Celebration of Life...

Today we celebrate the most important woman in my life, next to my daughter. My Mom!
It was 5 years ago today that she heard the word 'Cancer'. From that moment, the words briefly sunk in and that is it.... she stood up, fought for what she believes in and took charge. 5 years later she free of it, she is victorious, she is strong....she is my rock, our hero!

Believing what you believe in. No matter what words people throw at you, negativity does not define you, positive forms you, your life....her life.

"The Pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." -Winston Churchill

Mom, this journey has not been easy. But it has changed all of us, for the better. There are so many positives that we have all learned along the way. Many new people have now come into your life, for a reason. The negativity stays behind, the positive moves forward. I am so incredibly proud of you. You have stood up for everything you believe in, beating those odds, going against some of the harshest challenges that many could not even begin to think about enduring. Keep fighting, stay strong, and NEVER forget we are behind you 100%, we are here for you, I am here for you. We love you to the moon and back. Thank you for being you, we are so lucky to be your children :)

Holiday wind down....

This weekend we had our last Christmas celebration for the 2010 season. We packed up the family and ventured to my Dad's new house just outside Des Moines.

Dylan was very excited to see Grandpa and I think even more excited to see the puppies! Halen and Roxie love to have him around and he loves watching them run and play.

We arrived and got a new tour of the new abode. A nice and serene development tucked way back in the trees on a dead end culdesac. Looks like you are traveling down a small road to know where when suddenly the valleys open and there are homes.

Dylan made his seat right away in front of the fire place. Soon his gifts were stacked up and he had his own present-a-thon, opening presents from Grandpa and Keeley.

His first gift being his own personal digital camcorder. Hilarious! All day long he had that thing on, pointing at everyone saying, 'say cheese'. Later in the evening we briefly peeked to see what all he had recorded during the day...it was a true amateur video! Too funny, from about waist high and point up he caught some memorable moments from the day.

And we tried a few attempts at getting a pic of Chase and his mini-me. We finally got one! It is sure amazing how much Dylan looks like Chase, and even more amazing how much he acts like Chase when he was that age. These two sure have a lot of fun together! Chase had been at our house for a few nights during the week. It is always very nice having him around. We all surly will miss him. And the adults opened their gifts too!

And Danielle had fun presents too!

Dylan got his little mitts in anywhere he could, helping just about everyone open up their gifts!

Dylan was such a good boy. He sat and played with his new toys all day long. He didn't make a peep, every once in awhile he would come running going from person to person but he was very good and had fun.

Danielle got in some great snuggle time with Uncle Chase. She sat and watched football with the guys all afternoon long while the girls ventured out for some furniture shopping.

Danielle, Uncle Chase and Grandpa

Grandpa got in some snuggles too!

We had a nice visit this weekend with my Dad. As much as I would love to have him closer to us, his house is easy to get to and not that bad of a drive. My Aunt Ellie and Uncle Bill also came down and spent Saturday with us. It was very nice having the family all together. We had a two big feasts of my Dads yummy cooked food, we relaxed and got all caught up. The kids got in some great play time and we really couldn't ask for much more. It was sad to leave Chase as he will stay with my Dad for the week and venture back to Pittsburgh a week from today. We countdown the time until we get to see him again. Hard to believe he will be 21 in just a few short weeks....crazy! Where does time go!

The 2010 Holiday Season has officially ended. We are now full swing in to the New Year!~

We welcome Twenty Eleven!

