Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Grammy's Visit

Grammy was in town this past weekend!! The kids love having her around SO MUCH and even though I talk to her every day on the phone, whenever she's around I realize just how much I miss being around her every day. We had a great time and celebrated Christmas early with her...which included WAY too many presents for the kids from her and Papa. Ma, Aunt Terri & Uncle Bruce and The Stader fam even sent gifts. These kids are seriously spoiled...or seriously loved ;)

crazy amount of presents and Grammy love!!

a Nerf gun and wood blocks...who knew??!!

Carpenter Barry is ALL BUSINESS!
Making Rudolph cookies!
We went to a special reading of Polar Express and then took a tram ride through the Botanical Garden decorated with lights--so FUN!! Grace is eating her cookie, drinking SUPER HOT chocolate and making her ornament!
Another package arrived at our door last night...it was the gifts from the Stader's--the kids LOVED them!!
especially....the Frosted Flakes! (see Oct. Indiana post!)

Friday, December 16, 2011

Grace's 2 year stats

Just about every time we're out in public someone mistakes the kids for twins. Or, if I have Grace out by myself someone comments on what a cute 3 year old I have--when I tell them she recently turned 2, they can't believe it. So, I wasn't too surprised at her 2 year old well baby checkup stats. 83rd percentile for weight and 97th for height! She really is our GIANT 2 year old!
The doctor was extremely impressed with her verbal skills (she told her that her name was Grace Barry and that she was so pretty--"she" meaning herself!), and the fact that she's potty trained. We don't care if she grows to be 7 foot. She'll always be our little Gracie Girl.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Holiday Season

It's holiday season and we're finally feeling slightly settled. I promise I have pictures of the house coming soon--just waiting on some furniture and curtains to get here! The kids are busy with preschool, play groups, and exploring Virginia. Garrett is back to work as an instructor at the training squadron, and I'm busy keeping the house up and running and wiping noses all day.

Here are a couple holiday shots I got of the kids, Grace is really starting to shed any ounce of baby look she had left and Jack remains as sweet as ever-such a handsome little boy!
LOVE THEM!!


Friday, November 11, 2011

FaLL!!

our beauties taking in the pretty fall weather here in Virginia!

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Cross Country Madness

I know it's been forever since I've posted anything, but we've been in transition for the past month and it's been CRAZY!
We left California on Oct. 7th after staying in a beach motel, then at our friends home, then Vegas, back to the beach motel, and then back to our friends home. Finally after purchasing a new mini-van, putting an offer on a house (in VIRGINIA--Garrett left in the middle of all of that and flew across the country to house hunt) we headed East!! We stopped in Colorado to visit our friends, the Chud's, and had a fantastic time--it snowed right before we got there!

Indiana was our next pit stop, we had a great time seeing family and friends, and meeting my new nephew, Levi!! The kids even went trick or treating since we'd be traveling to Virginia on Halloween.

LeVi--he's such a sweet baby. Still can't believe my brother has a child, he's going to be a fantastic daddy!






clearly this is NOT our baby--we'd be 20+ pounds if it were :/
We took the kids trick or treating around to my Ma's and Aunt and Uncles houses. They had SO much fun...until we got to Brian and Joanie's...
Our Little Pony and Spiderman!!
hey...when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.
Like I mentioned earlier, this was early October...and even though I did WARN my family that we were coming, my Aunt Joanie wasn't prepared--so, the kids got Frosted Flakes!!
hahahahaha!!! She made up for it later with gifts and candy, but that night was hysterical!!

From there we headed to Ohio to visit Garrett's family--he hadn't seen them since December of 2010! It was a great reunion for all of them, full of beer, cigars and lots of lounging.

My MIL is a teacher and her school was having a Spider Fest...Jack was in heaven!


they even helped out a little in her classroom.

we had some great fall weather while we there, something we'd really missed while in California!
and...since we won't be in Ohio for Christmas, we had to take our annual trip to Kraynak's.
Grace and her pink tree!
Daddy and his Browns tree...love it here babe, never in my house though :)
we have been on the go so much and in so many different states, beds, etc. that the kids got really used to sleeping with one another...
Gracie Girl in her new clothes...I'm trying to teach her the arm pop pose.
so pretty!!
and our cool and handsome boy
One of my FAVORITE things about this trip was I got to learn how to make Golden Dawn pizza with Garrett's 90 year old Grandpa, Papa. (remember when I tried to mail this pizza to Garrett while he was on the boat??) We all love the pizza but only get to eat it when we're home and can get to the Golden Dawn. Learning to make it was so much fun, I adore Papa.

the finished product. I ate my weight in pizza that night. no joke. and seriously paid for it the next day.
Another hi-light of our trip to Ohio was our nephew, Cooper, was baptized. No pics from the ceremony, but here are a couple cute shots I got of him while we were home. We love you, Coop!! Garrett and I are so excited to be his Godparents! Jesus is COOL!



Super LONG post, but I wanted to get caught up. House pics, progress coming soon...
love, ~J