Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Christmas Eve.

Well, we didn't take too many pictures Christmas Day. Daddy got some video footage and we'll try to get some of that up eventually. For now, we took a couple of photos on Christmas Eve.

We have decided that our Christmas Eve. traditions will include opening of the Christmas jammies and stockings. So, we have one of Lily and her stocking in her new jammies and Noah in his new jammies with all of the contents of his stocking. Lily got a few soft toys and a few balls in her stocking. Noah got a bunch of train tracks from Ikea and some flashlights and a dinosaur in his stocking. All of the tracks from Ikeas didn't fit in his stocking, so we wrapped them. He has played with the train tracks every single day, for hours on end and when he is not playing with them, he is asking to play with them (or watch Frosty.)

We had a lovely Christmas, though we were all sick, we had a nice quiet Christmas. Noah would get so excited about a new toy he opened he'd forget there were other presnets under the tree. Then, he'd notice the tree and presents again and say 'ooohhh, presents', open one and then play again. This was nice.

Our gift to each other this year did not fit under our tree, it fit our tree in it. We love our new home and our first Christmas here was just wonderful. We hope the same was true for everyone else!

Christmas Eve.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Christmas cookies.

This is my last post for the night. Earlier this afternoon I thought I'd just have time to post the Christmas letter, but I have been able to sneak in a post here and there. I ate lunch and dinner in front of this screen so you all could see the kids and get a chuckle and I had one less thing on my 'to do' list.

This morning Noah helped me make some sugar cookies. Two kinds to be exact. One that was organic and well, hard to form, oh yeah and hard to eat. They were hard as a rock, I like crispy cookies, not hard. So, we made another batch, the ones to give away. We are only giving a little away this year. We have new next door neighbors and our across the street neighbors invited us over for Christmas Eve. (You all know, I don't go anywhere without cookies - I cheated though, these were from a bag. I will make another two kinds, just not tonight.) Anyways, After Noah's really long nap and then dinner, we frosted the sugar cookies. He frosted his organic rocks and I frosted the ones to give away. Noah had fun, this was his first time.

Enjoy!

Christmas cookies.

Christmas photos - take 492!

Ok, so everyone has had a couple hundred takes of their kids or the family or the pet for a Christmas photo. Well, I may be a mean Momma, but I just couldn't help but laugh at the majority of our 'takes' on getting the 'perfect' photos for our Christmas cards. I had these hopes and dreams for one of Lily sitting pretty holding her Christmas Moose and one of Noah being handsome and giving me his million dollar smile and then one of them holding each other lovingly. Well, you should have all received the card by now. You can see we went with 'funny' this year.

Christmas photos - take 492!

What Lily can do...

Lily has been a busy girl just these last few days. On Friday she decided to pull herself up (using Momma of course) to stand. She and Daddy practice standing every morning. On Saturday she decided to sit up from a laying down position - all by herself. (We now find her sitting in her crib.) Then on Monday she took two of her first cruising steps. She is really wobbly still, but she put one foot in front of the other using the trampoline and took two steps. All by herself! I was expecting her to ask for the car keys, but she didn't. Anyways, here are a couple of Lily shots from the past few days.

Lily

Misc. Nov. Dec. Photos

Just kicking back. These photos were taken at both houses.

Misc. Nov. Dec. photos.

Advent

We received an early Christmas gift to the kids from Chuck and Lynne Weygandt. This is our first and probably last family advent calendar. Lynne made this and just beautiful. We'll never need another again because we have started our tradition of using this one. We started pretty late due to the move and other things, but Noah really enjoys sticking his fingers in the pockets and looking for his treats. Though he is constantly asking for more treats. We explain to him that the treats only come once a day and that Advent is about waiting.

Thank you Lynne and Chuck.

Advent calendar

Van Dusen visit December 2008 and a couple of house photos.

