Our Christmas!

Wow I know it has been forever and yes I needed Angie's yelling at me to BLOG!!! for me to get my butt in gear and finally post some pictures. I have been pretty busy lately with going home for a month and seeing Mike's family and then going to Utah and then to my parents. I had such a wonderful trip and want to thank everyone for taking us in and taking care of us. It was so good to see Mike's family and spend the week with them. We got to go to sea world and in San Diego Mike's parents spoiled me and the kids by taking us to downtown San Diego and loving the kids. (As much as they would let them! LOL) Then we got to drive up and see Mike's Grandad and that was great he is so wonderful and we just love him. Then my mom and dad flew me and the kids and my mom to Utah and I got to see almost all of my relatives and my wonderful friend Deidra and her family. Then after Utah I went home to Yuma for almost two weeks with my family. I had such a good trip and loved spending every minute with my family and Angie and Jeff and the kids came from Phoenix for Thanksgiving and Mike got to come from San Diego for Thanksgiving also. I am so happy I got to see Ang and her family I miss her and them so much Angie is one of my best friends and it's so hard being away from her so it was great to spend the whole weekend with her and the kids. Then I also got to see all my best buds! Alison, Shelly, Emily, Isabel, Angela, and Edna. I got to see Ericka and Carrie for a breif hello I wish I could have seen more of them. But it was a great trip.
But as for Christmas we had such a great day with the morning starting out in a blur of toys as it always is on Christmas morning. The kids as you can see got spoiled to death with toys and more toys! The had fun opening all there presents and Madison kept going and going!! She even wanted to open mine! Jake on the other hand started asking me if I would open his! But thank you Grandma and Grandpa's for all the gifts and Ang for Madison's and Christina for Mike's and Sarah for Jake's and Josh for mine. We draw name's on my mom's side so thanks again. We loved them all. But I hope everyone enjoyed there Christmas and took a few minutes to remember the true meaning of Christmas and how blessed we are for our Savior Jesus Christ. I hope everyone has a wonderful new year and accomplished all they have set out for the new year!

Halloween

Happy Birthday Jake!!

Today is my sweet boys birthday! I can't believe he is already 4 years old. I am so proud of him and how big he is getting! Each day he makes me laugh and smile and grateful that I am his mom. Mike and I love him so much and are so grateful for our little halloween baby! Happy Birthday Jake!!

Jake's Party

We celebrated Jake's birthday on Saturday we had lots of friends come and have lots of fun. We had pizza from Little ceasars and then we played somes games like musical chairs, pin the flag on the pirate ship, and find the coins in the yucky gunk! Then we had a pirate ship pinata. Then Jake opened all his many presents and got some great gifts! We want to thank everyone for all the gifts and for coming to Jakes party! Then we sang happy birthday and had some yummy pirate cake! Jakes real birtday is October 31st (halloween) but Mike is leaving on Monday so we had his party Saturday. We will go trick or treating on his birthday then some of my friends and there kids are going to come over for some cupcakes! I can't believe my little boy is almost 4 he is growing up so fast and getting so big and so smart! We are so proud of him and they cute little man he is becoming! We love you Jake! Happy Birthday!

Grandma and Grandpa Strebe's visit

This past week my parents flew into see us. We had such a great visit and had a lot of fun with them. Monday we got to show them all around town and the bases and Mike got to show my dad all the things around the bases and everything he works on and then Tuesday we went out to the beach and then Wednesday we drove to Greensboro, NC so my dad could see a business that he does business with. Then we finished the day with driving to Mt Airy, NC the town were Mayberry (from the Andy Griffith show) is based on. They had some fun things to see and it was fun to see my mom so excited cause she loves the Andy Griffith show! Then we drove past Raleigh and went to Smithfield, NC to the outlet mall for a bit. Then we drove home. They left on Friday the trip went so fast but we are so glad they came and enjoyed our time with them. When they left Jake cried so much. He was so sad the rest of the day. We love them and can't wait to see them in a few weeks!

Jake's New Bed

We found Jake a captain's bed and got it all put together last night. We went today and bought him a new mattress and he picked out the pirates of the carabien sheets and comforter. He loves it. I figured since he will be turning 4 at the month it was time for a big bed. I can't believe how big he is getting and it's just going so fast! We are so proud of you Jake!!

