Easter 2008

Easter was an excellent spring day.  Of course not all family members were well (Jaq) so it was also a bit slow for us.  Although Jacqueline was struggling with a bit of a cold, she did manage to start her day out with jelly beans so she was happy.  Dad enjoyed some time in the sun.
The highlight of Easter was the visit from Natasha (the only family member that came through for the celebration).  While she wasn't able to stay for dinner, she did manage to play some with Buddy and do some time in the bounce house with Ashton.
Special thanks to Judy who not only came through with dinner even though she was sick but also got the girls these adorable easter outfits, complete with purses.
Ashton was very adept at the easter egg hunt this year.
Jacqueline also did pretty well, especially since she wasn't really felling 100% at the time.

Spring Ski trip 2008

As you can see the highlight of this ski trip is the snowmobile day.  Vic (and Co.), Chris (and Co.) + the Bear clan all took to the snow.  The day was beautiful, the girls loved it and only a few in our party tipped over (not me of course, I had the convenient excuse of the girls for going the slowest).
This was just a pose, we did not all three ride together.  Bob took both girls once but I was not confident enough for that!

This is Jacqueline showing off her new turtle fur hat.
We celebrated Bob's birthday while we were in Park City.  Papa Terry managed to get decorations and a cake which was a big hit with everyone.  Interestingly we didn't manage to get any photos with Papa Terry in them ?!  But he did enjoy a couple days snowboarding and got quite a reputation of someone who could easily be convinced to go for a Hot Chocolate run.

And finally a family photo.  You will notice that we all own helmets now which was the highlight of the season.

Jacqueline's Operation

We are finally home from the operation ordeal and I thought I had better get a blog entry out there to update everyone. First and foremost the operation was a success. The doctor said that her tonsils were not only enlarged but chronically inflamed and that the operation "couldn't have gone better". Adenoids and ear tubes were also done just to keep it real.




They moved the operation to 7:30am (from 8:30) so it was an early morning.  Adding to that, for some reason even though we got the girls to bed late on thursday night Jacqueline was in our room at 5am friday morning ready to go. Add to this I decided to get sick on wednesday night so I was up since 3am with fever which made for a bit of a rough morning. The operation went according to plan and we were in recovery with her around 9am.

She was pretty sleepy most of the morning and we were hopeful things were progressing along well but then she got a bit behind on her pain medicine.  

Sadly, she then decided to get sick every time we attempted to give her any pain meds which left us with only tylenol for her. Needless to say it was a rough evening/night. Later in the evening she decided to progress with a bit of an infection so fever and runny nose/cough were added to her fun.

Since this was my only non-birth hospital stay I realized that the back pain I had associated with epidural really was just an uncomfortable hospital bed. We kept her on the IV throughout her stay which was good as she was refusing to drink on her own and getting more challenging as the day wore on.

This morning, we learned that the surgery center closes at 2pm so we were going to have to either move her to the hospital or take her home and find a way to get her to drink.  We decided we'd risk taking her home and got the doctor to agree to let us give her some motrin in addition to tylenol for her pain.  Well as I'm sure you guessed that worked like a charm.  We got home and gave her motrin which she took without much protest and suddenly she was on the road to recovery.  

A few tv shows and some chocolate pudding later she was ready to play some games with dad while mom took a nap.  Now she is laying down, in theory taking a nap but she has willing taken a bottle and even managed a smile.  So I'd say we are on our way.  I'm planning to start her on the antibiotics this evening to clear up the infection.  We are told to expect a bit of a rough week but now that she is drinking we are out of the woods for any serious worries.

Ashton is happily enjoying a sleep-over with her cousins so hopefully we'll all catch up on our rest before she comes home tomorrow and be ready to start another week.  I'm on day 3 of the antibiotics myself so I'm also hoping to be feeling better by tomorrow.  

Thanks to all for the well wishes, cards, flowers and cuddly bears.  I will write a different post about our Disney Princess on Ice adventure as I promised Ashton I'd include some photos and this post was getting too long.

Ashton turns 5

Taking after her mom, Ashton has had a most excellent birth week celebration. Her birthday was on a Thursday this year so she celebrated from Thursday through the weekend. This had Judy making more then 50 cupcakes and 3 different cakes for the series of events.

There was a cake on her birthday, cupcakes at her school on Friday, cupcakes at her kids party on Sat and a beautiful Barbie cake for her family party Sat afternoon.

