Count down....

The BEST of 2011.

Mayumi and Yuma come to visit during the winter!

 

Ellie gets glasses.

 

Ellie decides that her favorite color is blue.

Mother's Day with my mom, Ellie and baby to be!

We get a playset!

Ellie turns 2!

Ellie starts daycare two times a week.

 

Hiking with Wendi, Dad and Ellie - so much fun!

Vegas with the Roberts' family for their 40th Anniversary!

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The best part of 2011 is Jack. He melts my heart.

Merry, merry Christmas!

Picking up our new van!

We've been busy in the Roberts' household! Mostly spending time at home, eating, celebrating the holidays and just having fun.  I've had off for a week, which has been so awesome. I LOVE having off of work. I'm happy to report that we got a minivan! We picked it up Friday, the day before Christmas eve. We decided to get the Toyota Sienna XLE. We initially wanted the dark grey, but we would have had to wait another month, so we decided that black would be just as nice. It has a dvd player, automatic side doors and back door. It's really nice.  We already took a trip down to Ikea with 5 adults and 2 kids. It was perfect!

Ellie singing in the minivan :)

Daddy, Jack and Ellie at Ikea.

Christmas was so fun this year because Ellie is now at that age where she likes opening presents and is excited about  everything. She got so many awesome gifts this year. Nick and I got her a doll house which she ooohed and awwed about. She loves it. Santa brought her a "Baby Alive" doll. I wasn't sure if I wanted to get her this, since dolls are kind of creepy, but this one isn't too bad. You can brush her teeth and change her diaper!

Ellie in her Mrs. Clause dress.

Christmas Morning

Christmas breakfast

Mama and Ellie with her new Hello Kitty hat from Auntie We-we

Jack fell asleep during breakfast.

Later Christmas day we headed over to the Robert's house where there were so many more presents to open. It was a long day, but so much fun!

I love Jack's face here. Doesn't he look a lot like his Grandpa too?

These dogs are crazy.

Ellie loves her Grandma!

Merry Christmas!!

Modge Podge is pretty cool!

Last week I used Modge Podge for the first time and LOVED it. It's a pretty cool thing and so basic (watered down glue). So, I've seen these canvases floating around on Pinterest, blogs, etc and thought I would take a stab at it. Here is a link to it, if you are curious.

Here is the original:

Here is my version:

I hung them in the spare bedroom upstairs, since there is nothing on the walls. Sorry for the bad picture, I was too lazy and just used my IPhone.

Brushing

So, I finally got Ellie to love brushing her teeth. She actually likes it so much, that I don't have to beg her to get out of the bath tub.(and we all know how much she loves the bath)

I use to use a regular kids tooth brush, but have upgraded her to a battery operated one that spins. It's a Spongebob one and she loves it! She really likes to put the toothpaste on too. I'm still using 'swallowable' toothpaste as she doesn't really get the whole spitting thing - that might be a good thing though. So, if you are having problems with brushing, try the spinning kind. She giggles and thinks it's funny, it probably tickles too.

Christmas Time

I love this week - the week before Christmas. There are so many things I am thankful for, but my number one thing is Ellie and Jack. They make me so happy I could squeal. My life is SO complete with them. Although Ellie kicks or accidently hits Jack once in awhile, she loves him so much. I can't wait for them to be able to really play together.

Our good friends from Japan sent a package a couple days ago and Ellie was so excited to see all her cute gifts. One of her gifts was this adorable fuzzy Hello Kitty cape.  She loves Hello Kitty! (I'm not sure where she got that, hehe).

Smooch!

It's gone!

Well... the Benz is gone. (tear)  It took only 3 days for it to sell. I love craigslist. I should probably be a used car salesgirl as this is Nick's second car that I've sold in less than a week.  Now that we got rid of that car, it's time to move on to a MINIVAN! I'm not totally thrilled about getting a minivan, but it's practical and it will be nice to have more room and take some road trips. We've been eyeing up the Toyota Sienna XLE and will probably decide this week, since we only have one car now. I was actually a little sad to see it go, but it's time to move on.

2011 Christmas Card

We sent out our Christmas cards last week. I'm glad I can check that off my list. My dad took the picture at my parent's land. It actually turned out decent (this is 1 of about 100 shots). Meeko was the most difficult this year, he just wanted to run around crazy and pee on all the trees. You can tell that he was responding to my mom or dad whistling or yelling for him to look, his little ear is up. He's silly. Ellie was pretty co-operative considering it was freezing out that day!

Santa

Last weekend, I dragged Nick and the kids to Mayfair to take a picture with Santa. Here it is, don't laugh too hard. It's pretty funny. Jack and Ellie are clueless, Nick looks a little thugish in his hat, I have a very fake smile and I think that just might be the real Santa.