Happy New Year!
I am fairly certain that 2010 went by in record time.....in the blink of an eye! 2010 brought many wonderful things for our family. All in all it was a pretty good year. We have so much to be thankful for, Daddy got a great new job. He stepped out of his comfort zone and is trying something new. Although he was gone for a few weeks here and there, we made it thru and realized that it is going to be okay. Brad has a lot of opportunity that he felt he has never had before, and this is very important to us and especially to him!
Mommy got a promotion at work and she is loving additional responsibilities! Although most days are really crunched for time, things are working out and now more than ever I love where I work, I love my job and am very thankful for the opportunity that Toyota has brought for me. Neither Brad nor I take our jobs for granted, but we are really looking forward to this coming year in our careers.
Our family made wonderful memories last year, and we are so grateful for these daily. We had a couple nice family vacations and Brad and I even had our first trip ever without the kids! Grammy stepped up and took wonderful care of the kids so we could enjoy our much needed time away.
Summer time came and we spent hours and hours in the water. We have two water babies on our hands and we LOVE it! We had lessons which were so much fun and we look forward to continuing them in 2011. We had 2 pools at home that got lots of use, we spent a lot of time enjoying the nature around us. We look forward to continuing all of those fun memories in 2011.

And the MOST important part of 2010.... we saw our children grow right before our eyes. They made us laugh and cry so many times because we are so overjoyed at the beautiful children that they are becoming.
In May we found the missing piece to our therapy puzzle. We met our new PT Barb who has many, many wonderful goals in mind for our daughter! The first super exciting moment we had was when she put Danielle in a walker for the first time and right off the bat Danielle took 5 steps! I can't even begin to explain the amount of joy and love that filled my heart at that moment, it was amazing! We now have a walker at home and continue to help Danielle take more independent steps on a daily basis. While it is not a short road we follow, we are heading down a road that does have a checkered flag at the end :) We also met our fantastic Speech therapist Andrea, she is fantastic and has a lot of fun with Danielle and Danielle has a lot of fun with her. We have the BEST 3 Therapists that we could ever ask for, for our daughter. The lord has sure blessed us!
In August our sweet little boy Dylan started pre-school! Again we cried tears of joy when we realized we found the PERFECT place for Dylan to learn, grow and succeed! We have been so blessed with wonderful teachers and childcare providers, and there is no bigger feeling of joy when you see your child come home glowing because he is SO extremely excited to tell you about the super fun day he just had...learning!
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This New Years Eve we continued our tradition that we started when we were first married! We have not done this since Dylan was a tiny baby and we were excited to bring it back this year. We packed up the family and headed to Iowa City for dinner at Iowa River Power! Such an amazing place for dinner, perfect to take the kids along and have a nice quiet meal, and the first time with our whole family. It was perfect! Everything was still decorated for the Holidays, and this tree was beautiful!
We dined and laughed and the kids were SO good. It was such a wonderful ending to our year...as a family, which was the very best part!*****************
While 2010 was a good year we are looking forward to an even better Twenty Eleven! No big New Years Resolutions that start on January 1st and fade by March or April. Rather, we will live each day learning and growing as a family. As we go thru the year we will strive for new beginnings, they may start today or they may start a month from now, when those new beginnings come we will cherish those very special moments. One thing that both Brad and I would like to try hard to continue in Twenty Eleven is to continue our family traditions. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter traditions. Those traditions we started before we had our children and it is important for us to continue them now. Most we have, some we will start again. We are very much looking forward to a year together....as a family. Learning together, growing together and helping our children more than ever before.

Twenty Eleven is the year to live Life to the fullest, fill our hearts with unending Love and enjoy the Laughter and musical voices of our children!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is here, Santa has come.....the joyous Celebrations have begun!
The very best material gift we could receive as parents is a hand made gift. Dylan has made several wonderful decorations at pre-school and childcare but this one is so very special! As you can see it is a piece of candy, decorated with his little hand prints and this very cute poem! Dylan has his own Holiday tree on the kitchen table hung with his wonderful crafts! Thanks buddy!

Christmas Eve morning we awoke to this! Several inches of white, fluffy snow. It was just beautiful!

As the day went on the more snow fell. It was falling fast but it didn't deter our Christmas Eve celebration plans.

Our Christmas Eve tradition started with my Dad when I was very young. It is a tradition that Brad started joining us in when we started dating and now that we have our own family, we have continued the tradition that is very special to us! We headed to Christmas Eve mass at St. Pius at 4pm. It is so special for Brad and I to go to mass at the place where we were married. There is no other church Christmas service that gives us quite the same feeling as the place we were wed!

