I mean... The cuteness of a Christmas play at preschool!

 Holy cow. If anyone ever needs a pick-me-up they should go to a preschool Christmas play - talk about cuteness and smiles and happy kids and loving parents and above average photo opportunities. It was so adorable! I'm so proud to have these sweet babies, and even though it makes me sad that they're leaving baby-hood behind, I couldn't be happier to welcome in new stages. 

Carter was definitely a waver - as soon as he spotted Daddy in the crowd he couldn't stop! Just look at him with his blue argyle sweater! Ugh, it was the cutest!

And let me just tell you... The commercial that's on right now where all the parents are at a school play and every single one of them stands up to get a picture and they all end up fighting? Oh my gosh. It is TRUE. True, true, true, true, TRUE! There's not one bit of fiction to that commercial - parents are NUTS. Every single parent stood up in unison and rushed towards the front, and I can't say for certain that there was any true beat downs, but I wouldn't put it past this one Asian lady. I've learned that one should NOT get in between a child at their Christmas show and the camera in their parents' hands. And I was totally one of those parents :) 

Afterwards there was a mini party for the babes and parents and anyone who was invited! Grandma Cheryl came on in with us to watch the big dude chow down on some finger foods and be merry. The guest list included my dad, Grandma Cheryl, Uncle Todd, Aunt Gina, Uncle Bear and Tessa and Asher. A big crew for a short little singing play :) We've got lots of support up in here!

 ^Here is the picture that document's the day where Carter kept talking about how he was the king and Scarlet was the mom. Scarlet (Scarwet) is my boy's friend of friends, she's the only one he requested that I take a picture of him with and his mom and I constantly talk about how Carter just looooves her and she asks her dad how she's supposed to know if Carter's supposed to be her husband. Yep, that's where we are! Husband! 

 Happy with a bagel, finally!

 Here's a funny thing about Carter: he hates art! Doesn't want anything to do with it. Everyday during their artistic time, he will usually swipe his little paint brush across the page once and then say, "all done!" Can you believe it?! He already has aversions to things! 

 ^See! A scantily clad Christmas tree :) No art for my boy!

T Day Weekend and the Massive Tree

 Well dagnabbit, we are in the month of my two babes' births. How is it that by the end of 2013 I'm going to have a 4 year old and 2 year young (she's not getting older, she's not getting older, she's not getting older...)? I can't stand it. I can't have a children that old! What the heck? They're not kidding when they say you blink and they are grown. Sniff, sniff...

Anyhoo, we entered into Thanksgiving weekend ready to really soak it all in: Chad made the family turkey and green bean casserole for leftovers, I made the rest of the sides and we had Grandma Cheryl over on Saturday night for a nice dinner. We do this every year - have a mini din din of our own after the big shebang is over and done with. We clung on tight to one of the best traditions ever in this household: the Annakin Skywalker extravaganza, and doused the days in my new favorite drink, Fireball mixed with anything - or nothing, it's just that darn good (to stay festive though, I drained a liter of cranberry juice for this particular weekend). It was a great few days, even though Chad had to work on Friday and Saturday. That's okay though, because the babies and I laid low, went to the park, spent hours at Grandma and Grandpa Paplia's house and walked over the good ole' seestor's home (a whole 30 seconds worth of exercise!).

On Sunday we went to Fashion Island to walk around and see the humongous Christmas tree while majorly under dressed. I was FREEZING - what was I thinking wearing a short sleeved shirt? Sometimes, Nicole, sometimes. Anyway, it was a gorgeous sight, once I pried Carter off of the light pole all while he was screaming, "No! I don't want to see the Christmas tree! NOOOO!" A true vision of holiday joy we must have been.

 Finally I got Carter over there and forced him to sit on a present where he, dare I say it, had some fun! Who would have thunk?

 ^Carter's "Okay I've been saying 'CHEESE' for too long" face :)

^Both of their "'CHEEEEESE' when is this going to end so I can stop pretending to smile" faces :) :)

The holidays this year have been great, mainly due to these adorable ages. Cheers to 2013 and all that it has had to offer us! Woohoo for more Christmas time cheer!

