pump it up time

The sweet Groooshooooski kids

These are all the L&D kids for a group photo

Mommy did get into the action a little, I tell ya , that thing is fun!!!

my buddy Tammy gettin her baby fix, and Daddy making eyes at his sweetie :)

The Bit was in heaven to get this break from our winter blues with all those kids

we were so excited when her good buddy Lilly was there to play with her

Her sweet daddy braved the jumping tent with her.

A coworker of mine invited us to a fun party at the local Pump It Up for a late winter birthday party. It was Abigail's first visit to one of these and lets just say she was into it!! :)

Some King therapy

We got together with sweet Aunti D and Uncle Greg to help us survive winter boredom. We played some good quality Wii games and ate lots of chicken wings and pizza. It was a blast. Abigail was quite good at sword fighting her daddy, especially when he didn't fight back. :) Poor Chloe just is learning to adjust to the noise of our family fun nights. :)

Christmas memories 2010!!

It was a great Christmas this year with the addition of our new little Chloe! We had a great time being together as a family. Brian couldn't wait to get the party started so at 0830 her bounded into the Bit's room to get her moving. Poor thing, again if only we could offer her some coffee! She eventually woke up enough to realize what the day was. We enjoyed watching her open everyone's presents, so willingly since mommy's hands were busy w/ baby and Chloe obviously needed assistance w/ her gifts. We giggled as she discovered more and more princess gear under the tree. You'd never know how much one little girl could sparkle from her hair to her toes! She loved how Santa and family hooked her up with all kinds of goodies. Brian cleaned up in the kitchen department with all kinds of new fun gadgets to facilitate his little addiction to the culinary arts! And I walked away with lots of ways to make me and my house smell good which always goes over well with me! We feasted on our usual breakfast casserole and monkey bread and remained cozy and happy through the day. Our wonderful Grammie came over around lunch for more food and fun and she spoiled us all rotten all over again! We finished the afternoon w/ a good beef roast after munching on mushroom goup and brie cheese w/ jelly. We made a lot of good memories and enjoyed God's blessing on the day together.

Family Christmas traditions at our favorite Irish pub

This year we decided to return to our local Irish pub for a nice warm taste of some good food, atmosphere and delicious hard cider. We had 2 new additions to the family this year officially. Our Uncle Greg was ours legally this year and our sweet Chloe made a nice addition to the festivities. We feasted on my favorite pecan brie appetizer and very harty Irish dinners. It was a good time once again to get out in the cold and visit w/ our family. We finished the evening by coming back to our house where Aunti Deana proceeded to spoil the girls with some Christmas fun. It was a great night.

winter wonderland!

I'll just say after 2 hrs out in the elements Brian and I were going to sleep gooooood that night, and we did!

watching the snow pile up Friday night

me and my little snuggle muffin , boy did that girl keep me nice and warm!!

she definitely threw like a girl!

we didn't mind the Bit sized snow balls she would put together

We had a nice surprise this weekend with an early BIG snow fall here. It broke some serious records for the valley and took the city by storm. We had a ball getting out to play in it, well as much as we could. It was actually too deep to sled in so we just opted for a walk through the neighborhoods in the car tracks to visit some of Abigail's buddies. The problem is her friends are all 2 and 3 yrs old so their wasn't a lot of real hard playing in the snow like we wanted. Didn't help that the snow came up to their little waists. :) So we had some little girl snowball fights and just a good walk...well Brian and I walked mostly Abigail rode and Chloe, well she just did her usual sleep through the whole thing. Abigail was a little whiney until we got to her friends house. She kept saying "but daddy, it's cold!!". It was kinda pitiful. :) I still think this girl prefers the sun and the sand to winter fun.

It's been a fun change to see some real snow. It's been over 10 yrs that this area got a big storm and 40 yrs in the month of December! Makes for a lot of Christmas spirit w/ all that white stuff on the ground. Luckily we are about done w/ our shopping. So mostly we are just staying in and enjoying the view out our windows.

Gingerbread house

Chloe giving us her sweet smile of approval

Finally this year I did something I've wanted to do for years now. Abigail was finally old enough to buy one of those gingerbread house kits at Sam's. We had a great time playing with the candy and the icing together. She did struggle to not eat all the candy and some of the pieces I even made her spit out and we used them all sticky anyway. :) Chloe gave us her drooly 2 cents worth and she smiled and cooed at our progress. We let our creative juices combine and we were pretty impressed w/ our end result. A tasty and colorful centerpeice for our table and some very sweet memories! ok, pun intended. :)