Wintertime

I love Winter, and I am lucky enough to live in a place that just as I am getting tired of it, it warms up, and just as I am ready for it, it is here! It has been a little cold the last few weeks and I am ready for one of those great Colorado winter days were it reaches 60 degrees, hopefully we will get that this week. To get past the cold this year, we have (for the first time in 4 years) started using our wood-burning stove to heat the house. This is not a normal stove, it is an insert to our fireplace. It has a blower on it that warms the entire main floor of the house. Our house, which is usually about 65 degrees is suddenly around 70-75 degrees. I love having a fireplace! I am also excited to see what this does to our electric bill since the furnace doesn't come on when we have a good fire going.

On a side note, the kids are having a great time post Christmas. They are enjoying all the new toys, books and games. More books and games than toys, thankfully it seemed a good year for those things. Now we are all just working on the sharing side of life! John has started copying everything that Nettie is doing which is cute to us, sometimes cute to Nettie. She enjoys having a new playmate that will run around the house after her since Mom and Dad are not that fun.

Merry Christmas!

It is amazing that we are halfway through the day. The kids have enjoyed Christmas this year, Nettie fully understanding what Santa Claus is all about. We hope that everyone is having a wonderful Holiday!

Holiday Card Delimma

So, I ordered our Xmas card this year, same as always, and as I completed them last night, I realized that I had a problem. I had not ordered enough cards. I was about 10 short where in years past, I have always had too many. So now I have to decide what to do, do I go get more cards, or do I just apologize to those loving friends and family that will not be seeing a card from us this year. I have decided to take the later, as it is already 12/19. Christmas has snuck up on me this year, Thanksgiving was late and I am not sure where the time went. So if you are reading this, and you have not received a card this year, we are thinking of you and wish everyone a very Happy Holiday season.

We are starting our celebrations this weekend, and are looking forward to lots of time with family and friends.

Babies are great

When John was born, cousin Paige, who was 4 at the time, thought he was the greatest thing. He was a real doll. She would help hold him, feed him and was a terrific helper when anything needed to be done. As John got a little older, and could move on his own, he would voice his opinion, and still does (where does he get that from?) whenever Paige helped him too much. When Paul and Kathleen annouced that in the fall a new Cribari would be joining the family, we knew that Nettie would now be the guardian over the newest baby. It started right away that she wanted to hold the baby. She loves seeing her new cousin, and playing with all the new toys at Uncle Paul's and Aunt Kathleen's. On Thanksgiving, she decided that she wanted to hold the baby, and did it several times. I am sure that in a few short months Lily will be letting Nettie know that she doesn't need as much assistance as Nettie would like to give, but for now, it is just fun to see another baby join the crowd, and her older cousin loving her.

Getting ready for Christmas

We have a neighbor who has one of those annoying signs that actually counts down how many days there are until Christmas. As we drive by every night we look and it and I cringe. Ben and I took a vacation day to shop, and have most of the shopping done. We have a few more gifts to get, but I still have decorating to do and baking to do. We made cookies last weekend at Mom and Dad's which was fun. and now at least those are done.
The kids are LOVING the holiday season. They are enjoying the advent calendars that they open each night after dinner. The lights on houses and on the tree. They play all the musical animals we have in the house ALL day long. It is so fun to watch the excitement in their eyes. Nettie has her Christmas program next week, so video will soon follow. Nettie sat on Santa's lap at school this week, and was excited to do so, what a change a year makes. We will be taking them to sit on Santa's lap soon, special torture for John! We hope that everyone is enjoying the season. IT has finally started to snow in Colorado, so we are getting more in the mood everyday, so if I can just finish the decorations we will be ready.

The World Through John's Eyes

So I have spent the last couple of days observing my son. He is now much closer to 2 than 1, and you can really see a difference. He is talking more and more every day. He repeats words constantly. He calls everything with 4 legs a dog - and gets equally excited for all 4 legged creatures. He is following Nettie around everywhere and tries to keep up with her. She of course likes to remind him that she is 4 and he is still little, so he can't always do everything she does. The other morning he spilled milk and when he noticed it (right away) he went to the drawer, got a rag a cleaned it up. While we have been working with him, I am attributing most of this phenomenon to school always making him clean up after himself. He is getting into the order of things and stacking. Here are a couple of picture of his handy work.....

