Valentines 2014

Hello Everyone!  (Hopefully I still have followers out there despite the lack of blogs....)  I WILL get caught up on blogs this week.

Let's start with Valentine's Day ~

Adam and I both had to work on Valentine's Day, so we celebrated the evening before.  We didn't do anything special, but did eat a heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's!  It was soooo good - and only $7!

Our 2 little Valentines

Harper had a Valentine's party at school.  She chose Fun Dip Valentines.  Elliet also got in on the celebration at daycare.  She received a lot of suckers and fruit snacks.....

Elliet and Harper gave their teachers a cute reusable cup filled with chocolate.  Elliet gave her friends a Go-Go Squeeze applesauce pouch with a cute little note that read "You're my main SQUEEZE, Valentine!"

The girls spent the weekend in Northwood, as Adam and I had to work all weekend.  Before Adam took them to meet my parents, he stopped at my work with the girls for a surprise visit...and flowers!  After work, I met him for Chinese, and that concluded Valentines Day 2014!

Valentine's Nursery List

Elliet got her Valentine's List for the nursery at daycare today.  Isn't that just the cutest thing?!  I never even thought about making Valentine's for her age group, but it is just so precious that I'll have to come up with something.  The age group is newborn - 2 years old.  Maybe I'll find some cute little books at the dollar store or something???

Anyways, I just had to share her class list because the names are so adorable:

• Hayden
• Leo
• Howard
• Carter
• Lola
• Bode
• Elliet
• Reed
• Brecklyn

Leo....Lola....awwwwwwwwww so cute!

It's The Little Things

I don't know what it is, but lately I've been hooked on "traditions" and thinking about how things were when I was a kid.  Maybe it's because I'm a parent of young kids and I want them to grow up with warm fuzzies when thinking about their childhood.

A few Christmas items that make my heart warm and happy are: 

1. Santa Ornament.

This ornament is made out of yarn by my Grandma Betty.  It is such a neat little ornament because when you squeeze the jaw line together, the mouth opens up.  It fits a Hershey's Kiss perfectly.  We always made sure to put candy in his mouth and fill it regularly.  Even as an adult I would always check it when I was home for Christmas.  This year my Grandma made me one for my tree (and my brothers).  So excited for my girls to enjoy this fun little ornament.

  

  2. Stockings
My Grandma Betty hand-stitched all of our Christmas stockings.  Aren't they gorgeous?  She said it takes her approximately 1 full month to make one - averaging 4 hours per day!  These stockings mean so much to me.  I would be DEVASTATED if something ever happened to one.  I hope one day that the girls will appreciate them too.

Life isn't made up of big things, it's made up of a million little things. :)

Christmas 2013

Better late than never....here are a few pictures from Christmas at our house this year.....

The girls on Christmas Eve with their yearly ornament.  This is a tradition that I started a few years ago.  Every Christmas Eve the girls will get to open one gift - and that being a Christmas ornament.  I pick out an ornament that personally represents that child's year.  I hope that one day the girls will look forward to seeing what ornament we picked out for them.  If not,at least they will have 18+ ornaments to start their own Christmas tree when they reach adulthood.

Instead of cookies, we decided Santa needed some donuts!  (Aren't they adorable, they look like Rudolph.  Thanks Pinterest!)  We also set out some carrots for the reindeer and some water for Santa.  (Harper is really into water right now  - so we didn't want to de-rail that train!)

Harper asked Santa for a ballerina barre` 

Elliet's first Christmas - Harper did a great job helping Ellie open her presents

Speaking of presents - I bought the girls' presents based off something I read on the Internet.  "Something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to read."  I WILL following this gift-buying guide every year.  It's so easy and it keeps things 'even.'  Four gifts is plenty.  They usually get a few things from Santa, a stocking full of goodies, and get completely SPOILED from their grandparents :)  So four gifts from Adam and I is more than enough.  Plus, Christmas isn't all about the presents anyways.....

Another fun Pinterest idea - Christmas Tree pancakes!  I'm hoping to make these every year.  It was super easy - just had to add some green food coloring to the pancake batter and used a sausage link for the tree trunk.

I love creating holiday traditions with my family.  Someday the girls will appreciate it.  Until then....

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas spent with your loved ones.  We sure did.  

