Meeting Lila

Bean and Lily have lots of cousins on their dad's side (thirteen of them to be exact). Most of their cousins are within a four hour driving radius, but they do have two cousins that live over near the west coast. Lila is currently the youngest of the cousins and she lives in Utah, so while her dad was in Turkey for business she and her mom came to visit Grandma Sharon and Grandad (we drove up to Washington, IL for the visit).


Abram and Jen (my brother and sis-in-law) along with Alex and Gretchen (more siblings in-law) came for the visit as well. My parents-in-law's house was pretty full for the weekend. Bean adores his uncles so he had a lot of fun playing out in the snow with them. Ironically Lily would not be held by any of her uncles except Alex.

Where is all the snow??

I was so sad that we did not get snow for Christmas this year. The first snow that we received in the St Louis area wasn't until today. So here are pictures of Lily experiencing her first snow.


Bean loves snow!! He wanted to stay out side all day, but it was too windy to let him do that.

Breakfast of Champions

We love to have breakfast for dinner because there will be leftovers for the next morning. I caught Dam eating pancakes with the kids on the coach this morning.

Christmas Card

Bright Colored Lights Christmas Card

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Merry Christmas

Here are some pictures of our Christmas Day:

Lily enjoyed just playing with the wrapping paper, but she also enjoyed the blocks that she got from Grandma Marsha and Papa.


Bean had been bugging me for weeks about when Santa was going to come and bring him Thomas (Bean is a big fan of Thomas the Train).
So, when he found Thomas under the tree Christmas morning he was very excited.

Christmas cookies

Best thing in the world: Aldi and their seasonal frosting and cookie decorations. Hands down they have the best when it comes to a grocery store.


Bean's method of decorating his cookies is to frost, add sprinkles and then eat the cookie.

Breakfast With Santa

Every year the hospital that I work at has Santa come to breakfast at the hospital cafeteria. Dam and I took Bean last year and we had a blast, so this year we took Bean, Lily, Dam's mom and sister with us.

I was concerned that Lily would start crying because she has had some problems with stranger anxiety, but she did not do too bad. She started to get cranky towards the end, but in her defense it was close to her nap time.

Leaf pick up

In our front yard we have a large oak tree. This year we had a bumper crop of acorns that fell. The excess of nuts was well know to the neighborhood squirrels. Our neighbor across the street counted 30 squirrels in our front yard one morning. With the cold weather all the leaves have fallen, which has made for a large leaf pile. Bean loves to play in the leaves, so we had to take a photo of it.

Bean's Babies

Dam and I have been talking about the baby coming to our house for a few weeks now. Two days ago, out of the blue, Bean started calling one of his stuffed animals his baby. Many times during the day he asks me to wrap his baby up in one of his blankets and then he carries it around the house cradled in his arms. I hope that this is an example of how he is going to react to his baby sister when she arrives in two weeks.

Sledding

This winter we have received more than our share of snow. Even though I am pregnant and can't participate in many snow activities, Dam and I decided to take Bean to one of the local parks to go sledding for the first time. Bean loved it! We would have stayed longer, but the wind was so bad that after three runs Bean's cheeks were bright red. So we called it a day.

Breakfast with Santa

The hospital that I work at has an annual breakfast with Santa. I had been told by my coworkers that it was worth taking my family to. The breakfast was held in the hospital cafeteria and each family that had bought tickets in advance had a table reserved for them with their name on it. Of course those printing out the names decided that my last name was Valencia, not Valencic.

The only thing that I was apprehensive about was how Bean would react to meeting Santa. I have heard horror stories about little kids first time meeting Santa and I hoped that for Bean it would not be such the case. In the end we were lucky that the hospital had hired a Santa that understood little kids and spent part of the morning going from table to table meeting the children before sitting down in the big chair to hear the kids' Christmas requests. When Santa came to our table Bean was quite shy and hid, but later he was such a trooper as he told Santa about the crayons that he got to color with while he ate his breakfast.

Watch Out for The ZomBEEs

Halloween was an odd one this year because of two things: one, it fell on a Sunday; two, I was pregnant. Originally we were hoping to go for a theme for our family. Bean at the time was obsessed with "Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog", so we were thinking of Dam to go as Dr Horrible, me as Penny and Bean as Captian Hammer, but since I was starting to show and making an authentic Dr Horrible costume was pretty costly we decided to nix the idea. The next idea that we came up with was for our family to go as zombies. Dam's costume was quite easy: get some old clothes and tear them up. Some where we got the idea to dress Bean up in a bee costume and zombie it up so that he could be a zomBEE. In the end only Dam and Bean dressed up for Halloween, but we all had a fun time trick or treating at the few houses around our neighborhood.

Pumpkins

Last year carving pumpkins seemed so easy. Maybe it's because I am prego, but carving one pumpkin completely wore me out!!! At least this year Bean is excited about the pumpkins and wants to participate. If you look at the post that I made of last year's pumpkin carving you'll see that Bean wants nothing to do with the pumpkin that I got for him.

Bean had a lot of fun poking holes in the side of his pumpkin.