We were pretty busy working on the house during our recent visit with Grandma and PaPa Van. I only thought to take pictures as they were heading out the door to go to the airport. (Bad Momma)

Anyways, we had a very productive and nice visit. Lots got unpacked, an attic ladder was installed, holes were put in walls to give the cats a place to 'use it' and we had an early Christmas celebration as well as a few nice meals. It was a whirlwind of a trip. We are working on getting a more comfortable bed to sleep on. (Why is it we say 'sleep in bed' ? We are really on it, aren't we?)

Grandma and Grandpa Van Visit 12/2008


I haven't really gotten around to taking a lot of pictures of the house. Right now you can imagine it is mostly boxes all over the place. The Playroom is the room I started in first. Here are a couple of shots. The built-in bookcases are now full of books and stuffed animals. I'll take more later, but this was early in the moving process. The kids didn't care that the room wasn't done. (Please admire children and newly stained built-ins.)

Playroom shots

Morning Coffee

One morning in either October or November. Daddy was sleeping in a bit and Mommy decided to make the morning coffee.

Morning Coffee

Merry Christmas!

For those of you viewing our blog for the first time, Welcome! We hope you enjoy updates on on our family's comings and goings, as well as looking at our gorgeous children!

We kept our promise and are saving 'a few' trees by not sending our typical letter and cards. We'll try to keep up the tradition of sending a photo though. We do think our kids are pretty cute AND we LOVE getting pictures of your families as well. (If you have not gotten yours in the mail in a week, send me your address and I'll get one out to you.)

2008 has been an amazing year for us Krol's. Lily Adeline joined us on March 25th. She has made our family perfectly complete. We have been amazingly blessed in a time where our economy is not at it's best. We were able to purchase a house large enough for our family of 8! Yes, we include our 4 hairy cats. So far the move has done well for our furry family members. More room to spread out and get into less fights. Lily and Noah each have their own room, as well as a designated playroom AND a yard, with grass! We are in awe of the Blessings the Lord God has bestowed on us. How grateful we are.

As 2008 comes to a close we can't help but think and pray for our dear friends and family. We know that many of you may be hurting during this Christmas season. We know so many of you have lost loved ones this year. We know that some of you are hurting physically and or financially. Please know we are praying for you and we think of you often. We pray that you will find JOY and PEACE this Christmas. We also pray for everyone to have a happy and healthy 2009!

We love you all, our dear family and friends.

Susan and Monte, Noah and Lily.

TO COME: Some 'after pictures' of the house.
Tons of pictures from November and December!

Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, November 13, 2008

As promised Van Dusen visit part 2!

Here are the rest of the pictures from our visit with Grandma and Grandpa Van. We already look forward to our next visit in December!


From As promised Van Dusen visit part 2!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Progress

Hello there,

Lots has been done at the house. I thought I'd share. The roof and deck are done, they look the same. The mold is gone, they did a great job! The termites are gone, yahoo! Our painter Carlos, is amazing. He put a wall where the hole was and has painted every surface in the house. There is a bit of touch up work that needs to be done once the floors are in. We decided to have the built in bookcases refinished. They look amazing, and we are so GLAD we did it before we moved in, It generates SO MUCH DUST. It also stinks to high heaven. We can smell the stain from down the street. It looks as if our floor guys will start on the 17th and then Carlos will come do the finishing work on the paint and then we can officially move in!

We are not planning to move in until 12/13. My parents will be here, and can help us with the kids. We have slowly one or two car loads at a time have been moving things into the garage. Our storage unit is mostly empty. We have 3 bookcases and a chair to move over. We know we need a truck for the bookcases. Monte will 'attempt' to move the chair in his car, we'll see how it goes. Once the house is all done, we want to do a major cleaning, the kids and Monte and I have managed to keep a lingering cold and we want to be sure it isn't something in the house. We are getting excited. We'll move over easy stuff one or two car loads at a time till the big moving day. Maybe put pictures up on the walls or something. Lily's bedroom furniture will be delivered on our 10th anniversary. (How romantic!) Monte will be putting her crib and bookcase together while we wait for the dresser and hutch. She will sleep in our bedroom till we move. Then big day for all of us! I still owe the rest of the photos of the Van Dusen visit, and I have more I want to post, I just need more time in the day! Just took these pictures today!

