficult to get 7 kids all 5yrs and under to look at the camera at the same time! It was amazing though to see them all interact.

The wedding was gorgeous, Wendee was stunning and it was so fun to catch up with Carl's side of the family. It had been a very long time since we had all been together and I think everyone was pretty excited to see us and see how big the twinkies had gotten 

Also in May the kids and I joined Carl in Virginia and I started a new job at Eagle Eye Vision Center... it has been so wonderful to be together as a family and we are making the most of it. 

June... shoot I have to think pretty hard about this... um... we were able to get settled into our temporary home (apartment), we found a local library and some fun places for the kids. We spent a lot of time at the pool and exploring the historic sites around out new home.

July we were able to spend the holidays with friends from in the Army who conveniently live just 30 minutes away! This family is amazing, we had such a good 4th of July and the kids played so nicely together, it was hot and we were all sweaty, but that's okay. Oh and the fireworks here are awesome! After our own we drove home and saw fireworks the whole drive... then we got home and watched the DC and New York fireworks on the TV until the kiddos fell asleep on the couch... it was so much fun and the kids enjoyed it more this year than last!

Sometime between late July and early August we finally got a renter in our home in NC and financially that was a huge blessing...

August was a busy month!

We took the kids to their first fair... they loved the petting zoo, went on their first pony ride, rode all the rides they were allowed, had ice cream, elephant ears, and plenty of sunshine. It was so much fun and I am already looking forward to the next fair

Carl and I had our 7th year anniversary and celebrated by taking a day trip to Baltimore. We had sushi on the pier, went to the science museum (yes we are nerds but it was awesome) walked the pier and checked out all the sites, then finished by an amazing dinner at Roy's, it's a hawaiin cuisine and seriously the food was divine... I have never had food as amazing as it was there!

In September Carl's work had a family day at Six Flags and after 3 hours in the hot sun going from ride to ride we enjoyed their water park for an hour or so, it was fun and the kids had a blast not to mention they slept really well that night. We are fortunate that Carl has a company that paid for everything except food... we could stop at any vendor for water or soda (which we don't drink, so water was fine) and we were able to spend 5 hours there for free... it was great!

October of course is one of my favorite months, not just because it's my birthday, but it's officially fall and HALLOWEEN! Yes I'm a halloween freak, I love it! We went to Belvedere's Plantation (http://www.belvedereplantation.com/) and we were able to have the kids go down slides, jump on a trampoline pillow, eat yummy food, do a corn maze, have a tractor ride, and pick out their own pumpkins in a huge real pumpkin patch!

We also took a few snap shots of our family for a special Christmas project! 

Well that is as quick of a run down as a girl can give, there are so many photos I wanted to include over the last 6 months, but I didn't want to have my blog have a picture overload and crash or something terrible, so this will have to do. We are so fortunate for the things in our life that have changed and are doing well with the new beginnings that have came our way. Carl is doing well at his job, too well in fact, they don't want to let him go anywhere else (which we were hoping he'd get transferred out west) and even though he works nights they often have him come in or sign on at home for early meetings. My job works great for our schedule and I still enjoy the eyes... optometry is just what I needed in my life. I miss my old office and I don't think anywhere I go will be as amazing as they were, but I get to do what I love so I'm happy. The kids are in preschool and floor me with how smart they are. They are going to be smarter than I ever was that's for sure, they went through quite the "fighting" stage, but are starting to play well together again and that brings sanity into our lives!

Questions... just ask! I'm an open book!

Park and Friends

Can you tell by my posts that our kids love the park! Not only is there 2 amazing play areas, but there is a 2 miles trail and we love to walk it, it wears out the kiddos and lets momma get in her workout for the day! 

I love this picture of Randi... she has such grace... maybe she can be the dancer that I never was... a graceful one!

Ryan is always go go go, so getting a photo of him is nearly impossible...