Jacqueline, not to be left out, also requested a "blue Dora cake". Judy delivered on that request as well much to Jacqueline's joy.

The kids party was at Safari Run. Here is a group photo of the kids. It was a lot of fun for Ashton to have so many friends celebrate with her. Lots of running and playing was happening. Jacqueline was thrilled to be joining in, especially since she was supposed to wait until she was 3 years old to participate. In fact, she couldn't attend this group photo because she was too busy climbing the structures with her dad.

A big bonus for this years party was Grandma and Papa Terry were here to celebrate. Terry is back from Iraq (we hope for good of course) and they are out for a few weeks to visit and celebrate the birthday. Cute photo huh?

On my side, I'm already enjoying five years old. The independence is wonderful and I'm still amazed at everything that Ashton can do on her own. In addition, the gifts for five years are very Barbie-focused. Which means that you can store a lot of gifts in a much smaller space. A great help for our small house.

I really can tell we are about to enter a new phase and I think we are all planning to enjoy it. We are back in ballet on Saturdays and also starting a parks and rec dance class next week. Kindergarten sign-ups are week after next. The times they sure are 'a changing. Can't believe that I have only one toddler in the house!

Park City ski trip, Jan 2008

Yes, we did another successful ski trip.  This was especially successful in the fact that Jacqueline did not get sick.  As you can see the girls were happy to test out their snow gear in the condo itself.
Both cousins came along this year which was really nice for Bob and Meg.  It was not good snowman snow though, we went out to try and just kept falling into the snow up to our knees but could not get the snow to stick together at all.  It was too dry.  You can tell what California girls we all are since none of us realized this was even a possiblity.   

Jordyn took her first snowboard lessons and did real well.  Ashton also did ski school this year and was very pleased with her "report cards" which made her dad very exited.   She has managed to do "10 turns in a row" which sounds pretty good to me.  

Jacqueline was too young for ski school so she spent most days home with her Tasha (except the one day Mom stayed with her so Tash could snowboard).  She did, however, become very proficient in hot chocolate drinking, which I'm sure will come in handy at some point.  Also, I should mention again that she stayed healthy and happy the whole trip which was such a huge bonus.  She even managed to get a nap on the day that mom stayed home.  Turns out that mom is boring and she is happy to nap when I'm around.  Tasha, on the other hand, is way too much fun to sleep through!  Below is a photo of what a happy and healthy Jacqueline looks like.

Ashton enjoyed showing off her nice ski thermals.  Mom was happy she had good gear since this was a COLD trip.  Most days were in the high teens or low 20's but with either snow or windchill or both.

The highlight of the trip was getting to ski with our friends Vic, Lisa, Dan and Ruth and having Dan and Ruth meet our kids.  Of course I didn't manage to get any photos of the adults but we all know what we look like anyway (which is the same as we have for the past decade at least of course!).    

Ashton was very anxious to get a birthday cake for Dan who had a birthday while we were there.  Turns out the rest of us were ok with eating it as well.  In addition, Tasha and Jordyn watched the girls while we all had a wonderful adults-only dinner one night.  What a treat to eat dinner at a sane pace and even drink a few glasses of wine.  

All in all a wonderful trip, we came back tired of course but happy (well at least the three girls are happy, Bob is still not so happy he isn't going back this week).  Next trip is scheduled for March but I'm guessing Bob will be doing some skiing in between.  He even brought home his old outfit and some gloves to consider a mid-week trip to Tahoe once of twice.  Stay tuned.

Christmas '07

As I'm sure you guessed Christmas '07 was a very fortunate event for the Bear girls.  As you can see they left Santa a nice note with milk and cookies and carrots for the reindeer.  In fact Ashton's name is also on the note but the photographer didn't position the card correctly to show that.

The wagon (and the hat and gloves) have already gotten some good mileage in the weeks after Christmas.   The wagon was from Grandma and Papa Terry.  The hat, gloves (and matching sweaters) were from the Chicago cousins.  The big Santa gifts were a "my first dollhouse" for Jacqueline and a "Baby Alive" for Ashton.   Bob did attempt to negotiate that Ashton could change her sisters diapers if she wanted a baby to wet itself but somehow that didn't stick so now we have yet another butt to change in this house.

