Our pool party weekend

Once a year, we head to a hotel with a nice pool for the kids and get poolside rooms with a few other couples and kids. These are some our friends from college and we always look so forward to this weekend every year! There were 4 couples this year and 8 kids ranging from 2 months to 4 years old. Needless to say, the moms and dads and the kids had a great time! With the exception of Lauren not wanting to sleep in a hotel room and not going to sleep until midnight, it was a giant success!! The kids went down this toddler water slide about 200 times each - no exaggeration! And Alex even braved the big water slide by himself with Kristi catching him at the bottom - he flew down it and was spinning around and around - came out at the bottom head first. No tears were shed (surprisingly) but he informed us that he didn't need to go on that slide ever again. They had a great time and probably swam in the pool for about 6 hours. Alex even got his hair wet without throwing a fit! And Drew and I always love seeing our friends!!!

Children's Museum with Aunt Betsy

Yesterday, Aunt Betsy and I took the kids to the Children's Museum. Every year for their birthdays, Aunt Betsy buys the kids a membership to the museum. It's a fantastic gift as the kids LOVE this place!!! We're now at the point where we don't get to go as often anymore now that Lauren runs all over as I can't watch them both by myself (because they run in totally different directions) so we were grateful Aunt Betsy tagged along yesterday! Here's a couple of pics...

Christmas

We had a great Xmas!! We spent Xmas Eve and Xmas up here with Drew's family and then headed to Iowa from Friday to Monday to spend with my family. Then spent Monday with Drew's grandparents in NW Iowa and arrived back home Monday night around 10. It was an exhausting week but an absolute fantastic time. We made many memories with the kids and I'll be excited to watch all the home video we took many years down the road. The kids were of course spoiled by their grandparents, their aunts, their uncle, and Santa - they must have been really good this year! They got lots of goodies and mom and dad's job has been pretty easy this week since they are consumed with playing with their new toys! Alex thought it was "awesome" that Santa brought him stuff to Nana and Grandpa Vohs' house, our house, and Gaga and Papa O'Brien's house. He even commented that he must have been a good boy this year. Though he found it strange that mom and dad didn't get as much stuff as he and Lauren did and wanted to reassure us that we were good too this year. The kids definitely got everything that they asked Santa for and more so we are incredibly fortunate. A sample of the presents: they got a train table with a wooden train set, a toy kitchen, Alex got his very own kid digital camera (he loves taking our pics), some trucks and cars of course, and Lauren got a new baby doll and a highchair for her dolls. It was so much fun!! Xmas really was the best this year now that they were both so into it - Lauren would walk around the house saying, "Dita, are you?" For those of you who don't know, she called Santa "Dita" all season long this year. Here's just a sample of the Xmas pics this year...

Zoo Trip

Dad had off the last 2 weeks of the year, which was a real treat to both kids and especially for mom! So we did a few adventures while he was off. We went to the zoo, went to Chuck E Cheese, went swimming at the YMCA, and spent a week celebrating Xmas with our families. It was great! Here's a couple of pictures from our visit to the zoo, the kids loved showing dad all the animals (well at least the indoor ones - it was way too cold to go outside)!