No, we haven't dropped off the face of the Earth....we moved!

On Valentine's Day our landlord informed us that, due to unforeseen financial reasons, he needed to sell the town home that we were renting.....by August! The next week our place went on the market and we had to scramble to figure out what to do. After thinking about it, we came to the conclusion that we were tired of paying rent to pay someone else's mortgage so we decided to take the leap and buy our first home. We looked around Orange County but soon realized that we weren't going to be able to afford anything that wasn't 60 years old and in major disrepair. How sad is that? So, we decided to look eastwards and found this adorable house in Corona. This was a short sale and for those of you who don't know what a short sale is, it does NOT mean that the process goes quickly. Quite the opposite, actually. After 2 1/2 months of waiting (which is EXTREMELY quick for a short sale) it was ours and we moved in Memorial Day weekend. We are so excited to own our own home. The girls LOVE the stairs and their new purple bedroom. It gives us a little room to grow for whenever we decide to add an additional member to our family. Anyway, to make a long story short, this would be the reason why our blog has been seriously neglected recently. But, we're unpacked (mostly) and now that I've figured out how to upload our photos onto the laptop, we should be able to stay current from here on out. So, without further ado, I present...... THE LAST FIVE MONTHS OF OUR LIVES....a brief recap. Here we are decorating Easter eggs with the girls. They thought this was great fun and were sad when there were no more eggs to decorate. On Easter morning the girls were surprised to find that the Easter Bunny had come to visit them. They got some umbrellas and now they love pretending to be Mary Poppins (with the umbrella open) or Nanny McPhee (with the umbrella closed and hitting it on the ground).

Grandma Hargis sent them a few items from Kansas. Look how excited they are about their new balls.

Our friends, the Branlidgt's had an Easter party at their house for a bunch of the adults and kids in the ward. They had like 400 eggs for the kids to find and the girls had a blast hunting for easter eggs. Some of them had pennies and nickles in them and the girls had so much fun putting them in the piggy bank later that night.

We have been making really good use of our Disneyland passes recently before the summer months came and we were completely blocked out. The girls have really gotten into seeing all the different characters. Here's one I have never seen before at Disneyland....the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella. The girls don't appear to be too excited, but they were. After they took this picture, some Chinese woman asked if she could take a picture of the girls with her mother (here from China). So funny! I guess they would be kind of a novelty in China.

Here they are with Pluto. He's one of their favorites!

Natalie always asks to see "Dongal Duck". Luckily, he's usually around.

For those of you who don't know about it, there's a place called Pixie Hollow in Disneyland and the kids get to see Tinkerbell and one of the other fairies (they rotate). Look how cute this Tinkerbell is!

It seems as though Jeremy and I manage to take a yearly trip somewhere without the girls (thank you to my sister Caitlin, or Caca, as the girls lovingly refer to her). Last year, we went to the Caribbean. This year, we stayed more local and took a shorter trip to...

SAN FRANCISCO

We went for four days to San Francisco with our friends Dani and Shane. We had so much fun with them last year on our cruise that we decided to take a trip together again. Here we are at a restaurant in North Beach (Little Italy) called Sotini's. It was recommended to us by a local on a bus we were on and we were so glad we took his advise and went here. It was just this little restaurant but the food was delicious and freshly made. I had gnocchi and Jeremy had a fetuccine with pancetta. YUM! The bread and salad were so good too. If we had been there longer, we probably would have gone back again.

Here we are at the bottom of Lombard Street. We walked down from the top as none of us wanted to walk up from the bottom :) It was CRAZY how twisty the road was.

Jeremy was in absolute HEAVEN at Ghiradelli's. We went there every day for free samples of the chocolate and we ate in the ice cream shop twice. They make their own hot fudge for their sundaes and it was delicious. Jeremy would have been happy to take all of this candy home with him.

We had a fabulous time and we really enjoyed our time alone, but we were excited to get home and see the girls.

Ok, so that's a general update. Coming soon....pictures of the girls 3rd birthday!

Now I know my A, B, C, D, E, F, G....You get the picture.

