Happy New Year!

Not much new going on here at the annen household. tonight we had dinner with my parents which was fabulous! giant scallops, corn, and chocolate/fruit fondue! yummy! then tonight my parents are coming to sit with the sleeping boys while ben and i go see national treasure two. i'm excited but dead tired so i don't know how well i'll do. ben's been wanting to see this movie for forever though so i guess i'll try to stay awake! :) tomorrow ben has off so i'm sooo excited! i think this is the first time he's had new year's day off in years! but unfortunately i have to use most of the day getting work done for my seminary class that will be starting next sunday. boo hiss....oh well such is life.
let's see...what's new with the boys...umm....ronan is still chowing away on solids. he's had sweet potatoes and green beans and loves them both. although mama doesn't like those diapers! zander is as cute as can be and is trying desperately hard to learn to say the "g" sounds. he usually says "dee dee" for his gma "gee gee". but he's getting a lot better.
well i guess that's all from here.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Christmas Pictures

These are some pictures from christmas. Zander and his cousin preston. Ronan opening his presents from his michigan family.
Zander loving his present from oma and opa!
The boys Christmas' outfits for the christmas eve service.
Christmas pj's!

Zander waking up in the morning and seeing his presents! Ronan talking to his presents and beating the paper
Zander and Ronan with their christmas bibs from kate and neil.
christmas with gee gee and papaw

after puking my brains out. not so attractive....

Also, i've included a picture of the rocking chair for ronan. Gma kate and gpa neil bought ronan a rocking chair and i painted it. a friend of ours got zander one for a baby shower and so i painted ronan's to sort of match.

The Rocking Chair:

Christmas with the Family

Well another Christmas has come and gone... it seems like it was just time to decorate. We had a wonderful christmas together here in san diego. We spent Christmas eve night wrapping all the presents so that when zander woke up in the morning he'd be so surprised. So when morning came zander was estatic! he ran in like a crazy person! "see this guys! see this guys!" he kept saying. Ronan was just excited to see the wrapping paper. The boys loved their gifts and Zander's favorite gift was his doctor set. he loves telling us to "be patient guys" meaning to be his patients. after we opened presents we ate a great breakfast then played with the toys some more. the boys also spent some time playing outside since it was 75 degrees out. Then ben got stir crazy and we headed to rite aid since it was the only store open! :) afterwards it was home for nap times. the boys slept while ben and i played some wii. (which we are SOOOO sore from) After naps we went to a delicious dinner with my parents at the 94th aero squadron. it was a huge buffet and was soooo good! we all ate way too much! well, on the way home i started feeling not so well. by the time we reached our house i ran inside to throw up and 'other' stuff. it was not so fun. but once it was out of my system i was much better!~ :) so we opened presents with my parents and played some more wii bowling. over all a truly wonderful christmas.
Hope everyone else had a great christmas! we miss you all friends and family!

Some Pictures

Building a snowman with daddy!

Daddy and Ronan at the pool. Ronan LOVES the water!

Seeing Snow for the first time. Zander loved making snowballs!
Kissing on my baby boy!
Snow buddies!
Festival of lights...pretending to be gingerbread men!

Baby Chase (3 mo) and Huge Ronan (6 mo)

Zander posing in the bathtub with his toy!

Going down the slide with mamma! yeah zander!
The view outside our room!
Swimming in the pool with the family!

home again!

hey all we are finally home! we had a great trip but are totally tired! last night we went to see a festival of lights at the living dessert. it was soo much fun! it was cold, we had hot chocolate, saw santa clause, and lots of other fun stuff. someday i swear i'll get pictures up from the trip. :) today we headed home and it was the trip from hell. we got stuck in traffic, ronan went crazy screaming, zander peed all over himself, and four hours later we finally made it home. (it should have only been two and a half hours). tomorrow is our christmas program at church which ben is singing at and doing things for, i'm in the nursery cause my worker is sick. :( so i'm bummed.
now there are loads of laundry to do so i'm off to do it. blah blah blah....

Snow Snow and more Snow

Well it's official. Zander has finally gotten to see his snow. Today we went to the Palm Springs Arial Tram which goes up 11,000 feet. it was quite possibly the scariest thing I've ever been on. But at the top of the mountain was over a foot of snow! Zander absolutely loved it and was in heaven. He made a snowman with Ben, had a snowball fight, made snow angels, and played in a snow fort. The temp was about 45 degrees down in the little valley thing where we played. but at the top of the mountain in the lodge it was soooo windy. walking back up to the lodge was SOOO hard too! pushing the stroller straight up just about kicked my butt. ronan liked it too and we got some cute pictures of the boys. i'll have to wait till i'm home to get those pics on here but I will get to them soon. Zander even fell asleep in the car on the way home which he hasn't done in over a year! the boy was definitely tuckered out but so happy! I'm so glad he got the experience even if we went broke going to see it! :) seriously, way too overpriced! the view up the tram was amazing though. so all in all, i do recommend it to anyone visiting palm desert/springs area!
tomorrow we're going to head to the children's museum i think. well, i'm off to bed.

