Friday, December 31, 2010

2010 Comes to an End... With Snow!

We are bringing 2010 to an end in such an amazing and pretty way for our desert city that we live in! It has snowed in El Paso! It snowed for over 24 hours, however, it did not leave much to be seen. It rarely sticks out here. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful site, especially seeing the snow covered mountains. In some weird way, it can be prettier here than on the east coast. Maybe it is because El Paso doesn’t look so….. dull. The reason I state this, well, El Paso is full desert! Kevin, the kids, and I are all use to greenery…. Grass and trees. Anyhow, the snow left the city looking pretty and white for almost one whole day! Haha, go ahead, I know some of you find this more than funny that we get excited over a tiny amount of snow. You would think I would not find this as exciting after spending a couple years in Germany and the blizzards we had on a regular basis. But, I do. I am even more excited when the temps start to warm up!

Seeing snow in some way makes it feel as though 2011 will be a better year. It feels almost as though it is a fresh start and a step away from this past year. This next year will be full of many changes, all for the better, I hope. We are all very excited about what the future has in store and cannot wait to share as it all falls into place!

Our girls, Dixie and Daisy in their basket of toys

The girls playing

Early in the day before the snow, real hazy looking

Very hazy view of from our front door

And the snow begins....

The day after the snow. I love the way the mountains look!

Mountains in the distant. This is across from our neighborhood.

I love this picture of the mountains!


Nicholas, Carissa, and Caitlin

We hope everyone had a terrific 2010 and hope 2011 is the best year yet to come!

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Merry Christmas From Our House to Yours


Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends! It is so hard to believe we have just celebrated Christmas for 2010! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, celebrating it with family, friends, and the ones you hold close to you. Even though we spent another year so far from our family, we still managed to have a wonderful time with each other. For the first time since Kevin enlisted, he took leave for the Holidays, spending a little over two weeks at home with us. It was a nice break for each of us, especially the kids. Maybe one year soon we will be able to spend Christmas with our family! The next few months hold a lot for us and where we end up! (Sorry, we do not have any more details right now than we did a couple weeks ago. As soon as we do, we promise to let you all know.)

The kids had a terrific Christmas and ended up with all kinds of goodies! Of course they received a good bit of clothing, real cute shirts and dresses (dresses for the girls of course!), CD’s, a ton of DVD’s, books, dolls, dinosaurs, and art’s & craft supplies, and so much more! The present that the kids have played with nonstop during the day are their scooters and bike!

The kids received all kinds of art supplies, games, movies, dolls, dinosaurs (play toys and stuffed ~ Nic sleeps with the stuffed ones every night!), bath and body sets, and so much more, from Santa. He left them a good bit!

Thank you PawPaw, MawMaw & Ashton for mine and Kev’s gift! We appreciate it more than you know! Of course, now I have to pick on y’all though… the kids can’t wait for their box to arrive! Haha. You guys always make Christmas extra special for them…. The kids look so forward to receiving their gifts a little after Christmas… It is an extra special bonus away from Christmas day! Thank you! No matter what you send, they always adore it. We miss you all more than words can ever say!

The girls each received a scooter and Nicholas received his first bike! Grannie and Grandpa made a big hit with these gifts!  **Oh, and Grandpa, thanks for the train whistle that he has played with nonstop! Haha. He loves it, especially when he is playing with his train set. The one that use to belong to Breanna** The kids LOVE their new clothes. I am so thankful that Kevin and I ended up with kids that get excited over new clothes! I just think that is awesome. Grannie did an awesome job at picking out some of the cutest earrings for the girls! They have worn earrings everyday!  Thank you for mine and Kevin’s gifts as well. It is all very much appreciated and loved! As always, you guys spoiled each of us! We just wish y’all could have been here. Terri, you have the best taste in jewelry! The girls and I always know that whatever you send it going to be beautiful! Kevin loves his change thing! He has done a wonderful job in putting change in it and the kids are always searching the house and cars for change! Haha. The girls and Kevin have decided that the once the jar is full the money will go towards something for the family. They have decided they all want the Nintendo WII! It puts such a big smile on my face to see the excitement of those three! Thank you! Who would have thought the change jar would have been such a hit! To those of you who are not aware of what I am speaking of, this jar keeps count of how much change is in the jar.

The kids all want to say Thank You to Great Grandma Kathy & Great Grandpa Steve. They love the movies and toys! Great pick for all of them. The girls were very excited to see the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana movies. They instantly placed their dolls with their collection of favorites! Nicholas has carried around his Diego set from his room to the living room, just playing!  He loves the car! Thank you so much for their gifts!

(Great) Grandmama and Aunt Jeanette, thank you so much! You made Nicholas’ day with cars! That kid is a car fanatic! The girls love their gifts as well. Caitlin loves her Barbie! Bre was so excited for the art supplies and the case! She has placed all of her art supplies in the case and thinks it is the best thing ever! The jewelry was a great pick for them! Kevin and I can’t wait to use our new waffle maker! We love kitchen items! The utensil set is awesome! We love the wooden set and love using them when we cook! Thank you so much for everything! All of the gifts are perfect for us!

