Snow day ♥

MaKenzie and I knew it was going to snow and we anxiously waited to wake up and see if there was snow outside. Kenzie was more than happy to see snow outside, she ran to tell Titan and we had to go get bundled up and play in it. The snow started melting so fast that I felt bad they couldn't play long, although they didn't seem to care too much. They played with the little snow there was! Since they didn't get to play long I told them we would drive up the mountain and check out the snow up there. When we were on our way to turn up the mountain Arek suggested going down a different trail into the mountains. We went into the Huachuca Canyons and it was beautiful. We didn't realize how much snow there was! After driving back there and seeing there was plenty of snow to play in, we decided to go home get their snow suits and go back out. It's only a 5-10 minute drive!

I wasn't sure how Titan would like being bundled up since he goes back and forth, but he loved it. He loved playing in the snow with MaKenzie, they had snow ball fights and enjoyed every second of it. We took Kera and Rocko with us the second time, too. They had a blast. Kera is in love with the snow and could have played out there all day with the kids. (although we are sure she missed her boyfriend zeus!!!!) Rocko is a great dog and stays right with us or right with Kera and had fun too. Kera played fetch in the creek most of the time, she was so pretty to watch run and leap. So neat! Rocko tried to keep up but started to get a little cold and just wanted to snuggle!

I took lots of pictures that you can see posted in my albums. The kids had fun walking around in the snow, building snowmans, throwing snowballs, eating the snow, throwing sticks for Kera to fetch, making snow angels and just sliding in the snow on their butts. I could live out in the snow all the time. I think it is so gorgeous! We are now curious what the canyons look like without all the snow, they have camp grounds and everything. Definitely neat to have right here on base and glad we found it!

Christmas ♥

After our hero being in Iraq for the last two Christmas' we couldn't have been happier to have him home with us this year. It was our first Christmas together as a family of four! We got settled into our new house and put our Christmas tree up right away along with the rest of our decorations!

When we were still in Las Vegas, Aunt Dot bought the kids their Christmas outfits and we took them to see Santa Claus. MaKenzie was all about it and couldn't wait to see him. She knew exactly what she wanted to tell him. Titan liked the idea of it but once we got in front of Santa he clung to daddy for dear life! It was precious. We ended up taking a family picture with Santa and made sure Titan was not on the same side as Santa! haha. We saw him again at the mall and kmart, Titan waved from a distance but didn't want to go near him. MaKenzie was just bashful every time we seen him :)

Our Christmas Eve traditions have changed since we moved away from Vegas. I miss our Christmas Eve nights at Aunt Dots, but we are making new traditions as a family. We get to open one present each on Christmas Eve, and that's our new pajamas :). We pick them out for each other then for the kids. We bake cookies for Santa and watch a Christmas movie. The kids absolutely loved every minute of it! They couldn't have been more excited that night knowing Santa Claus was coming to bring them presents!!!!

Christmas morning was the best. The look on their faces opening all their presents was priceless. They were so excited and so thankful for everything they got! They had no idea how many presents they were getting either. So when they saw how many presents they had they were shocked! They loved opening them though. MaKenzie hugged and loved everything she got. Titan loved everything and would smile big and say YEAH! or WHOA! It took a couple hours to open all the presents, take them out of the boxes and set them up. Then we went outside and played for a few hours, while we were out there the power went out and ended up staying off for 8+ hours! We had to go to Carl's Jr. for dinner instead of making our Christmas dinner. We loved just spending time with each other and didn't care about the power. We had a camp out in the living room and snuggled and watched a movie on the laptop til it finally came on around 10pm.

Later that night, some of our family came into town! My mom, Harley, Porsche and Antonio came here for five days! It flew by, but we loved having them here! (thank you guys for coming!!!!)

