Merry Christmas!!!

Here are a few pictures from our wonderful Christmas! I hope everyone had a very very Merry Christmas! We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house in Walla Walla.

Here are my 3 kids...Tyler's head is in the bottom left corner, remember he dislikes photos and therefore didn't cooperate. Just imagine them all three sitting there still and smiling perfectly at the camera! HA! :)

Waiting for Christmas Eve dinner. A big deal with my family. It's an Italian tradition to eat fish on Christmas Eve and so...we do! I really look forward to this meal every year.



Grace trying to take Tyler's toy...naturally.


Doesn't she look pretty in her Christmas dress?! :)

A doll stroller!

sleeping bags!!

We came home late Christmas Eve and had Christmas Day at our house. Here is a picture of the kids Christmas morning, Santa brought them an adorable little table and chairs!


Pretty excited little children they are! Christmas is such a special time of year! I had the honor of hosting my family on Christmas Day. It was lots of fun. We enjoyed a prime rib dinner and played some fun games. It was a great Christmas!

Baerlocher's go Country!

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Charleston Baerlochers take 2

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Revamped Baerlocher Elves...Dancing Disco!

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The Baerlocher Elves

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Manners, Manners, Manners

When you are 3 years old, you are most certainly still learning manners. Part of learning manners in our family is learning to sit through church. Tyler has improved in this department immensely! He truly is doing great, BUT there seems to always be something that tempts him to be on the naughty side. I guess you could say its fairly innocent stuff, for example, two Sunday's ago, he didn't quite make it through the entire mass so he was in back with Justin and Grace. I was attempting to get over to them as quickly as I could but got stopped talking to people (I know shocking), apparently Tyler got VERY close to pulling the fire alarm. I mean VERY close. We quickly left church thanking God that Justin caught his little hand before he actually pulled it. Then there is last Sunday when he again didn't quite make it through and was in back with Justin and he apparently got VERY close to ringing the bell, yes the big church bell! Again, he got VERY close. We quickly left church and thanked God he didn't actually ring the bell. So tonight we went to Saturday night mass, well he wasn't doing too badly when apparently the scarf worn by the nice woman in front of us was just to hard to just sit and look at. Only this time Justin wasn't around to catch him at the last minute, this one was on my watch and yes he actually yanked the poor lady's scarf. Can you imagine standing there singing in church only to have your neck choked because a 3 year old behind you yanked your scarf. I wanted to crawl under the pew. She was very nice about it, in that she had 3 older boys of her own, so surely one of the 3 were on the spirited side like our Tyler. The worst part was that he thought it was very funny and proceeded to keep trying to yank the poor lady's scarf! SIGH, it felt like a long mass but we made it through. Got to love our little Tylerman, he keeps us on our toes and laughing for sure! :)

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

Alright everyone let's see those snow photos because from what I hear, snow is everywhere right now. I am going to say that we are up to about a foot of snow and it is still snowing! Adam hasn't had school all week. Here's a few photos from around our house.



Hoops anyone? :)

Note the black handle sticking up about half way into the yard, that is from a few days ago when Tyler attempted to "mow" the snow...he was shocked when it got stuck...now i'd say it's REALLY stuck!


Please note how well I am keeping our very large driveway shoveled...exhausting work! the boys aren't much help but they sure have a blast out there! :)


All dressed for the snow...AGAIN!

The boys- "MOM, WERE COOOOLLLLDDDD!!!" me-"ALREADY?" :):):)



Everyone stay warm and drive safely if you must drive at all!

Winter Wonderland!

Well the weather outside is frightful! We have temps below 10 degrees, about 6 inches of snow and no signs of warm up anytime soon. In fact they predict more snow this week. Yesterday and today they canceled Adam's pre school. Which also meant them canceling his Christmas program! I am bummed. I have not heard when they will reschedule it too, if at all! So, we have been doing our best to enjoy the snow, although it is so cold that no one lasts all that long out there, but I still feel obligated to bundle them up and send them out because they LOVE the snow and just wait for the few days a year that we actully get it. It is true however that for Tyler at least, it takes me longer to get him dressed than he actually lasts out there...oh well :) What type of weather is everyone else experiencing??

some pictures for your enjoyment

Here is a picture from Saturday night when the Jones Family visited us at our hotel room. The room wasn't huge so we just stuck all the kids in the playpen so us adults could just enjoy a glass of wine. LOL, yea right! Actually, they all VOLUNTARILY climbed in themselves and I quickly snapped a photo because well, it didn't last long before someone got smooshed, smashed or stepped on etc. count them baby, 6...the oldest...not yet 5. We rock! :)

This is my favorite Gracie expression. Isn't it the most darling little look! :)

Daddy and his boys. What can I say, I have a very significant place in the boys hearts but they do love their daddy! :)


This is Grace's FAVORITE thing to do lately. She climbs up onto Adam's bed, finds his hats hanging above his bed and puts them on. Darling...dangerous, but darling!


