Last Day of 2010

Our day started off by checking out of the hotel and picking up breakfast at Dunkin Donuts, we got back on the Interstate and proceeded with our journey to Rhode Island to visit Grandpa and Grandma. However, Steve surprised us along the way with a stop to Liberty State Park to get a quick cache. Inside the park was the old Central Railroad Station of New Jersey, so we no doubt had to check it out. This historic spot once welcomed most of the immigrants from Ellis Island to start their new lives in the "land of the free". It was very cool to walk through the station and imagine all the people.

Then after checking out the cool train station, we got back in the car and headed over another part of the Liberty State Park. This was the cache location which happened to be a pretty cool area. It had a perfect view of the Statue of Liberty. After finding the cache, which Tyler found after some searching, we set my new camera up that I got for Christmas, and took a family photo with the statue in the background. After getting a few shots, we planned to go to Carlo's Bakery; the home of the famous Cake Boss. We've been there on two other occasions, however this time we got there much too late and there was a line formed down the street of people waiting to get their cakes for New Year's.

So we went on to our next destination where we met up with Larissa and her family at a restaurant for lunch. It was wonderful catching up with Larissa, Cory, Aya, and Danielle. The girls had grown so much since the last time we had seen them. At first the kids were all kind of shy with each other, but then after 5 minutes, it was like they were best friends. Danielle and Tyler held hands while we walked to our table. They were super cute together! The whole time during dinner they had so much fun. It was too bad we couldn't stay longer for them to hang out. Meanwhile Steve and I had a great time conversing with Larissa and Cory.

After saying our goodbyes to our friends, we once again got back on the road where we finally made our way to Grandpa and Grandma's house. Tyler was sooo excited to see them. Our visit was long over due; it had been a year since our last trip to see them. And what a sweet surprise, Tyler's cousin's, Cameron and Myah, were staying for the weekend as well! Before long, Grandma said she had a surprise for Tyler up in the room we were staying in. We went up to find a Winnie the Pooh, a Wocket from Dr. Seuss, and the Grinch sitting up in the room! She even had their corresponding books for Tyler. He immediately picked them up and gave them a great big hug. They were his new buddies and we had some great new books to read. Soon it was time to go and get some dinner. We got in Grandpa's big van and headed down to one of our favourite restaurant's here in Rhode Island where we enjoyed a delicious meal. When we returned home, the kids had a blast getting reacquainted, playing around, and then having a few games on the Wii before bedtime. It is always great to see Cameron and Myah playing with Tyler, they have so much fun and they are awesome with him. Overall, it was a fabulous last day of the year. Steve and I typically don't stay up to ring in the New Year because we're just too tired; this say was no exception. LOL We all went to bed around 10:30, which was good because we wanted to be well rested up to spend another great day with everyone. :)

What Exit?

Hey there from New Jersey! The Smith Fam packed up their suitcases this morning and got on the road. Our destination is Rhode Island to visit Grandpa and Grandma. However we got on the road a little late because Steve had to go to work this morning.

 The driving is good so far and the roads are clear. Steve hooked up the DVD player for Tyler and he was kept busy drawing some pictures on his Glo Doodle he got for Christmas from Maia.

We are staying over night in a hotel in New Jersey. Tomorrow we are meeting Larissa and her family for lunch in Connecticut, then it's off to finally see Grandpa and Grandma. :)

A Wii Bit of Fun

Watch Out for Falling Snow

Stocking Stuffers

Walking in a Winter Wonderland~

It's a marshmallow world here in Va. The sun was out and the snow was still around from yesterday's blizzard, so we got bundled up, loaded the car up, and headed to a park with trails we haven't been before. The snow covered trees made everything look so beautiful as we walked through. We hiked to a cache located nearby. It's been a long time since we found a cache in the snow. It was just like our Syracuse days. :) It felt soo good to get out in the fresh air for a walk. We thoroughly enjoyed our day!

