It's about that time.....

...Time to put the real jeans away for a while and only wear pants with elastic waistbands! My favorite, favorite pair of jeans stopped fitting me last week and now my other pair are a little too tight for comfort. I think I get to go to Columbia alone on Saturday (right, Roy?) and do some major maternity shopping. I've gotta find something decent to wear or I'll be in gray sweats for the next 4 months! I hate trying to find pants to wear when I'm pregnant - it's always really hard. Luckily I've been able to put it off this long! :) And if the weather stays as cold as it has been this week then I might just stay in gray sweats till spring!

The real you

Today my sister posted a picture of herself sans makeup/hair product/pose to show what she looks like on a regular basis. I don't have many pictures like that, because when I am in my natural state the camera makes it look even worse! I don't mind the way I look if I look in the mirror, but for some reason the camera just highlights the blotchy skin and greasy hair!


I guess this is what I typically look like and I think I'm okay with it. I'd like to have less blotchy skin, but I'm trying to work on that with proper care of my face before I resort to wearing makeup everyday. And my teeth have become ridiculously yellow in the past few years - anyone have advice for that? I cringe every time I see a close up of my teeth.

Anyway, I don't know what my point is :) The other day I saw someone from church at the store and she didn't have on her usual make up on and hair all done up (this person always looks amazingly perfect at church) and she looked so nice and natural and I thought she looked great! I guess I'd rather look natural on a daily basis and people get used to my imperfections and then when I actually get all dressed up and put on makeup everyone is shocked and thinks I look amazing :) And I wouldn't want the hubby to cringe when I wash off my makeup at night ;) (Not that he would - he hates makeup!) So that's my current strategy - what's yours?

Happy Birthday Bobby!

I don't know if you read my blog - maybe Sabina does, but probably not on a daily basis. Anyway, hope you had a great day!

I need chocolate

It's one of those days. I hosted preschool today. It was pretty easy, pretty fun, but still tiring. Rae and Blaise have been fighting like crazy the past week. They just argue and bicker nonstop!! Ugh! And Blaise had a doctor appointment this morning which ended up taking an hour! The kids were incredibly good the first 40 minutes but totally lost it the last 20. We were waiting in the room forever after the nurse left and then they had a medical student check him first and then actual doctor came and did the whole exam again. Blaise was scared of both of them. And the appointment was at 8:30, which is really early for us! I got home just in time to clean up the house for preschool. Oh, and it's super cold today. Bleh. Just a bleh day. I'm trying to make up for it by at least having the house clean and the laundry done. There's nothing worse than having a bad day and then realizing you totally slacked off and just made it worse. And it'll all be okay because when Roy comes home tonight I'm leaving him to do dinner, bath and bed and I'm going shopping alone, and I'll get chocolate. :) How's your day going?

Our visit to Las Vegas - Part Two: Christmas Day and beyond

Christmas Day Dale's sister Sharon and her son Derrick came over for dinner. Also a couple Mariah and Rob - Roy's sister used to babysit Mariah long long ago. We had a turkey and ham dinner and then birthday cake for all of the December birthdays. Then we opened some more presents!

Lighting the candles for Blaise, Brianni, Ashley, Roy and Derrick

Happy Birthday to us!

Even though I love chocolate cake I chose to have tasty cheesecake instead :)

The whole gang at Olive Garden to celebrate Brianni's birthday.

Rae took this picture - it's pretty typical of what we do in Vegas :)

All of the cousins: Kassandra, Brianni, Catrina, Rae and Blaise
Funny, they are posed in order of age but not purposefully.

We left on New Years Eve and had a great flight home. Blaise fell asleep before takeoff. We decided to get a hotel in Kansas City so we wouldn't have to drive home in the dark (and I thought it would be snowy, but there was absolutely no snow) and so we could do a stop at Target to spend some Christmas gift cards! We didn't do anything special New Years Eve, we were all asleep by 10! The next day we did some shopping and got home around 2 in the afternoon. Anyway, there you have it - our Christmas 2008 Vacation :)

Our trip to Las Vegas - Part One: Christmas Eve

Okay, I'm going to wrap up all this Christmas stuff today! On Tuesday, the 23rd my dad drove us to Needles, CA to meet Roy's mom (Baerbel) there and she drove us the rest of the way to Vegas. Roy's sister and her family were already there so we were met with a lot of chaos! We decided to stay in the guest house so that our kids could go to bed early and Blaise could take naps and no one would have to worry about keeping their voices down. It was lovely to stay out there! We unpacked, got settled, ate dinner and put the kids to bed. The next day (Christmas Eve) we heated up the pool and went swimming!

Getting started

After a few minutes in the pool Blaise decided he liked being in the jacuzzi with Opa better!

Jump!

Rae preferred being with Oma and her cousins in the pool.

I would have spent the entire time in the jacuzzi if I wasn't pregnant, so I hung out on the side letting the warm water spill over :)

Back inside the guest house all showered and clean!

And ready for Christmas Eve festivities!

Having a traditional German dinner - bratwurst and German potato salad.


And then following German tradition of opening all of our presents!

The Perske family posing for a picture
(Roy's sister, husband and three daughters)


In this picture she was saying "four" which is how many presents she had so far.

"Is this whole pile for me?" Oma buys a lot of stuff.

We got a lot of great stuff - thank you Oma and Opa! Later today I'll post about the rest of our visit in Las Vegas. We have 1pm church now and it's pretty weird. The mornings are really really long but once we get home it's just dinner and bedtime, so that's kind of nice. So, expect a lot of posts on Sunday mornings! Oh, and just a quick update, it hardly snowed at all the other night and there's currently no snow on the ground - woo hoo!