We hope everyone else had an awesome Christmas. Since we were in the middle of moving and getting settled we weren't able to send out Christmas cards this year. Thank you to everyone who sent us one though! We appreciate it :)

Happy Holidays, hope everyone has a SAFE New Years. We are staying in and spending it with each other watching the countdown and fireworks via television! haha. Happy New Years to all of our family and friends :)

Family of eight ♥

After moving into our house and seeing we had such a big backyard we agreed on getting another dog. We have been wanting one for a while now, but had to wait until we got settled here to see what it would be like. Kera also needed another dog to play with. She has missed Zeus you can tell! They always played together and burnt their energy out on each other! So we got Rocko at the animal shelter in town. He is a six week old Australian Shepherd. He is an adorable puppy and the kids love him. Kera loves him and already wants to play. Rocko rather snuggle. He adores MaKenzie and I. He follows us everywhere. We take him to the park with us and he chases the kids around the whole time. He is adorable and a perfect addition to our family :)

I did want another baby to make us a family of eight but that will just have to wait a little while. Now is not our time!

Our new home, Ft. Huachuca, AZ ♥

So we have been here for 5 days! So far we are loving everything about it. We arrived in the afternoon on the 7th and went straight to look for our house. We were anxious to see what it looked like. After driving around for almost an hour with no luck we decided to go find the Army Lodging and check in. Arek asked them for a map of post and then we found our house on the map, which we had drove right by several times :) haha. The street cuts in half and has two different names but we assumed it was all the same. Anyways, we found our house, but it was dark out. We still got a great idea of what it looked like and were able to see inside through most of the windows. We fell in love right away! We explored some of base and Sierra Vista, then went back to our hotel. We were suppose to see our house the next day at 2:30 but Arek was able to move it up to 10:30. We did our walk through and of course accepted it. It is perfect for us and huge! We love the tile floors through out the house. The arch ways for the living room/family room are neat! The backyard is HUGE! Kera absolutely loves it. The bedrooms are all great sizes. In the kitchen, hallway and bathrooms we have sky lights. In both bathrooms we have a heater switch, and makes it nice and cozy when we shower! Every single room has a fan with its own switch and a light switch that is a dimmer. We love it! We have an interior and exterior storage room, both which are huge! We have a built in desk area which is nice! We also have a big front patio that we want to buy some furniture for. We bought a new dining room table the day we got our house. It is a six seater (4 chairs and a bench) we love love love! The view from our living room and guest room of the mountains is GORGEOUS. I love it. I feel like we are right on top of them!

The movers came on the 9th. It took them a few hours to unload everything then took me a few hours to unpack the kitchen, the kids rooms, the living room and dining room. I didn't finish our room until the next day. Which was yesterday. I finished our room and hung up all the pictures, put some toys of the kids together and my new desk together. Today I went through all the boxes of toys and extra clothes that don't fit the kids. I have boxes to donate which is nice! We needed to get rid of more toys. The kids rooms are perfect. Kenzie's is 100% girly and Titan's is all boy! I love it :) We are very blessed with our munchkins!!!!

We have bought rugs for the living room, dining rooms and kids rooms. We still need a few more and need to go curtain shopping soon. We also need a bed for our guest room then we will be all set :)

We are getting familiar with base and Sierra Vista. Sierra Vista is a cute city. Has a lot of places we are familiar with that the east coast didn't have. Some of the town reminds me of Las Vegas. We went to the mall last night. It is smaller than we are use to, but it's nice. The only thing I hate it doesn't have is a SUPER wal mart! I miss that, but the prices at the commisary are nice and I can still go to Wal Mart for everything else!

Well I have uploaded pictures on facebook. I will upload more soon and update again soon :)

Road Trip and Vacation!

Our road trip from Fort Drum to Las Vegas was a long one! We started on the 15th in the afternoon. The first day we drove for about 25 hours straight to Brush, Colorado. The kids did great and so did Kera and the cats. We were surprised. It got a little hard for Arek and I getting no sleep, but we did it. We got to visit for the afternoon and night with Grandma Connie and Papa which we loved! Then we were off the next morning to Utah, only 2.5 hours out of Las Vegas, but we needed to get some rest and wanted a full day to visit everyone. We finally arrived to Vegas in the morning on the 18th. We loved visiting everyone while we were in Vegas! We felt like we were going non stop for two weeks but it was nice to see everyone since it had been 9 months since our last visit to Vegas. We celebrated MaKenzie's 4th Birthday Party at the Freel's house which was perfect. She had an awesome birthday party and got so many presents. She loved being able to celebrate it with Family and Friends! Thank you to everyone that came! She also got a separate little birthday party the next day with my best friends and their babies! More cake and presents, she loved of course :).

