Goodbye 2009...

10 years ago today I was waiting for Nate to get off work... I was 4 months pregnant and had gone down to So California with some friends and Nathan and I were driving back home before midnight. It was crazy, I think it took us like 5 hours. He drove so fast and we finally made it to my Aunts house to celebrate NYE with them and my mom.

I can't go back through the last 10 years so lets just go back a year ago. One year ago today I was sitting at home celebrating with friends and I was 7 months pregnant with Ethan. Can I just say how happy I am that I'm not pregnant this year?!?! That's the best gift in and of itself!

Jonathan was 8 years old... He's basically the same awesome kid. Yes he has a bigger vocab and I'm not talking about the words that he's learned at school but the words he's created himself. He's learned multiplication and division! Not only division but also LONG division! He's grown at least two sizes and now wears shoes that are bigger then mine. He's still into his computer and loves soccer. He makes me laugh every day and still my little Jon.

Jacob and Alyssa were almost a year old and hardly walking. They were fully standing and cruising along everything!

Last year

This year

They have both grown in so many ways. Jacob is the sweetest most sensitive boy I have. He's a lover. He feels everything and takes it all with him. He has to have his way or makes us all suffer. He has grown so much just in the last couple months with his vocab! He says a ton of words and is starting to put together two words. He's that kid that repeats the same word over and over and over and over again. It can get a bit tiresome when we hear airplane for the 10th time and by then the airplane is long gone. He LOVES music! He loves to sing and dance and can now sing twinkle twinkle little star. It is by far his favorite song and we sing it at least 10 times a day. He loves to push anything or pull anything around. He loves his new vacuum he got for Christmas. He also loves to draw. He can draw a circle and can be very serious when drawing. He tends to draw small and really pay attention to what he's doing. Overall he's just an amazing little boy. He's into and on top of EVERYTHING. But his smile and laugh melts my heart.

Alyssa is my little doll. The girl is just so much fun to watch and play with. She loves to sit with daddy and can do that for a very long time. She's just happy hanging out. Aly is the toughest kid I have, seriously. She can take a tumble and just keep on going, she hardly cries and is always the last one that gets fussy. She can run MILES around Jake and does so daily. She's fast and very active. She LOVES to jump and her trampoline is by far her favorite thing. She loves to tumble and flip up in the air. She has absolutely no fear of slides, well anything for that matter. She is my daredevil and little miss grace all at the same time. She's also very smart! She has a ton of words as well and also uses two words but she doesn't talk as much. If you just hung out here for a day you would have no idea that she even spoke. She's quiet. But she can speak and often repeats a LOT of what I say. Her words are also clear as day. She was the first to say no and does so often. She is such an easy kid though, she just goes with the flow and is really level headed. She reminds me SOOO much of Nathan!! Yet she's the spitting image of me as a kid. She gives the best hugs and kisses around.

Ethan was just a kick in my tummy last year, so to say he has grown the most is an understatement. He's well over 23lbs at 10 months old and is the BEST baby ever! He has this face that is to die for and the best cuddles ever. He is crawling all over the place, sitting everywhere and stuffing every little thing he can find into his mouth. He's wonderful and a true blessing to complete this family. Did I mention he's HUGE?? He's HUGE! He's not only heavy but he's also TALL! He can hold his own but I'm not sure that he has any anger in him what-so-ever. He cracks me up with his parrot like screams (happy) and his little hands that are always moving. He is such a joy.

Birth
now...

On the home front not much has changed. Our house is always a mess but it's warm and cozy. Our dogs are sat on often and fed a LOT! Thank goodness they like puffs and cereal!

It's been a wonderful year and I'm sure next year will be even better!

A family tradition and the longest 36 hours of my life.

This is going to be a long one so go grab a cup of coffee or hot cocoa and sit down and relax while you read up on us.

