Great Valentine's Day!

Bella and her Valentine. Yeah for Uncle Willie!

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope you are all enjoying the day. The most fun so far today is I had my English Students make valentine's day cards using quotes from Romeo and Juliet (which we are currently studying) We grabbed the books, construction paper and turned on cheesy love music. It was a blast.

Bella's going to have a good day too. Several Sunnyside and Educare families went in on a valentine's day present for the kids. Today the LHS orchestra will be going to serenade the little one's. I hope they take pictures!

And of course I have to give a shout-out to my Valentine. I love you Eric, you are my heart, my soul and my best friend. Life is just more fun with you around. Thank you for being an incredible husband, father, and friend.

Here are a few of my favorite pics of Eric and I.






























































And of course Bella says Happy Valentine's Day. Uncle Willie is coming over tonight to hang out with her and be her Valentine. Here's my favorite picture of those two! It's a bit old, looks like we better get a cute one of them tonight!














So Happy Valentine's Day from the Neutebooms!

Memorable Monday

December Mania Part VII: The Final Christmas

The funny part about The final Christmas is it didn't happen until January 8th. Mom and Dad spent the full two week break with Willie in England and since we missed them all so much we decided to recreate Christmas once they got home and the 8th was the first free Saturday. We only had a few events between Colorado and our second Christmas. We were very lucky to get Connie out to Kansas to celebrate New Years Eve with us and she was hear to enjoy our Second Christmas as well. We were also lucky to get Willie home as well. He's back in Lawrence for a while and we were so happy to get to spend Christmas with him again, the last time was the year Bella was born. She LOVES her Uncle Willie. Here we are enjoying the morning, we even had a fire going all day!









































Best Tea Towel EVER straight over from the UK.














Opening Presents






























































Bella's new Grill from Auntie Heidi so she can grill with Daddy.




































Eric's new scarf, he really does love it despite the first picture.



























"wasn't me, I didn't eat any chocolate!"














Daddy reading Bella's new baby animal book to her.











In the evening, Connie and J.P. came over for Christmas dinner. We had an amazing feast of lamb with carrots and parsnips, Yorkshire pudding and potatoes. It was a very English meal and absolutely divine. After dinner Nana wanted to show Mimi Bella's new favorite book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus</span> by Mo Willems. by It was adorable seeing them all read it together.

































We had a fantastic evening and even spent the night at my folks so we could enjoy the night longer. It was a perfect end to a perfect series of Christmases.

December Mania Part VI: Christmas Day

We woke up ready to continue the Christmas festivities, and all of us were spoiled rotten. One of the highlights is our new copy of Shrek 4: The Final Chapter. It's a fantastic movie which is good because Bella requests to watch it EVERYDAY. Of course we don't let her watch it every time she asks but we have seen it quite a few times at this point. In addition, Bella got a new shopping cart.












Eric and I bought Robert and Molly Krause's new cookbook and she LOVED it.













Monster Bella attacking presents













And my amazing husband struck gold again with getting me a Kindle. I LOVE it.













After Presents and breakfast we heading out to go visit one of the Neuteboom's life long friends Shelly and Family. They have lived next door to each other for many years and Shelly has a daughter about Eric's age named Laura. The best part is that Laura has a daughter only a few months older than Bella named Tatum, and Bella was sooo excited to go play with Tatum.

Bella and I heading over to the Bishop House.
































New Mothers with their girls.















Bella's favorite part might have been playing with their dog Callie, She played catch with her for quite some time.





















Tatum and Bella were too cute.






































In the evening we headed over to the Wells house for Christmas Dinner. Bella finally got to hold Baby Paul again (her BFF) which is one of her favorite things to do. I love how careful and protective she is with him. It's soooo cute.






















































What an amazing Christmas. Sadly, we had to leave the next day but we had a great drive home and it was nice to have another week off before getting back to school. Bella and I went swimming, played with friends, and ran lots of errands.

Even with Christmas behind us we still had one more Christmas to go.......

Memorable Monday...er, Thursday...

Seriously, can this kid get any more adorable? She's on the road to recovery too, after having a stomach bug thing the last two or so days. Love you Monkey!

Memorable Monday

December Mania Part V: Christmas Eve

We were so happy to be able to celebrate Christmas in Colorado this year. Since Christmas was on Saturday we were also able to take a little bit of extra time to enjoy ourselves. We did some shopping in the Springs and Chris, Heidi and Krista took me to the Trans Siberian Orchestra which was AWESOME!

The festivities began with the Neuteboom traditional Christmas Eve Dinner, Grilled Filet Mignon served atop potato pancakes and then topped with asparagus and covered in Hollandaise sauce. Eric made this meal for me on our first New Year's Eve together (one of the many reasons I fell in love with him) And this meal was exquisitely prepared by Connie and J.P.

Everybody enjoyed getting ready for dinner. Here Daddy steals a kiss.














Bella's BFF, baby Paul.













This is me being the "runner" for the food.













We had such a lovely and full table that full of kids, high chairs and adults that I literally had to crawl behind Poppie Boom's chair to get to my spot.














After dinner the party really started. The Neutebooms tend to do most of their present opening on Christmas Eve while the Averills do it Christmas morning. It was a perfect compromise of the two since the Wells clan had plans on Christmas day we were able to open a ton of presents Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning.
Gabe and Bella were very helpful in the opening department but in keeping track of who gave which present, not so much.































































Heidi got me in on a present for Mimi, together we created a photo book on snapfish.com. It was a great project and fun to work on while living in two different states. Here Poppie Boom is reading over the photo book with Bella.













Bella and I 1 nice one and a candid shot.




















Our nephew Gabe was happy with the game of Candy Land we gave him.














Both Poppie Boom and Poppie Averill aren't very good at waiting to open presents. Here J.P. is quietly trying to open his present before his turn.














Heidi got me the perfect present. A Wine stopper that says "Mommy needs her bottle"













Bella loves her Daddy's girl sweater!













It was a fantastic and exciting evening. We were so happy to be in Colorado for the holidays.