Thanksgiving 2013!

 T Day 2013! What a great year. We spent the morning in Huntington Beach at Chad's mom's awesome new pad, and then finished off the day at my sister's house (right next to our place - hey hey, short commute!). There was so much gosh darn amazing food it was outrageous, leaving me with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude directed towards Bear's culinary education (woohoo for us!).

Every year my mother-in-law and I make pies from scratch on T Day morning, and this year's round of apple scrumptiousness truly was the best yet. Before I married Chad, I never thought to make ANYTHING purely homemade, much less leave a big task like Thanksgiving Day dessert to something as faulty as MY kitchen intuition. But alas, almost 5 years into the whole married thing, I've found my way - and now make almost everything el naturalle. It's mainly due to things like Chadly's "I can't believe you would make THAT from a box" opinions, and Cheryl's knowledge-o-scratch-makin', but I'd like to think it's because I figured it out on my own. ;)

Uh, this was my BANOFFEE pie - bananas and toffee! Thanks, Bon Appetit!

My first apple pie with a crumb topping - deliciouso!

 And then when we made it home and Chadly changed into his comfy clothes, I realized we hadn't taken ONE family picture! So out came my trusty Reb and we got to clicking...

 But we...

 just couldn't...

 get it...

 RIGHT!

Oh how I love them :) :)

Lemon cake, oh you lemon cake

 To celebrate this awesome rain storm we are experiencing and the fact that BOTH babes stayed upstairs for nap and quiet time for a whopping TWO AND A HALF HOURS (at the same time - WHAAAAAT?!), yesterday I decided to bake us all a cake. I thought, "Hey, that would be cute! Just the three of us baking away in our cozy sweaters and flannels! How picturesque!" So out came the amazing baking cook book Chad and I got as a wedding present and we got to mixing.

Since we had the ingredients, we did a lemon thing. It looked and sounded great so that's what we decided upon. Carter was a being a mini version of his mother - a minor control weirdo about how things were to be done (ie. "NO NO NO, careful guys, we don't want to lose one speck of flour on the counter, now do we?") - and Kota was just hoping to view the action in some way, shape or form, we were off to a good start.

After some adorable picture taking, ole' Lemony was thrust into the somewhat faulty oven and we carried on with our lives!

 ^^Mmmmm.

Welp, our cake tasted like the scum of the earth. I mean, really bad. Not one salvageable crumb. It was so bad, I instantly called Chad and told him what a horrible job we had made of making a cake from scratch. Seriously, OMG. No bueno up in here. I've had a few bad baking experiences on my hands (once in college I forgot to turn on the oven, and then during our first birthday celebration at Stroller Strides I burnt the muffins - well, scorched them), but this was a whole new level. 

Anyway, the point of this post is there is no point, just a fun time with my bambinos. They are everything. It was pretty cute whenever I finally threw the thing away in lieu of a few Oreos Carter said, "But Mom, I thought you were a good cooker!" Well son, I'm not, but you sure are the best for saying things like that.

Anyhoo, that's what we did yesterday. And I have to add that I was monumentally perturbed that during the process I used the LAST of the flour, FOUR out of the last FIVE eggs and DRAINED the butter supply. What the heck, BAD TASTING CAKE? You killed us! 

 And then while Lemony was baking (smoldering into an inedible form), we played around in between me making pasta. This picture was so funny because Carter made me take it over and over again and each time had to "SEEEEEEE" it. So darn cute!

Hi Kota! Doing some "WORK" over there??

At home

Heehee ho ho, these pictures are so the type where both the babes would ask "Mom! What was I doing there? I look ridiculous!" in about 15 years (see below - muhahahaha!).

Anyhoo, today I'd like to say that it's the first time I've felt totally cool leaving the house in a very messy state. You know whenever you move in somewhere and you don't want to leave one SOCK out of place? It's like your eyeballs will explode if you see a shoelace hanging out of the closet door? Everything just has to be perfect because you just moved into a perfectly clean, white, blank place with all the potential in the world? Well today was the day where I broke that law, leaving our bed undone, the laundry all over the living room floor (folded though, thank you very much! Monday night ritual - trash TV and folding while Chad's at hockey. Woohoo!) and our oatmeal bowls a-yuck. This means it's real living time in this here new place, and it feels good.