Trick-or-Treating 2013

Now that Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away, I should probably catch up on my October blogs!  Let's start with trick-or-treating.......

Harper, Elliet and I went trick-or-treating with our neighbors and were out for 1 hour and 45 minutes!  That was a lot of walking for the kids....and adults!  By the end of the nights the kids were passing by houses that were still handing out candy....that goes to show you how tired they were!

Harper wanted to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (one of her favorite movies)

Elliet was a bumble bee

Trick-or-Treat!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from the 2 cutest little pumpkins that I know!

Harper and Elliet with their personalized pumpkins from Papa's pumpkin patch!

Christmas 2012

We hope is having a blessed holiday season!  We celebrated with my side of the family on Christmas Eve - we ate lots of yummy soup, played Logo (FUN board game!), attending the Christmas Eve church service, opened gifts, and enjoyed more soup and family time at my Grandma & Grandpa's house.

Christmas 2012

My beautiful family!

Our 7th Christmas together!

14 weeks on 12.24.12

 This little girl had a great Christmas!  She is enjoying all of her new toys, which is also keeping us busy!  We've already talked about taking the Christmas tree down and she is NOT happy about that!  Wish us luck!  It's hard to believe that there will be a 2nd child next year at this time!  It's going to be so fun!  We can't wait!

This weekend we head back home again to celebrate with Adam's side of the family!!!  Check back then for more pictures.

And here is a blog on Harper's 1st Christmas :)

Tree Farm 2012

The weekend after Thanksgiving we ventured out to find our Christmas tree.  This was our 3rd year of cutting down a tree and it is something we all look forward to.  My parents and Brett we even able to join us this year!  Enjoy the pictures:

And of course I love comparisons: Here is our 2011 experience!

Holiday Divided

Adam and I spent the Thanksgiving holiday at work this year.  (Working holidays is the one major downfall of having a 24/7 profession.)

Due to our crazy work schedules, we celebrated Thanksgiving with our immediate families apart.  I was unable to attend his family's get together, and Adam was unable to attend mine.

It was different, but something we are used to. 

Good news though - we have Christmas Eve off together and Christmas day!!!

Anyways....my point of this post was to share how thankful we are for our jobs, despite having to work on Thanksgiving.  We both have jobs that we enjoy, co-workers that we consider friends, and a profession that hopefully others are thankful for as well.

Hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving, doing whatever it is you do.  

Check back soon for our 3rd annual Christmas Tree Farm photos!

Halloween 2012

Harper was Scooby-Doo this year for Halloween.  Her first choice was to be Velma, but the costume was just not warm enough for the cool Iowa fall nights.  She happily settled for Scooby as soon as she tried the costume on at the store.  In fact, Harper was so thrilled with the costume that she refused to take it off and crawled around the store on all fours barking like a dog. (she even wore it in the car seat on the way home!)  This is SO unlike her character since she is so shy, but it's nice to see her starting to come out of her shell.  Harper also had a Scooby Doo candy pail to accompany her get-up, compliments of McDonalds.  I love that McDonalds still gives out Halloween pails in place of the traditions Happy Meals packaging for the holiday.  I remember getting one as a kid, so it was neat for me to do this with Harper as well.

Harper did a great job this year saying "trick-or-treat" at every house except for two.  Last year she didn't say a peep.  I really think that preschool has helped her with her social skills.  We walked around the neighborhood for about 30-40 minutes before we headed back home to hand out our own candy.  Harper had just as much fun handing out candy to everyone and even handed it out "by herself" towards the end.  

My little Scooby-Doo

I was caught off guard this year when I found out on Tuesday (10/30) that trick-or-treating was to start in 3 hours.  We were planning on carving pumpkins on Tuesday and then trick-or-treating on Wednesday.  So when I picked Harper up from preschool on Tuesday, I had 2 hours to carve a pumpkin and get her ready.  Adam was not at home so I had the pleasure of carving a pumpkin on my own with a 3-year-old.  We had every intention on carving a Cinderella pumpkin, but settled for a simple design because of the limited time.

Helping mommy carve our pumpkin

Isn't it cute?!

It was Harper's turn to bring treats to preschool last week.  The "teacher" in me came out and I wanted to bring something fun for the kids.  Thanks to an idea I saw on pinterest, I drew jack-o-lantern faces on mandarin orange cups.  Harper's teacher and the kids loved them.