Does this look safe to you? It's not. Don't worry I DID catch her before she fell. :)


Not to bore you but, isn't she just a heart breaker? :)


Adam posing for me in front of our Christmas tree. Please notice that there are NO ornaments on the bottom half of the tree. This is because little people in our house can't seem to resist the temptation to touch them...hence our half decorated tree=my sanity. :)

Here are Adam and Grace having some fun this afternoon. They emptied the toy baskets in our living room and sat in them, Grace thought it was the funniest thing ever. Thanks for teaching her how to COMPLETELY empty the toy baskets Adam because she only partially emptied them before. :)
You may be wondering why there are never very many pictures of my middle adorable child Tyler. He is very camera shy and basically totally dislikes having his picture taken so I just don't torture him...or me:) Good night!

We're Healthy!

Ya-hoo! We are FINALLY all healthy! It was a long haul dealing with all the different bugs our family had the past 3 weeks, but we survived. So our weekend plan was to head up to Colville to help my brother Joe celebrate his 30th birthday. When he called me Friday and said his daughter was throwing up guess what I said? You guessed it, we DIDN'T go to Colville. My parents and brother Alex were braved the germs and still went to Colville. Sounds like I missed an amazing meal and fun time. Since we have all been cooped up in the house forever and we were in desperate need of an outing and we had hotel reservations in Spokane we decided to still head over to Spokane for the weekend. We had a blast. Saturday we took in all the Christmasness of downtown. It was awesome. It's quite an atmosphere to see the ginormous tree, hear the carolers, see all the shoppers etc. The highlight for the boys was riding the escavators! (it doesn't matter how many times we corrected them that they were escalators they were escavators)The totally awesome Jones family joined us for swimming and dinner. That of course was a total blast. I won't lie, 6 kids in the small hotel room had moments of chaos, but in a very good way. The four adults could look at one another and just know that we all knew what each other was thinking because we really are in the same boat! Our kids play SO well together and we have such similar lives having children all the same ages that our large group well...it just works! We were thrilled to get to spend time with the Jones family again. Sunday consisted of more shopping and of course eating:) The kids always enjoy time with their Grandparents and Uncle. It was a great weekend! Hope everyone else had a great weekend too! Is everyone getting ready for Christmas...it's coming quickly!

Home for the Holiday

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. A time when we can all reflect on all of our many blessings and how very much we have to be thankful for. I know I have a long long list. I asked the boys what they are thankful for and the replies were; toys and people (Tyler), our home and my warm clothes (Adam). You can tell we discussed this today! We stayed home this year for Thanksgiving. A whole family feeling under the weather made it an easy decision. Adam is on antibiotics for an ear infection and came down with the stomach flu Wednesday morning. He hasn't eaten much since and is still having some vomiting tonight even! Tyler is also on antibiotics for an ear infection and complaining of a tummy ache, hasn't had an appetite but is acting fine so far. (so far, we are on guard though!) Grace is on antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection and we are finally starting to see some improvement from her. She still has a cough and runny nose left but her main symptom has been fussiness. You can just tell she hasn't felt well. Justin and I are battling sore throats and headaches although I feel way way better tonight. Can you imagine us showing up at any one's door step with 3 kids on antibiotics and one throwing up...Happy Thanksgiving, NOT! :) Justin's parents brought us a turkey dinner on their way through to Portland. It was the kind you buy frozen and pre cooked from Albertsons so you basically just heat it all up. It was good! Not like a traditional home cooked one but we were so tickled to get to actually eat turkey dinner today. They also left us pie and other yummy snacks. It was so very nice of them! There is something about food that makes it feel like a holiday. So, we had a very low key day. Played a lot of games and watched a lot of movies. We were thankful to be able to spend it as a family. There were so many holidays back when I was working at the hospital that I had to work I am just happy to be home for the holidays! Plus there were definite perks to being home, no packing, everyone slept great, kept on the same routine, etc. Tomorrow we will get out all the Christmas decorations...yahoo! I hope everyone had a very wonderful Thanksgiving...28 days until Christmas! :)

GO COUGS!!!!!!

