Monday, December 31, 2012

Us in 2012

I gave up on doing Christmas cards years ago and switched to doing a blog entry about our families year.  2012 has been a really good year for our family.  It has been very busy too, but we had so much fun.  above is a picture of Vi last January.  I am amazed at how much she has grown this year.  


 We adopted Zelda this year.  I can't believe we have only had her a year, she is such a big part of our daily lives, it seems weird to think about what it was like before her.
We also adopted Irma in October.  We love having a cat.

 Here is Claire last January.  She has changed from a baby into a little girl this year.  She is growing up so fast.
 Claire finally gave up the bink this year.  In other news she is also 100% (even night time) potty trained!  That's right, we are a diaper free household!!! HALLELUJAH! Now that is something to celebrate this new year.

 Vi rode the bus for the first time.  She now rides the bus home from school every day and she loves it so much.  Her bus driver is named Mario, and I think she really loves riding with a Mario brother every day :)
 We did a lot of painting this year.  And we took lots of baths and used up lots of cleaning supplies.

 We renewed our Zoo membership and spent many days at the Zoo and NW trek.  The girls love taking their friends with us.  These kids are animal lovers!

 We went to the Tulip festival again this year.  I highly recommend it.  The girls love it.

 We went Camping several times this year, we camp in cabins, trailers and tents and the girls love it all! They love spending special time with Grandpa David and Grandma Jeanne.

 We went to a few parades this year, the Procession of the species ( an Olympia fave) the 4th of July (not going to lie...kind of a dud) and the Montesano christmas parade ( a new family tradition)  The girls love parades and they talk about the parades every time we drive down the parade routes.

 We spent a lot of time at the beach.  The girls even asked to go to the beach yesterday...no...it's literally Freezing out!


 Violet turned 5 this year!!  She is such joy to have in our family.  She also tested out of her speech therapy this year.  I am so proud of her and all the hard work she has done to improve and she has made so much progress it is amazing.  I am also grateful that we have such good insurance that allows us to do things like speech therapy without going broke.


 Vi Graduated from Preschool in June.  She loves school so much.
 Vi did soccer this summer for the first time (definitely way more fun that T- ball).

The happiest place on earth for our girls is the beach.  They love to run in the waves and dig in the sand and run all over the beach.


 We are so lucky to live in a town with so many great parks.  The girls love to explore the parks and play on all the toys. I love that my girls love to play outside.



 Much to Claire's dismay you have to be 3 to play soccer, and she did not turn 3 until the season was over.  Next year kiddo!

 It never hurts to prepare for next year though :)


 4th of July picnic.
 Vi and Claire grew carrots this year!  Carrots are one of their favorite snacks...we may need to grow some more.
 Claire loves to garden and Loves uncle John.
 At the beach with Grandpa.  She loves to hang out with Grandpa.

 Claire also loves to yell at the dog.  Zelda loves to ignore her.

 Vi in heaven.

 Our annual Corier reunions were a blast this year too.  We spent a few days at Lincoln City with the Timm Corier group and then at Ocean Shores with the big group.
We always love these special trips with our family.

 Claire turned 3!!
 Claire is our rambunctious child.  She loves to climb things and then jump off of them.  Just last night we went to the ER for our first time ever (vi has never been)  but surprise surprise (I always assumed it would be a broken bone or a head injury) it was for something Claire had shoved up her nose ( a Jingle Bell)  She was a brave girl and very patient and told the dr and nurse all about the bell up her nose.  She loves to color and loves to paint.
 Vi started Kindergarten this year.  She goes all day long, and loves school so much, she has some new friends at school and they all love to play during playtime.  Vi is doing such a great job on her ABC's and numbers and she hopes to start reading in a few months.  We have really been blessed to have Vi in this school program that has helped her so much in overcoming her speech delay and helping her catch up and be ready for 1st grade next year.  By all predictions she should be all caught up and ready to go by the end of the year.  She has come a long way and I am so proud of her!

Claire started preschool this year.  SHE LOVES PRESCHOOL.  They sing and dance, and play outside and color a bunch.  oh and she loves Snack time, she tells me about it every day when I pick her up.

