Tis the Season

Merry Christmas to all. This is such an exciting year for us with both kids enjoying the holidays. And to make it even better Sam the Elf has come to make sure the kids are good. Each day he watches the kids, after they go to bed he flys back to the North Pole and reports to Santa. When the kids wake up he is back and getting into new mischief.

There are many people we are missing this year, I wish the everyone could be here to see the kids faces and hear the stories they tell.

We wish you all good health and a merry holiday season.

Love, The Germans

Free Shutterfly Christmas cards

We are getting ready to send out our Christmas cards for the year. We really love to use Christmas cards as a way to tell the world what we have been up to during the past year. It is very difficult to tell a whole years story in only a few pictures. It is especially hard when the kids are so little. After all the children change so much and sometimes this is the only communication we have with family or friends who live so far away. We are so excited to get 50 free cards from shutterfly this year by posting this blog. http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards
I am thinking about making some christmas gifts with the calanders they also have available. http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars
With our children we really try to make sure and teach them the importance of thank you cards. Using our favorite photo from Christmas day makes the card that much better. http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/thank-you-cards

If you would like this deal follow this link. http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/

Happy Birthday Auntie Mimi

All of the first's after someone dies are so hard. This was Amy's first birthday without Mom. So we wanted to make it extra special. I went shopping, which I love. I also made Amy her favorite cake that Mom always made. Dirt Cake. It is so good. I even doubled the batch just like mom. It made a lot. We had a great time.

We love you, Mimi.

Trick or Treat

Cutest Cat EVER!

This is his scare away the pretend monsters face

New Family Member

Please, give a warm welcome to our newest family member:

Dixie-Coconut, the racing horse (named by the kids of course)

Brought to you by our very own Papa Ken.

THANKS PAPA KEN, we LOVE her!

Claire's ER visit

This is Claire and Tommy on our family sick day. Some crazy virus hit our house and made Tommy sick and worse gave Claire a Febrile seizure (a seizure caused by a fever rising to rapidly). When I got home from work the night before Claire had a fever and was breathing hard. I called the doctor and gave her a breathing treatment and meds. She seemed to calm down, do we decided to keep her in our bed to watch her. I left the music channel on and the hall light on so I could see her. At about 2 am she was just falling asleep, I didn't want to bother her and her fever was only 100.7 so I let her go to sleep and layed by her. At 4am I felt her move and looked at her. She was having a seizure. I woke up John and he turned on the light. Our baby was blue and her eyes were rolled up, she was shaking and not responding to us. We called 911. They sent help. By the time the paramedics got there she had stopped seizing and was pretty limp and unresponsive to her name. She also had this very distant cry, not our sweet baby. So needless to say we took a trip in the ambulance to Mary Bridge Hospital. It was very scary. She finally started to come around about halfway to the hospital.
Poor John had to stay back with Tommy. He was a nervous wreck. We had all sorts of test done and they gave her some antibiotics and sent us home.
She should be fine from now on and isn't at risk for epilepsy but we do have to be more aggresive with Fevers in the future.
Putting her in her own bed the night after the fever was so hard. Neither one of us wanted to leave her alone. We even put the monitor in our room which we haven't done since she was little.
Everyone is back to normal. Thank goodness. We will all be getting our flu shots this year!

Pumpkin Patch 2010

Today we met Tommy's Class at the pumpkin patch for some fall fun. It was so much fun to see Tommy and Claire interact with classmates. We got to go for a hay ride and pick a pumpkin, play in the corn and just have fun on the playground. We where all exhausted by the time we made it home. The weather was so sunny and perfect. I love fall.

Boo Zoo

Iron Man
Watching the wolves howl

Shark Attack

My beautiful Pumpkin Fairy

The Heard minus one

Snow White and Iron Man

The Alders came over this weekend for some fun times. It was Boo Zoo, so of course we dresses up the kids in costume and went to see the animals! We met Carrie and her kids at the zoo. With six kids in costume running around the zoo on a Saturday we only made it through half the zoo in about 3 hours. Don't ask we aren't sure how that happened either. So here are some pictures of our animals looking at the zoo animals!

* Yes I know and I will try to be better about updating*

Happy Spring!!!

They grow so fast!

We are so excited to see the sun and to have spring finally here. We are definatly not winter people come February. We had so much fun this week with Amy and Taylor coming to play. The kids got to go to the park two days in a row with no wind and no rain.

Claire's first birthday is coming and we are so excited planning it. For Tommy's birthday he has chosen to have a dinosaur birthday and the cake he has designed is so cool. It will have a volcano and "smoke" coming out of it. I hope I can pull it off.

I hope everyone is enjoying the sun and gardening. I can't wait to plant some flowers and I have really enjoyed watching my tulips bloom. That truely is one wonderful thing about living on this side of the mountains, it is already green and we are mowing our lawn, and the flowers and trees are so beautiful.

ENJOY!

All grown Up...

Tommy is all grown up. Our Baby is no longer a Thumbsucking Baby. On a beautiful sunny day we decided to set up a swing outside on our porch. He was having a wonderful second ride when he fell off and got hit in the face by a swing, it broke his front tooth loose. Luckily it didn't fall out. The dentist said it should be as good as new in 2 days. Unfortunately for Tommy this meant he could not suck his thumb, poor baby.
We have been trying to get him to stop for awhile and this was the final push. In order to stop we took away his lovey, "yellow pillow". As with everything in life Tommy moved on and has only asked for it a couple of times. I on the other hand have been a complete wreck! I have been crying hysterically for his yellow pillow and the last strand of babyhood he had left. I really miss those chubby hands and rolley thighs and the way he looked so completely satisfied with his thumb and pillow. Alas parenthood is hard.

Where in the world are the Germans?

Why I haven't posted!!!

Baby Claire, love her!

A moment of sweetness for Tommy.

Yes, I am that Mom. I haven't posted for 6 months. Where did the time go? I could give you excuses but it comes down to I am just getting this two kid thing down now. Claire is almost 10 months and Tommy is knocking on four's door!
Well a lot has changed. Lets start with Claire. She is now crawling and pulling herself up. Tonight she took a couple of steps along the music table she has. YIKES! She has said her first word Ba (Ball) and boy does she love them. Tommy was bouncing a basketball and every time it came into her view she said "Ba, Ba". How cute she is! She has a smile that warms your heart, her whole face is enveloped in a grin. I love it.
Tommy is having a wonderful time at our expense on being three. We took him to Red Robin to celebrate him turning 3 1/2, we are officially on the downhill side! Four has to be better then three right? If you know different don't tell us. We would like to keep that bubble intact for now. He has been learning letters at school and can count so high. His passion of the minute (besides Cars) is music. He loves musical instruments and has a play guitar and drum set. He sings and dances it is so cute. He really likes to watch rock videos and imitate the rock stars. I hope he continues on his music path, he really enjoys it.
John has been working hard on wood working. He made Claire's changing table and then a marble board for his grandpa. They were both so beautiful. I am so proud of him. Now if we could just get the garage cleaned out so he could work in there he would be set.
As for me, I am just enjoying being a mom. Work has been hard, I changed jobs and now I work in the Pediatric ICU most of the time. It will just take time to learn my niche and know how to deal with everything emotionally. Lots of sick kiddos. But I do love the work. I have been practicing my sewing skills. I am hoping to take a few classes when everything calms down. Right.
I will try to post more frequently, but I can't promise!