Cool Tricks!

Here is Jake doing his cool trick! He was watching yo gaba-gaba a show on noggin and on each show they do a cool trick and he saw a little boy do this cool trick. So he wanted to do it. So here he is with the spoon on his nose. He is just to cute!

And It's GONE!!

Well we have accomplished one of the hardest tasks of parenting getting rid of the pacifier! Yeah for us! It only took us 3 days she does do a little crying before she settles down but it went a lot smoother than we had hoped for! She is even sleeping through the night! I guess our next goal is potty training Madison. Which I was very lucky and had my friends potty train Jake so I will have to be patient trying to work on her. Wish us luck!

my babies

Okay so another post of my kids pictures but I was going through all my pictures from my photo picture frame and I thought I would look for some pictures from when the kids were the same age so I know Madison's is pretty recent. But in these pictures they were both 11 months old and they are so cute!~

My kids....

I love my kids so much. I just am so grateful for them and the happiness they bring to mine and Mike's lives. I just had taken a couple cute pictures of them and wanted to put them up and tell everyone how much we love them!

Fun with Daddy!

Dad spent some time outside the other day with the kids filling up numerous water balloons! Jake loves water balloons and Madison had fun squeezing them and popping them on herself! LOL. But it being so hot it only lasted for about 20 minutes but it was a nice way for them to cool off a little and have some fun with daddy! Mike is such a great dad and loves Jake and Madison so much and I am so grateful for how much he loves his kids and Me. I love you pumpkin!

Mister smarty pants!

Jake is now into using the computer. I thought it would be fun to have him start playing some games on the computer. So I logged onto the Noggin and Nick Jr. website and he started playing games. He loved Dora and Go Diego Go and Max and Ruby of course! So now for the past 3 days he asks all day Mom can I play the computer? So I let him play at least twice a day but that is never enough! But he's learning some good things and working on his ABC's and numbers so that's always good! But how cute is he with Daddy's headphones on!!

New Toys!

Well it was one of those days, out at Walmart and who can resist those cute little faces? Not there daddy! Yes Mike loves to spoil the kids and buy them a toy on payday week so Jake got a transformer and Madison got her first barbie. Jake is now into the transformer phase, well he's into the everything phase but right now he loves transformers! And we thought it would be cute to buy Madison her first barbie to see how she would like it and she just loves her. She carries it around everywhere and brushes her hair. It's so cute! Thanks daddy for the new toys!

My Sister!

Yes so I forgot to say in my Long blog below that I get to go visit my wonderful, best sister in the whole world! Yes when I go home I get to go stay with Angie and Jeff too. And I am so excited. So after Thanksgiving day weekend is over we will go home with them until my mom comes and picks us up or Angie calls my mom begging her to come pick us up! LOL which ever comes first. But I am so excited to see her and Jeff and my little Nicholas and Emma! I miss them so much. Angie is the best sister and one of my best friends in the world. I love you Ang!

We're Going home!!

Well we have found out the unfortunate news, Mike is on the out bound roster for October 27th. So that I'm sure means we are going recruiting. So we are very, very, very bummed! So after my day of crying and hating life I tried to get over it and suck it up because we knew it was coming sooner than later! So I guess we will start planning on leaving. Our first decision is what to do with our house. First we need to get our buts in gear and finish all our home improvement projects. Next are we going to sell it or rent it out. We do want to sell it because the market has gone way up and we would make a good amount off it. But how fast can we sell it? But I'm afraid to let someone rent it and ruin all our work of fixing it up. So that is our hard decision!
But on the up side I'm excited to tell all my friends back home we are coming home. Well at least me and the kids are! I checked out Mike's frequent flier miles and he almost had enough for 2 free tickets and so I checked on mine and I had enough to transfer mine to his and only had to pay $111!!!! Yeah so I got to tickets home after taxes for only $131 dollar how exciting is that! So we are going home for a whole month. We are spending a weekend at my aunt and uncle who live in San Diego and then going to Mike's parents house for a week and then my mom is coming to pick me up back in San Diego and I'm going to my mom's house for 3 weeks which we are going to Utah for a week of that, so I will get to see all my grandparents and relatives and friends! And I will also be home for Thanksgiving! I am so happy about that. And the other plus side is since Mike is going to school in San Diego he will go to school during the week and have the weekends off so we will get to see him for a few weekends and hopefully they will let them off for Thanksgiving and he will come up to my parents house to spend the holiday with us. If they don't give him Thanksgiving off he will still come up for the weekend. So that is the plus side but when he does finish school after 7 weeks they will tell Mike where he is going and he and hopefully us will have 30 days to pack our house and move to wherever they send us anywhere in the US!! Which sucks. So we are going to pray that it's somewhere were he will do well and get alot of recuits and be able to come home at a decent hour to still spend time with the kids and I. I'm sure the 3 years of this is going to be long and hard but we will make it and hopefully it will make us stronger as a family!