Dam's pumpkin is on the left and Bean's is on the right.

Has it Really Been Two Years??

This week my little man turned two years old!!! I seriously can't believe that it has already been two years, and what a whirlwind two years it has been! Happy Birthday Bean! I can't wait to see how you grow during this next year.

And His Name Is Fritz

Dam and I have been talking about getting a dog for some time now. Before we left for China we had two bichon frise shih tzu dogs that we had to give away when we left the country. Dam and I decided that after we had settled into our house that we would get a dog. I thought that would not be until the fall, but Dam found on-line a giant Schnauzer mix that needed a home. My only miss givings were that to see the dog we would have to drive to Springfield. So, it was arranged that we would go visit the lady who was fostering Fritz. We met the lady at the local Walmart and fell in love with the dog. In the end the drive was worth it. Even though it has taken a bit to get Fritz trained he is a dog that is very loyal to our family and is willing to have Bean jump on every now and then.

Traveling again

Dam has seven siblings. Getting them together all at the same time is a miracle. The last time we were all together was shortly after Dam and I were married. Well, some how Manda, Dam's younger sister, accomplished this miracle. Saturday, June 5th, the whole Valencic clan came together for her wedding.


When I heard that the wedding was going to be at the Nauvoo temple, I was excited because I love visiting that sleepy little town. The LDS church does an excellent job recreating the original city. Bean had a great time playing on old main street as well as visit cousins.

The night before the wedding there was a bar-b-Que so that the Valencics could meet the Wilsons (Manda's future in-laws). Dam's oldest brother, Tom, was there with his family and Bean immediately latched onto Benjamin (Tom's second oldest son). Even though there is a eleven year gap Bean enjoys hanging out with his cousin Benjamin the most.

I never thought that I would pack a sewing machine with me to help prep for a wedding, but I did for this one. Because of not having a permanent residence for two years my closet has been reduced to what I could fit in a suit case. Not a single item that I had in possession were Kelly green, royal blue or yellow, so I went on line shopping (Manda wanted the girls of the family wearing dresses that were Kelly green, royal blue or yellow for the wedding). The dress that I found was a cute 50's era piece. The only problem was that the hemline was two inches too short and I did not have enough time to return the dress and order a new one by the day of the wedding. As a quick fix I decided to add a yellow ruffle to the hem of the dress. The only problem was that I did not have time to fix the dress before driving to Nauvoo (I was busy making hair accessories for the sisters of the bride and groom). I have to say that I am so grateful that my mom taught me how to sew.

Finally

I have been meaning to get a family portait taken for a while now, but some how I keep putting it off. THANK YOU Laura for driving out and taking our pictures! They turned out wonderful.

Un To Us A Child is Flung

This year has been a wild one. One for which I would never trade the experiences that I had for anything. Leaving for China, in January, was a hard one because I had no idea what to expect. I had never lived in a country that did not speak English let a lone travel on a plane 14 hours with a six month old.

China was amazing. If I had the chance I would move back there. During the six months that we lived in Shanghai I fell in love with the people and the culture. I will never forget praying for safety every time I got into a cab, buying fresh fruit and vegetables every day, our Ayie who was amazing with Bean, the people that lived in our branch and the friends that we made.

In May we were prompted to move back to the states. Because our house in St Louis was still being rented out to friends we moved in with my parents in Meridian, Idaho. In many ways this move was a blessing. Bean got to spend time with his Papa and Abuelita before they left for their mission, Dam was able to find a part time job with a university and I was able to get some classes in while working.

Bean is growing like a weed. His favorite part of his day is going to feed the horses. He does not say the word horse yet, but is you say, "lets go see the horses" he'll start making noises like the horses do when they are snorting.

We are excited for the new year and can't wait to see what new adventures it brings us.

Thanks Giving

Thanks Giving this year was a special one. It was the last time that we we would all be together for a while. Why? Because my parents are leaving for a mission to Ghana. It's odd to think that I will not see them for 18 months. To celebrate this momentous occasion my sister Elisabeth and her family flew in from St Louis, my brother Garrett and his family flew in from San Diego and my youngest brother Christopher drove up from Provo. I have to say having seven kids all under the age of seven creates a lot of noise, but never the less it was time well spent. The men of the house created a potato gun, which they had fun shooting apples into the Boise river. We had a Bar-b-Que at the fire pit and every night was story book time with Papa.

Halloween

In our house Halloween is one of the most important holidays of the year. It is the one holiday that there is little stress and lots of fun to be had. This year Dam went as the Punisher, Bean was a turtle and I tried Japanese anime.

Bean got to help carve his pumpkin this year. He wasn't too sure what to do with it. I finally convinced Dam to let me buy one of the kits to help carve the pumpkins. Most years he just carves a pirate. I think his scary scarecrow tuned out pretty good.

This year we actually went trick-or-treating. We went to the houses up on the bench because later we went to a party to celebrate "Uncle" Jack's birthday.

Here is Dad trying to punish the turtle and Bean thought it was time to play.

I have the cutest turtle in the world!!