Thank you to everyone for the Christmas cards, phone calls, emails, text messages, and anything else I may have forgotten to mention! We miss you all and cannot wait for the next time we are able to see each of you! We love each and every one of you! Never forget that! No matter the distance, we think of all of our family and friends every day!

Also, an Extra Merry Christmas to our sweet and precious baby nephew/cousin, Gavin! This is his first Christmas. We hope Gavin had a wonderful day… even though he is still too young to even care or notice the holidays yet! We can’t wait until the day we finally get to meet you little man! Merry 1st Christmas sweet baby boy! We all love you so much!
Merry Christmas to each and every one of you! We hope the holidays left smiles on your faces and memories for a lifetime! As we come to a close on this holiday season, let us not forget the meaning behind it. It is not about the gifts that we each received, but about the reason we celebrate it. Happy Birthday to our Lord and Savior, Jesus. Hold the ones you love close and always let them know you love them.

With love from all of us,
Kevin, Brittney, Breanna, Caitlin, & Nicholas






















Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christmas Eve at The Biddle's

Christmas Eve was a quiet evening at our house. A friend of ours, Marty, came over for a bit. Him and Kevin spend time playing video games on the PS3... No surprise there! Everyone had a real calm evening. Later that night we let the kids open one gift. Seems the tradition has become pajama's on Christmas Eve. Each kid loved their new pajama's! They slept in them that night and welcomed Christmas morning still in them. Very cute! 

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you... Wish we could be closer in order to spend the holidays with family and friends! We love and miss you all!












Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Naked Kid on the Run

Nicholas constantly keeps us on our toes! There is never a dull moment, calm day, or downtime in our house. Hence the reason it takes me so long to update our blog and when I do....it's the middle of the night! Right now it is after 1am and I just can't sleep.

For the past two days Nic has felt the need to streak in our backyard. If he's going to do it, better the back than the front I suppose. But, is it really necessary for him to drop his pants and run through our yard? He has gotten spanked two days in a row for this act. Today, the girls and one of their friends were playing in the backyard, with Nic out there of course. Out of nowhere I hear the girls yelling for me. I was upstairs, so I opened our bedroom window to see what was going on. I took pictures just to show everyone in no way am I exaggerating over what this child does! This is the view I saw when I looked out my window! Yes, he did get into trouble. Lol, he is always doing something. All boy and just like his Dad! I think Terri was right on her words earlier when she said that it won't be Caitlin that acts like Kevin as we originally thought. Nicholas is his payback for acting out so much and putting his mom through all he did! So, what did I ever do? I wouldn't trade these days for anything.... Well almost.....







- Posted using BlogPress from Britt's iPhone
Location:Biddle House

Early Christmas Cuteness

As most of you know, in a couple of months Kevin will be medically retired from the Army due to multiple combat related issues. This is not the post to go into detail on concerning this. This post, is however, to tell you all about our Early Christmas Cuteness that we have had for almost two weeks now. Since Kev will be getting out, we can now have dogs again! One more move is left (moving away from El Paso!), so he can actually be home to help take care and train puppies. Kevin's surprise was for us to pick out two puppies..... Two very cute Doberman sisters! They are now a little over five weeks old and everyone in the house has fallen in love with them. We have named them Dixie and Daisy and can't wait for you to all see them! We can't wait for them to grow larger! Between me and you though, I'm going to miss their sweet, cuddly stage! They are both very attached to me. If I call them they go crazy, whining when they can't see me. Dixie has learned to howl a little when she can hear me, but not lay eyes on me. She has also learned how to climb the steps to our bedroom in order to locate me. Kev and I have wanted Dobermans, but were waiting for the time when he would be out of the army.

Dixie



Our Girls







They are just too cute!





- Posted using BlogPress from Britt's iPhone
Location:Biddle House

Monday, December 13, 2010

Our Robot

Have you all seen the commercial that comes on showing the dancing robot? Every time it does, Nicholas feels the need to act like a robot! He is so funny, and of course adorable. This video is one that he is tired in, so his robot moves really aren't the best. However, I thought it would be cute to share! Listen... He says robot in it. You all know how much I enjoy him talking now and how proud I am that he is talking!

YouTube Video

- Posted using BlogPress from Britt's iPhone

Location:Biddle House

Princess Snow Woman

Since second grade started, Caitlin has been given projects to work on at home. Projects using creativity. The winter one was a snowman. Her teacher gave each student the head and the body...past that they had to each design their own. Caitlin was creative with cotton balls, paint, beads and bracelet, as well as different candies. She had a lot of fun working on it and wanted to share the end result with our family and friends!

Happy Holidays Everyone!
May you each have an enjoyable and safe Christmas and New Years! We love and miss you all!


- Posted using BlogPress from Britt's iPhone

Location:Biddle House

Over the past month...

