Sandy beaches!

Well, it's been a while, but in between going to the Atlantic and Pacific we had two major snow storms {pics of that to come...} made a weekend trip, celebrated my birthday, and enjoyed the beach... again!

We always love going to Malibu. We commonly refer to it as "vacation land"... its a place many people call home; however, for most, it is just a weekend get-away, with lots of fun stuff. This time around we kept things low-key. We visited the beach almost everyday, swam in the hot tub {the pool is to cold}, rode the bus around Pepperdine University {you'd never want to walk the hills}, went sailing at Marina del Ray {in Uncle Joel's boat}, and enjoyed time with Nana, Granddad, Uncle Joel and soon-to-be Aunt Brigitta!


At the Space Pad Park... top of Pepperdine's Campus















Swinging on the bars!



One afternoon we headed over to the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium. It was the perfect size for the kids. Lots of touching tanks, sharks, sting rays, eels, and octopus to look at!



Peanut was feeling very brave touching the crabs!!

 We also loved going to the beach. Lots of sand in the mouth, hair, toes, you get the idea!



Big Guy soon discovered the sand banks were more like slides
and boy did this provide hours of entertainment!

We danced a lot in the sand....



And then we wrestled... it was fun until there was sand in the eyes!

And then Daddy joined us and everything was a lot more fun!

We built sand castles and ran in the ocean!

Okay, so I'm not a huge American Idol fan... but Aunt Brigitta does have the coolest job in L.A. working for The Price is Right... yep, you may have heard of it! Anyway, when going to dinner one night, they were doing practice runs for Idol's Hollywood week, we poked around {at CBS Studios} to see who was around... no one yet famous {just the contestants}, but that didn't stop me from taking pics of every ones parking spots... I guess we missed the whole entourage by a day {the judges all came the following day to film}.

And then we went sailing... no this was not our boat, ours was a little smaller ;-)

We enjoyed sailing around the bay, it being one of the coldest days of the year {36 degrees}, we opted to stay in land and have a nice tour of the boats and marina. The kids loved the beds in the boat, small windows, and tiny toilet ;-)

Then we went and tried on Princess Dresses {aka flower girl dresses} for Aunt B's wedding! It was lots of fun, Peanut was a super sport and pranced to make sure that every dress got a good spin before she changed!

Of course she found her own accessories to add!

Soon to be Aunt-Brigitta

I think this was one of Peanuts favorite things we did,
besides visiting the Disney store!

Always so sad when we leave, but we know we will see you allsoon!

I Have Hijacked My First Blog

Alright, so for the first time, this blog is not being written by your usual host, instead I, J-Man (btw, I hate that nickname) will be giving you a few thoughts.

Yesterday was my beautiful wife's 29th birthday.  I have only known her for six of those years but I can say, without a doubt, that she is the most amazing woman I have ever met.  She is more beautiful today than the day we met.  She is my number one encourager and my best friend.  She is a woman after God's heart and she is the world's greatest mother.  Many of you read this because you love her.  That is why I read it too (also I am checking to make sure she only says nice things about me).

My beautiful Princess, I love you with all my heart and I am glad to be with you on this adventure.

Happy Birthday.

You pay for what you get..... Air Travel

After being gone for a weekend with my husband to a place up north {more info to come on this later}, without my children, I might add {thanks Nana Dee}, the kids and I headed to Malibu for the week! Looking forward to getting out of the snow, and dreary days we've had at the Ranch, a change of scenery was much anticipated... Little did I know the adventure would begin at the XNA airport before even boarding our plane to California!

So this is the reason I blog today, to process my thoughts on a particular discount airline {read on only if you're willing to hear my rants and raves about our experience}.

First off when flying to LA we are currently purchasing tickets for three people {kids fly free until age two} so of course, we needed to take advantage of our opportunity to see Nana and Grandad before adding ticket number four {Big Guy turns 2 in June} and the arrival of baby number three. So for the first time I purchased airline tickets from Allegiant Airlines for two reasons alone. First off, they have the only direct flight to LAX you can get from our area and secondly, I thought I'd be flying alone {until Nana came last minute for the weekend to fly back with us}. And let me add this disclaimer, having flown for most of my life and experienced all sorts of different carriers, I decided years ago, Southwest Airlines is my airline of choice, thus I compare every flight experience to them {and their great with families, so that has just added bonus points over the years}.