A White Boxing Day

State of emergency was declared today in Virginia. We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland and it is still snowing. The Smith family is always up for an adventure, so today we got on our snow clothes and headed out for some snow fun. We walked around our apartment complex for some photos and made snow angels, had a snow ball fight, and went on a hike. After awhile, we went back inside for some lunch and a cup of Italian hot chocolate. Then it was back outside where we ventured to a park for some more fun in the snow. It was a total blast!!! We could have stayed outside the whole day we were having that much fun together. :)

Family Christmas

Tyler actually waited until it was daytime before coming in our room to tell us that Santa had come. When we all got up, he ran to get his stocking and started opening the presents he got in it. Then we gave him a gift from under the tree to open. After Tyler was finished opening his present, Steve noticed a box with my name on it and it read that it had to be opened first. When I opened it, I was shocked to see that it was a brand new camera!!! I almost cried!!! I record this special day with this beautiful camera I received. Tyler was very happy to get everything he got. Some of the things he received were an Imaginex Aircraft carrier, Transformer(from Nanny), Hess truck (from Nanny), Spider-Man books (from Dawsyn), Legos, G.I. Joe figurines, clothes, a Pillow Pet, a Glo Doodle (from Maia), and a Playmobile mailman set (from Erika). The very last gift he opened was Criss Cross Crash, which was the one thing he wanted the most from Santa.

Steve's favourite Christmas movie is 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation', he loves it so much that in high school he and his friends had watched it every day from Thanksgiving until after New Year's. So to say the least, he knows every line of the movie and is a big fan. A few years ago, he looked online to see if he could get one of the glass moose mugs, however they were way too expensive. This year however, I got the heads up from his cousin, Sue, who is also a huge fan of the movie. Steve was very surprised when he opened the box to see the mug and that made me very happy. He also got a shirt from the movie as well as a shirt from the cartoon, 'Adventure Time', another show we watch every Monday night. He also got another normal everyday shirt. He also received some clothes from my mom.

As for myself, I must have been very good this year because Santa totally spoiled me. I not only received the beautiful camera and case, I also received a Kitchen Aid mixer, something I have always dreamed of owning. I could not believe my eyes when I opened the box. I wanted to put it in the kitchen right away to see what it looked like, I just starred at it in amazement. Then just when I thought my Christmas was complete, I was handed another box and inside was a Crock Pot. Tyler also gave me some colours for my icing, something I was getting really low on. My mom also gave me some clothes and Tena gave me a bracelet. Steve also surprised Tyler and I with a Wii and some Wii games. As well as...a DISNEY CRUISE TO THE BAHAMAS!!!!

The remainder of the day was spent getting ready for Christmas dinner. I cooked a ham, which I would like to thank my mom for helping over the phone with. I had to take a photo to show my mom that it actually turned out OK. LOL I also made some very delish scalloped sweet potatoes and green beans and mushroom mix. Meanwhile, Tyler had a blast taking all his new toys out of their boxes and testing them all out.

Our friends, Larissa, Yasuko and Yuki, came over for Christmas dinner. It was sooo much fun having them over. We shared some laughs and great conversation. Larissa couldn't go home to her family for Christmas because she was on duty and Yasuko is far away from her family in Japan, so it was really nice sharing this special day together with them. Overall, I must say that this was my favourite Christmas. Steve and I really wanted to just wake up in our own beds for once on Christmas morning and it was so wonderful being able to do that. Even though I received some fantastic gifts this year, my favourite gift of all was just being able to have a nice quiet Christmas at home this year. Being a military family makes you truly appreciate the times you have together because you never know what's in store from one day to the next.

'T Was the Night Before Christmas

His excitement grew as the day progressed, the night before the day he's been waiting for all year has finally arrived. Tonight before dinner, he drew a picture for Santa to leave with some cookies and milk. Then after we ate, we sprinkled some magic reindeer food outside to help guide Santa to our place. While we were out there, he was certain he heard a "Ho Ho Ho". So, we quickly came back inside where we watched some Christmas specials and kept track of Santa's whereabouts with NORAD. Tyler did his own check every once in awhile, looking up in the night sky for a red light, Rudolph's nose. LOL  He's finally nestled all snug in his bed, while visions of  Transformers danced in his head. Look at the post below to see some Christmas Eve videos.