Lastly, I tried making a fun Halloween supper, so we had mummy dogs and dirt cups.  Harper really didn't make the connection, so we'll try again next year.  I want to create as many memories and traditions with my family as possible.  It's the little things in life that mean the greatest!  

Previous Halloween posts below:

2011

2010

2009

Present Hiding: Fail!

We bought our first Christmas present of the year on September 29th - almost 3 months early.  This NEVER happens.  I usually do Christmas shopping 1-2 weeks before the big day.  However one of the stores in our town has been bought out by Shopko, which means everything is deeply discounted to make room for the new inventory.  

So we bought Harper a new bike, a "big girl" bike with training wheels.  It was supposed to be one of her Christmas presents, however Adam did a terrible job 'hiding' it.  He basically just plopped it down in the garage, expecting her not to find it.  I think he may have forgotten that she is a curious 3-year-old that is always looking for trouble ;)

And so the 'present hiding' already begins.  I just didn't expect it to happen so soon!  Lesson learned.

Easter 2012

Happy Easter from the Nerliens (a week late!)

Our Easter weekend was pretty low key. On Friday night we dyed Easter eggs. Harper loved it! She dictated what color each egg was colored. She was a great helper!

I had to work all day on Saturday while Adam took Harper to visit the Easter Bunny and participate in the city Egg Hunt. As you can tell from the photo below, Harper was not a big fan of the Easter Bunny. The pictures cracks me up - a classic Easter Bunny/Child photo! Harper was overwhelmed at the Egg Hunt - way to many kids with way too much energy! She was able to pick up a few items with the help of Adam - she came home with some tootsie rolls and a frisbee.

My family came to visit us on Sunday. We grilled out for lunch, had a Easter Egg hunt, & played at the playground. Brett even made us a 'Bunny Cake.'

Hope everyone has a great week. Please remember to pray for the families of Abby & Ashley.

Christmas #3

Adam, Harper and I had a very non-tradition Christmas Eve/Christmas this year. Everything closes at 6:00 p.m on Christmas Eve. Well, we had hardly any groceries in the house and every place in town that sold food was closed. So, for supper on Christmas Eve Harper and I shared a frozen Weight Watchers meal and Adam had to fend for himself at work. Wait, it gets better. Our Christmas dinner was Kraft Macaroni and Cheese :) But we didn't mind - we had our fair share of food and Christmas goodies the week prior.

Adam had to work Christmas Eve, so Harper and I hung out by ourselves. We watched Christmas movies on TV and we made sure to Read 'The Night Before Christmas' before she went to bed. Adam also had to work on Christmas day, so we just bummed around in our pajamas all day - it was actually kind of nice to relax.

Harper was very excited to see that Santa had visited our house. She was shocked to see that Santa had ate the cookies and milk that she had left out. She loved her presents - I think she was actually sick of opening presents because she was pretty much just going through the motions of opening gifts - wasn't really paying attention. She was more interested in playing with the puzzles that Santa brought her!


Harper with her toys from mom/dad and Santa: 4 wooden puzzles, Mrs. Potato Head, 2 books, watercolor paint book, Home Alone, Hawkeye hooded sweatshirt, baby doll, Elmo slippers, hooded bath towel, candy, toothbrush/toothpaste, and a sippy cup

Opening up her stocking - she is just noticing that she has "Kevin" (Home Alone) in there!


As for Adam and I, we didn't exchange gifts this year. We haven't really bought each other gifts for awhile now - we usually just go on a date or something. However, we did receive some excellent gifts from our families. I think we got almost everything off our lists - thank you again to everyone for a great Christmas! We love you all.

Now that Christmas is behind us, we wish everyone a happy and healthy new year!

Christmas #2

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We spent Friday (12/23) at my parents' house and celebrated with my mom's family in the evening. We woke up on the 24th and exchanged gifts with everyone. I know Christmas isn't about presents, but when you have a 2-year-old, it seems as if that is the only thing she can understand. Once again, she loves handing out presents, as well as opening her own.

She liked helping mommy and daddy open gifts too. Thank you Mom & Dad our my canvas wrap of our little family!

A few of my favorite people: Kaitlyn (Michael's gf), Michael, Harper & Brett

Do you think she likes being center of attention?!

