Merry Christmas!

This year we had a quiet Christmas with just our little family, and I loved it.  There was no stress, no entertaining, just fun and relaxation.  Tim was on call Christmas Eve and then in the morning, so we had to wait for him to get home before we got to open presents.  I gave Carter strict instructions not to come downstairs when he woke up.  He got up at 6:00 and I told him to go back to bed.  Well, apparently he went downstairs instead... And decided to open up the stockings for everyone.  He said he was making sure no one had rocks in their stockings!  We had told him Santa would leave coal in the stockings if we were bad, and he didn't understand what coal was, so we just said it was like rocks.  Yeah, so he was very happy to see that nobody got rocks!

After Tim finally got home in the morning, we opened presents for while, had an amazing brunch of overnight French Toast, and then opened some more presents.  The rest of the day was spent sleeping, and playing with presents.  We made a simple ham dinner and just enjoyed being together.  

We hope you all had an amazing day, and thank you for all the gifts!  We are truly blessed by our amazing family!

Christmas Eve

Celebrating Christmas with kids is so magical.  I love seeing the excitement in Carter's eyes when we talk about Santa coming and the idea of all the presents under the tree.  Carter and I made cookies this morning to put out for Santa.  He gets a little excited with the sprinkles and kind of over does it... :)  He really loved picking out the perfect cookies to leave out tonight, along with some reindeer food.  I can not wait till tomorrow when he gets to finally open the gifts under the tree.  Merry Christmas Eve! 

And Carter's Letter to Santa this year:
Dear Santa,
I want a transformer.  I like your reindeer.  If you love my stocking, I will give you a present.  I want a new stocking.  Kinley loves her stocking.  I want a chainsaw.  I love you.  Love, Carter
PS: I like your sled!

Real Birthday

Carter had a great birthday just hanging out with the family.  Carter patiently waited for Tim to get home from the hospital before he opened his presents.  I made him green pancakes for breakfast which were a big hit!  We just ended up playing with his new toys all day and celebrating having a big boy!  We took him out to dinner, which is a big treat for him!  Thank you to everyone for his wonderful presents and for all the love you show our little man!  He is an amazing guy!!!

   

4 Years

Dear Carter,

Today you turn 4 years old!  Really, 4 years???  How is that even possible?  You have grown up so much this year.  I have been thinking of you as 4 years already since you act so much different then a year ago.  You are the light of our lives Carter.  I am so proud of the little man you have become.  You have had many struggles in your little life, yet you continue to plow through them.  You became a big brother this year, and I think you are fitting into that title so well.  Kinley looks up to you so much, and you are her best friend.  You also started preschool this year.  Oh boy do you love school!  You come home every day and tell me about the new friend you made and what their name is.  You have started to become such a social little boy.  Hershey has provided you with so many friends and I love seeing you interact with kids your own age.  You are no longer my little man who loves to sleep in.  Most of the time I can be guaranteed you will step out of bed about 7:00.  You are such a good helper around the house.  You love to help vaccum  do dishes, and set the table.  And, if we let you, you really like to change Kinley's diaper! :)  You are learning all your letters, and starting to wonder what words say.  You are becoming a wonderful counter, and we are even starting to work on some simple addition and subtraction problems.  You are an amazing person Carter.  I can't wait to see what this world has in store for you!  I love you my big boy!!
XOXOXO         

Fake Birthday

We had a small birthday party for Carter last weekend with a few of his friends.  He was so excited to have a real party, so we decided to give in.  He would call it his fake birthday since we had the party the week before his real birthday.  This year for his theme he wanted Spider-man   Not really sure why he likes Spider-Man so much.  He has never watched the show, and he doesn't have any toys with Spider-man, but that is what he wanted.  So we went with it.  He had a blast and loved having friends over.  I made him a spider-man cake that was a big hit.  I ran out of time, so I just made a box cake (I know, I know...) and even used the frosting out of a can (Eeeek!)!  Carter's response when he saw the cake: "Oh Mom, that is just the cake I wanted"!  Score!!!

Excited to show off his loot from the Dentist!  

Love the fact that Kayla sent me my moon back that used to hang above my crib and stayed above my bed till I was 18 years old.  It will now hang about my daughters crib.  Thank you so much Kayla!

This girl is LOVING eating!  What a blessing!!

We make em big in Hershey baby!  Yummy!!!

Love this little man like crazy!

They had quite the celebration for Carter at preschool!

Miss. Kinley is officially crawling around like crazy!  Just in time to wreck havoc on the Christmas tree!

6 Months

How is it possible that Kinley is already 6 months old?  It seems like she is growing up so much faster then Carter did.  What an amazing addition she has been to our family.  Our children are everything to us, and I feel so spoiled, blessed, thankful to realize I have 2 beautiful little ones.  

Really, can you not help but just giggle seeing this picture.  Yep, she sure does brighten our days!

Caught him in the candy jar again!

She is crawling everywhere now.  Each day she is getting faster and faster.  Carter is slowly learning anything on the floor will be put in the mouth, so unless you want it slobbery, you better pick it up!

She is always doing this move.  It cracks me up.  I have finally decided she is probably trying to walk like Kenai! :)

Sweet kids!

Hershey keeps getting better and better.  The fire department actually drives Santa down all the streets so the kids can come out of their house and see Jolly Old St.Nick.  Carter is still very afraid of Santa and hides behind us when ever we are near him.  But, he did love seeing Santa on his street, he just preferred seeing him while peaking around my legs. :)

And then there were 5

5 Stockings all up, ready for Santa to fill!  Each one is different, and I love it that way.  I hope the kids end up loving their stockings as they grow older.

Carter helped pick out the material for Kinley's stocking, and I think it turned out awesome!  It might be my favorite...

And now our tree is complete!  Mom and Dad picked up this Nambe Ornament for Kinley while she was still just a little peanut in my tummy.  It is beautiful, and I plan on hanging it up in her room after the holiday season is over.  Oh, my little one! 

Take 2

Welcome to our new blog!  It may take a while to get everything in order, so excuse the mess!  If you need to refresh yourself with our little life, the old address was amberochoa.blogspot.com   So lets take off where we stopped...

Kinley puts up with a lot from her older brother, but the love between them is amazing.  I am pretty sure Carter is Kinley's favorite person.  I hope it lasts through their teen years...

And she sits!  She really does not like to sit though, she wants to be crawling along the floor getting into trouble!

And we have a toothie!  Finally the tooth broke though at a bit over 5 months!  A few minutes after I took this picture, Tim was checking out her tooth and realized that there was actually 2 teeth there!  Bring on the Steak!

All dressed up for the first snowfall! 

Carter lasted maybe 5 minutes outside, when he came in and announced he was ready for some hot chocolate!  I think he was more excited about the cocoa then the snow!

Kinley got her first "No No".  That tree is just so pretty!

December is proving to be a tough month for us.  Tim is working some crazy long hours, and has 2 days off this month.  It makes it hard being a holiday month and all, but we will get though it.  Hopefully the kids are young enough that they wont remember the Christmas Daddy was not around.  (Not that it will be the last Christmas he misses, but...)

Ok, so make sure you update your saved address for the blog, and this is where I will post our new updates.  And, if you are a follower, make sure you update your blogger.