Christmas Eve Videos

Ciobar, It's Good Stuff!!!

It was a windy blustery cold day. A good day for staying inside and enjoying a nice hot cup of hot chocolate. So, this afternoon when Steve returned home from work I made some for all of us. When Steve was on his last deployment he brought home some Ciobar, Italian hot chocolate. If you ever had the chance of trying Italian hot chocolate, you would probably agree with me that it is sooo super yummy. What makes it different from the rest, you might ask? For one, it is thick like chocolate pudding and rich in its' taste. This was the first time I made some for Tyler to try and boy did he like it! Drinking it today after all these years, really brought back some great memories of Steve and I living overseas and it tasted even better than I remembered.

Christmas Yumminess

And the Christmas baking continues with chocolate mousse tarts...

Gingerbread Men

A couple of days ago I started my Christmas baking by making pork pies. This morning I continued with the making of gingerbread men. This time, however, I had a little helper. Tyler was super excited! This was the first time I used this recipe and it took a lot more time than I thought it would to make them. It took the whole day! The finished product was awesome. They not only turned out perfectly delicious, but they looked great too! I brought some over to the girls at the rental office and they loved them. Even though the whole day was devoted to making the gingerbread men, it was definitely worth it and we will be making them again. 

Gingerbread House

Since the last day of school was canceled, we got to go to Tyler's teacher's house this morning to exchange presents and pick up some of the Christmas crafts he made at school. One of the things he made was this yummy gingerbread house. Unfortunately, the house was involved in a little accident on the way home. Luckily there was no one in it at the time.

Surprise, Surprise

For awhile now we had been planning on surprising Tyler by going to get some more supplies for his trains. So, this morning we got in the car and told him we were going to the commissary to get some groceries, however we didn't tell him that we were going to take a detour on the way and stop by a hobby train store. He was quite surprised when we pulled up to the store that had Thomas painted on the outside windows. He said that we should go inside. LOL There were two train layouts in the store and a ton of trains and accessories. We spent a lot of time looking through everything and picking out some things to buy. Tyler had so much fun pointing out all kinds of stuff to Daddy. Then all of a sudden, the door opened and low and behold, Santa walked in. We couldn't believe our eyes!!! Santa was getting some ideas of what to tell the Elves to build for Christmas, however he stopped to talk to Tyler. It was definitely a morning full of all kinds of surprises.

Update

It's been a few weeks since I lasted updated you all on what Tyler has been busy doing in preschool, so I'll combine it all into one post. Since our last post on this subject, Tyler's class has been learning all about the letters J,K, and L. During their "J week" they learned about the birth of Jesus, made stockings, and were taught about the legend of the candy cane. They also did some count down to Christmas crafts.

Meanwhile "K week" consisted of a further discussion of Jesus and his birth as they learned about the kings and the gifts they brought to Jesus. They also made Christmas kites.

The fun continued with "L week" where the kids learned all about the different lights of the season. Finally, they learned the differences between their left and right hands.

Today was suppose to be their last day of school before the Christmas vacation started. They were going to have a concert with the kids singing songs about Jesus, followed by some crafts and food. However, due to the road conditions, classes were canceled and Tyler will not be returning back until the new year.

A little Snow Fun on a "Snow Day"

Tyler Says the Darndest Things

The other day we were looking through our old photos and picking out some to add to a huge frame that Steve bought. As we were looking at this one, Tyler passed by and said "What is Daddy doing to Uncle Joey's belly??". LOL!!!

Making Tracks

Let It Snow!

To our surprise when we looked out the window this morning, it was snowing! In fact, it snowed most of the day. Unfortunately, all we could do was watch from the warmth of our living room window because the cold outdoors was not a place for a boy with pneumonia.
Tyler stayed home from preschool today. This morning he seemed to be doing fine, however around 11:30 he started to get tired and complained of a headache; his fever had returned. He slept for most of the afternoon. Then he woke up when Steve came home from work and he seemed to be back to his normal self.