I want to rewind a couple weeks and go back to Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful day! I am so blessed to be spending yet another Thanksgiving with the Teters. I'm not sure when this started but for as long as I can remember, every year we went to Aunt Linda and Uncle Danny's. What a wonderful gift I'm giving my kids. This is a tradition I will NOT break, yes there may be a Thanksgiving here or there spent with Nate's family but a piece of me will be missing. My mom loved Thanksgiving and LOVED spending this day with family, especially Aunt Linda. They talked for hours and I can only imagine how tough this is for to go through without her. A new generation is here to help out and a younger one to drive us crazy and keep us from playing games :-) But one of these years it WILL happen!! And Meg's going to be on MY team for Pictionary. I baked the entire morning and LOVED it! I am thoroughly enjoying not being pregnant this year! For the past 2 years I've been way pregnant and my back wouldn't allow me to stand and cook for hours on end. I made some of my moms favorite dishes. The little ones spent the day playing. It turned out to be a beautiful day outside so they rode everything that had wheels up and down a hill. ALL of the kids had fun and I think all of us "adults" did too :-) Thank you mom for starting this wonderful tradition that I will hold dear forever.

Jake and cousin Roan playing with the firetruck!

Meg, me and Aunt Linda -- Nathan skateboarding down the hill -- Aly and Jake

We have to rewind only a couple days for the rest of this blog! This last Sunday we knew there was a storm coming in, we knew we'd get snow, what we didn't know was how much and how long we would be without power.

I noticed it for the first time around 2am that the power had gone out and at 7am when the kids woke up I looked outside and it was WHITE!! It was gorgeous, I mean picture perfect gorgeous. We had at least a foot and it was still snowing. The power was out and I'm not sure that it really bothered me that much until that afternoon. We also didn't have phones since our landline was down and our cell phones were really spotty. We took the kids out in the snow first thing on Monday morning but they really didn't much care for it :-) The dogs LOVED it!! Jon also loved it and had a lot of fun playing in it for hours.

Nate started a fire.... a fire that we had no idea would have to get us through the coldest night on record. We did have hot water and that was a saving grace! We did have a lot of broken branches and I figured the power might be out for a while so I had Nate grab the camping stove so we could have soup for lunch. It worked out really well, we just put it on the balcony upstairs. We took the kids out again after nap on Monday and they had a better time, but the snow was still up to ALy's knees and they couldn't even walk in it! But Jon had so much, that we stayed out and played with him.

It was finally kicking in that we might go a night without heat, without power. So we started preparing. I had to go through clothes and pick out bedtime clothes. It was supposed to get down in the 20's and that was going to make for a really really long night. I knew I was going to put the kids to bed in their room at first and go from there. They spent the hardest part of the afternoon finger painting and then eating dinner. I swear my house looks like a bomb went off! It's amazing what twin toddlers can do when they are stuck inside without tv! They had a lot of fun though! Dinner was easy and by flashlight :-) Then we put them to bed and I got started on dinner. We had fried potatoes and scrambled eggs, one of my favorite things to make while camping. It was good and Nate, Jon and I ate it while listening to music and playing games by the fireplace. We had candles going but the lanterns worked the best. We played a LOT of board games and at the end of the night we made smores!

We did end up going to bed early. I spent the night downstairs (FREEZING) so I could be near the kids incase they got too cold. They did really well considering, and I went in at least every 2 hours and made sure they were covered with blankets and their little hands and cheeks weren't cold. They woke up at about 6:30 and I took them upstairs. It was 54 degrees in the house. However Nathan (the awesome husband/father that he is) had kept the fire going all night so the upstairs was nice and warm.

I think it was at that point that we called PG&E again and they told us they wouldn't know anything or have it fixed till 6:30pm. I was about to LOSE it! I had no idea how we would go through another day or night without power... But we then called again a couple hours later and they said around 2pm. SO that made me feel better. We decided that we would put the kids down for a nap and then head out for the mall. Well a couple hours into the twins nap the power came on!!!! I almost cried I was so happy!!! Going 36 hours without central heat and a stove, not to mention the fridge and freezers, seemed like a very long time!

We still have a lot of snow but it's frozen over and HARD!! It's still pretty though.

The funniest thing! Tim's tennis ball was frozen to the chair!!!

Some other great news is that Ethan has now learned to get into the sitting position on his own and as of 3 days ago is now officially on the move! He's crawling EVERYWHERE!! He's so much like ALy in the way he learns and meets these different milestones. I'm so proud of him and he is so much fun to watch!