Brielle & Braden's Ice Cream Shoppe Party.

Brielle and Braden have been waiting for their birthdays since the day after Christmas. They both know that not long after Christmas they both have birthdays. I debated and debated on what to do about a party. They were both BEGGING me for one! Especially, the little girl of mine. After talking to my friend Jenny, she told me about the cutest party website to go to and we finally decided that we were going to do 'Brielle and Braden's Ice Cream Shoppe Party.'

They were both very excited about the idea!

I had a lot of fun with the decorations. Scott thought I was going a little overboard, but seriously, it's not everyday that I throw a birthday party for my children. I have actually decided that it will be an every other year event.

Scott helped me figure out how to hang those ice cream cones and I thought they turned out perfect! We could have used a couple more but by the time we were hanging them, we were both done decorating!:)

I made the little banner out of scrapbooking paper and stapled each little banner to the ribbon. It was super easy and it turned out like I had envisioned.

We had a variety of toppings for the kids to put in their ice cream.

Gummy bears was the most popular one.

I thought about making cupcakes from scratch but I was lazy and opted for the box. So much easier. Not as tasty, but kids can't tell the difference!:)

We had 10 little friends over! I totally thought it was going to be crazy but all the kids were so good! Scott was the balloon man. He learned how to make crowns, swords and dogs out of balloons. The kids thought he was so cool! They were entertained with the balloons for quite a while. Then we played a couple of games and then it was time for ice cream!

Thanks to my friend Melissa who took a ton of these pictures! Scott and I were so busy trying to keep everything under control, I am so grateful Melissa took charge of my camera!

Brielle and Braden were loving life, we very seldom eat ice cream...let alone all the toppings to choose from...I'm sure it is the same with the other kiddos, so I think they were all in heaven.

Brielle and Braden are the same age for 3 days. Brielle will officially turn 5 tomorrow. I don't think a day goes by that Scott and I don't marvel at the special little children that these two are. We are so blessed to have them in our family!

Then came time to sing happy birthday! They both loved having all of their little friends there with them!

Braden, of course, devoured his cupcake.

Braden's face! ha ha! We totally forgot about our traditional family picture on birthdays! At least I got one of them with Scott.

A few things we LOVE about Brielle:

-This little girl has so much spunk!

-She is so social.

-She's always so interested in learning her letters. She's always asking how do you spell this and that. She's already reading quite a few words and Scott recently showed her how to add and subtract with beans, she's been doing some math.

-She is always protecting her little brother.

-She has such an active imagination and is often role-playing and talking to her 'imaginary'

friends.

-She is my right-hand. She sets the table all by herself.

-She cleans her room all by herself.

We love that little girl!

Scott working his magic with the balloons.

Then came time to open presents! They were showered with presents! They were loving life!

Brielle and Braden are lucky to have such good little friends.

Braden was very busy trying to open one of his presents in this picture!

More little friends. Someone gave Brielle that little outfit as a present and she of course had to go change.

We had a few party favors left. I was able to salvage one last party favor from my kids after every one left. You can tell it's already been opened...it's not like my kids hadn't already had enough sweets that day! I guess they still wanted more!:)

The next day was Braden's official birthday. We left one present for him to open on his birthday from Grandma Karen and Grandpa Clay. He LOVED his turtle and book and that little turtle has been his constant companion since Sunday.

Braden, of course, requested blue pancakes for breakfast. I asked him if it'd be okay if I made crepes instead and he agreed.

A few things we love about Mr. Braden:

-Braden is the sweetest and most affectionate little guy.

-He is so humble and always willing to apologize if has done something wrong.

-He has such a good sense of right and wrong. I often hear him tell Brielle, 'Brielle, no, no, no, that's naughty.'

-He is our little artist! He is so good at coloring and is so creative.

-He is so not interested in his letters or reading or anything of that sort...but he LOVES science and learning about bugs and dinosaurs. This morning he asked me if spiders have noses! ha ha!:)

-He LOVES 'fixing' things. He goes around with a little screwdriver 'fixing' things.

He is our favorite little man!

On his birthday, he requested that we play Candy Land and he won without any help and he shouted, "I'm the champion!"

Yes, you are Mr. Braden!

Snow Days.

Last month, we had almost a whole week worth of snow days. Preschool was cancelled, Brielle's ballet class was cancelled and Braden's gymnastics class was too.

Talk about cabin fever!

Even, Scott's stayed home one day.

It is the end of the world when it snows here.

I have to say it was pretty bad, icy snow is not a good thing to drive on.

The day Scott stayed home, he took the kids out to build a snowman. By the time they were done building it, Brielle and Braden just wanted to come in and didn't want to take a picture. So I took one of Scott on the day they built it and another one a couple of days later with Brielle and Braden. You can tell it is lopsided. and his eyes, nose and mouth are gone!

On another snow day, my friend Jenny invited us to go sledding with her joy school group from Church. Since, we had been trapped at home for almost a week, I didn't hesitate and took the kids.

They had a blast with all of their little friends!

I kept telling Brielle that she needed to hold on tight to the sled's handles...as you can see it wasn't working very well for her...

But nonetheless, she had a blast! and so did Braden.

It's the simple things in life...

Family practice rotation has been treating the Jensen's wonderfully. I don't think we have enjoyed this much time with Scott in a while. The kids have been constantly demanding their father's attention...

...and they get it...because Scott is a child at heart himself.

Church is now at 1pm. Not my favorite.

But, I guess it gives us a little more time together as a family in the mornings.

