'Tis the season

My favorite time of the year.  I have Christmas music playing ALL the time, we bake, make ginger bread houses (I missed this activity this year), decorate our tree, go to Candy Cane Lane, drive around and look at lights, daily countdown calendars, advent calendars, Elfie the elf visits us daily, we write letters to Santa and enjoy hanging low once soccer, school and busy schedules slow down a bit.  I hope these kiddos always know how special this time of the year is to me and pass this on to their kids.  Love you kiddos and all the random fun stuff we do.

Here are a few pics for now.  There will be more to follow.

Our humble abode while we remodel.

Making peppermint marshmallows!  

Happy 5th Birthday Mabel Courtney Meinhardt

Happy 5th Birthday baby girl.  The final piece to our puzzle.  She is such a crazy, sweet little girl.  She is a lot of sugar and a little spice. Things she is doing/saying now:

- she still loves puppies and art

- she is very appreciative of things we do for her

- she is doing amazingly well in school

- she still has lots of friends

- she wants a puppy for Christmas again

- she's such a big girl when she gets dropped off at school every day and walks in all by herself

- daddy thinks you are spunky

- you write and color really well for your age

- you make us laugh every day

- she was a goal scoring machine in her first soccer season

- no one gives more love than you sweet girl

From this....

 to this. Ugh, you complete me my mabelicious.  

House remodel

Started November 3 

We've had a few days of rain which has slowed it down a bit but we're willing to sacrifice for the greater good of our water deprived state.  The kids love driving by every day to see what is happening.  Plumbers were there today and that made Jbird really excited.  Not exactly sure why but it did.  I will try to post again once the framing is done because that will be fun to see.

First days of school for everyone - Fall 2014

Jeremy and Amelia started school on August 18 so Mabel and mommy had a couple weeks to hang out before Mabel started.

One of our mommy/daughter outings was to her cardiologist for her annual check up.  Her defect has almost totally repaired itself and the doctor is very happy with how she looks.  We will go back one more year and if it looks the same, our appts will go to every other year.  Way to go Mabes!

 Then came Mabel's first day of Junior Kindergarten.  It didn't go as smoothly as we thought.  She is so independent that we thought she would breeze through this transition.  I don't think that having 2 full weeks alone with me helped at all.  Tears, tears and more tears.  Like, "had to pull her off of me" tears.  They last a couple weeks as well.  It broke our (daddy really doesn't like it) hearts and it didn't help that I already felt really guilty about going back to school.  All is good now (it's December) but it took awhile.

Sad girl.  Still makes me sad to look at it.  Love you Mabel.

Mommy, daddy, Beth and Guy went to Ojai to celebrate Guy's big 50th!  SOOO relaxing and needed!

While we were gone, all the kids had their first soccer games.  Cue guilt again.  Well, Mabel didn't but these two did...

Mabel's first game was the next weekend and it was so much fun to watch her.

The kids really liked this season and Jeremy and Mabel came out of their shells big time.  Jbird became a little scoring machine.  As did Mabel.  Amelia is a super fast, determined little player but she is still afraid of the girls being 2 heads taller than her.  She is skilled and fast but needs a little more confidence.  

Oma and Opa got back from a summer in Holland and brought super cool presents for the kids.  Thank you!

(Meinhardt is written on the back)

Mommy started her program as well and the guilt (imagine that) has slowly been going away. They love their babysitters, still get to have playdates and mommy is still around a little bit. :-/

 Got my first official pair of scrubs!

First flu clinic - yes, I actually gave shots.  It was fun!  

We moved into an apartment in Playa Vista since the remodel on our house was set to start November 3.  Here we are on Halloween.  The girls are Elsa from Frozen (shocker) and Jeremy was a sumo wrestler.  I am just a regular old German girl I guess.

Post about house coming up next.

Happy 70th Opa!

Opa celebrated his 70th birthday October 23.  We threw a big party for him and it was a blast.  Ryan was at a friend's wedding so he missed it.  Happy birthday dad.

Summer 2014

I am going to have to sum it up in a few words but it was a blast!  Did I ever post that I got accepted into the UCLA Graduate Nursing Program?  Well, I did so the summer was spent in Epidemiology meeting some new classmates, playing, soccer camps, swimming, play dates, a visit to the School of Nursing to show them where mommy would be in the fall, camping at Bass Lake, trip to Salt Lake City and back to school.

Mabel had her last "graduation ceremony" from school and we will be sad not to see such a loving teacher every day.  Thank you for everything Teacher Chris.

 Auntie Courtney, Auntie Jacqui and the cousins came to town.  Everyone is getting so old!!!!!

 We went to the beach as usual

I took the kids up to my new school so they could see where mommy would be spending most of her time from now on :-/  (cue guilt)

 In the student nursing lounge

All 3 took part in their first real soccer camp that last every day from 8am-3pm.  They were beat but learned a lot.

Grandmommy came to visit :)  We always LOVE it when she comes.  We did puzzles, she let the girls pamper her, hung out and took a day trip to Catalina.  

They missed her the minute she left.  Love you Grandmommy!  Hope we can see you again soon.

We then headed to Salt Lake City right after I took my Epi final and as usual, had a great time making lots of memories.

The girls did a ballet/mermaid camp and really liked it!

 Jeremy did another soccer camp but it was only 1/2 day camp so he still got to play with his cousins!

This is what getting 4 kids ready for soccer camp looks like.  Chaos.  Cleats and shinguards are the worst sometimes.

 We went to one of Uncle Nicky's games and Jeremy got to go down on the field with Jett and Nick.  Such an amazing thing for him.  Thank you Nick!

The day after we got back from Salt Lake City, we packed up and drove 5 hours to Bass Lake.  We started a fun tradition and drive up on Thursday, stay at a hotel in Fresno so the kids can swim and stay in a hotel.  They love hotels.  We saw deer, a raccoon, rented a boat, rode on an old steam train, swam all day long, made yummy food and just relaxed with the Margallo's.  

SUCH an amazing trip and it's something our kids can look forward to every summer.  Until next year....