The other day I was singing the ABC song with Natalie and I got distracted and stopped singing mid-way through the song. She picked up right where I left off and sang it all by herself. I was really surprised! A day later I decided to try the same thing with Tessa and she knew the song too. What smart little girls I have! I got them on video singing but they were a little camera-shy so I had to coax them a little bit. The one wearing clothes is Natalie and Little Miss Nakey-bug is Tessa. Tessa's performance just cracks me up! Enjoy...

My big girls got big girl beds!

On Sunday the 17th, Miss Natalie decided to escape from her crib and landed on her head. Luckily, no injuries occured. Unfortunately, this meant we couldn't put off switching them to big girl beads any longer (we were hoping to hold out until their 3rd birthday). So the next day I ventured over to Ikea (in torrential rain) and purchased two big girl beds. Yikes, not cheap :) My sister-in-law, Michelle had these same beds for her daughters and they are great because they stretch from a toddler bed to a twin size bed as the girls grow. Jeremy assembled them that night and viola! I was sad to see them give up their cribs but they love their new beds. Now I just need to figure out how to make them stay in their new beds :)

Here's Natalie on her bed.

I love how excited Natalie looks in this picture. By the way, she is the biggest culprit when it comes to escaping her bed.

Tessa could hardly wait to jump into her bed. She is a back sleeper and loves to hang one leg out the side of the bed.

Here's Tessa saying "cheese" as loudly as she can on her new bed.

I guess I should be glad that they transitioned so well but I can't help but be a little sad that they are getting so big. I guess it's time to have another......

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Oops! Did I forget to blog? - Part 2

Merry Christmas Eve!!!! So to continue my blogging, we went over to Jeremy's parents' house on Christmas Eve and a bunch of the family decided to do the Kool-Aid challenge (see the prior blog for more of an explanation). Here's the after shot As is tradition, Santa Claus came to the Biehn home that evening and all of the kids got to sit on his lap. Tessa was super excited to see him and kept yelling "Hi Santa" while Natalie started crying hysterically and didn't want to leave my lap. Until Santa started handing out candy canes. Tessa got hers and then we convinced Natalie to go get one but she still wouldn't sit on his lap. Then Santa started passing out the presents and all of a sudden, Nattie couldn't wait to sit on Santa's lap. Here are the two girls happily sitting with Santa (ok, happy may be a stretch, but hey, they're not crying). Yay!

Here are the girls with all of their cousins in the new pajamas that Sant brought for them. My girls jammies say "Santa's Little Helper" and they looked super cute in them.

Another Christmas Eve tradition at the Biehn home is the exchanging of White Elephant gifts. I chose to give the gift of all my foot shavings from my Ped Egg for the past year. Aunt Janet was the lucky winner of that gift. Jeremy found a picture of Barack Obama (I refuse to call him President) and Michelle Obama and he superimposed his dad's head in place of Senor Obama's. It looked great and everyone thought it was hilarious (except maybe his dad).

As is becoming tradition, Jeremy and Coni made a "gingerbread" house and all the kids ate it. Actually, this year, instead of gingerbread, he made his house out of rice krispie treats. Much more yummy and not as tempermental.

Merry Christmas Morning!

The girls were excited to open their presents but when I tried to get a picture of them in front of the tree, this is what I got. Oh goodness, Nattie.

Grandpa Hargis came over for breakfast and to exchange gifts on Christmas morning and these are the giant stuffed hippos that he gave the girls (they love that I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas song).

We ventured over to the Biehn home in the late morning and here's our little family before the chaos began.

When we were done there we went back home and we all took naps. Then we woke up and exchanged gifts between just the four of us. The girls had lost interest in opening gifts at this point (a sure sign that they got too many gifts) and were more interested in eating as many M&Ms as they possibly could. Oh well, 'tis the season.

We had such a wonderful Christmas and the best part was watching the girls get excited when they opened their gifts. This was the first year that they were really into it. In fact, we were so content watching them that we forgot to take pictures of them actually opening their gifts. Grrrr. Argh! Oh well.

Well, as this is my last post of the year (only 16 minutes until midnight at this point), I feel I should reflect on this past year.