Fun times with the pool

Well today we spent the afternoon at the resort pool. it was WONDERFUL! the water was about 80 degrees although the air was a FREEZING 58 degrees. but both preston and zander were in wet suits and loved playing in the kiddie pool, the big pool, and going down the water slide. preston and zander seem to be getting along better and preston is calling zander his "best friend" so that's good. they still get at each other sometimes when it comes to toy posession but that's typical of the age. Ronan loved the water too and likes to splash. i will try to get pictures up tomorrow. i love being with my family (although i miss my older brother chris and his family terribly) and just sitting and watching the kids play. it does make me long for them to get to grow up together. but don't worry, then i remember the snow and i get over it. hahaha...speaking of snow...i think we will get to see some while we are here. they said that there is snow in joshua tree national park so hopefully we'll get there on friday before we leave.
Ben got here tonight and i am SOOOO glad he's here. i am not cut out to be a single parent. he's truly my other half and i am incomplete without him. and the boys miss him terribly when he's not here. Ronan was soooo much happier once ben got here.
Well that's all for now!

Family and Vacation

Well we are in Palm Desert on vacation now. My brother Tim, his wife Jill, their two boys Preston and Chase, my parents, and myself with the boys. Ben will be joining us tuesday night. it was a long trip up here and ronan screamed most of the way. jill and i drove with ronan and my parents took the rest of them. apparently zander chatted the ENTIRE way up. poor preston fell asleep much to zander's dismay. preston and zander seem to be getting along pretty well for the most part. the only struggle is over toys. but hey they're two and three so what do you expect. it's nice being together as family. my kids and i are staying in a different villa in another resort so it's nice to come back for their naps and relax a little. both boys slept through the night but didn't go to bed till 11:30 then woke up at seven. so they're a little crabby! well, i'll probably nap now too. love to all!

Sausage Fingers

Because I've been having the best luck in the world recently, I now have sausage fingers. Yesterday as i was packing the boys into the stroller in the driveway, i went to shut our lovely, unhinged garage door manually. just as i was doing so, zander said something to me and i looked up while pulling the the garage door down. apparently three of my fingers went into the seam of the garage door and down the door went with the tips of my fingers squeezed in it. it took me about 30 seconds to get the door back up and my fingers out. an eternity in the world of squeezed fingers. i literally thought my finger tips were severed. but fortunately they were not. i promptely laid down on the driveway sobbing while my son stood over me saying "it's ok mamma, papaw and geegee will take care of you". poor little guy. finally i got myself up and headed up to the seminary where the chapel had already started. so my swollen fingers and i sat in the back wanting to die. today the fingers are better but it takes me forever to type and do just about anything. blah.

my car is still busted also and i'm starting to really mourn it. that car had class. someday i'd like to be able to afford to fix it....until then i stare at it sitting in front of my parents house....oh the sadness that is my life. :( merry stinkin' christmas.

on a positive note, my brother tim and his wife jill along with their two boys preston and chase are arriving on saturday. YEAH!!! we're headed to palm dessert on sunday with the parents. it should be good times. pray for me though cause ben's not coming up till tuesday night (he has a a final for school) so i'm going to be alone with the boys for two nights!!!!

enjoy some pics i took!

I can't get that pic to rotate...sorry!

and of course our fabulous small group!!

and the kiddies of our small group

'Tis the Season

You gotta love Christmas time when you have kids. It's just so much fun to see it through their eyes! We've taken Zander to see Christmas lights and he gets so excited about it. He says their "beautiful" in his own little way. more like "boo -ti- fool". He also went crazy tonight with excitement because his aunt cheryl and cousin jake sent him snow flakes!!!! Thank you so much guys for taking the time to cut out all the snow flakes. we hung them around the living room and zander loves showing people his "snow".
Ronan and Ben are both sick now and i'm coming down with a sore throat. Blah! I'm sure I'll be in full blown sick mode just in time for next week with Tim and Jill coming. Such is my luck.
Tomorrow night is our small group christmas party and we're doing a white elephant exchange. I do have to say that my gift is widely inappropriate and i can't wait for someone to open it! I'll give you a hint, it was a wedding gift....to be used on the honeymoon. hahahah...i'm so funny!
Ben and I spent the last two hours wrapping gifts to be mailed to our family back home in michigan. it's tough to not be with them during the holidays. and man is there a lot of wrapping! :)
I think that's about it as far as updates go...umm...zander's hand is doing better and new skin is starting to form. so it's really pink and tender but doing well. He's still a major drama queen about it and cries about it whenever we tell him to do something he doesn't want to.
oh one last thing....tonight at the store i asked zander if he knew what a nutcracker was. I didn't say "nutcracker" i just said do you know what this is? and he said, "it's a cracker nut!" love that boy.