We came out and the snow was still falling! So pretty!

After Church, our tradition continued with dinner at the Olive Garden...yum! Dylan was very excited to go to dinner, and after a busy day at home and a wonderful mass our tummy's were hungry for some delicious Italian food!

After dinner our tradition continued with a drive thru Cedar Memorial cemetery. Even before our precious baby boy was laid to rest, this was a part of our tradition. There are many friends laid to rest there as well as my Grandparents. Now it is even more special making this stop as we spend the time wishing our precious baby boy a very Merry Christmas in heaven.

The lights are beautiful.

And after the lights at the cemetery our tradition continued with a stop at Brad's parents house to celebrate with them. This was the first time we have celebrated there with both kids. We had our red Santa bag loaded with gifts and we were ready to get indoors and thaw out from the elements outside!

Dylan and Uncle Tony reading Christmas stories!

Daddy giving Danielle some loves under the Christmas tree!

Dylan was very excited to open the first of his Christmas gifts!

In Danielle's stocking she got a pink tiara, we put that on her right away. Very fitting for our princess!

Dylan helping Grandpa Holub open his gift from us!

And Brad's Mom loved the handmade with love calender from the kids, each month has great festive pictures of the kids.

It seemed the little stinker Dylan had his hand in helping everyone open their gifts! Here he is helping Uncle Nick and Aunt Sarah.

And by the end of gift opening, everyone has a bow on their head!

Danielle just loved her bumble bee pillow pet!

Dylan got quite a few big presents!

And after all the gifts were opened the kids had some play time. Dylan loves his new Memory Cars game! And he is amazingly good at it too!

Dylan was very silly putting actual 'stockings' on his feet!

We got home just before midnight. The kids were all ready snug in their pj's ready for bed. But not before we put out reindeer food and cookies and milk for Santa!

And the next morning we awoke to see.....indeed Santa did make a stop!

The look on their faces when Dylan runs into the living room and then into our room to say that SANTA has come......is precious, so very precious!

Santa brought festive ears for the kids! Silly Santa.

Our little snowflake!

We opened gifts, had breakfast, opened a few of the toys Santa brought and enjoyed the morning! The parades on TV were on and Dylan loved watching his favorite characters!

That afternoon we headed to Brad's Grandma Holub's for her Annual Christmas gathering. It was really nice to see a good amount of the family all at one time! Auntie Rae got in some snuggles and put Danielle right to sleep!

After a yummy lunch feast there were more presents! Dylan opening his first gift from Cassie!

And then the boys took their traditional spots around the bar and the kids played their heart out. Dylan loved this Sit n Spin! Too funny watching him spin and spin, round and round!

Grandma Holub handing out all of the gifts for the little kids first!

All of the Uncles and cousins found their seats at the bar!

Dylan got this super fun guitar from Great Grandma! It is a HIT, what a perfect gift!

Thanks Great Grandma Holub!

Christmas evening we headed over to my Aunt Ellie's house for more Christmas fun! They had lots of fun gifts for the kids!

And he got Mickey's Party Band instruments, perfect to go along with his guitar!

Danielle got lots of fun gifts too! A musical book and fun hair bows and some really comfy jammies! We love going over to Aunt Ellie's, we have such a great time and the kids love playing with their cousins. It was a great wind down to a very special Christmas Day 2010. Towards the end of the night the girls went out and looked at Christmas lights and Daddy stayed back with the kids and boys. Danielle was all snug in front of a nice warm fireplace enjoying the view from the fire.

We were very blessed this Holiday Season. We were together as a family. While some of our family was miles away they were with us in spirit. The blanket of fresh snow just brought tears to my eyes, it was a true white Christmas and could not have been more beautiful for our day. We were with our family and our children had a very special Christmas this year. We are truly blessed!~