Last Sunday, the kids and Scott made a fort.

They pretended it was a space ship, they were cruising through the galaxy visiting different planets.

I could hear them saying, "let's go to Mars now!"

Brielle and Braden have way too much fun with their daddy.

Then, last Tuesday, this happened.

Everything was covered in ice.

Braden and I went out to explore...while Brielle stayed home coloring because she didn't want to "feel cold", in her own words.

She's been asking things like, "when is the pool going to open?"

...not for a while I'm afraid.

This ice rain, whatever you call it...was crazy! I've never seen anything like it before.

Braden and I were freezing!

But we had a great time exploring, he even brought his little camera with him and was "taking pictures".

He would "take a picture" and then show it to me. It was cute...until he feel on the ice and then it was time to come inside!

The rest of the week was pretty much spent inside, kids went to preschool, I ran a few errands during the week...kids did A LOT of coloring, worked on some ABC's, we had a playdate...we attempted to go to the playground for a few minutes...minutes is the key word there!..and that's about all we did!

Sounds so incredibly exciting no?

I very much dislike being in hibernation mode...and the fact that it is sickness season makes it even worse!

I have however been feeling more in tune to trying to enjoy the simple things in life...

Like the fact that we had dinner as a family, almost every day this last week, all 4 of us!

and also...

Being able to hear my kids in the background using their imaginations all day long...and they both have such an imagination. They have so much fun together and entertain each other pretty much all day, aside from a couple of fights during the day, they are such good friends. I remember people telling me, how good of friends they would become, since they are SO close in age...it is true.

Yesterday, we headed to the Air and Space Museum-Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center here in Virginia. It about 15 minutes from our house...and if you get there right at 4pm. Parking is free. So, since we are as cheap as you can get, we decided to do that. It only gave us an hour and a half to look around.

We had such a great time together.

First thing we did was go up to the Observation Tower to see the view and the airplanes landing on the Dulles Airport.

The view was pretty and we watched a couple of airplanes land.

Brielle and Braden decided to sit on the floor to rest for a bit.

Then we headed down to see the rest of the exhibits.

This is the Blackbird. The fastest jet in the world.

It was amazing!

I love that it was a pretty open place.

This space shuttle was HUGE!

Braden wanted me to take a picture of him in front of this thing-whatever it's called.

I told him to smile, but instead he made a sad face. :(

These are just rocket models.

I wish I would have taken a picture of the Star Wars R2D2 mailbox! Braden hasn't stopped talking about it since he saw it! He thought it was the coolest things he's ever seen!

That little boy was seriously in heaven with all the airplanes, space crafts, missiles...he was making airplane noises the whole time we were there.

He is such a boy.

This was the perfect little outing on a very cold winter day.

{"It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary."}

-Paulo Coelho

Before Christmas.

Brielle and Braden's preschool had a little Christmas party in each of their classrooms. It was hard to split between the two classrooms, Scott couldn't take off from his rotations so I did my very best...but I was sad when I got to Braden's class and I had missed the singing!!!:(

I saw plenty of singing from Brielle's class though! They did so well and Brielle knew the words to all of the songs, except she had the major 'wiggles' during the whole presentation!!! She was all over the place!!!:) Man! That little girl sure has lots of energy!

I got to Braden's classroom as fast as I could and this is how I found him! Having his little snack! If it would have been Brielle she totally would have noticed that I had missed her singing. I don't think Braden even realized! Which was good but I was so bummed that I didn't get to see him sing. It was a good day, nonetheless, and we headed to the chapel to have a Christmas sing-along with the rest of the preschool.

The next day, we had some snow! We bundled up and went to play.

As always, they had a blast in the snow.

Snow is always such a novelty to these children...

They, especially, LOVE eating it! They are just curious little monkeys!

I have to say, that these two have been so much fun to be around lately. They do and say the cutest things and I absolute LOVE and enjoy watching the camaraderie between them. They love each other so much. It's a wonderful and special thing to witness.

Oh my! Brielle even got on her knees to eat the snow off the ground! Crazy girl!

...and Braden decided to make snow angels.

When we got back from playing in the snow, we of course had some hot cocoa and then Brielle and Braden made some 'Snowflake Pie'. It was delicious and those two are pretty good little chefs!

Here they are, presenting their final product! Yum!:)

Scottie finished fall semester and finished his internal medicine rotation. We met up with him in D.C. and headed to Santa's Workshop.

Brielle had been having lots of questions about Santa this year and I think some of the kids with older siblings in her preschool were telling her that Santa wasn't real. One day she came home from school and told me: "Santa isn't real!" I was flabbergasted! She's too little still for the magic to wear off! So, I asked her, "Who on earth told you such a lie?" She insisted that she had come up with it on her own and then went on to say, "Santa isn't real but the elves are!" That's when I realized that the magic is still there for her!:)

After seeing Santa in his workshop, though, she was convinced that he is real!

...seriously though...look at this guy! I'm starting to get convinced that he is real myself! ha!:)

He looked so authentic and he had such a soft manner about him. He was a really nice Santa.

Braden was whispering really quietly what he wanted for Christmas to Santa...

Santa had to get a little closer!

Brielle, surprisingly, got a little shy and wouldn't tell him anything!

I think she was mesmerized that he looked so real!:)

We walked around the Ellipse for a little bit...it was a cold day, so we didn't last very long.

We watched the little trains go around the tree, let the kids run around for a little while and then headed back to the car... and back home to start packing for our next adventure:

Driving across the country!!!