I have felt completely blessed this year. I kept my job when many others lost theirs. I have a roof over my head, food on my table everyday, and a family who I love more than anything else. My children bring me joy everyday (along with a bit of aggravation). I love my husband and, while having him in school makes it so that I don't see him as much as I'd like, I'm grateful that he wants to work so hard to make things better for our family in the longrun. I'm grateful to have a mother and father-in-law who are willing to watch the girls twice a week (sometimes more) in order to make our lives a little less stressful. They are truly a huge blessing in our lives. I'm grateful for my Mom who helps me with all my little projects that I come up with everytime she comes out to visit (by the way, Leif's blanket is a hit). I'm grateful for my dad who makes sure to come visit the girls and play with them almost every week and who usually buys us dinner too :) I'm grateful for my siblings-in-law who have become such a huge part of my life and who make me love having a big family. I'm grateful for my Kansas siblings for loving my kids so much and who I am finally able to relate to a little more (big age differences as kids are not so fun sometimes).

I hope that next year will see a few more New Year's resolutions realized and I hope that it finds all of my family and friends healthy and a little less stressed.

From Jeremy and I, we love you and look forward to all that next year will bring.

-Jocelyn-

Oops! Did I forget to blog? - Part 1

I have exactly 55 minutes to enter my last post(s) for 2009. Nothing like waiting until the very last minute, right? In November we took our annual trip up to Utah to visit Jeremy's brother, Scott, and his family. The girls were AMAZING travelers. I'm pretty sure in-car DVD players are one of my favorite inventions ever! On our first full day in Utah we went to the MTC to pay a visit to my sister, Caitlin. What? You didn't know you could visit people in the MTC? Don't get your hopes up. Apparantly, the only way you get to visit loved ones is if they have to have shoulder surgery and then have to spend weeks in missionary daycare while all the other missionaries get to go to class. Leave it to my sister :) So we got special permission to visit her and we snuck in fully caffeinated Dr. Pepper in the girls diaper bag. Those diaper bags sure come in handy :) Here are my goofy girls with their Aunt Caca (no, I'm not making that up, that's what they call her). We were hoping for snow while we were up there and, for once, we got our wish. The past couple times we've gone up in the late fall they have had heat waves. Jeremy snapped this picture in Scott and Michelle's backyard when the snow started to fall on Sunday night.

Here's the view on their street the next morning. Gorgeous, isn't it? I love the clouds on the mountains.

We bundled the girls up into their snow bunny outfits and let them go out in the backyard to play in the snow; their first time. As soon as Natalie started walking in the snow she was upset because her shoes "got all messy". I showed her that the snow can be wiped off but she started getting sad so I told her to pick some of the snow up and throw it. She did. Then she got very sad because her mittens got "all messy" and started crying and didn't want anything more to do with the snow. Tessa was not as upset about being messy but neither wanted to stay outside for very long. So much for their first snow experience. I think Nattie's face says it all.

Aunt Michelle straightened both of the girls' hair and they sat there and let her do it with no fussing. Such divas.

Ok, on our second to last night, after the kids had gone to bed, we played the "taste-testing" game. This is something that Jeremy and I have done in the past and it's so fun. Basically, each person finds 4 or 5 things in the kitchen to feed to their spouse. Then, with your eyes shut, you eat whatever is given to you and have to guess what it is. It's not always something good. We played this game up in Utah and Jeremy and Scott had to eat 5 things and 3 of them had to be good and 2 had to be gross. Scott's gross items that he had to eat were a spoonful of mayonnaise (I would have vomited) and a spoonful of pickle juice. Scott HATES pickles. Jeremy's gross items that he had to eat were a spoonful of raw garlic and a spoonful of unsweetened Kool-Aid. Surprisingly, the Kool-Aid was the worst item of the night. Check out Jeremy's Kool-Aid face.

So the next day, Michelle said she wanted to try the Kool-Aid challenge. This is what your tongue looks like afterwards. It actually causes a burning sensation on your tongue and after you have washed your mouth out completely, your taste buds remain quite inflammed for several minutes after due to taste sensation overload.

Our trip to Utah was so much fun and just the relaxing vacation that we needed. We always appreciate Scott and Michelle's hospitality (and delicious home-cooked meals to boot). The girls enjoy playing with their cousins and were asking to play with them for at least a week after we had returned home. Thanks again, Scott and Michelle! We had so much fun with you!

One big looooong update...