Upon our arrival to the airport, the check-in guy offers so kindly to check my extra carry-on bag, free of charge... so thinking to myself, "wow, I have low-expectations for this experience, I am now impressed," I respond with "that's so kind, sure we'll do it." Only to overhear the other check-in person say, "we're looking at about 10:30 right now."  "10:30, is that our plane he's referring to, it's been delayed till 10:30," I say to our guy. "Yea, but I checked your carry-on bag for you, so you won't have as much to haul around with you while your waiting," he responds... "Oh, how friendly..." I think.

So, the time is currently 7:05, we were supposed to be leaving at 8:00, arriving in California at 9:00 {11pm our time}, but now, we won't be getting to Cali until well after mid-night... not a lot of fun with two toddlers...So we head through security and begin our 3.5 hr wait for that cattle-herder in the sky to arrive.

Alas, our flight arrives and we board {only to wait 35+minutes on the tarmac...}. Now, upon finding our seats, Peanut unfolds the tray-table only to discover a nice sharpie written note by the lovely lady who was there before us, expressing her desire to meet us {so please call her for a good time...}. As we get situated I begin to observe exactly why our flight may have been as cheap as it was.

- the seats don't recline {not just ours...  no ones seats}

- there is mashed cookie and trash in the aisle

- some one on the last flight decided in frustration to pick off her fake nails, and the evidence is left scattered on the floor in the neighboring row

- the bathrooms, were less clean than a gas station... no, let me be clear... it looked as though a boy just beginning potty-training had used the restroom a dozen times with no one giving him instruction on exactly how to "make it in the hole"

- did I mention that the lavatory broke half way through the flight, so then it turned into only ONE being available for the 270 victims of this airline

- the flight attendants are less than chipper to be man-handling any customer... hints the reason why I wouldn't even take the time to complain to customer service {instead I'll blog about it}.

So I digress... we have now proudly flown the "gas-station-in-the-sky." In the end, I guess I should have known that with the price tag it was more like purchasing an ice cream cone from McD's {a place you only want to spend a few minutes in} vs Chick-fila where you wouldn't mind hanging for the 3.5 hours you had to kill...  and at least it would be "their pleasure"... which for Allegiant, it was not theirs nor was it ours!

XOXOXOXOXOXO

Let me say first off that Valentines Day is one of the less exciting holidays around our house {contrary to my husband, I really don't care for it}, but when you have kids, that changes. For some reason I'd prefer to celebrate Flag Day, Columbus Day, or something less commercialized than Valentines. Yes, it is a great day to show someone how much we love them, but for the most part, Valentines Day can be more self-serving, so I digress. What I want our kids to know is the reason why we are able to love, and Who demonstrated the greatest love for us so I am remind myself on one of the most Hallmark-ed days of the year...
 "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" Romans 5:8

And why do we love?

"We love because He first loved us." John 4:19

Just because I'm not psyched about the Day doesn't mean that I completely ignore it; we still do heart shaped activities with the color theme being red, the kids hand out Valentines, and we eat sweets. We celebrate, but try to keep our eyes on the bigger picture.... now if you do embrace the great day of love you are in my husbands camp, and he celebrates the day, loves the day, and looks forward to it every year.... So I say, to each his own!

Loft House cookies are our favorite! 

Rainboots, were the gift of choice.

Pretty much he licked his fingers bare for the icing and sprinkles!

Peanut made us heart-shaped pizza for dinner! YUM!

Annoying things when it snows......

Okay, so here is my rant... I really do love the snow, but as a mom, there are some major hang-ups... so for my sanity I thought I'd share my thoughts.

The FIVE most annoying things about snow....

1. the kitchen floors... why take the time for your regular cleaning schedule to mop and vacuum your floors? On snow days {when you've had NINE in a ROW}, it would seem purposeless to try and maintain any level of cleanliness when kids {and husband}, are tracking in dirty snow.

2. WALMART and other places that don't take car of their parking lots.... yesterday, after being at the doctor with a sick kid, we of course, had to go to Walmart to pick up a much needed prescription. Well, much to my dismay, when pulling into the parking lot, it looked like a 12-yr-old had plowed the parking lot... no joke! The snow piles took up the FRONT 25% of stalls from one end of the store to the other; they decided that dumping the snow in the shopping cart holder spaces would create more room. WRONG, it just created a massive shopping cart dilemma for those good patrons who were trying to return their cart into the designated area and didn't have a spot. And lastly, it didn't even appear as though they were shoveling the snow, because they had waited to long, it had been packed down and basically they were just trying to scrape off the top layer, thus leaving slushy, nasty, 2 inch deep grossness to walk through... yuck!