Say Cheese!!

We bough Jake a new camera the other day since has has show such an interest in our camera. He is always wanting to take pictures when we are taking pictures of everything. So we thought he would like his own. It is one of those fisher price ones. Where it's like a real digital camera. He takes pictures of everything from us to Panda (our dog) to the carpet to the hose out side. Luckily I have shown him the erase button! It's a great little toy though !

Hey good looken whatcha got cooken!

This is Madison's new kitchen set that we bought her. Both the kids love to go in and play with it. And it's so cute to go in and catch them cooking something. And hearing Jake tell Madison "try it you'll like it" which is from Yo Gaba Gaba for all you that watch noggin!

Happy 4th of July!

Here is a few of our 4th of July pictures. We had a nice time we went to our friends house and had a barbecue and then lite off some fireworks. Jake was swimming with his friend Christopher and Madison was determined to get in with them so we finally put Jake's floaties on her and she put her in there. She could touch the bottom and was running all over in there. Even when she fell and went under the water she was just laughing her head off. Jake had fun with Mike lighting off some of the fireworks. Madison was not a big fan of the fireworks they scared her! But we had fun anyways! Hope everyone else had a great night!

Hop on girly!

Here is Jake being a nice big brother and actually wanting to ride Madison around on the back of his bike. They had a good time riding around the yard a couple times and under the trampoline. I love when they are nice together like this!

Missing Grandma

Mike's mom came down last week and we had such a great visit! The kids warmed right up to her which is good cause they haven't seen here in 7 months. Jake pretty much knows who she is now since he is older but Madison hasn't seen her since she could crawl. But she did great. They both had a lot of fun spending time with her. Unfortunately she had a terrible experience at the airport getting here. Almost here in Charlotte the weather was very bad and her flight got canceled. So she had to get a hotel and fly in the next day. But she got here safe! The first day she got to spend time playing with the kids and then Friday we went to the beach and enjoyed the nice weather and cool water. Then on Saturday we drove down to Wilmington and went to a water park which was a lot of fun. they have a nice area were the kids can play. Then Sunday which was father's day we hung out and took Mike out to dinner were he wanted to go. Then she had to leave on Monday so we went to lunch and left on an afternoon flight. Well she left and flew from here to Charlotte to Denver and then again missed her connecting flight!!! Which they said was due to the weather! So yet again she had to get another hotel and fly out the next day. What and awful flight experience! But got home safe! But we are so grateful she was able to come out and see us and spend time with the kids. She spoiled us a lot and took us out to eat a lot and bought the kids lots of gifts, which they loved! But even as we left the airport Jake said I want to go to Grandma's house now. It's so hard when we live so far away! But I just want her to know we miss her very much and I know I didn't mention it in my mother's day blog but I want everyone to know what a great Mom she is and a great Grandma! She does so much for us and cares so much about us and the kids! We love you!!!

Happy Father's Day!!!

I know a day has passed but I just want to say happy Father's day to my wonderful husband. He is an amazing Dad. He loves his kids with all his heart. I love to see their faces when he comes home from work they go running to the door and Jake is yelling daddy's home! He always does all he can to make his kids happy. He does so much for our family and I am so proud of him. And we all love him so very much!!
I also want to wish my own dad a happy Father's day. He is a wonderful dad and I love him very much. Especially when I get those random calls from him every once in a while. Thanks for all you have done for me dad!! I also want to wish Mike's dad a happy father's day! We love you dad's!