Tub Time

Kind of disgusting that they are drinking their own bathwater, but who am I to put the cabash on a good time?!

Christmas Day

Christmas morning and of course we start with the stockings!!!

Now its time to dig into the presents. They were so excited! Cash ripped through most of his presents one right after the other. Riley took her time and played with each one a little before opening her next present.

One of Riley's new favorite things are those Littlest Pet Shop animals. They are pretty cute, but there are a million little pieces and of course each little piece is secured into the box by a teeny, tiny rubber band. Fun.

Here is a picture of Tripp and his new monkey pillow. Cash and Riley have dog pillows that match their dog "jeffies". The "jeffie" (or Angel Dear Blankie which can be found here ... http://www.americangiftfactory.com/site/1283048/product/12-1111) is a little tradition in the Nosbisch family which was started with my niece, Becca. Becca and her sister each have giraffes, Cash and Riley have dogs and Tripp has a bear and a tiger. They all "require" their "jeffies" or "dogs" to go to bed at night. Cash is famous for wearing his around on his head like its a hat or something. At night he says "dog head" because you have to lay the dog over his head at night in just the right position for him to be able to fall asleep. Anyway...the pillows are just a part of the "jeffie" family that my kids love. I couldn't find one to match Tripp's bear or tiger so I got him the monkey since we have always said that he looks like a little monkey when he crawls. I miss his crawling now that he is walking more and more, but I guess we will always have it on video!!!

Opening their doctor kit.

Riley and her new car that she sleeps with every night. Sometimes the "yummy hippo" game still gets to join them, but she HAS to have her car with the dog, the baby and the groceries it came with.

Enjoying a Christmas ring pop early in the morning. Special treats on Christmas Day right?!

When Cash ran out of presents to open he started forcing Tripp to open his.

More ring pops.

Spending the day just playing with cars...

and trains...

wearing Christmas socks...

and shoveling a bunch of snow (in shorts, don't ask and yes, it was very cold)...

all make for a very merry Christmas!!!

Now off to the Ronald McDonald House in Topeka to drop off the donations we received in honor of Tripp's birthday! It is only about a two hour drive there and back so pray for happy travelers!

Christmas Eve

Happy Birthday Blue!!!

Poor buddy is now 13 years old and feeling very neglected. He is used to getting pig ears, someone to lay on the floor with him and receiving very long petting sessions, but those have all gone away since the arrival of 3 very crazy little people. So I thought I would make it up to him by putting his lovely mug at the start of this Christmas Eve post. He looks excited doesn't he? Oh Blue, you will always have Tripp. Little buddy is always willing to share some of his food with you. The kids were very excited to make sugar cookies. They liked frosting the cookies and were very creative.

Tripp even had a hand in making the cookies this year!

Riley sneaking a few bites here and there.

Cash and his prize winning cookie decorating skills.

No frosting and still happy as can be!

One of our traditions is to open a game on Christmas Eve. We got them Elefun and were very excited to play it. Unfortunately, someone forgot to read that we were in need of some C batteries to play this game. We had AA, AAA, D and even 9 volt batteries...no C. Of course we needed C batteries for two of their other presents they opened on Christmas day. Really? Why C? I guess next year I will be making a trip to Costco to buy a package of batteries in every letter. Major bummer.

Luckily I had picked up this Hungry, Hungry Hippo game to put in one of their stockings so we were able to play with that instead. It is the travel version so the balls were contained which was nice otherwise I am sure they would have ended up in Tripp's little belly. They loved it. Riley even slept with her "yummy hippo" game.

Tripp is ready to read his Christmas Eve story! Time to get to bed and let Santa do his thing!

And it FINALLY started to snow...

Dad...

Here is the ipod thing I was telling you about!

For Grandma & Grandpa...

Always buy more than you think you'll need...

because you can always take it back. That is just something I wanted to quickly share. If you see something you like and its the right size, color, whatever, just get it. They may not have it when you go back the next time if you are, in fact, lucky enough to get out a second time, with no kids, with no crowds, to do a little shopping. Now if its a spendy purchase you may want to wait and think on it for awhile, but if its an extra pair or two of $1.25 Christmas socks for a little boy who LOVES Christmas socks...go ahead and get them. It will make your life much easier and prevent your child from wearing the same socks for 3 days in a row! Thank you.

Christmas Socks

We have officially begun the Christmas season...this week we have 3 parties to go to! Hard when you have 3 little ones and not many options for babysitters, but we manage.

We were able to bring the kids along to the party we went to last night. They had fun playing with dress up clothes and trains which allowed the adults time to eat and visit a little. Its nice that they are getting to the age where you can (kind of) trust them. Well, let me take that back. Considering the paint incident a couple weeks ago, I don't know that I trust them as much as I knew they would be busy with all the new toys while we were at someone else's house which would leave them little opportunity to get into things they shouldn't. That is better...or maybe we just got lucky.