We had a blast visiting everyone! Wish we had more time to visit, but now we are only 7-8 hours away and will love to visit again soon and have friends and family come visit us :) Our home is open!!!! Just need to get a bed for the guest room ASAP :)

It's the little things...

We took MaKenzie and Titan bowling last week. Titan had not tried bowling yet, but this time we thought he should give it a try. He was excited when MaKenzie put on her shoes, and wanted some of his own.. so we thought why not? They have a six pound ball that Kenzie lifts just fine, so we thought Titan shouldn't have a problem. Sure enough he carried it like it was nothing. They have a ramp for kids to help them bowl. The kids took turns back and forth bowling. They had a blast. It was fun for us to watch them. They are both getting so big. They are the best of friends and really love doing things together. It is crazy how time flies, but this is such a fun age for them both. For Arek and I to teach them new things, watch them explore, what them learn. It's priceless!! We get so much joy out of watching them laugh and smile and just be kids!!

First day of fall!

Is it really close to the end of September? I can't believe how fast this year is going by. The weather here is looking beautiful. I am enjoying fall so much already. The leaves are changing colors, the breeze is nice and we are starting to drop back down to the sixties. I am going to miss this season when we are in Arizona!! It has become my favorite season. Winter is right around the corner! I can't wait for the snow. I am going to miss that when we are in Arizona too. Speaking of which.. we are moving in less than two months. I can't believe it. We are getting excited and anxious. We are leaving here on November 16th. We are driving straight to Arizona to sign in for housing. Then coming to Vegas to visit! We should be spending Thanksgiving in Vegas, which will be nice.. we have missed a lot of the holidays with our extended families! Can't wait to see everyone!

Titan is turning two next month. I feel like I just had him!! He is becoming such a big boy and definitely a toddler now. Although, he has hit the terrible twos stage which isn't as fun! haha. He can be all happy and playful, then one thing will tick him off and HELLO TANTRUMS! Yeah, not very fun, but it happens right? Just a stage!! Him and MaKenzie are doing great. They are both getting excited for Halloween, we are already seeing so many decorations and looking at costumes for the kids. It should be a fun year with both of them walking and saying trick or treat!! MaKenzie had the queen size bed in her room, but we decided she would be happier with a bed more her size. So we bought her a pink toddler bed and she loves it. She does great with sleeping in her own bed. She is getting anxious for our move to Arizona. She knows she will be starting school down there and she can't wait. One of the kids favorite things to do is go swimming. We take them to the indoor pool weekly.. they love it. Titan loves playing in the kiddy pool. He also loves the big pool as long as his life jacket is on. MaKenzie suddenly starting doing great with swimming. We are teaching her in the little pool how to kick and swim underwater. She is doing great. Soon we will be putting her in the big pool without her life jacket to teach her there. She loves it and will be swimming in no time!

Arek was gone for a week at the Warfighter Competition in Fort Leonard Wood. Him, Hunter, & Brennan were a team going against thirty three other teams. Their competition was three days long. On the first day alone, seven of the teams fell out. They finished every event and did amazing. I recieved many phone calls from Stevens Wife (their trainer) saying how amazing they were doing, how Arek keeps the team motivation up and was the beast of the team that just kept going no matter what! They ended up placing 11th. I couldn't be more proud of him for even being chosen for the team, competing and placing instead of falling out. They did amazing and have a lot to be proud of. From what I heard the things they had to go through were outrageously tough. I can only imagine! I could never ruck with 75lbs on my back for 68 miles!!

Other than that, not a whole lot going on. Now that Arek is home and done with the warfighter competition we are focusing on our move, and him starting to clear next month! We are just staying busy with the kids and are enjoying our last fall, then winter here in New York, we will definitely miss it!! Although we are definitely looking forward to the summers in Arizona!

We hope everyone else is doing good!!

I have posted a lot of pictures:

((newest on the last pages))
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e380/shelbyandarek12/0UR FAMiLY

I have also posted new videos:
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e380/shelbyandarek12/0UR%20FAMiLY/ViDEOS/

Love to all,

The Brock Family ♥