Progress

Saturday, October 25, 2008

More of Noah's Birthday Party.

Here are some more photos of Noah's Birthday Party. You can see he had great friends come to celebrate with him.

More Noah Birthday Party

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Noah's Birthday Party

So, we had a train party for Noah's Birthday this year. It was a blast. We rented a train for the kids to ride, I made 9 little train cakes and a good time was had by all. Well, most (wink, wink). One of the hardest things about kids and parties is picking the time. No two kids ever have the same nap time. So, some come a little more punchy than others, some a little more tired, some a little freaked out and some think it is the greatest ever. No matter, we love them all and hope to have some smaller play-dates based on better times. Overall, it was a very good party. Noah only got off the train to pick a different seat each time the train stopped. He rode it for an hour straight! I don't think he ever would have left the train. He went to bed that night saying Momma, tomorrow, more train, ride? Man, I love that kid. He fell asleep in my arms and when I went to lay him in his bed he said, train, whooooo.

As soon as I get permission, I'll put some more of the pictures up with the rest of the kids in them. Since my blog is public any yahoo can look at it, even though I only invite my friends and family to view it. I'll also try and get the second part of the Van Dusen trip up here too.

Things are quite busy with the house and we haven't even packed a box yet. Nope, not one. But, for an update - the roof is done, the mold is gone and the deck is repaired. My painter is amazing (ask me for a card if you need a painter) and the floors should go in next week. Then I think we'll be moving a little at a time, then a bigger move. Not sure, haven't thought that far ahead.

Hugs to all!

Noah's Birthday Party

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Van Dusen visit October 2008

We did so much while Grandma and Grandpa Van were out here, I had to break it up into a few parts.

Grandma and Grandpa joined us at My Gym. Noah goes here once or twice a week. His class is every Thursday morning at 9am, he loves it. If we get a chance to, we try to make it to open gym on Tuesday nights. It is about an hour long and we sing, learn a new gymnastic type technique, we play hard and then soft, sing again then head home. Noah loves it! I think Grandma and Grandpa did too!

My Gym


On Friday Grandpa went to Blizzcon with Daddy, so we all went to the Farmers Market and then the Pumpkin Patch. Noah and Lily were both very tired, they had an early morning, but Noah took it like a trooper and had fun. Lily? Well, see for yourself.

Pumpkin Patch


Noah's Birthday was on Saturday. I blew up a bunch of balloons the night before and put them in his room to wake up to. I also put streamers above his door so they covered the doorway. He had a blast and woke up yelling Momma, Balloons! It was really fun. Monte had to go to Blizzcon that day, but was not going to get there till late. We were waiting for the notary to come by for us to sign the papers for our NEW HOUSE. While we were waiting we had green eggs and (bacon). We went to Zoomars, the petting Zoo for another train ride. We did not get pictures this time. Strange, we all left without our cameras. Oh, well, we had fun.

WARNING: The photos you are about to see may gross you out. We are not to be held responsible for any reactions you may have (unless, of course, it is a laugh.)

Noah's Birthday


I am going to have to make another part of this here post. I still have a couple more albums to make and, well, I am tired. It was a big day today. We closed on the house.

Stay tuned for Part II of the Van Dusen visit.

Goodnight.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Ohh, I forgot.

We also stopped by the San Diego Zoo for about an hour. We are members and it was right there, so we decided to let Noah see his favorite animals. The Elephant and he has taken a liking to Giraffes too. Elephants are his number one, followed by Hippos, followed by bunnies. Bunnies? Go figure. Anyways, here are a couple pictures from Monte's camera.

More 10/4 and 10/5

Our weekend.

So, we had been talking about going to Balboa Park for a few weeks now and planned to go over Labor Day weekend. Something happened that had us cancel our plans, so we decided to go this weekend. We also thought we'd stay in San Diego, but chose not to. Instead be had a nice dinner and got a couple of cool trinkets for Noah.