I gave them baths before we went. I usually only give them baths before they go to bed so Cash was a little confused as to why they were going to take a bath right after they woke up from their nap. He wasn't quite ready to go back to bed since he just woke up! I don't know why...a nap, a bath and then to get to go back to bed again?! Sounds good to me!

Darin likes this bath picture. He is famous for always saying that the kids look like someone in every picture. In this one he says Riley looks like James Hetfield from Metallica. Ummm...don't know about that, but its cute anyway!

Now, we have a little man who takes after his Grandpa Nosbisch for sure! He loves Christmas socks. My dad likes to get everyone Christmas socks every year. I try to find socks for him, but they don't make a lot of Christmas socks in men's size 13 and up! Go figure. Anyway, my kids have had Christmas socks for every Christmas so far and we intend to keep it that way! Cash was so excited to open them and pass out each pair to his brother and sister.




You can't see the cuffs of the socks, but Cash had snowmen on his, Tripp had Christmas trees and Riley had snowflakes on hers. They were pretty cute.

Waechtersbach

This past July, Darin and I took our kids to Michigan to visit the Johnson side of our family. We flew with 3 children under the age of two, all their car seats and our suitcases. Big ordeal, but it was worth it of course.
My parents drove from Virginia to Michigan for the weekend and took me and the kids back to Virginia for a visit as well. We had a great time there too. Two vacations in one trip!
While we were in Michigan, we went through some of Grandpa Johnson's things to see what we wanted to take back to Kansas with us. Darin's mom passed away suddenly when I was about 4 months pregnant with the twins. They would have been her first and only grandchildren and she was sooooo excited! She knew we were having twins and said God giving her two grandbabies at one time was God's way of blessing her since her son made her wait 43 years to be a grandma! She didn't know the sex of the babies, nobody did since we didn't find out, but at least she knew about BOTH of them when she died.
So...since Grandma Johnson passed away Grandpa Johnson is always sending us packages of random stuff that he has gone through and thinks we might need or like. Now we were at his house and we could finally go through the stuff ourselves! I found some awesome Christmas dishes that I wanted to have and start using with our kids every year. Some close family friends of ours had always used those dishes at Christmas so it reminded me of when I was younger and Darin's mom had obviously used those same dishes. I thought it would be a nice way to kind of pass on something from their Grandma Johnson to my children since she isn't here to do that herself.
I have the mugs and a couple other pieces so I am thinking that maybe I will start adding to my collection. I want to get the milk and cookies for Santa set this year I think. I would love the dishes too, but we don't usually eat a big Christmas dinner so I probably wouldn't use them that much right now anyway. We are a Christmas appetizer kind of family! I love Christmas, passing on my favorite traditions to my kids and thinking of new ones to start!

http://www.waechtersbachusa.com/store/group/holiday/Christmas_Tree.html

So there is the link that I wanted to share. You know...In case someone doesn't know what to get me!!=)

Oreo Balls

Oreo Balls - 52035 - Recipezaar

Every Christmas Eve we make Christmas sugar cookies all day and then we drive around to look at Christmas lights. One year we came home and our dogs had eaten all the cookies off the edges of the tables. So that is the tradition from my family when I was growing up that I intend to pass on to my kids. The new tradition is Oreo Balls...so good and easy!

Ladies and Gentlemen...

We have an attempt at a picture of all 3 kids in their Christmas pj's. We were unsuccessful. We have Tripp enjoying some pancakes.
We finally have some snow to play in although Cash and Blue were the only ones who made it out. It was a little too cold and Riley didn't have any boots to wear. Cash woke up, saw the snow and the first thing he said was "I see snow Mama. I want to make snowballs with my hands, okay?" So I let him...for a little while.


And we have a walker on our hands!!!!!! He just really started walking more over the past couple days. I am happy that he is starting to walk more. He gets really excited about it, but I will miss his little monkey crawl when he doesn't do that any longer. He is getting to be a big boy!

Cash & Riley's first year 5/27/08 at OneTrueMedia.com

I was making Tripp a video of his first year and I came across a video I had made for Cash and Riley that was still in my account. I watched it of course and had to share it again. Watch out Grandma...you will cry.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Water Park in December?!