3. the car.... now, I'm not sure why, but is seems as though this time of year when getting out of the car any child under the age of five feels as though rubbing up against the dirty car, in their clean winter jacket, seems to be the most obvious thing to do while wandering their way into the house. We've had numerous conversations about how "we don't need to clean the car with our jackets, lets walk 'around' the car, not up next to it." But much to my dismay, the "neat color" it leaves on your coat sleeve {according to Peanut}, is just to much to pass up.

4. shopping carts in the snow..... shopping carts fall into the category of the old-school red razor sleds which were meant for packed deep snow.  And if you've ever used one of these old-school style sleds, when you sit on them, you are a little disappointed that the sled sinks to the ground, thus making it more of a hassle to use. Which is my point with a snowy parking lot and shopping cart, you get the same result. It would be better to try and carry your toddler, while holding your three-year-olds hand, and carry all your belongings, than push a shopping cart through a snow-covered lot!

5. the garage... I really enjoy having a clean garage. I know this may sound funny, but its one of the random things that my husband and I share some common ground on {regarding cleanliness}. He is what you would call a "city person" in the garage category. We like to park our cars inside, and we like the floors of our garage to be somewhat clean. Which is a tough thing, when you live in the country off dirt roads. So, when the snow comes, per my husbands request, before pulling into the garage, I get out of the car and knock excess snow out of the tire-wheels area. {Yes, I know, I'm a pretty great wife} Well, with the cold, cold weather we've had, there have been a few days, I have not fulfilled my snow-knocking off duty... thus resulting in nasty, pond like floors in our garage... sorry honey!

So, there you go. If I lived in a place where winter lasted much longer than it does here, we'd be in trouble!

Snow-klahoma, it just keeps falling, and falling!

So I have to admit (of course, most of you know it), Oklahoma is not the most known state, nor is the little town we live near (Colcord). In fact, there are many who are native Oklahomans who have not heard of our little town,  SHOCKER... there is a post office, and school, nothing else. But much to our surprise, we made the news, along with Siloam Springs, Ar  (our neighboring town), we made the front page of yahoo, weather.com and numerous others for the SNOW. Yep, proud to say it! We received over 26+ inches in a mere 24hrs. It was amazing. I'm not sure if J-man or I have ever seen this much snow at one time (with out being in the mountains). Here are some pics!

Thank goodness for Mr. Brian, if he had not shoveled our road and driveway, well, we'd be stuck for at least 3-4 days (did I mention is supposed to be 50degrees this weekend). Peanut and I played for a few minutes outside... or at least to get some pictures... it was below 20degrees... chilly for a 3-yr-old.

And we had lots of fun on this particular snow day, because even daddy got to stay home! So we watched the bulldozer shovel snow..............

We made an obstacle course out of our living room furniture............

Painted dinosaurs while the Big Guy napped...................

Road our trucks.................

And watched several episodes of Elmo's World!

The Sunshine State

Every winter we head to Florida to visit Papa and Grandma Heimer. Its a nice break from the cold cloudy winter months! This year we enjoyed visiting the turtle sanctuary, Animal Safari, feeding the seagulls, and walking along the beach. The Big Guy really enjoyed the travel to and from Florida, when he could gaze out the windows of the airport at all the planes and trucks. I think he might have preferred this activity over other things!

Go Delta!

Looking out the window before take-off

We visited the Turtle Sanctuary, which is free. They have great turtle tanks with windows looking in, so kids can get an up-close look. This was lots of fun!

And then we went to the Drive-thru Safari! This was lots of fun. We went mid-morning, so the animals were still eating (they put the food near the drive). After the Safari, there is a mini-amusement park (perfect size for little kids), and a small zoo, which was lots of fun. 

Big Guy LOVED the train ride, we fed goats
(they were rather aggressive), and enjoyed a day in the sun!

We had lots of fun with Papa and Grandma Heimer

Lastly, we visited the beach! Fed seagulls (well, Peanut ate the bread....), put our toes in the ocean, watched the boats go by, it was the perfect weekend to get a little sun, and warm weather in the middle of winter!

our little bread eater!

J-man and Big Guy at Juno Beach Pier

Putting our toes in the ocean!