Grandma Hargis came to town for a visit last week and she was very excited to see her granddaughters again. They are talking so much more than the last time she was here. I put her to work helping me with a blanket that I wanted to make for a friend of mine who recently had a baby and despite not having a pattern, it turned out super cute. As an early Christmas gift we treated her to a day at Disneyland. She hadn't been in about 12 years so things had definitely changed. She and I took the girls and we all had a blast (Jeremy had to be at school). Here they are on the carousel in Fantasyland.

Here we are in front of the GIANT Mickey Mouse Head on Main Street. We ended up only staying until about 4:30 but we managed to get on a lot of rides and I think we were both exhausted by the time we left (the girls were still going strong). Grandma bought them some Tinkerbell dolls before we left and the girls LOVE them . Thanks Grandma Hargis!

My sister, who is currently on her mission, has been lovingly dubbed "Caca" by my girls. When we went on our cruise last May she came to babysit and they weren't able to say Caitlin at the time so it came out Caca. I, being an evil big sister, thought this was hilarious and heartily encouraged them to continue calling her Caca. It didn't take long before the name stuck and now she's even signing her letters from the MTC as "Hermana Caca Hargis". Anyway, Caitlin worked for a non-profit charity group called "Shadow Buddies" before she left on her mission and she got the girls these really ugly dolls. The girls now constantly ask for their "caca babies". Gross. Thanks Aunt Caca.

We took the girls to Mickey's Trick-or-Treat at California Adventure on Thursday night and we had a great time. Here are our little insects. Nattie is the bumblebee and Tessa is the ladybug. It was so fun seeing everyone all dressed up. The girls weren't really sure about what was going on but soon wised up once the candy starting filling up their buckets...

The girls were excited to see Snow White and to take a picture with her. However, they were not as excited to take a picture with Dopey. Tessa got over it pretty fast but, as you can see, Natalie stood as far away from him as possible.

The girls were digging through their candy buckets all night and were super good at finding anything with chocolate...m&m's, tootsie rolls, you name it.

Jeremy dumped out all of the candy when we got home and we were shocked by how much we actually got. Of course, he then proceeded to sort it into piles. Chewys, chocolates, hard candies, etc... and put them all in separate baggies. That's my husband for you :)

Yesterday we went up to Oak Glen for the day. We stopped by Kaiser on the way and everyone go flu shots. Not so fun. Then we were off to Oak Glen. We had a blast. First we went to Snowline to get delicious apple cider. We were going to get cider donuts but the line was out the door and wrapped around the building. I've never seen it like that before.

Tessa and Jeremy looking in the window to see if they were making anything good but the apple press wasn't working. We bought two pickles that we were going to share with the girls but they insisted that they hold them. They weren't that great so we didn't argue (we actually threw them away when they weren't interested in them anymore). Here's Tessa and her giant pickle.

You can tell that Natalie ws excited to take a huge bite of her pickle. They didn't even make funny faces. My girls LOOOOOOOVE pickles. They are always telling me to "buy it" when we pass them in the store.

We went to the petting zoo in town, something we've never done there before. I thought we'd made a mistake at first when I saw these hideous chickens They looked like poodle chickens.

Then we found the piglets and all was well. We were allowed to get in the pen with them and feed them and hold them. Look how many there are! They are only 3 months old.

Tessa made a point of kissing and hugging the big pigs that were wandering around. The girls call the pigs "honkies" because that's the sound they think they make.

This goat scared me a little (as most goats do) but the girls had so much fun feeding it corn. They took turns feeding this goat over and over and over. I'm sure the goat was loving it.

We got in on the petting zoo action too. Here I am holding Shirley who squealed at first but as soon as I put her over my shoulder and started patting her back, she stopped. Just like a human baby. She was just adorable.

Here's Jeremy with a tiny baby goat (only 15 days old). The mother rejected him so he's kept separately. He was so cute but kept trying to eat my hair when I held him. Here he is trying to eat Jeremy's chain.

I love this picture of the girls.

Natalie was intently watching the ducks in the duck pond. I love her eyelashes in this shot.

We came home exhausted but had so much fun on our family outing. Anyone out there thinking of going up to Oak Glen, visit the petting zoo. It was great. Ok, until next time :)