Yes, we went to the Great Wolf Lodge yesterday for the first time. Not only did I get into a swimsuit for the first time in a very long time, but I went down a couple water slides as well! Our friends little guy, Merak, will be three next week so they wanted to do something special for his birthday. Merak is expecting a new little brother just three days after his 3rd birthday so we had to do his special day up big!
Tripp stayed back with our super special neighbors Liz, Reagan and Cole so Darin and I could have a little one-on-one time with Cash and Riley. Good thing because it was a little harder to watch two little ones at that huge water park than I thought it would be.
Riley was a little afraid of the water slides that they had for the little kids, but once she went down one of them, we couldn't get her off! Cash went down one of the big slides all by himself. I am not kidding...it was a big, twisty one...with tunnels. I didn't realize he was going down this particular slide, alone until I saw him come sliding down and end up at my feet. I definitely would not have sent him down this slide, alone. His dad thought it was a good idea. Turned out that he was fine and he went down it a second time. Little daredevil on my hands, right?! Not exactly. When I put him in the pool and tried to let him swim around on his own, he freaked out. He had a life jacket on so it made him a little off balance, but he wouldn't let me take it off of him. He jumped off the side a couple times, but I had to be holding at least one of his hands. Hmmmm...I really need to get those kids in swimming lessons. I cannot have kids that are afraid of the water.

Fritz's

What was really cute that I didn't get in the video was when Riley said "tank you train for da food", but I shut it off too soon. It was really cute though so I had to mention it.

The Good Stuff...

Well, we have been busy here in the Johnson home! We have been putting up the Christmas tree, opening presents already, making Thanksgiving dinner, traveling to Iowa and squeezing in a nap or two in between...well, the kids have anyway! They are so cute and peaceful when they are sleeping, aren't they? Just wait... We put up our little Christmas tree right before Thanksgiving this year because Grandma and Grandpa Nosbisch were coming for the weekend and we were going to have our Christmas with them on Thanksgiving day. They like to see the kids enjoy their presents rather than just sending them in the mail so it worked out great.

Here is Riley helping decorate the tree. She liked to put all her ornaments in a little group. She was very paitent and took her time with her decorating. She loved her "balls" that she picked out for the tree and her Dora ornament.

Cash like it too. He liked his Cars ornament and his Thomas ornament this year. He was a little concerned that we didn't have a star for the top of our tree. We still have to get out and get one. I am thinking I may even let him pick it out. We will see on that one!

Grandma and Grandpa put out the presents while the kids were taking a nap. When they got up and came downstairs, they saw these easels first. Very cute. They are tabletop easels so Tripp can't bother them while they paint, draw with chalk or markers or whatever. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Cash opening his Thomas bridge.

Cash "helping" Tripp open his new truck.

Riley got this cool new Dora Dollhouse which she absolutely loved! She didn't even want to bother with opening anything else once she saw this. She loves it!

On Friday after Thanksgiving we began our road trip to Iowa for the Nosbisch Family Christmas. Cash and Riley rode with Grandpa and Grandma Nosbisch. Here are Tripp and Grandpa Johnson taking a little snooze during the 6 hour trip!

We arrived on Saturday around noon. Here is one little boy that was glad to be out of the car!

Here is Tripp helping his Great Grandma Nosbisch hand out some gifts!

We used to attempt family photos every year, but lately I guess photo time is reserved for the little ones now. Here we are trying to get a photo of Great Grandma and all of her 15 great grandkids. On the other side of the camera are the parents of those 15 children taking pictures. Wish someone would have gotten a picture of that!

We have Libby, Becca, Grady, Bailey, Cash, Great Grandma, Anya, Jack, Jayden, Brooke, Dylan, Ellie, Andrew, Tripp, Riley and Evelyn.

Riley with her dad and cousin Scott who she roped into a little game of Trouble.

The boys playing with, what else, but Thomas the Train.

Grandpa Mike with his new best buddy, Tripp. Tripp LOVED Grandpa and even chose him over his own mother!!! Here they are playing with all the uncles...Lynn, Tim, Don, Granpa with Tripp, Tim and Wayne.

We had a great time and it was good to see everyone, but we had to head back to KC. And oh, what a little apple will do on the road for a screaming one year old! He chewed on that thing for about an hour.

We took Monday to regroup and get some stuff done around the house. On Tuesday, we went to a new place called Little Monkey Bizness. It is the same place we went for Tripp's birthday, but this location is specifically geared towards children under 6 years old. It just opened the day after Thanksgiving. The kids really had a lot of fun. Afterwards we took them to Fritz's. Its a burger and fry joint where you get your food delivered by a train!!! They love Fritz's! It is the one place that I don't have to occupy my children with food while we wait for their meals because they love watching the trains zip around on the track above them. I am going to try to upload a video I took there on another post. I think this post is pretty full already!

Cash got into it and even wore his hat for a little while.

Do I look tired or what? Well, I am and we haven't even got to the good stuff yet!

Tripp loved the trains too!

Sharing an Oreo sundae after lunch.

Now, on to the "good" stuff...

Here is what two little children left alone for a few minutes

and a box of this stuff can do to a room in really less than 5 minutes.

As Riley would say, "mess".

Pretty, huh?!