Life around here

Here is a whole slew of pictures. Life is good. Thse two little munchkins are keeping us busy. Marissa is going through a pretty tough defiant stage right now and I'm sure hoping it's just a phase. Every once in a while we have glimpses of our sweet little doll baby, but most of the time she's kind of an emotional and punky bomb just waiting to go off. We still love her and I just have to pray every day for patience. She has many faces and these are a few of our favorites. She is such a sweetie.


I love this one, they fight like the dickens, but they also love and kiss, hug, and play. They LOVE each other, even when Collin is practicing some crazy wrestling moves on her.


The day I took this picture I had told Collin he would be able to watch a movie that night. During quiet time he snuck downstairs lined up his favorite "Cars" cars and got them in position for his favorite movie, either Cars 1 or Cars 2. I just adore this one! He is getting so cute and creative. I love watching his little mind working.

Here is our handsome little boy all ready for church. Isn't he handsome.



And I can not take any credit for this crazy messy peanut butter and jelly face. I was out of the room and Adam thought, why not just let her make as much of a mess as she'd like, what a good idea. bah. She loved it, I didn't, but I guess it's ok to make a mess sometimes.


This is our punky brewster picture. She loves wearing other people's clothes and dressing herself into the most creative and fashionable outfits.


And here is our little Cinderella. Although she actually chooses to do hard labor :) She loves to help. She's practicing her mother skills, she's even wearing one of my shirts. We like to start them early.


Look at that sad, but stinking cute face. Couldn't resist.


My little sweetie.


Cute little pair.


This is one of their favorite places. Love the backwards hat and the snow in the back round.


Well we're busy, happy, and learning a lot about patience, love, and sharing. It's a wonderful life. We've also been busy furiously working on redoing our cabinets and our counters are next. I'll definitely have to post when finished!

Collin' the shots (Sept-Dec)

I love the stage that Collin is at right now. I love having a little buddy that can carry on real conversations and ask questions. He's pretty much past the "why" stage (now he just does it to be silly/annoying), and he's starting to think for himself. We're also getting some arguing/back talk, not so fun, but with every stage there is good and then there is frustrating so I just have to deal with it. Here are some of the silly things he's said the last few months...

Collin-" We need to be careful with the animals because they can scare, because they're very very big."

Collin-" Where's Mommy?"
Daddy- "She's out running."
Collin- "Oh, she needs to get energy out."

A toy wasn't working, Collin was trying to figure out how to fix it like Daddy. Collin switched the on switch and said, "look mom, I pushed this and it works. I am a fixer."

Collin said this multiple times a week, "First it's Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas."

Collin- "I like Christmas. Santa comes and I get lots and lots of presents."

I was eating a lindt truffle. Collin caught me and said, "Can I have that."
Me- "No."
Collin- "Can I share it?"
Me- "No, it's a mommy candy, but you can have something else."
He then chose a tootsie roll and looks at me and says, "You can't have this. This is a Collin candy."
Collin and I were sitting on the porch swing. Collin pauses, looks at me very seriously and says, "So... how are you doing."

While Adam was giving the kids a bath he said, "Collin we need to wash your face. You don't want a dirty face do you?"
Collin- "Yes."
Adam- "Why do you want a dirty face?"
Collin - "Because it's part of my life."

We were playing memory and I told Collin to mix up the cards super fast. He said, "No! We don't want to freak out!"

Me- "Collin, when we have another baby would you like a brother or a sister?"
Collin- 'I want little Collins and Marissas."

Me-"Collin, I miss my Grandma."
Collin; "I have a Grandma you can go to."
Me- "You will share your Grandma with me?"
Collin- "Yep"

Me- "Collin what should we do now?"
Collin- " hmmmm. Let's do something different.
Me- "Like what?"
Collin-"Let's go to the Pizza store (Costco).
Me- "No."
Collin- "Yeah! Let's Shop."

While singing farmer and the Dell he said, "the farmer takes a wife, the farmer takes a wife" then he stopped and very thoughtfully said, "it's not nice to take things."

We just love this silly little boy!!!

And Marissa is starting to use all kinds of words. She is constantly surprising us with a new word. Some of the words in her vocabulary include; stop it, jump, amen, cracker, bubbles, tank tu (thank you), mommy, daddy, up please, more, milk, Grandma, Grandpa, Toby (our cat), night night, teeth, eyes, book, goak (coat), yuck (sock), hi, bye bye, popcorn, ip (zip). She's such a cutie! She can also point to all her body parts and LOVES to sing "Popcorn Popping" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Although the house is rarely quiet and most of dinner times consists of screaming and fighting. We just love, love, love our little family. Hopefully we can add a few more crazies in the future :).

We are a happy family

These pictures are old, but I uploaded them and then never posted them, Enjoy!

Callin' the shots (May-Jul Collinisms)

May 2011

• One of our favorites, when talking about something that happened yesterday or last week he refers to it as last year.
• I asked him what he wanted for his birthday at the beginning of the month and he told me- A pink cake and blue balloons.
• Mommy- "How old are you?" Collin- "2" Mommy- "And how old will you be on your birthday?" Collin- "5"
• We were reading in the Scriptures about the olive trees in Jacob. He must have been listening because after talking about living fruit Collin says, "Living fruit... that sounds yummy".
• "That's a great idea!"