Congratulations to the Cougs and all their die hard fans for
BEATING THE HUSKIES. YA-HOO!!!!!

Adam celebrating the Cougs victory...that's my boy!


Adam sporting the Pilgrim hat he made at school today. so handsome. They had a "Festive Feast" today, every child brought their favorite food to share, Adam chose cranberries.


Tyler being cute and sweet even though he didn't nap today the little stinker.



Grace pausing for a very brief moment while I snap a picture, notice the constant runny nose lately, that is accompanied by an awful cough. lucky her. She looks happy here, but she hasn't been all that happy lately. A terrible cold, she is working on 5 teeth and she is just getting over the stomach flu, talk about sucky!



and last but not least I thought I'd share a recipe for the most delicious snack mix ever!! This gets gobbled up (pun intended) everywhere I bring it and the best part is it is very easy to make!


White Chocolate Snack Mix
1 (10 ounce)package mini twist pretzels
5 cups toasted oat cereal
5 cups crispy corn cereal
2 cups salted nuts (i use cashews)
1 (14 ounce)package candy-coated chocolate pieces (I use Reeses pieces)
2 (11 ounce) packages white chocolate chips
3 tablespoons veg oil

Combine pretzels, cereals, nuts, candy pieces. In microwave-safe bowl, heat choc chips and oil on med-high heat 2 mins stirring once. microwave high for 10 sec; stir until smooth. pour over cereal mixture and mix well. spread onto wax paper. let cool. break apart. store in airtight container. ENJOY!! :)

Spokane Visit

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we spent in Spokane. Justin had a conference for work and so the kids and I went along. We went over Sunday and our first stop was the Jones household. Our wonderful WONDERFUL husbands took all 6 kids while Sara and I had a mom's day out. I really think this should be at least a biannual event. We had such a great time. A quiet lunch, where we actually were able to carry on a conversation, chew and taste our food and then not have to apologize for the huge mess...it was unreal. Next it was pedicures and then a latte at Starbucks where we sat and talked. It was so relaxing. My idea of a perfect mom's day out. While we were gone the Dad's took all 6 little ones to the park! I wish I had a camera to capture them pushing double strollers and pulling a wagon!! I bet they got a few looks. Monday we took in the sites of North town mall and Riverfront park. The kids enjoyed the Carusel and I enjoyed shopping downtown, man that is GOOD shopping. Tuesday we spent the day with Sara and her kids. The evenings were spent swimming at the hotel. The kids really enjoyed that. Below are a few pictures of our fun time with the Jones family. Our kids play so well together you would have NO idea there were 6 kids there and the oldest was 4 1/2. I only wish we could do it way more often.




Big kids watching a movie- the best part about this is that Adam and Aubrey sat quietly through the whole show and Nathan and Tyler were up half way through destroying the room...typical. :)


Big kids having their lunch...yes that is Adam in the awesome hat that he wore almost the entire time we were there.




How cute is this, Sara and the kids waving good-bye...we were so sad to go! :)

Gracie's 1 year stats

Grace had her one year well child check up this morning. She did fairly well. She didn't appreciate the doctor doing his exam she mostly batted him away the entire time, to be expected from a one year old I guess. She checked out healthy! She weighs 22lb 5oz which is the 75% percentile and she is 31 inches tall which is the 95% percentile. She got 3 shots which she screamed for but quickly got over it all. She is currently keeping us busier than ever. She can now climb on the boys beds! It's her new very favorite place to be. While she can get down from them pretty well, I am still obviously very concerned she'll fall on her head so it is constant concern around here, "where's Grace?" "is the boys room door shut?" . She also continues to climb on everything and anything and unlucky for us she is quite good at it! She is working on 6 teeth, 4 molars and two front bottom ones...this makes her grumpy at times and I can't say that I blame her for that. She is starting to talk some which is so exciting. She says hot, mamma, dada, hi and baby...Tyler thinks that she says Tyler but I am not sure I can agree:)She is really starting to interact with the boys which is very fun to watch. Her and Adam have always sort of interacted but the new thing is that her and Tyler are starting to hit it off. Tyler can ALWAYS get a giggle from her and he is quite an awesome big brother...most of the time. In fact, this leads quite well into my precious moments story from yesterday afternoon. I could hear on the baby monitor that Grace had woken up from her nap but I was in the middle of dinner prep so I hadn't gotten right in there to get her yet. Well, a minute later Adam says, "mom do you hear that? Tyler is in Grace's room talking to her". So we listen and he is saying, "don't be scared Gracie, God is watching you". How precious is that? He got that from a Vegie Tales movie and it made my entire week! It's moments like this that make it all so very worth while! Have a great day everyone!