Our Baby has Pneumonia

Tyler has been diagnosed with pneumonia. It all started when I was awoken by the crying of my baby boy. I rushed to his room to find him sitting up in his bed and upset that he couldn't find "Raty Rat", his stuffed rat. While he was up, I noticed how hot his temperature was. I asked if he was OK because he didn't look too good and he said his head hurt really bad. So I went and took his temperature using an ear thermometer that we haven't used it years. It gave us the reading of 106.1 degrees, which had to be incorrect, however we knew he was indeed running a high fever. After 10 minutes of monitoring him, we decided to take him to the emergency room. It was about 2am at this point. After taking his information, they took him to the triage nurse where he was weighed (he is currently at 36 lbs) and took his temperature. At this point, it was 101 degrees. The nurse gave him some Tylenol, however he soon brought it up. We changed him into clean hospital jammies and brought him out back to wait for an RN. When she arrived she gave him some more Tylenol, obviously another way and then we headed down to the radiation department for some x-rays. We returned back to our room where we continued to wait and wait. The RN came by again and offered Steve and I some cold drinks, by this time, Tyler had fallen asleep. She carefully took his temperature again without waking him up and which showed it did not change. We waited and waited some more and the physician's assistant came in and checked him over again. Finally the doctor came in. He showed us his x-rays and actually taught us how he reads them which was really interesting. There were some donut whole dots showing up in his left lung, which meant he had pneumonia. The doctor prescribed some medication and gave us some instructions of how to manage his fever with Tylenol and Motrin.

The RN came back in and gave him his first dose of his medication mixed with some orange juice. She warned us ahead of time that it was nasty tasting and that he will have difficulty drinking it. However, she was kind enough to give him two stuffed bears if he drank it all. At first we gave him a straw and he was taking very little sips. We would have been there another 2 days by the time he finished it drinking it that way. LOL So, she gave it to him using a syringe, which worked a lot faster. After that we were finished and could go back home. It was after 4am. We allowed Tyler to sleep in with us because we were afraid he may vomit again. We woke up at 9:30 am and he still had a little bit of the fever and said his head hurt a little. We've been taking it easy today spending the day on the sofa, napping and watching some movies. Please keep him in your prayers for a quick recovery.

The "Sweater Twins" go to the Mall

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

Last night we went and got our Christmas tree. It is one huge tree standing at 8 feet tall. It is by far the biggest Christmas tree we've ever had. But since we are doing our own Christmas this year at our place, something we haven't done in years, we decided to go big. Tonight, after buying some extra lights that we needed to fill the tree, we decorated it. We weren't sure if we would have enough ornaments for the massive tree, however it turned out we had a lot more than we thought we had. In the end, the Christmas tree turned out absolutely stunning. Let the holidays begin~

Letter from Santa!!!

What a day!!! Tyler received a very special letter in the mail today. I got all excited when I read the return name and address, then when I showed Tyler the envelope he guessed that it was from Santa Claus. He was right!!! In the letter, Santa talked about how excited he is to come visit us here in Virginia and that he knows Tyler really wants Criss Cross Crash for Christmas. He even sent an "Official Nice List Certificate" signed by the big guy himself and the head elf!!! How cool is that?! And Santa sent us magic reindeer dust to spread outside to help them with their landing. Excitement for Christmas is growing with each day and receiving the letter today was over the top for Tyler. Thank you, Santa Claus!!!

Sick Day

The first sign was that he slept in. Then I noticed his drippy little nose. All he wanted to do was cuddle on the sofa with me. Tyler's cold that previously consisted of a cough had now developed into a little more. He just wasn't the little energetic boy that we're used to seeing. It was not a good idea to send him to preschool. The poor little guy was quite upset that he had to stay home. As the day went on we filled the day with such activities as making hot chocolate and some baking cookies for our upcoming Christmas party. Then we ran some errands that I was suppose to do in the morning. At the end of the day, his little nose seemed a lot better, so more than likely we will be going back to school tomorrow.