Balboa Park is beautiful and has all of these Museums and gardens. We only hit the Museums, but we sure did hit them. We started off at the Model Train Museum - this was Noah's favorite of the weekend. We could barely pull him away from this button that he can push to make this toy train run around and around. We then grabbed lunch, we sat on the grass and had lunch while looking at a nice fountain and all sorts of dogs and kids walking by. We then went to the Natural History Museum. It was pretty neat. There were Dinosaurs and Sharks and just cool stuff. Noah liked the Dinasaurioio (He got the oioio from saying Cheerioioio's and he tacks it on to certain words - pretty cute.) and the Whale and the fish and the water.

Then we headed over to a Discovery type center. This was cool, at first. He was able to play with some neat sciency type stuff, but then he got his finger squished in this sentence tumbler type thing. He split the side of this thumb, right near the nail bed as well as bruised his thumb nail About 3/4 of his left thumb nail is a bruise. We are pretty sure he will lose it and it will be uncomfortable for a long while. Every time he rolled over Saturday night he woke up crying. So, we have this thumb all gauzed so if it hits anything he has some padding. It was horrible and looks pretty painful. (Though tonight while giving him a bath it bled a bit and I think that took some of the pressure off.) We then got some dinner on the way home. Oh, Noah did get a taste of an Astronaut Ice Cream Sandwich at the Science Museum.

Today we started a little late. Noah slept long, I am thinking from Saturday's two short naps and just the long day we got to sleep in a bit. We were all in great modds as we headed back down to San Diego for another full day of fun. We started off this time at the Automotinve Museum. You can see it in about ten minutes with an almost two year old, but we dragged it out a bit. It was pretty neat. I loved looking at all of the old cars and motorcycles. I saw a Cuntash - something I haven't seen in years, loved it! We then went to 1/2 of the Air and Space Museum. There was a Star Trek Exhibit. We decided to do that first then the rest of the Museum after lunch. Monte geeked out and we couldn't get any pictures. They took some for us, but we were not about to pay out the nose for some cute but silly pictures of us. We then headed towards the Sports Museum for lunch. We took a brief (very brief) look around. It was pretty boring for us. We like Sports and all, but it was a San Diego Sports Museum and well, we are from Chicago. GO SOX, BULLS, BEARS and BLACKHAWKS. We grabbed lunch and walked over to a grassy area with some shade.

We then had the best lunch ever. Lily got to roll all over two blankets. A bunch of leaf bugs decided to dine with us. It was a beautiful day. Oh and yeah, the San Diego Airport is right across the street basically and we got to watch a ton of planes come in for a landing. How cool is that? (Noah and Lily and I actually drove up to John Wayne on Thursday night for dinner. We grabbed some fast food (blech) and sat in a parking lot to watch the planes all come in for a landing. Best free show ever! Thank you Mandi for the idea. We'll be doing that a lot once we buy this house and have a more limited budget.) Noah really really loved watching the airplanes. After we had our lunch, Noah and Daddy ran around the grassy area while Lily had her lunch.

Then we headed back for the air and Space Museum to see the rest of the place. It was cool, all of these Museums are pretty small, nothing like the ones back home, but neat nonetheless. There were a few places where Noah could sit in some airplanes and check all sorts of things out. He did a pretty good job getting in and out of things with his limited mobility. He really is favoring his left thumb. He holds it out and is learning to get in and out of things while putting the back of his hand on things for balance. That is if he isn't coming up to me and saying 'Momma, hand?' and dragging me wherever it is he wants to go. Anyways, it was a fun weekend. We headed home early, ran a couple errands on the way home, gave the kids an early dinner and bath and then bed which leads me here. Up later than I want to be, but I am compelled to get these pictures out tonight. It may be the last post for awhile. We find out Monday (tomorrow) if this is happening or not by Wednesday. Then, well 6 contractors, two parties and about 5 weeks later we could be moving into a new house.