Updates

Thanks for all of you who called or emailed asking about zander. his hand did blister and they popped today. so pray that no infection sets in. that does mean that he had second degree burns though. :( poor baby! also, the day after he got burned he woke up with a horrible, nasty cold. I'm guessing the one that's got my mom flat on her back as well as half of san diego. he's coughing like a mad man and not getting much sleep at night or during his naps. i'm praying ronan doesn't get it, but with the way zander likes to kiss on him, i doubt it. but it still doesn't slow zander down. he's a crazy active boy still. gotta love him.

i'm about to get christmas cards out tomorrow so stay tuned. i didn't get as many as i wanted so if you get shafted, so sorry! :) and they're not as good as i wanted either. i didn't think the boys would cooperate taking a family picture so i just chopped some. but then a week later a friend took a picture for us and it turned out great. oh well, such is life. here's the family picture for your viewing pleasure!

Burns

Today was not a good day. Poor Zander put his hand on our stove and got first and second degree burns on the inside of his thumb and wrist. He was seriously traumatized but very brave when we went to the doctor. It's so hard to see him in pain. Both boys are finally in bed and I feel truly exhausted. This has been a rough couple of months! Zander is still obsessing about snow too and he can't understand why we don't have any and why we can't just drive to oma and opas to see it. He is loving the christmas lights out though but he said he still needs to have snow on them. :)
The other night Zander went crazy and was doing a diaper dance in the living room for my parents. He was truly in rare form and was getting hyper right before bed. Hope you enjoy his weirdness! He definitely gets it from me!

Fabulous Break

Today was a crazy day but so fabulous. We went to the park in the morning with our play group which totally wore zander down. then we came home, had lunch, and then nap time. Then the fabulous part...a lady from our church volunteered to come over and sit with the boys while they napped so i could go out. i had no idea what to do with my time so i went to barnes-n-nobles and got a peppermint white chocolate mocha (SO FABULOUS!) and then sat and read stupid tabloid magazines. it was so nice to just sit and be. thank you lisa for the wonderful break! I have a funny video that you might enjoy too. ronan is HILARIOUS in his jump-a-roo. he absolutely goes crazy. hope you enjoy it!

Zander also cracked me up yesterday too. we were driving in the car and i turned the radio up really loud and started singing. zander grabbed his ears, not covered them, just grabbed them, and screamed "FWEAK (freak) OUT MAMA! FWEAK OUT! turn it down!!!!" hahah...silly boy. he's so stinkin' cute. Also, everywhere we go zander gets so excited about christmas. today in target he started clapping his hands and yelling "christmas store, christmas store!" seriously, did i mention how cute he is? ok, one more funny story. when we were taking a walk, zander said he wanted snow cause it's christmas time. i tried to explain that there's no snow here in s.d. but he couldn't understand that. he said "no! snow clouds right there!" i told him there was snow where oma and opa lived and he said "ok, go see oma/opa, see snow now". :) sweet boy, someday i'm going to show him snow. ok, signing off for now.

Christmas Fairies

We told Zander the christmas fairies were going to decorate his house for christmas but well, he saw past that and told everyone we did it. but he LOVES his house and is pretty sure he's the only one with a Christmas house/tree. he's so funny. sometimes he doesn't want to turn the christmas tree on because he doesn't want people to see it. i think he thinks someone is going to come take it away. anyways, here's some pics of the boys with their tree.

Ronan's dedication

Today was Ronan's dedication at our new church plant: Legacy Church. He was such an adorable little man with his matching tie, hate and shorts. Seriously, you would have eaten him up! But being the special one that I am, I didn't get a good picture of him, and we forgot to get a family picture afterwards. Another lady was taking pictures so hopefully she got some up close ones. THanks Gina for taking the below pics! Zander was a little cutie too in his tie that he said was "a daddy outfit"! My dad preached at our church today on the body of Christ and it was a fabulous sermon! He seriously did better than I've heard him in a long time. He's so passionate about this topic! And it was a perfect sermon for the dedication. It really does take a church to raise a child, and I'm so glad that we have such a wonderful church to raise our children in. The dedication was really a charge to us, the parents, to be the Godly examples to our son, and to raise him the best we know how in the knowledge of God. And then also to the church to come along side us and help to also be a Godly example and teacher to our son. All in all, good day!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We had another great family day today. It's always so nice to have Ben home with us. We've started a family tradition of going to the park in the morning. This year we went to Big Rock Park in Santee. We got a ton of cute pictures of the boys. ok, well ronan cause zander wouldn't cooperate.

