Christmas 2012

We had a great Christmas this year!  It was such a crazy time for us with moving and all the work we did on the house but we were still able to do a lot of fun Christmas traditions.  It was fun being able to decorate the house for the first time.  

We volunteered to have the annual Nunes/Martindale Christmas party at our house since a lot of our family members had not seen the finished product after all the work we did on it.  Keith's parents helped us dry wall the play room when they were down a couple of months before but we needed to sand down the joints, spray on texture, and paint it.  Having the party at the house gave us good incentive to get it done!  It was a lot of work but I LOVE how it turned out!  It's so nice to have a place where the kids can play.  

The play room completely done just in time for the Christmas party :)

Pictures from the Christmas party, we had a blast!  My cute mom really out-did herself this year and did a "12 days of Christmas" thing for all the grand kids!  The night of the party was the last gift, the kids got so spoiled! :)

I send out Christmas cards every year and usually like to get a professional family picture taken first but things had been so hectic that I ended up just taking a few pictures myself and throwing together a Christmas card (these are some of the pictures below that were on our card). Hopefully next year I will be more on the ball!  I thought the pictures of the kids in their Christmas jammies turned out pretty cute :)

One evening we took the kids to see the lights at the Riverwoods mall, they were so cool!  They had live music and free carriage rides, the kids loved it!

Some Christmas baking and crafting :)

Our countdown chain to Christmas!

Christmas morning!

Keith's parents were able to spend Christmas morning with us before they headed back home.  It was so fun watching the kids open their gifts.  Isaac was fun this year compared to last year because he understood more of what was going on.  

After we opened presents we said goodbye to Keith's parents and then headed over to my mom's.  We were so excited because all of us kids went in on a Kindle Fire for my mom.  She LOVED it!  After we hung out at my mom's for a little bit we headed over to my dad's to open present there.  

 Loved her reaction!

Merry Christmas!!

Arts 'n Crafts

I just wanted to do a simple quick post about my kids' artwork.  I love doing arts and crafts with my kids, and have such a hard time throwing them away after!  Between the projects Malea brings home from pre-school, coloring pages they do at church, and the things we do at home, I end up having piles of artwork for both kids that I don't know what to do with!  I usually hang them on the fridge for a couple of weeks or on the inside of our front door but eventually it has to be thrown away.  A couple of years ago I started taking pictures of their artwork before I chuck it so that I can look back to it without having to save everything :)  I love seeing the things they come up with, especially Malea.  Isaac is still at the scribbling phase but I love how proud he is of himself when he's done (like the picture second from the top and second from the left).  Malea has become more creative with her pictures and they usually involve some kind of family of something (snow men, mice, etc).  I also love seeing Malea write her own name and see how it has improved over the last few months.  Isaac's favorite thing lately has been drawing on walls with markers, crayons, etc, so that has been really fun, haha! ;)  I finally had to hide all of our markers for a little while.  

Love these kiddos! XOXO

Halloween 2012

Once again, this is late and out of order but I want to try and get caught up from after our Disneyland trip. :)  

Fall/Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year!  It was a really crazy time for us because we were in the middle of remodeling the kitchen during October but we still managed to do some fun stuff for Halloween.

Jaker's Pumpkin Patch

Going on a hayride (I had to pick hay out of Isaac's hoodie for a week after this picture, lol)

 

Malea picking out her own pumpkin from the pumpkin patch (she wanted one with lots of warts on it :))

Malea in one of her Halloween outfits

 Painting pumpkins

Malea made this Halloween card, I love her cute little handwriting!

(Not sure how to turn it, sorry) 

Malea helping to make treats for the neighbors

All ready for her Halloween party at Pre-school :)

Malea with Teacher Lynda, she does such a good job of making it fun for the kids!  This year she was the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland :)

They take all the kids on a hay ride every year, so much fun! 

 

Malea with her class

Halloween Eve

Making more Halloween treats (we got a little carried away, haha)

Carving pumpkins

Isaac helped too!  He didn't even mind getting his hands in the pumpkin guts, I was surprised!

Love his cheeser smile :)

Halloween jammies 

Halloween 

Story time at the library!

Happy Halloween from Cinderella & Woody!

