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!