Lovely day

We just got back from a glorious place. A place where almost all sibling fighting stops. A place where arguing with mommy almost completely ceases. A place where imaginations grow. What is this magical place? The park! It's sunny and 50 degrees today (with hardly any wind) and there's no snow on the ground, so we were able to go to the park for the first time in a couple of months (except for during vacation). It was so fantastic. I pushed the kids on the swings for about 10 minutes and it was blissfully quiet - the only sound to be heard was quiet voices singing a song about flying at the park. They like to make up songs but they usually argue about who gets to sing their version. But this time they both sang their own little version and ignored each other. It almost brought tears to my eyes. I was SO happy to be outside, in the sunshine, in short sleeves!

It's supposed to snow tonight (like, 100% chance -ugh) and tomorrow the high is supposed to be 26, so I'm glad we took advantage of the warm weather! Actually, I think we are going to head back out and ride bikes and color with chalk on the sidewalk. It's too nice to be inside! (the only reason we came home from the park was because mommy had to pee!!) Anyway, I just wanted to share how happy I am to have warm weather today. If you are lucky enough to live in a place where it's NOT snowing and is above 50 degrees I suggest that you take your kids outside! :)

More pictures

Blaise wore this metal bowl as a hat almost everyday.

Ta-da!

Uncle Bryce tolerated a lot too.

HO HO HO!

Blaise and grandpa-clause

Opening a present from G&G. I wish I could sit like that!

Yay, cars!

Rae didn't much care for grandpa-clause

But she had to sit on his lap to get her present!

Not a very appreciative face! She really did like the dress but it was a
little to big on her and she was starting to get really tired that night.
I need to add a couple of safety pins and then it will fit just fine.

Granny reading the book Rae made for her and grandpa

And now showing it to grandpa

The view from outside

My dad works so hard on the lights every year - and the kids really love them!

Our visit to Blythe

We went to Blythe from the 16th-23th. We had to drive to the airport in Kansas City, MO and the weather was pretty bad. It was snowing the entire way and although it was clear enough to drive it wasn't a very relaxing trip. Then we had to park in the economy parking lot and then drag all of our stuff to the shuttle bus. The snow plows hadn't been in the parking lot yet, so we had to carry the kids to the bus stop and then Roy went back and did about three trips to get all of our bags (we only had four, but when you can't roll them in the snow they are harder to carry!) It was SO cold!

We got to the airport and checked in just fine. Once we were on the plane they told us they had to de-ice it and it would take about 10 minutes. Well, it took more like 25 minutes. Ugh. But the kids were good and the flight went well. Oh, except that Blaise pooped and the airplane didn't have a changing table in the bathroom, so I had to change him on our seat! I felt bad for the people around us but it was stupid Southwest's fault anyway. We were late getting to Phoenix but our flight out of Phoenix was delayed too, so that was fine. Yup, that's right, we had to change plans in Phoenix to get to Ontario. We wanted to fly into Phoenix, but it was cheaper to fly into Ontario, but then we had to change plans in Phoenix anyway! Silly.

Anyway, we got to Ontario and my mom and dad picked us up (they got stuck in LA traffic and it took them longer to drive from LA to Ontario than it did for us to fly from Phx to Ontario!) We headed to my brother Aaron's house for some tasty homemade pizza and then back on the road. It was about 8:30 by now, which is 11:30 MO time, so the kids fell asleep pretty quickly in the car. We stopped in Indio for a "quick" trip to WinC0 (oh I miss that store so much!) and then back on the road. I think we got home around 1am and we woke the kids up so they could see the dog and cat :) They played around for a while and then we all went to bed.

It rained the first day in Blythe but the other days were nice and we just enjoyed hanging out with Granny and Papa and going to the park a few times. It was great to be able to go outside! Rae and Blaise LOVED being in Blythe and LOVE their grandparents! On Sunday night we had a fire in the fireplace and an impromptu visit from my dad dressed up as Santa, which ended with us opening our presents from each other. On Monday night I convinced my parents to have our "Christmas Eve pigout" early. Every year we save all of our Christmas goodies that we get from people and on Christmas Eve we put it all out and eat cookies, candy, beef stick, cheese, crackers, popcorn and whatever else for dinner. It was fantastic. :) Yum, yum, yum.

Tuesday morning my dad drove us to meet my inlaws in Needles (halfway point between Blythe and Las Vegas) I'll post later about our visit to Vegas. Here are some pictures from Blythe:

Making a gingerbread house on the rainy day
As you can see the kids were doing more eating than helping!

The finished product. The frosting was really hard to work with and
I gave up after the first few windows :)

Eating the finished product

Roy's way of eating the gingerbread.

Petting Chica

My parents gave Blaise a stuff Barney for his birthday - he is still in love with it

They traded clothes. Blaise's pants make great capris for Rae!

Hanging out in front of the fire

This was Rae's favorite place to be - perched on grandpa's shoulder!
He tolerated a lot during our visit!

More to come later today - I need to go pay attention to my kids!

Home sweet home

We had a great vacation, but it is always nice to get home and sleep in your own bed and have your own space. And one of the best parts about coming home are two kiddos that are so happy to be done traveling and haven't seen their toys for 2 weeks! No need to pull out the Christmas presents yet, they are happy to play with everything that is already here!

More updates to come.