Then we came home and ate lunch, took baths, and put the boys to bed for naps. I went to cooking the mashed potatoes, stuffing, greenbean casserole and rice crispie treats. after teh boys woke up we went to my parents for thansgiving dinner. man there was too much food! We ate like little crazy people. Zander was more interested in playing then eating. he did like the turkey though. I really missed the rest of the family though. it was nice to hear from tim, jill and from the newly potty trained preston.

right now ben and i are finally relaxing and watching the movie "Hairspray" <--very good, and getting ready for the early morning and day full of shopping. i have my lists, coupons, and mapped out driving route. pray for me and dragging around the two boys! blah!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FRIENDS AND FAMILY! LOVE YOU ALL!

Lost Love

ok, a little melodramatic...but still. my husband lost his wedding band last night. it was the one i got him last year for vday that was engraved. the first one he had was really faded and banged up due to it being pretty cheap. i didn't think it would bother me so much but i was so bummed! oh well, love is not found in a ring. oh and ronan is almost army crawling! he'll be 22 weeks on friday.

Blah Blah Rant

Today is just one of those blah days. I woke up sick with some flu like/vomitting thing. go figure. i felt like i was wearing a wet blanket all day. but ben stayed home with me which ment that i got lots and lots of sleep! woo hoo! so i laid in bed thinking of all the things we need to fix right now...why is it always at the holiday times? i probably started thinking about all of this because i could hear the water dripping in the other bathroom...yeah, it won't stop. our shower currently is clogged up thanks to my post partum falling out hair...so we're waiting to get that fixed too. 4 bottles of drano later, apparently we're going to need to call a real plumber. i'm also currently driving around a 1984 grand marquis....same as my old one, just ten years older. why? because my car feels the need to be ridiculously unsafe and we can't afford to take it to the shop just yet. thankfully my dad bought the '84 on a whim in case my car ever died. smart man! our computer is also on the capooey with the motherboard/usb port or whatever. not totally sure what's wrong, i just know i can't print anything. seriously, is it tax return time yet? ok, serious whining done.
on a positive note, i have the cutest boys in the world who keep me laughing. zander's oma and opa sent him some crafts to do and we worked on them tonight while ben was at class. (luckily i was able to not throw up on him!) it was a cute snowman and jonah thing.
only three more days till thanksgiving! wooo hooo!!!

HALLELUJAH!

HE DID IT!!!!!!!! Ben passed the obstacle course thingy for the police!!! woooo hoooo!!!! i'm so proud of him!!!!! now we wait about a month for the background check.....

Attack of the killer birds

has anyone seen 'evan almighty'? i swear we had attack of the birds today just like the movie. my poor mother wanted to take zander to feed the ducks at chollas park today. sounded like a good idea in theory....but then there were swarms of ducks and geese who probably hadn't eaten in years. let me give you a visual! and yes, my mom and zander are running!

You don't see zander in the above picture cause he's hiding between her legs! :)

All in all, good day. Zander loves his geegee and loves spending the day with her. i'm so greatful she's in my boys' lives. I don't know what I'd do without her!

My secret weapon

My dearset zander is set and ready to join with me in the force against surprises at christmas! yesterday, ben and the boys went shopping for me for one of my christmas presents. this morning, the first thing out of my precious son's mouth was "present for you mama!" and of course i followed that up with, 'what is it baby'? and he told me! what a fabulous child! of course ben got mad, and gave me the present anyways! (yeah!!! high school musical 2 soundtrack. yes i'm a dork!)
also, for those of you who don't know, ben we are involved with a church plant called Legacy Church. Ben is leading the worship and i'm doing the nursery-2 yrs. it's been a huge challenge but very rewarding. this week i'm trying to figure out a craft to do for the kids for thanksgiving. that's right, i said craft. hold the shock and awe! (mum i need your help on this one! :) ) anyways, we're also getting ready for Ronan's dedication on the 25th of Nov. i forgot that when you're in charge of the youngin's the dedication also falls into your category of job responsibility. soo...i'm trying to get a mat that goes in a frame (because i can't think of what this is called) and i'm going to put "it takes a church, to raise a child..." on it and have the church members sign it. cool huh?
ben is trying to become a cop too....long story. but his physical test is tomorrow morning at six am! please pray that he can complete the 500 yard obstacle course in 3 1/2 minutes! i'll let you know what happens!

I'm tired

It's 11:30 pm and I've decided to start this blog. great timing. i felt like i was the only mom in the world who wasn't keeping a blog. so here i go. it's ridiculously hot out right now for november and weirdly enough i'm loving it! so welcome to my world of off the wall thoughts and braggins about my chillin's (children).

we dressed the kids up last night in funny costumes such as santa clause and sailor boys. zander's santa costume is from when he was 11 mo. old! :)