Trick-or-Treat!

 Ended the evening by visiting Grandparents :)

Happy 5th Birthday Malea!

Today is my sweet little Malea's 5th Birthday!  I seriously can't believe how fast the time has gone by!  For some reason this jump from 4 to 5 seems huge to me, and I've been so sentimental with this birthday.  I just can't even fathom that she will be starting Kindergarten later this year! 

(The right two pictures were from her first day of pre-school 2012)

I was thinking back to the day I gave birth on February 12th, 2008.  I went in early that morning to be induced, and was 2 days overdue. We were so anxious to meet our little girl!  After only 3.5 hours of labor and 15 minutes of pushing our sweet little angel was born at 11:36am, weighing in at 7 lbs 3 oz and 19.5 inches long.  She had LOTS of hair, a good set of lungs on her and pooped all over everyone and everything before they finally weighed her!  She gave us a little bit of a scare when we found out she had a sacral dimple at the base of her spine (google it if you're not sure what it is), but after some testing found out that she would be just fine.  We brought her home from the hospital on Valentine's Day, which was so appropriate since we were instantly in LOVE (and it was also Keith's birthday)!

Malea is such a sweet heart and is very sensitive to other people's feelings.  She is a social butterfly and makes friends easily.  However, when it comes to being in front of a crowd she gets really bad stage fright!  She is such a good big sister and very helpful to mommy and daddy (when she wants to be, haha!). She LOVES stuffed animals, My Little Pony's, Disney princess anything, and Hello Kitty (the theme of her birthday party this year :)).  Her favorite foods are strawberries, macaroni, spaghetti o's, Costa Vida quesadillas, and pretty much anything sweet (she has a sweet tooth just like her mommy :)). She is very artistic and loves to do crafts. She has a vivid imagination and I often overhear her as she makes up little stories and songs while playing with her toys. She is such a joy in our lives and I can't imagine life without her!

Happy Birthday Malea!  We love you!!!! XOXO

Isaac's 2nd Birthday

This is very late and out of order but I don't even care because I'm finally getting caught up on blogging! Yay!

Isaac's birthday was on September 7th but we ended up celebrating it on Saturday the 8th.  We had just moved and things were very hectic, but I didn't want that to get in the way of making the day special for our little guy.  We had his party at a park that is just a few blocks away from a new house called Big Hollow park.  His birthday party was Toy Story themed, which was his favorite thing at the time (it was between Cars and Toy Story but when we were at the store picking out party supplies I held up both options and he pointed to Toy Story!).  We had pizza, cake & ice cream, and opened lots of fun presents!

The decorations

 

The guests

 

The birthday boy playing on the play ground!

 

Such a little stud!

 

Opening presents!

He got Toy Story and Cars stuff from us (including a race track rug we got from Home Depot), a dump truck from Gpa Dave & Gma Judy, a Spider Man toy from his cousin Miles, a Mac truck (that also stores Cars cars in it) from Gma Vicki & Gpa Rick, and some other fun things from friends and family!

 

 

Blowing out the candle

 

 

We are so grateful to have Isaac in our lives.  He is a ball of energy and is often hard to keep up with, but he also has a great sense of humor and always keeps us laughing.  From a young age I could tell that he was going to the be "ham" of our family.  He started smiling as a baby very young and hasn't stopped since!  He is also a mommy's boy all the way and is always watching out for me.  If we are ever leaving somewhere and I haven't gotten in the car yet, he will pitch a fit until he knows I'm not getting left behind.  He is very protective of me and his older sister.  If I ever come home from being apart from him for an extended period of time, like when I have to work or something, this busy boy will cuddle on my lap sometimes for 15-20 minutes. His favorite foods are rice (especially from Costa Vida!), apple juice, yogurt, and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.  Even though he is my crazy, fearless child who climbs on anything and everything, he is not a fan of the water!  He likes taking baths but when it comes to swimming pools he is not a fan at first.  He loves anything Toy Story or Cars, and could sit and play with toy Cars cars for hours if you let him!  

His smile warms my heart and often raises my spirits when I'm having a bad day.  I can't believe my baby boy is 2!  We love you Isaac!  Happy Birthday!! XOXO