Friendships

Through time I have always had friends come and go, and today is no different. I have a friend that I adore, but as she becomes more withdrawn to the world around her, she loses touch with people who she considers close friends. I always thought that we would be friends forever, and now it is looking like it is one of the friends that is in my past and not my future. I understand that everyone goes through struggles in life, and no one has a perfect life. You also chose who you are and what you are doing with your life. If you don't like something about yourself change it. Don't crawl in a hole and shut out the rest of the world. You are not only missing your own life, but you are missing that of all the people you consider close to you. It hurts not only you but all of those around you! I know I just need to move on, and hopefully she knows I care a lot. I just can't be pushed away all the time and not fall off the edge!

Stress

Ryan and I have had an incredibly stressful week, but we survived and are stronger because of it! It was not stress between the two of us, however I am really start to discover that when outside stress affect my life, I allow them to overcome me. I find that I have much less patience for my children and I become more demanding and unfriendly with Ryan. I know that for the rest of my life I am going to have stress, but I hope that by recognizing how I handle it I will be able to make improvements to myself and find different ways of relieving it and relating to the people I love the most.

(It also does not help that my Turner told me he liked to make me sad and he wanted to make me cry... oh the terrible twos!!! Then five minutes later he made up by running over and asking me for a "mommy hug" :-) )

True love

Last night after coming in from the cold and stripping of the layers of winter wear, Turner came over to me and said "hold me Mommy!". He has recently begun to do that more recently and he sat with me for almost an hour. If I would let my hands loosen a little, he would put them back on his belly and say, "No hold me". As I was watching him, and cuddling with him I started to tear up. Looking at him and Reese, I just can't believe how much I love them. It is a love so strong, that if you don't have kids you will never understand! My kids showed me what true, unconditional love is, and I hope I am able to do the same for them!

Snow Day!

Yesterday we had about 3-4 inches of snow! It was sooo much fun to take the kids out and play! Turner loved it, and Reese not so much!

What is this????

MOM!!!

I love the snow!!

I don't like this either!

Turner sliding down the hill!


The cruelty my parents put me through!


Our house in the snow:)

Mommy caught me beginning to enjoy it!!

After we played in the snow we came inside and Reese was wearing some of her favorite hats and headbands! We love them sooo much that I ordered her some bigger hats and more headbands and bows! If you like them to you can get them at:
http://www.coccoletta.com/index.html

Reese also has a Tutu from there that we love too! I will have to play dress up with her this weekend and post photos for everyone!

Soooo Cute!

I love this headband!

Finally some Christmas Photos!

Before I get to the Christmas photos that took forever to get up, I wanted to show everyone my absolutely favorite photo of my kids together! Reese crawled into the box with Turner that they were playing with. The box usually holds their toys, but they decided it was more fun with them in it! I love this photo! It shows why I am so happy I have two:)

Reese giving Turner kisses



We had the biggest tree I have ever imaged in our house this year. It literally took up a quarter of our living room. It was about 7 foot wide, no lie! (the photos don't do it justice) The first photo was after Santa came, but before the kids got up and the second is one I took playing with one of the filters for my camera!

Here is the birthday cake that we made for baby Jesus! Turner loved singing to him and we are so glad that Jill and Tim told us about this, so it can be our new family tradition too!




Here is a photo of Reese with one of her coins for her play piggy bank! She is just too cute!


I will get more photos from family and post them soon! We videoed a lot of the morning, so we don't have a lot of the kids opening gifts, but it was SOOOO much fun! Who knew Christmas got better when we have our kids to celebrate with:-)

Research

So I have to admit that I have not been keeping up with all of the political/ election stuff that has been going on. I try to not let other peoples opinions influence who I am going to vote for, so I try to not read a lot of commentary about the candidates. Because of that, I find that I am really uneducated when it comes to who I feel would be the best people to be elected into office. One of my goals over the next month, before the MD primaries is to become more educated about the candidates so that I can vote based on my own beliefs and thoughts. This has become especially important to me because I am not only voting for myself, but for my children's future! It is crazy how EVERYTHING changes when you become a parent!

So Fun!

The park was so much fun! The kids all have such a good time when they are outside! Turner and Jeffrey ran around like crazy ones, the Klein girls played on the slides and Reese was miss independent. It is really hard being a mom of a 2.5 year old boy. He climbs everything and has very little fear. It makes my heart skip a beat every time he tries new "big boy" activities! I know I have to let him go, but sometimes he just needs to be little again!

Beautiful Weather

The weather yesterday and today is absolutely incredible! It is between 60 and 70 and sunny! Tracey and I took the kiddos to the park yesterday to play. There is one that is walking distance from my house that is not as nice as the other ones we go to, but it is nice enough to go to when I have more than just my kids. Turner was a crazy man throwing wood chips everywhere, but he had a great time. Reese got to go down the slides for the first time, and she loved it! She loved climbing up the stairs and then I would have to bring her back down so that she could do it all over again. I can't believe that it is the middle of January and we are going to the park with light weight jackets on! It is crazy! I have the Klein girls today, and we are all going to walk to the park when they all wake up from their naps!

Vacation and Christmas

I am so glad that our holiday is over! We were all sick over the entire thing. We either had a cold, or when that ended, a stomach virus! It all started the week before Christmas, and continued until this past weekend. Ryan was home for all of it, and as much as I love my husband and children, all 4 of us in one house sick at the same time is not what I consider a fun break! Hopefully we will be able to take a fun vacation soon, and leave the germs behind.

This Christmas is the first year that Turner really began to understand. We talked to him about it being baby Jesus' birthday the whole month! When we asked he would tell us it was going to be baby Jesus' birthday! It was so cute, and then to really hit the point that Christmas was a birthday party for someone very special, we had a birthday cake for Jesus' and let Turner blow out the candles. He loved it! It is definitely going to be one of our favorite new family traditions.

We also celebrated Santa, and Turner and Reese left out cookies and milk for him when they went to bed (and carrots of course)! They were very excited to see that Santa and the reindeer came and ate some of the food! They loved opening presents and they were spoiled to the max! We are now going to be donating a lot of toys and clothes to Goodwill!

I will post more about Christmas with photos later! I am enjoying getting back to our normal lives again! I hope everyone has a great beginning to 2008!