I know it has been too long since I have updated on here. Things have just been busy with the holidays, kids, school (mine and theirs), Kevin's work schedule, health issues, kids coming down with illnesses... you name it! Seems like the last two months of the year are always the most chaotic.

There has not been a whole lot going on to really update on! The girls have one more week of school before their Winter Break begins. Kevin is working half days and may take some leave. We are waiting to see if his leave packet was approved or not. Even if he takes a few days, we are just staying around the house and spending time together! It will be so nice!

Bre ended up being pretty sick last week. She started off with a sore throat (which turned out not to be strep like the docs originally thought). Following the sore throat, she ended up with a severe upper respiratory infection, which also led to an asthma attack filled week. She came home early on Monday and did not go back to school until Friday. Then over the weekend we still had to keep the nebulizer out due to her having another bad attack on Friday night. We feel terrible for her and hate that she has been facing this since she was 15 months old. It breaks my heart to hear her when she can't seem to catch her breath or with her horrible, croupy sounding cough. She does great with it all and knows to always keep her inhaler within reach. The doctors have put her back on her Flovent inhaler, that she takes twice a day, as well as another medication. Of course, she has her albuterol inhaler and the albuterol for her nebulizer. Bre has been referred to an ENT that she sees soon. We are going to discuss the possiblitly of her tonsils being removed to help avoid her being as sick with tonsillitis. She has been diagnosed with that 4-5 times since school began in August. At the end of the day, however, after all of our struggles with getting her here, her surviving the pregnancy (even when the doctor's didn't think she would), her being a tiny preemie, and the health issues she faced the first year with the apnea monitors at all times and her reflux... if this is what our battle is with her now, we will deal with it and cross whatever bridge we have to. Afterall, we have been incredibly blessed and are so lucky to have her here with us!

Nicholas tends to be nonstop now. He is always into something and very outgoing! He loves being the center of attention in all he does. He loves the ladies! He now asks us if he can go flirt when he sees a pretty girl! This child is a mess! He is finally talking more and so plainly! It is amazing how far he has come in 17 months. He has the best sense of humor and always keeps us on our toes!

Caitlin is reading more and really trying when it comes to school. She has pulled her grades up in most everything. We keep busy with her and continue trying to get her grades up more every day. She is enjoying school and socializing a lot more than before.

Kevin is doing great! Just ready for more news from the army. As we have learned over the years, the motto "Hurry up and wait" is by far the best one for the army. It seems as though nothing ever takes place with the speed we would all like. Hopefully we will receive more news after the first of the year. Please continue to be patient. As soon as we have dates we will make the phone calls necessary as well as post the information on here. There is nothing we can do to speed the process and there are no answers we can give at this time. Trust me, we are more ready than anyone else could possibly be!

I have stayed busy with Kevin, the kids, and all that they have going on. As well as the normal household duties and I started on my medical terminology course, which will follow with a medical billing course. The terminology course has really had me thinking about my educational future and what I really want to do... I have gone back and forth with some things dealing with what I really want to study and go into. More to come on that after I make my decisions! As far as my health goes, I have pretty much stayed the same as I was in November. I did go for more lab work two weeks ago and for a renal and bladder ultrasound this past Friday. I have an appointment with my doctor on Wednesday for all of the results. I am nervous, but ready to know more. For the ulcerative colitis that was found while I was in the hospital in November, my doctor has referred me to a GI (gastroenterlogist) specialist. I am still waiting on the refetrral. I am also going to be seen by a specialist for my kidneys. She is wanting a more definite answer on why I keep falling into kidney failure. She pulled me off some of the meds I have been on until we have further results to all of the testing. The ones that I have been kept on are the ones I am life dependent on. I also have an appointment with a neurologist tomorrow morning. Hoping for some good news and results this week! To everyone that reads this, please just say a prayer.....

Below I am going to include some picture that have been taken recently. Hope you enjoy!

 This one melts my heart! My guys playing a game on the computer.

 Crazy boy! This was right before Halloween.

 My amazingly attractive husband! He was sitting at the hospital with me in November.

 Lol. We have no idea where Nic picked this up. Now when he is told to do something, he salutes while saying yes ma'am or yes sir. Crazy kid!

Little Miss Caitin

 He thinks he is hot stuff being able to take a bath in our "big" tub.

 Aww, another one that just melts my heart. This was after some Daddy and Nic time! I love this one!

 Me, after getting my haircut. We had a girls evening out... I took Bre, Caitlin, and Destiny for us to all to have our hair cut! It was a much needed night.

 This is too funny... Nic's blanket finally ripped into one large piece and one obviously small piece. He decided on this day to take the smaller one with him in his pocket! He thought it was hilarious when I noticed how big his pocket was!

We let the girls have their first real slumber party... of course this was while Kev worked all night! So I had six girls to myself (as well as Nic) Thank God for my good friend out here, Lauren. She came over for a few hours! We baked cookies and let the girls go to town with decorating them. They had a blast. In the picture they are getting down on some Americal Idol on the PS3.