While the Tj Berrytales was Jacqueline's gift I think it is Ashton who appreciates the stories more.  Jacqueline keeps pushing the button to play the music much to the irritation of her sister who was mid-story.  This was Jacqueline's gift from Grandpa Bob but it's ok that Ashton likes it too since Jacqueline is over the moon about Ashton's Black and Decker workbench and power tools.  Lots of things are regularly being built and fixed in this house now.

Christmas dinner was also great -- thanks to Judy of course -- we had an excellent ham dinner and wonderful dessert of Yule log.  We also managed to get a nice neighborhood walk in with the wagon since the weather was gorgeous.  We are truly blessed.

The Bears 2007 Christmas Letter

So by now you've realized that I've moved to an online version of a Christmas letter. The first reason is, of course, that its easier to do, no more stuffing envelopes and extra lead-time for the holiday cards to get color copies. Those of you who noted the lack of a letter last year might have realized that two small kids just took the wind out of my sails for pulling a letter together.

The second reason, is to make more people aware of this blog and let you find out as much (or as little) about the year in review as you want. To that end, I am going to focus this letter on the christmas season and let you read prior entries to catch up on things like easter, halloween, etc (if you haven't been bored to tears of course)


Chrismas season is, of course really just kicking off but its the nature of the Christmas card that requires you to pre-report your plans. Our plans this year are delightfully low key. We are going to be home for both Christmas and New year this year. We've moved our ski trip to the second week in January to extend the vacation season for ourselves and I'm guessing this might prove the new tradition for us. Not rushing out after the holiday sounds pretty plesant to me right now, we'll see if I'm right to feel so optimistic about it with the ski report entry. I am a little concerned about what we are going to do with Jacqueline for the ski trip though, she isn't going to be excited about the idea of everyone going skiing and she is not. I'm still trying to figure out the story there. Ski school requires you to be 3 and a half and potty trained so there is no way she can go this year.

As you have noticed from the photo we managed to decorate outside and in already. Since we are only in the second week of December I'm personally impressed with this accomplishment. All credit goes to Bob as this year he did the whole thing himself with my only participation being keeping an eye on Jacqueline to make sure she didn't jump off the wall and/or run into the street. Trust me that was a full time job.





Last weekend we also did our Breakfast with Santa at the gym. While this was not a relaxing breakfast for us (we can always hope for next year on that front) it was cute to see Ashton tell Santa that she wanted a doll and her sister wants something Dora. Jacqueline made it very clear she didn't want Santa to come anywhere near her so Ashton took it upon herself to make sure her desires were covered as well. Very sweet!




Of course they also had to play in the lockers, I did toy with the idea that they would be fine in there by themselves but decided that maybe someone would frown on that idea. After breakfast the girls went to the children's center so mom and dad could get a work out and recover from the festivities. Made for a very nice day for all involved.

Turns out that this holiday has Ashton with the biggest social calendar. Not only is there the school party but also she is going to see two different shows without any of us. She is going to see the Sippy Cup Band with Judy and Julianna and to the Nutcracker with [neighbor] Dan. This year she is still going to pre-school M-W-F and has just taken up a gymnastics class on thursdays to keep her busy. While she is not reading, Ashton is very interested in words and has begun to focus on sounding them out. She is also surprising both Bob and I with how she is transitioning out of any glimmer of a baby. It's still hard for Bob and I to get used to the idea that she doesn't miss anything that goes on around her. It certainly makes planning Christmas more complex as I need to have places to hide things in our small house.



Jacqueline, of course is fully into her twos and has been anxious to have her opinions heard (!). Her current response to not getting her way is a combination of tattling on whomever is not doing her bidding (daddy wouldn't let me play with water) and running away yelling. I guess its a slight step up from throwing herself on the floor and banging her fists but only a very slight one. So far the rest of the family finds great humor in this show which is probably not the desired response. Jacqueline not in pre-school this year, instead she goes to a music class on wednesday and we are testing her out with a gymnastics class also. Last week was the first week so we are still not 100% confident it will "take". She likes the climbing and tumbling part but not so much following allong with the rest of the class part. Still too early to tell if she is going to catch on to the point or if we are just wasting our money with the idea.

Bob and I are both happy and blessed to have had such a wonderful year with our girls. We have enjoyed every minute of their baby years (even the bad ones) and are looking forward to see what 2008 will bring. We wish you all a wonderful holiday season and look forward to catching up with each of you when we can. Feel free to leave a comment on the blog and let us know how your holiday was, we'd love to hear!

Love,
Bob, Meg, Ashton & Jacqueline Bear