June 2011

• He often uses the words cuddly, cozy, and cute (he must spend a lot of time with me :))
• Collin finally started saying I love you without any promptings and he says it often. He also asks for hugs and kisses. I just love it!

July 2011

• While getting ready to go to the park he sang, "Ring around the rosies, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all go to the park". I laughed and said that was creative and he said, "It's ok to change the song." ha ha what a little grown-up
• Collin was chewing on his stuffed cougars tail. When I told him to stop that it's yucky he says, "it's not yucky, I'm giving him raspberries."
• While we were outside waiting for the fireworks to start Collin says, "the sun is sleeping and the moon is awake. Shhhhhh the sun is sleeping."
• While we were outside waiting for the fireworks to start Collin says, "the sun is sleeping and the moon is awake. Shhhhhh the sun is sleeping."
• At our 4th of July breakfast he got a small flag. On the way home he said, "I love this flag it is so flaggy." boy is he creative :)

Where does the time go

We have had a fabulous summer! The little sunshine we had was thoroughly enjoyed. I can't believe it's already September so I better post the last few months, before I get too far behind. I have to first start with Collin's new favorite game. He loves hide and go seek. He would play it for hours if WE had the attention span. I have to say his hiding skills are lacking a little, but he is 3 and I can't say I really want him to be too good or else we might never find him. This is one of his oh so tricky hiding spots :)




And although it may look like Marissa is using the same hiding technique she is in fact sleeping. We went to check on her the other night and found this, it was hilarious!



Aunt Cristy came for an awesome visit. We loved having her and it was fun for me to get to know her even better, I keep thinking of her as my "little" 15 year-old sister, even though she's 19 and in college. So it was fun to get to really know my beautiful, wonderful, smart, spiritual sister. I am so proud of her. The kids loved her and Collin still mentions her and every once she makes it into his prayers.






At the end of her visit we all mushed into our little car and drove down to the Redwoods to go camping with my whole family. I guess it was our first "Valenza family" reunion. We spent a week down there and got to sleep in a tent. It was quite the adventure. We had a blast and I did fairly well with the mess. Marissa was covered in a thick layer of dirt, but she was happy. The kids did awesome and we all loved the quality time we had together. You really can't beat the peace and beauty of the outdoors. What an awesome family we have! Here is a picture of Collin, Marissa, and Cayley in their camp chairs. Collin's favorite part besides sleeping in a tent was having a fire every morning and night.




Marissa is becoming quite the little independent woman! Much to our dismay. She is a mover and much more adventurous and daring than Collin is/was. She has figured out how to climb onto the kitchen table, how to make a mess of Toby's kitty food, how to get all cute outfits dirty, etc. you get the picture. She is a ham! We love her and she keeps us on our toes. She is a doll and she is so loving and cuddly, but man is she sweet and sassy! This is what happens when we let her feed herself...


I just couldn't resist! ha ha what a girl.


Again, what a girl


And even though these two can drive each other crazy already, there is sure a lot of laughs and love.


And just to show you that it isn't all fun and games, even though sometimes it sure does feel like I just get to play all day. These little munchkins sure wear me out. I love them so so much. I really can't believe how incredibly blessed we are and I love being home with these precious children.

And don't worry, Adam is around he just somehow never makes it into pictures. I'll have to work on that. We sure love that amazing man. What a good daddy and husband :) He does so much for us and we are lucky to have him :) Sorry, I had to brag and I'm allowed, it's my blog right!!!

We have a 3 year old among us

Collin is 3! He likes to remind us often. He is now a big boy, because he is 3. We don't quite understand where our baby boy went, but I guess time really doesn't wait for anyone does it. We so love this sweet, crazy, fun boy. He is just awesome! It is so fun watching him grow physically, but also mentally and emotionally. He just amazes us. He is so full of energy and life. He is very passionate about everything (a trait he gets from me of course :) and we have our share of ups and downs but he is just so special. He continues to make us laugh and smile. His new favorite thing to do is play hide and seek, oh, and go potty standing up. After about a week of work he is potty trained, not completely but he is doing so good. He really is such a big boy and we just love this crazy kid.







For his birthday we played all day. Once daddy came home from work we opened presents (it killed him to wait), then while he helped Adam put his trike together I made dinner; waffles, eggs, and sausage (his request). After dinner we played outside, then went to the park, ate cake, took a bath and read lots and lots of stories. A pretty perfect day according to Collin. It was so much fun and Collin kept telling us how much fun he was having. I am a lucky momma!

Our darling 1 year old

Yes, Marissa is 1! We can't believe it. Didn't I just have her? Well apparently not, but it sure seems like it. Isn't it amazing how the second child seems to grow so much faster. She is still our little doll baby. She isn't quite walking, but she does cruise along the furniture and takes a few steps on her own. She is sweet and sassy. She sure gives Collin a run for his money. So in honor of our little sweetie, here are several pictures from her first year and to top it off with a video from her 1st birthday, eating her cupcake. Yes, she loves food just like her momma.