Kori came to NC to see Alan, but we stole her away on more than one occasion and she quickly became Randi's best friend. Randi wanted to sit by Kori, and talk to Kori, and sleep by Kori, etc... it was cute, but we are lucky Kori is an elementary school teacher or she may have gone crazy! When

When we had to say goodbye Randi asked if Kori was getting on a big airplane to fly back to our house, we told her "No Kori has to go back to her house and go back to work" and Randi replied "to make money to come back to our home" It was adorable! We love you Kori thanks for being amazing and spending time with us!!!

We also stopped at a Farmer's Market in Raleigh that had a cafe next to it that uses the locally grown products and met one of my college roomies there, Britt is just indescribable, she is one of the most caring, considerate, passionate, talented, happiest, most gorgeous person I know... I love her dearly and any moment with her is one to remember... we ate a delicious breakfast and then let the kids play in this little area... the kids loved going from animal to animal saying what they were, making the sounds and being cowboys :) It was cute and funny!

Seriously I love this girl... Thanks for an amazing time Britt and for always being there for us! Being 4 hours away in VA is not going to be fun!

Easter

Our biggest event on Easter is that Carl came home! We were planning on celebrating it the following week secondary to Carl needing to put in some extra hours and  we didn't want him to have to drive home for 1 day, but he surprised us and came home! So we kicked into gear and colored, painted and drew on Easter eggs, the kids were way more into it this year and it was fun to watch them make all sorts of different color combinations and fun designs. They loved the stickers this year too.

The aftermath below...

Morning of Easter! Ryan snuck out and knew the Easter bunny had been here before everyone else was out of bed, but he waited patiently after we shouted at him :)

The Easter bunny was stuck on a bike theme this year, we all got new helmets and Carl and I got new bikes and the kids got a bike trailer to ride in when we do family rides until they get a bit more proficient at riding their own bikes. It was fun to go on rides and the kids were super excited about their other treats

Of course we did our Easter egg hint and only 2 out of the 18 eggs got cracked in the process I was quite impressed!

My bike and the trailer!

The kiddos in their Easter outfits (Ryan had a cute polo shirt but it was covered in chocolate two minutes after putting it on so this was our back up!

It was such a great Easter and we had so much fun!!

Job Interviews, DC, Easter... Oh joy!

Since I was ending my job here in Fayetteville, it meant it was time to get serious about finding a job up in VA. I found as many optometry clinics within a reasonable distance from Carl's work and sent out my resume, quickly I had 5 potential positions. I sorted through the companies and narrowed it down to 3 that I felt would be the best fit and set up interviews. I set them up over one weekend, packed up the kids and headed to the area to stay with Carl for about 4 days to play and interview. I was offered all 3 positions and finally chose one in Stafford, VA at a family owned practice. The Dr seemed the most current, honest, porfessional, and accredited. I will not be starting until May 22nd, but I cannot wait until that day! I will miss being home with the twinkies, but I'm excited to get them into a preschool and get all of our lives on track again, not to mention my new job is only about 30 hours a week and I have every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday off :) YAY!

Anyways while visiting Carl we went to the zoo... the two shots below were on our way and they are just beautiful buildings and a street that I want to walk and explore in DC once we are settled in. 

The zoo was a blast, the kids had so much fun, they were running all over the place and loved every animal exhibit. It was fun!!

The kids loved the orangutans, one was lounging, 2 were above the walkway area walking across large ropes, it was amazing! Not to mention they pee'd while crossing the ropes and the waste fell right down on the walkway where a few bystanders didn't escape... Yuck!

At an indoor exhibit of reptiles and aqua life... I love our little family! Even if my long arm ends up in all the pictures :)

It was some kite flying day at the memorial and it was such a beautiful site... amazing kites everywhere!

We went to Central Park Funland (http://www.centralparkfun-land.com/) in Fredricksburg and it was another place for the kids to run around crazy and not get into any trouble! They played in a large fun house 

 

played (or pretended to play) many arcade games

We mini golfed

And at the end of the day when we were back at the hotel they crashed... aren't they adorable? Even sleeping they can't stand to be apart!

It was a long but fun and rewarding weekend. It was worth the time in the car and the multiple potty breaks to spend time as a family. And to think all this fun was over 4 days! How spoiled are we!?