Well that is what are kids have been doing all year.  Sorry there are no pictures of Peter and me, but we figured our kids were much cuter than us.
 
Peter switched jobs this year.  He is still with Department of Licensing but works in the title division.  He likes this job a lot more than his old one, so we are all happy about it.  Peter is still in school at Evergreen and will graduate in June with his Masters degree.  He has put in so much work to get this degree and I am so proud of him, he also makes time to spend with the girls.  They love their dad so much.

I started school this fall. I am going to SPSCC (again) to get my paralegal certificate.  I just finished my first quarter and I am loving the program.  It is a little weird to be back in school after so long ( I graduated from WWU in 2005) but I really enjoy it.  I also did my first Triathlon this year and ran my first 5k.  I'm not very good but I am getting better.  Our church has started doing a triathlon every year...anyone want to join me?  I am also planning on doing a fun mud run this spring.

Well that is our life for 2012.  Happy New Year everyone!  I hope 2013 is your best year yet!  I'm banking on it being a good one for our family too :)

Happy Birthday!!

OK so we missed it yesterday, but we were thinking of you!  Happy Birthday Wesley!!! 7 years old!!  We hope you had a great day and we are so excited to come visit next year for your 8th birthday!!  We love you !
love,
Uncle Peter, Aunt Ellen, Violet and Claire.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas 2012 in WA

 Well Christmas is over.  We've opened all the presents and had way to much food.  We had a wonderful Christmas, and hope that you all did too.  For Christmas eve we spent the evening with G and G Corier.  After dinner I told the kids a story about a little boy in the hospital on Christmas.  His nurse asked him if he would like a special treat for Christmas and he asked for a balloon. It was Christmas and the nurse had a very hard time finding a store that was open and selling balloons, but after several hours she finally found the balloon.  After she gave the balloon to the boy, he asked to go outside, so she wheeled him outside and as soon as they got outside he let go of the balloon, now the nurse was really upset and was about to give this little boy a lecture when he looked up into the sky and said "Happy Birthday Jesus".
This story was told in Young Women's on Sunday and I loved the idea of letting loose balloons to celebrate Jesus' birth.  So on Christmas eve we got two red balloons, tied with twine and the girls went outside and let go of their balloons and wished Jesus a Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday.  With all the fun of parties and presents around Christmas, this was just a really fun and simple way to remind the girls why we celebrate Christmas and what Christmas means to us.

 watching the balloons float away.

 After we released Jesus' balloons we went inside and blew up a bunch for the girls.  They talked a lot about how these were their balloons and they already gave some to Jesus so it was ok to keep these ones.


 Claire helping Grandpa with his Ipad
 Grandma ended up with all the balloons.
 Santa came!  Zelda is guarding the tree!


 Surprise!  We had snow for Christmas!  I got up at 6 to put breakfast in the oven and then there was no snow, when I got up again at 7:45 we had almost an inch!  It was so fun to see fresh snow on christmas morning and the girls were more excited about the snow than anything else.  Vi didn't even notice the tree for a few minutes she was so into the snow!

 Claire is ready to open presents!

 Vi inspecting Santa's work.

 The girls were so cute and so sweet about the presents.  After every present they would want to set it up to play with it.  It took nearly 2 hours to get everything open, it was a very fun morning.

 Claire trying out the penguin game.  Peter says it is like topple but with a pirate ship and penguins instead.
They love the karaoke machine. I think we have a lot of music in our future.  I don't have a picture of it, but they also got a great dollhouse from Mary and Dave.  I think there is a picture on facebook.  Anyways, they LOVE the dollhouse.  We had to convince them to leave it in the living room and go to bed, they wanted to take it to bed with them.
 Just some shots of my parent's back yard.  So pretty in the snow.

 Miss Tiff on the only dry spot of the deck.
 Beautiful foggy, snowy christmas.

and Diana.



ok so we forgot to do a little talent show on Christmas Eve, but here is video of the girls christmas Morning singing a song, so this is our virtual Corier family talent show submission.

Merry Christmas!!