Funny Adam Story

Just thought I'd share the story that had me gut rolling this weekend. Adam was telling us all about how in school this week the firefighters came to teach them about fire safety. He got to see the firetruck and he learned all about what to do in case of a fire, etc. Well, apparently when the firefighters asked if anyone had ever heard a smoke alarm before, Mr. Adam the quiet kid in the class pipes up, "Yea, one morning my dad cooked breakfast and burned it and all our smoke alarms went off, they were really loud and my mom was waving her arms at them trying to get them to shut off!". LOL!!!!!! (to credit Adam, this is indeed a true story) Kids, you gotta love em!

Adam Update

A quick update on Adam and Preschool. Thursday he had a great day! He came home so excited and told me everything he did. His teacher called me again this morning to hear Adam's perception of how Thursday went! She wanted to make sure he had a great day as he indeed had. She told me that they had more time to work with him because he was obviously ready to do harder things. So, it looks like this switch will give them more time to challenge him. For example she said that yesterday she did a Math work with him that had him counting up to the 100's. She said he caught on so quickly. I am so very excited for Adam! :)I am also so thrilled with this school and his teachers. Considering that Adam has always just been home with me and now I send him off to school where I don't get to see what goes on, it's so nice to know that caring eyes are watching over him. They really want him to succeed and have the best possible experience, what more can you ask for!

A Call from the Teacher

So I got a call today from Adam's Pre School teacher. Gasp, a call from Adam's teacher...what did he do? Nothing! She was calling because she had a new idea for Adam. Adam's class is a rowdy one. She said that she feels bad for Adam because he is not at all rowdy and he listens and does what is supposed too and he is obviously feeling overwhelmed by the rowdy kids and she feels that is it hindering his experience. So she asked me to start bringing Adam on Tue, Wed, Thur instead of the Mon, Wed, Fri that he is doing currently. She said on Tue and Thur she has less kids and less of the rowdy boys. She said that today was a particularly out of hand day because it was library day and Adam asked when he got to go home and it broke her heart. So her and the other teachers brainstormed today and this is what they came up with. I am happy about it. I am happy that his teachers are looking out for his best interest and that they care enough to brainstorm on how to make his experience the best that they can. She complimented Adam left and right on his behavior and what a sweet, neat kid he is...she just thinks he gets overwhelmed by the mix of kids that they have this year...as does she! :) I observed this first hand last week when I helped with the field trip and the Halloween party. I saw the rather rambunctious boys in the class and thought to myself, "no wonder Adam isn't friends with them, he is just not that way". So, it was sort of the luck of the draw with this class, he happens to have a lot of young boys who are on the wild side. Adam only occasionally drags his feet about going to school so I do think he still enjoys going, his teacher just gave me the impression that she wants him to be able to get more out of it and she thinks he might be able to with a calmer group. Interesting huh? I suppose this is only the beginning of the school challenges we will face. So starting tomorrow we will try Tue, Wed, Thur and I'll keep you posted on how it all goes. :)

Gracie turns 1

Well on tuesday the 28th Grace turned one! I simply cannot believe it. The year absolutely flew by. We feel so fortunate to have our darling little Grace. She is such a joy. We celebrated her birthday on Saturday. It was a great party. Grace had a really good time. Here are some pictures to enjoy. We'll start with the BEAUTIFUL cake. The secretary for Justin's office bakes cakes as a hobby and she really outdid herself on this one. Check this out!








Here we are singing to her, as you can see she loved it! :)

Posing with her darling cake.

that top section of the cake was hers, the second layer was rice crispy treats and the third layer was strawberry cake...pink of course! :)

devouring her awesome strawberry cake!

she didn't even get all that messy! She was fun to watch.


She even enjoyed opening her gifts. I don't remember my other kids really opening their own gifts at this age, but she did as you can see!


Isn't she just darling! Thank you for my birthday dress Grandma Chrissy.

Uncle Joe and Aunt Carisa got her a dolly.

which she loves!

Grandpa Tim and Grammy got her this toy you can ride or push as a walker, also a big hit as you can see!



We made some more super special memories. Gracie's one...what will the next year bring? More smiles, laughter and great memories I hope! :)