We're at home here!

It's so gosh darn nice. :) I will try to never take for granted the sensation of feeling secure and calm - it frees you up to do fun things like take the babes to Disneyland after picking up Carts from preschool, and letting Kota put on her Tinkerbell shirt OVER the cute outfit I had already picked out for her. Peace of mind = fun mom. Fun mom = happy kids. Happy kids = giggly maniacs.

Life is nice, my friend, life is nice. 

Moving and preschool and commutes, oh my :)

  Well gosh darnit, wouldn't you know it, my babies are turning 4 and 2 next month. I mean, what the hay? Don't they know that life is not supposed to progress past toddlerhood? Carter is going to be a full-on man-child! 

At least we've had a few adorable things going on around here to commemorate babyhood and all it's wonderfulness. Here's what's been going on around these parts:

- The computer has been fixed! It crashed sometime during the Summer, so since then I've been doing everything on my phone or iPad - not ideal. It has pretty much been no fun when dealing with anything work related, but all that is now behind us! Now we have our beautiful desk top back sitting upon it's fabulous new mini desk. Quite the exciting event. :)

- We moved THANK GOODNESS! Up until about a week and a half ago we had been living in the Lake Forest neck of the woods, but now that is over. We never really loved living in the big LF, so when we got a horrible roach infestation (puke!) we picked up and left, breaking our lease (amicably, another thank goodness). Now we reside in the big LR - Ladera Ranch! We figured that for our final bout of renting we might as well do it in style - hello water parks! Hello 100,000,000 parks around every corner! Hello a quadrillion children living within a 10 mile radius! So far it has been glorious.

- Carter is still loving preschool and it's been awesome. I recently had his parent teacher meeting and the child is doing wonderfully! He has lots to say, participates vigorously and loves the "toy" section, but sort of skips town when Mrs. Gimby says it's clean up time! A child after my own heart I say! Anyway, big dude is doing great!

 - Kota bear has been getting her molars in over the last few days - boo! She's SO fussy, I can't even believe it. She's my little Tuesday/Thursday Stroller Strides buddy, my boot baby and Carter's "hey Kota, it's okay, you don't need to cry," side kick. It's so adorable, I tell you! Baby girl has the biggest personality, follows her brother everywhere and basically kills me when she asks for me to put her hair up in a pony tail. The best!

- Chad's new commute since moving to the LR has pretty much sucked, but hey! He says that if that's the only con then no big deal. I know, he's the bomb. The lovah man is hands down the most awesome, especially when he's stringing Christmas lights around our two windows. :) 

- I really don't think Disneyland could be any larger part of our lives than it already is. I mean, thank goodness for that place! It's fun for all, especially when the babes get mad at us for pulling them on Pirates of the Caribbean AGAIN. What can we say? It's a blast and that's the end of it.

- Stroller Strides is going great, but it must be documented that I had a crazy bit of burnt-out-itis over the Summer months and into the Fall. It's so great to be busy, but truly it zapped me. Since the move has happened and we're all a lot happier where we are, I can feel myself getting back in the game, but sheesh, that was no fun. Everyday I had this terrible feeling like I wasn't doing all that I could to be awesome, but I just couldn't help it! Prayers and prayers for invigoration is coming from this lady daily - and lots of coffee drinking (from our new single cup device! Woohoo!). 

With our computer sitting newly upon it's pretty desk in the living room (a big change from the office we had in LF), I can already feel the babes' glaring stares. These two HATE it when I use technology! It's been a truth since the day Carter was born - how do other people use the computer when their children are around?! Anyhoo, that being said, it's time for me to get back to laundry and grape-cutting. :)

Oh and cheering Kota up after her throwing a mini fit after she woke up from her nap. And making sure Carter doesn't tear apart the make-shift coffee table/wicker trunk with his feet as he idly watches the iPad. And change Kota's diaper. And give Carter a big hug for giving his sister her grapes. And give Kota a big hug for being a doll. And then give Carter another hug. :)