After taking all the hot pads out of the drawer and being asked to put them all away:
This morning after he played with the Tupperware:

IT has been a busy fall for the Wismer family. Ben and I went to Italy for 2 weeks, and thank you to my Mom and Aunt, we were able to go kid free! The kids enjoyed having 2 weeks with Nanna and Aunt Pam, even letting us know that they were more fun sometimes. We spent a week by ourselves in Rome and Venice and then joined the Stein clan for a week in Londa, a small village outside of Florence. The time was very fun and relaxing, we can't thank all those that helped with the kids enough!

October started with Nettie's 4th birthday which was of course a week long - if not a little more celebration. Unfortunately for Nettie, she caught a stomach bug for her birthday, so we had a quiet day, but she was feeling better by the following day. Nettie enjoyed her birthday this year, a little more than other years. She has started to understand that this was all about her! She has turned into a great kid overall. She loves her brother, which is always great to see. She has a great time a school and loves her teacher Ms. Ruth (the feeling is mutual). Nettie is Ms. Ruth's shadow during the day, even during nap time when all the other kids are sleeping. Tiffany's college friends came into town for our 10 year reunion. I wasn't able to go to the game, but it was fun to see everyone for a brunch on Sunday.

We were also able to spend some time with cousins during the month, Paige and Luke, Ollie and Noah. We missed Abbie and Mia!

Right before Halloween we welcomed the newest cousin, Lily Cribari to the world. She is a beautiful little girl who is a great addition to the family. Nettie is VERY excited to have a new baby cousin and I have a feeling will love to watch over Lily in the future.

Halloween was full of parties, 4 nights of events and the finally Nettie was able to wear the Dorothy costume every day. For those people who have had us over with the Dorothy costume, I apologize for all the sparkles all over the house!

John is doing well. He is definitely close to 2. He has started to communicate more, using both words and signs. He loves to read, play with cars and trucks. His favorite time of day is anytime he can play outside, so there are definite times that we bundle up and head out even when it is cold outside. He is still a bit of a Momma's boy, and that is an understatement. We are working on trying to break him of that habit, but that will take time.

So far, November has been a great month. WE spent last weekend jumping in the leaves at Geema's and Geepa's house to celebrate Geepa's birthday. The kids had a blast and can't wait until next year.

We are getting ready for the holidays, it is hard to believe that we have another year almost over.

A Princess Cowgirl

Ben has been in San Antonio for work all week, and returned just in time to celebrate Nettie's birthday. In th mean time, Nettie stopped throwing up later in the afternoon in time for Daddy to help her celebrate! When he got back he had brought her a little bit of Texas. This may be her new favorite crown!

Nettie turns 4

It is hard to believe that 4 years ago tonight our beautiful little girl joined our family and changed us forever. The poor little thing has spent the day before her birthday throwing up, but trying to convince me that she is going to feel better in time for tomorrow and I believe her!
Nettie has gotten to be such a big girl, it is truly amazing. Ben and I recently returned from a 2 week vacation in Italy and we both agreed that of the kids Nettie had changed the most over the time we were gone. She is enjoying school, learning new things everyday. She has transitioned to her new classroom with Ms. Ruth rather well. She and John are starting to play together more and LOVE to be around each other. This would be a different experience for me as Paul and I played together sometime, but we were nowhere near as close as they already are. Nettie is patient with John most of the time - unless he has her Cinderella brush.
We are looking forward to a weekend of celebrations for Nettie's birthday and looking forward to the birth of Lily Grace sometime in the next few weeks. Hope everyone is doing well!

I will post pictures soon

Fun July Adventures

So the month of July was full of things going on for all the Wismers. John is fully walking now, not just doing it when it suits him, he is working on running! John's picture is my example of why you never feed a 17 month old beefaroni on his own. He was having fun and I was home by myself while Ben was playing softball, so I figured "what the heck!". HE was taken immediately to the bath tub and enjoy a good scrub after that dinner.
Nettie enjoyed having her cousin Cindy paint her face with a butterfly at a local church feast (a weekend of food, gambing and fundraising for the church). She loved having the butterfly on her fave and was careful not too mess it up. She is keeping us busy as she gets excited for her forth birthday. She has already picked up about 100 things that she would like and has decided on a cake. I have a feeling it will be a Cinderella themed party!
Ben and I finished out the month with a trip to NYC with my family for one last game at Yankee stadium (on Ben's birthday)before they tear it down. The weekend was fun and the kids enjoyed the 5 days with Geema and Geepa. We saw lots of sites, and enjoyed a day with Ben's cousin Jen and her husband Ted. It was nice to have a couple of people who know the city bettter than us take us to a few places off the beaten path. But een better to get to spend a day with 2 such wonderful people!
We hope that everyone is having a terrific summer so far!