Once again, Harper got SPOILED! List of goods: coloring book, doll, baby carrier, candy, doll house with additional accessories, 2 ornaments, hooded sweatshirt, jeggings, little baby with nursing items, toy school bus, Barney & Dora stickers, Minnie Mouse & Dora socks, and a princess tent!

Check back tomorrow for a Christmas post about just the 3 of us. I hope you all are enjoying this special holiday!

Christmas #1

We survived our first Christmas of the season! We celebrated with Adam's family last weekend. It was a great time - LOTS of yummy food and a lot of laughs and lounging around as a family. Each family was responsible for making a soup, bread of some sort, and an appetizer or dessert. I made mushroom and wild rice soup, garlic bread, pickle roll dip, and Oreo balls. I was miserable by the end of the night!

Harper got totally spoiled - as I predicted! She enjoyed handing out the gifts just as much as she did opening them. Here is a picture of Harper with all of her goods....this is just from Adam's side!

Harper received: baby pack-n-play, Elmo puzzle, wooden rocking chair, PJ's, jeans, Hawkeye stocking hat, little doll figurines, 2 babies, diapers for her babies, sweatsuit outfit, slippers, Jingle All The Way book/dog, chap stick, candy, baby gear (stroller, play mat, swing, high chair).

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

I think we need a bigger toy room! We are heading to my parents house tomorrow for Christmas #2!

Video Message from Santa

What is everyone looking at?!

Everyone is watching a video message that was sent to Harper from Santa! This was the perfect way to bring Thanksgiving to a close and start gearing up for Christmas. It is the neatest thing ever; I wish the internet would have been around when I was a child! If you have young children, I highly suggest that you check out the website below and make one for yourself. It's FREE! I'm not sure how long it takes to make, as Harper's Uncle created this for her. Awww! Thanks Brett! That was very thoughtful of you! {Gary and June, you MUST watch this:)}

Harper's Video

Make Your Own

Christmas List

Remember making a Christmas wish list as a child? Spending hours browsing through the toy catalogs and the weekly store ads. We received a toy catalog in the mail last month and Harper has enjoyed flipping through it. I told her to circle the toys that she wanted, knowing that this was totally beyond her cognitive ability. Here is what she came up with:

Looks like she may possibly want Elmo or a guitar....

Or BABIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell the girl LOVES her babies and all the accessories to go along with it?! You can't make this stuff up - here it is in black and white! I love her! This made my shopping for her (and everyone else that knows her) very easy!

Tree Farm

I have no clue what is going on with Blogger - I can't seem to get my pictures to stay in the correct order. Sorry folks.

Anyways....Adam, Harper and I made our 2nd annual trip to Aldrich Tree Farm to pick out our Christmas Tree. We went on the day after Thanksgiving while the weather was still somewhat 'mild.' We had a great time again this year. Harper really enjoyed herself. I think her favorite part was getting to sit on my lap in the front seat of the truck as we idled through the rows of trees.

Clark Griswold himself.....

Harper and I with our tree!

Happy Harper :)

This is something we forgot do to last year - it will be fun to track her height throughout the years.

Our tree skirt made by my Grandma Betty - isn't it amazing?!

O' Christmas Tree~

See - the pictures are out of order.... cute picture of Harper & Daddy

Christmas is only 23 days away! Time to start Christmas shopping!

Thanksgiving 2011

We hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday. We traveled back 'home' to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner with Adam's family, and a Thanksgiving supper with my family. Needless to say, we were STUFFED! We enjoyed spending time with our families and we are already looking forward to Christmas. Harper had a lot of fun this year; so much fun that she didn't take a nap. She enjoyed running around and playing with her cousins all day. She was SO tired but behaved fairly well. She was asleep within 3 blocks of heading home. I guess she didn't want to miss any action!

Harper with her oldest cousin, Nicole
They both love to color

Harper decided to take a dip in my parents' hot tub - she loved it! It was in the upper 50's on Thanksgiving - so we thought it'd be 'warm' enough for her to get in

My mom and I

Harper and Bump watching her video from Santa

Harper, Uncle Rusty, & Cousin Cody helping break up the bread for the stuffing - a new tradition that has been started with Harper

Upcoming Blogs:

• Christmas Tree
• Christmas List
• Video from Santa