Together

Alex and Anika are spending more and more time together. It is such an amazing thing to see their relationship grow. Tonight Alex was showing Anika how to use her Tadoodles Art Station that she got from her Grandma. He is very patient and caring with her. She adores him like no one else. Alex has Spanish this year as part of his school day. He has a 15 minute Spanish time twice a week. He has learned so much already this year. He is now counting with Anika and teaching her body parts and colors. He started doing this on his own and I am trying to get him to teach me. He seems to like to talk to Anika in Spanish alone. It is like a shared secret between them. I am really Thankful for both of my wonderful precious kids.

Happy New Year

Wishing you all a happy and wonderful 2009! I can not believe it is 2009 already. It seems like only a few months since we were in Guatemala with Anika. It really has been almost a year. The kids had such fun with these hats last week. We had a nice trip to celebrate Christmas with Dad, Nana ,Grandpa Joe, Uncle Adam and my great Aunt Bev on Sunday. I will have to get a movie done at some point. Right now I wanted to get something new on here while Anika is napping. Can I say that I LOVE that she naps in her crib FINALLY! Thanks to my cousin Sarah over Thanksgiving. I saw how her sweet one went to bed in the pack in play in a strange house in the middle of the party and thought well Anika MUST be able to sleep in her crib at home. She was going to bed at night great in her crib but naps were a mess. Now I feel so much more in control of my life with a bit of time during the day and the house is cleaner too. :)

Speaking of the house, my oh my this house we bought has been a money pit since we moved in. I got home today after taking Alex to school to find the heat not working. $600 dollars later we have a new motor in the furnace as we speak. Since July we had to have the A/C fixed when a line broke and flooded the basement and we had a sewer back up down there not long after. I miss our old house like crazy and miss our small happy town in PA and this is not helping.

So much to be thankful for though so I will focus on all the great blessings in my life. Alex and Anika top the list.

A Special Christmas

We had a wonderful time with the kids this year. Just to have Anika here this year was such a special gift. She really enjoyed opening her gifts. Christmas Eve we had our family of four Christmas. It was really fun to see the kids so happy. Anika had a bawl and even wore the HO HO HO Jammi's that Alex wore when he was one on Christmas. It is the little things like that that I love. She made a sled out of a box herself and asked Alex to pull her around the house. It was so precious. After the gifts were opened and the cookies left for Santa. Alex went out and left food for the reindeer as is our tradition. Anika will have to start this next year since I forgot about it until she was already sleeping. I felt bad but Alex enjoyed doing it since he was the big kid so all was not lost. Christmas morning was fun seeing how excited they both got about Santa's gifts or "ho ho" as Anika calls him. Jens was sick so we had to postpone our trip to see Grandpa and Nana. We had a quiet day here enjoying the kids. We had a wonderful day with Grandma Pappy and Uncle Adam yesterday. We are really making the fun last this year. I had so many pictures that I decided to make a movie. This is only pre-Christmas and the 24Th and 25Th. I think the Grandparent's special days will be part 2. We are all very blessed and thankful. Wishing you all happy days.
Tracy

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I wanted to finally get back to this long silent blog. I have missed it. It seems that having two kids and one that likes to be up from 1-4 am for some reason is harder than I thought it was going to be.

We are getting ready for the holiday's. Alex's last day of school is Friday and he is so excited about Santa coming. The tree is up and he has told Santa what he wants.

I will have to catch up with the pictures. Alex loves winter and getting all ready to go outside. The picture is one of his latest creations. Happy Holidays!

Outside

Halloween Pictures Finally

We had a nice time going out on Halloween. The kids were happy and Alex got two buckets filled. He has candy to last until next Halloween at this rate. Anika had her first taste of Mini M n M's and was thrilled to just ride along and eat and point at all the cats she could find. She fell asleep and missed the last half of the night.

The big kid in the house

It is hard to believe that Alex is already done with three months of first grade. He is doing great and has made friends. Other than school he is in boy scouts and we are all really enjoying that a lot. I never realized how involved I could be in it. I thought it was a father/son activity only. It is really for the family as a whole. Lot of good times to be had. Last Friday while he had a day off of school we went to the playground and he made this "campfire" out of sticks and leaves. He amazes me with his creativity all the time. He also spends a lot of time outside in the playset mixing up things and making "potions". He has a huge interest in science right now. Just a few new pictures of him that I wanted to share. It is a bit bittersweet how independent his is getting this year. I know this is only the beginning.