John finally decides that he may want to walk

We had all decided that John could walk he just chose not too. He can cruise crawling and so why try! Yesterday he walked while we were visiting friends - the most he has ever done about 10-20 steps. Today, after he got up from his nap he suddenly started standing up (unassisted - he has been doing the for a couple of weeks) and just walked over to me. We had him do it several times and as you can see in the video, he can do it just as we thought.

Just an update

Nettie and John are having fun so far this summer. We have been busy with trying to get the yard ready for the summer and getting the house ready. It is always nice to be able to open the window and breath fresh air all day long! John is getting 2 molars right now which explained his bad mood earlier in the month. He also decided that he would try a few steps over the weekend. He has since rethought that, and continues to happily crawl as quickly as he can. His knees are beginning to show a little wear from crawling across concrete, but he is tough!
Ben has been playing golf a little bit and is enjoying being able to work on his game some more this summer. He will be playing at least once a month with the men in Tiff's family. This weekend he put together Nettie's big girl bike that Geema and Geepa gave her for her first birthday. After just a short 2 1/2 years, she is finally on it! She flys around the hot tub in the backyard.
Not much else is going on with us, just enjoying the warmer weather and watching the kids grow. Hope all is well with everyone.

Isn't it better to mow the lawn as a princess

Nettie loves to help John mow the lawn. She made this crown at school, but Deedee and the Cinderella dress make mowing the lawn so much better!

Springtime in Colorado

Today is one of those great Colorado days where you get to spend the day outside after snow earlier in the week. We had about 5 inches of snow on Thursday - I love being able to be at home on the days it snows! - and this weekend we have been in the 70s. The springtime has been busy as usual for all of us. John is still considering the advantages of walking, however, his speed at crawling seems to deter any thoughts he has of permanetly making the change. They have moved him into the next room at achool, so he spends more time trying to walk, so maybe by Ben's birthday he is will running with the rest of them. Nettie is enjoying school still and has made lots of friends. She continues to amaze us with the things she learns and remembers. She had her first dentist appointment this week and was a champ in the dentist chair! I was so proud of her, she was excited and so happy to show off her teeth to the dentist. She even was patient while I got my teeth cleaned. For that, they gave her 2 prizes, plus a new toothbrush! We have had a good March and April so far. In March we enjoyed Easter with Uncle Paul and Anut Kathleen and the rest of Tiffany's family. Nettie enjoyed an Easter Egg Hunt and John loved the stuffed French Toast! John is our eating machine right now. He seems to be amking up for lost time, eating about every 2 hours and out eating his 3 year old sister at most meals. April brought Grandpa Jack to town for a weekend. It was a fun weekend, we went to a Rockies game on Sunday (opening weekend) and enjoyed sometime with Grandpa Jack and the Evashevski's. Geema and Geepa got home from their 5 week trip and we have been able to spend some time with them during the month. It is fun to be able to have family so close for the kids to grow up with. Here are some pictures from the last month. Hope all is well!

No Pictures..but at least an update

I can't believe that we are already celebrating Easter and getting ready for Spring! The first quarter of the year has been as good one so far for the Wismers. February started with John and Nettie going to a new school/daycare. With baby Goldberg (beautiful little Lily) coming soon, Leslie was ready to move a couple kids out and Nettie was READY for a new challenge. Both kids seem to be enjoying their new environment. Nettie surprises her teachers everyday with all that she knows. We can thank a lot of time with Diana, Leslie and Mom and Dad drilling her on letters, numbers and spelling for all this! She likes going to a school that has a big park she can play on every day, more kids than she can remember names and a teacher that she loves. John is getting used to being around that maybe babies and is finally adjusting to taking naps in a room with other kids, something he never has done (spoiled little stinker!). Of course, with beginning a new day care, the last 2 months have also been full of colds, ear infections, and plenty of yucky bodily functions that all parents love to deal with. We are hoping with Spring all this subsides and we get back to normal.
February ended with the celebration of John's first birthday. It was a fun party with lots of family and friends. We were super excited that Aunt Jean, Abbie and Mia made the trip from Durango for the weekend. Geema and Geepa left the following day for a 5 week trip and Nettie has been counting the days down until they get back since. February was full of family birthdays and baby showers. We are excited that Lily Goldberg joined the craziness in March, Nettie needs an ally, since it was 3 boys to 1 girl! We are looking forward to Grandpa Jack coming for a visit in April, Baby Burford making his/her appearance and warmer weather this spring.
I will try to post pictures from the last couple of months. Have a Happy Easter!