Sleeping Under the Stars

So after our trip to Maryland we came back home and put together the bed we bought at Ikea. We've been looking at buying this bed for a couple of years, but we were waiting for Tyler to get a little older. Tyler spent his first night in it last night and absolutely loved it. In fact the first thing he did when he came home from preschool today was run to his room, pick up a few trucks, climbed up his ladder to the bed and he played in his bed most of the day. It's like having his own little tree house right in his room. We also purchased a bookshelf and today Steve assembled it. His room looks totally different now. We put his stuffed animals and sofa underneath the bed to make a little cozy place to read his books. We think he has the best room in the apartment now.

Weekend in Maryland

What started out as a road trip to Ikea to get a new bed and bookshelf for Tyler, actually turned out to be a weekend trip to Maryland. The closest Ikea store is about 3 hours away, so since we were going in that direction and were relatively close, we decided it would be awesome to meet up with some of our Maryland friends. Turns out there was also a caching event the same day and since most of our friends were going, we decided to sign up too. The event was the annual Christmas party and we were required to bring a gift to swap. The party was a lot of fun! We met up with Richey, Dan, Barb,Beau & Jo,and then later on with Katherine, Rodney and Fran.

After the party, we did a few caches with Katherine, Rodney,and Fran and then went to try and see Sue and Mark at Sue's dad's Christmas tree stand that they were working at. Unfortunately, we just missed them by about 10 minutes! We made plans with the others for dinner at Ledo's, however Fran had to get back home. So while Katherine and Rodney dropped her off, we checked into our hotel and made our way to the restaurant. There we met Richey, Jessica, Dan, Barb, and a little while later, Katherine and Rodney. It was a fantastic night catching up with our friend whom we missed so very much. It's funny because even though we haven't seen them in awhile, it seemed like we haven't left and it was just like old times. However, it was getting late and it had been along day for us, so we had to call it a night and go back to the hotel.

The next morning we got up and headed to Ikea. It was time to pick up that bed for Tyler that we've been so excited about getting. We also picked up a bookshelf and some other things we needed. We love shopping at that store! It's the closest thing to shopping in Europe that we have here. After we picked out our things and some things for my friend Yasuko that she wanted, we packed the car up and then went back inside for some lunch. We ate and got back on the road and made our way to go see Sue and Mark again at the Christmas tree stand. This time we called ahead just to make sure they were there and we were very glad to find out that they were. So we stopped and visited with Sue and Mark for a little while. Just before we were about to leave, Sue asked us to pick out some poinsettias to take home for Christmas. It was soo sweet of her to do that. Steve said I could pick them out and so I picked out the pretty pink ones. That's a shock right? LOL Anyway, after saying our goodbyes, we got back in the car and made our way back home. It was sad leaving there. We always have such a great time in Maryland with our friends. I guess we should be thankful that we can always make a little road trip to go see them every now and then and they can do the same. :)

Tyler's Letter to Santa

Our Little Tumble Bug's Show & Tell

A new month means a new theme for Show & Tell in Tyler's preschool. This month's theme is gift items. Tyler had to pick something to bring to school that was given to him, which was not difficult to do since 85% of the stuff in his room is from other people. After going through his stuff, he decided to bring the 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and his self titled book. This was given to him a couple of years ago by our friend, Christine.
On another note, Tyler took a tumble at preschool today. He fell down the slide after not being able to unfold one of his legs prior to going down. The poor little guy landed face first into the dirt and got his face scraped up. :(

Countdown to Christmas

Thought I would like to share with you all the cute craft Tyler made and brought home from preschool today. It's a paper chain that is attached to a star. Every night at bedtime, he takes off one of the links and then when he reaches the star, it is Christmas. This is a nice alternative to using the traditional advent calender we always used growing up. Tyler is very excited to be participating in this fun countdown.