Enjoy the photos. Hopefully they'll be in a better order this time. We didn't get a lot of Lily this time. She was mostly just along for the ride/walk, but she did have fun. She loves watching her brother do anything.

October 4th and 5th.

Friday, October 3, 2008

The House.

Well, I got a chance to head over to the house and get a bunch of pictures. I also looked for water damage and found none. The rain on Monday was short, but it still was rain. We are expecting rain again tomorrow (Saturday) and I will hopefully get a chance to do a final walk-through before we sign the paperwork. We are expecting Wednesday to actually work. We got all of the paperwork on our end complete. We are just waiting for the sellers to sign off and the lenders to sign off and we are good to go.

I have a bunch of photos to give you the gist of what the place looks like. It is a 4 bedroom, has a bonus room, a den, a three car garage, a formal dining room and inside laundry room. You can see the house has not been updated since it was built in 1981. The carpet and tile in the foyer will be replaced and then of course paint everywhere. The rest will be remodeled one room at a time. Just like we did here. Have a nice cringe/laugh at the tile. Woooh Nelly!


25062 Paseo Arboleda

Thursday, October 2, 2008

More kickin' back at Casa de Krol and some news!

So, I took a couple of shots today of Noah and Lily and found some older ones from September. I hope to make and put up some older albums, but life will be getting a bit busy around here. So, if I get them up - woohoo, if not, well it may be a month or so before I get a chance to do much.

The NEWS is we bought a house! We are praying to close on the 8th but the latest will be the 13th. We have been apprehensive about sharing the news because we are buying a foreclosed home and the banks are cautious and SLOW. We pray for the rain to hold up until after we put on the new roof and get the deck sealed. There is a lot of work to be done. We are really praying that this will all happen and happen well and according to God's plan. There will be a final walk through and I don't know when that is. If it rains and we walk in and are standing in water, well this may not be the house for us. It is a little scary to not know about the weather. I haven't taken many pictures because I have been getting measurements and dealing with six different contractors. If we don't close by the 8th we have to fork over more cash to keep our lower interest rate and I have to get on the phone and reschedule the six different contractors. It also puts us back as to when we'll move. When we go through the walk through I'll take some pictures and try to get some of the before shots up here. Overall, the house is wonderful, it is huge, has a big yard and we are really excited. We'll be doing updates on pretty much everything (I'll try to get a picture of the fabulous tile in the foyer and the showers. Hahaha)

We are planning on renting our home and we 'think' we have a renter lined up. We'll keep you posted on how that comes along.

For now, here are my cute kids and hubby!

More kickin' back

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Apple Picking

We went Apple Picking with the Idol's, Schnell's and Stiles's. What a hoot. We went pretty early and made it before it was too hot and too crowded. Phil and I were discussing the similarities of herding children and cats. Brooke and Phil learned that people who put busniess cards on windshields should realize that they could land in your engine and make enough racket to put you on edge. We also learned that apples are nummy. So far, I know of two pies, apple sauce and apple turnovers have been made. They have been gifts for the Jewish New Year (sorry - can't spell it) and bribes for floor guys who will put closet door tracks onthe floor if we provide them free of charge! Overall a success. We should do it again next year. We'll be +1 with Stiles addition!

Apple Picking

Around The House.

Just some shots of us kicking back. Lily thinks her big brother is the greatest thing in the world. Noah enjoys Lily as well.

Around the house

San Diego Wild Animal Park photos.

We had a great time at the WAP on 9/20/08. It was a spur of the moment decision. Noah had a blast with the animals and the water area.

San Diego Wild Animal Park

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Hello!

Welcome to the Krol's family blog site. I (Susan) am trying to figure out how all of this stuff works. Hang in there with me, it will be up soon. I have high hopes to have photos, video and news up on this site on a regular basis. Since we have a long name for our site, I recommend you just make it as a favorites page instead of trying to remember it!

Thanks for checking us out! God Bless!