Wismer Look-alike Meter -2

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Wismer Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebs - Collage - Morph

One Dress - 2 Generations & A Screaming Boy

After a wonderful weekend in the mountains, we returned this morning to snow and cold in Denver. While we did see a fair amount of snow in the mountains as well, we aren't as used to it at home. The kids enjoyed play time with their cousins and Nettie has decided that she is ready to ski! That will make next year even better.
My parent's are remodeling their basement and while going through boxes she found my flower girl dress from my Aunt Pam and Uncle Joe's wedding....














You can also kind of tell who Nettie looks like, and usually acts like as well!





Another quick one for you....John is a great kid. He takes after Ben and can be pretty mild mannered. However, if he doesn't like something that you have done or are doing he lets you know. The other day I put him in his high chair to eat and he let me know that I was not his favorite person at the time. He did find a second to stop and eat a Cheerio though...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCC1Ik5UE60

Finally a couple of pictures

Just a few pictures from the last few months. Johns scar doesn't look nearly that bad anymore, but we do look at the Cinderella dress every day! And it definitely doesn't look that good anymore!

Baby Stages

So, still no pictures, but I am adding it to my list of things to do....

A friend and I were discussing babies soon after I went back to work after having John. She has a son that is a little younger than Nettie. When she had returned to work a co-worker asked if her son had started sleeping through the night. When she said he had jsut started the co-worker (who had 3 kids) said "Wow, that stage is already complete". Of course, when you are living the middle of these stages you don't think they are EVER going to end.

I was just cleaning out the dishwasher and cursing the MANY bottles that I put away each time I clean it out, and began to smile. I have decided that babies and parents go through stages. I am sure that many people have already realized this, but since John is my last baby, I am starting to let go of the baby stage and embracing the toddler stage, without looking back. When Nettie was this age we were excited for all the new things that she would do, but also knew that someday we would get to see all those firsts again. But while cleaning out the dishwasher today I realized that I only have a couple more months of putting those darned things away!

It is exciting to see John as he is becoming his own person and learning about everything. Nettie and John and I went to the symphony today with our friends the Goldbergs. Nettie enjoyed the music, watching the conductor and seeing all the instruments. John was especially intrigued, watching all the musicians and other kids. We got to sit on the stage the entire time which was a fun experience.

I will try to post pictures this week, the kids are both getting big, John will be 1 in 3 weeks! We hope everyone is doing well!

A New Year

So it is already almost the end of the month, but Happy New Year to everyone. We are enjoying the post holiday season and getting back in the groove of life. I keep thinking, "I need to update the blog" and then I think about the fact that I need to add pictures. I have decided that I will update more, but it will probably not have pictures every time.
The kids are both doing well. John had minor surgery about 2 weeks ago to remove a dermoid cyst from between his eyes. He did wonderfully for surgery. The little stinker got angry after having his IV out, Mommy bonking his head on the crib and his diaper being changed (all in about 5 minutes) and held his breath. We then had to put him back on oxygen and spend 2 extra hours in the hospital until his levels were back to normal. He is doing well now, we had a follow up today and all was great! He will be 11 months old tomorrow and is quickly becoming his own person.
Nettie is doing really well. She is so much fun and has a personality all her own. She loves to do whatever Mommy and Daddy are doing. If we are feeding John a bottle then she feeds her baby a bottle. She is also very good at mimicking what others say, so we are very careful about everything that comes out of our mouths. She is getting excited to start preschool in the next few weeks.
We are looking forward to some skiing in the next few weeks and enjoying wintertime in Colorado. We hope everyone is having a great January. We will update again soon!