Welcome to our blog!!

Hey All!!

This blog has officially turned into the Marlin Family Blog!! I starting blogging awhile back but got out of it for awhile. We hope to update this blog weekly and post pictures and updates on our family!

Life is good for us right now! Our plate is nearing it maxmium capacity lately, but we're handling things just fine! We plan on updating our blog weekly, so check back soon! In the meantime, enjoy some fun recent family pictures!

Hope you're all having a good week!!

-The Marlin's

holy buckets...

Hey All!!

It has been awhile...oofta! :-) The everyday adventures of life have been keeping us busy and away from blogging!
Things have been good for us for a change!! Even a couple BIG *NEW* things too that we're all enjoying and loving!
First things...Julia is walking!! It sure makes me feel old when i know both girls are off doing their own thing or playing together and that they both get around just fine now. But it's a sign that they're growing up and thats a wonderful thing too!
Secondly...Kira is POTTY TRAINED!!! holy cow i never thought this day would come!! It's insane! She finally decided that she's willing to give it a try for us and she took right off. Now her favorite thing at the store is buying big girl underwear! but hey, i'll trade that anyday for buying diapers and constantly changing a diaper on either her for Julia! Now it gives me more motivation to start earlier on Julia too. I want her potty training adventure to go a little smoother than Kira's.
Thirdly...I decided to go out on a limb and buy Tom a little more expensive birthday present this year. I got him a new LCD TV. It's a lot bigger than our last 27'' tv. But it's wonderful! We LOVE it. It makes playing wii and watching TV so much more fun on a big screen! Good times! And most importantly, he loved it! i got him some smaller gifts too cause the TV really has been enjoyed by us all!

Easter is quickly coming up!! Isn't it amazing how fast spring is taking over! I love it. Our garden is VERY plentiful this year with all sorts of flowers! I can't wait for them to really take bloom and brighten up the yard. We got some new lillies that I had planted last year from our neighbor and they rooted well and are coming back up already this year too! It's so nice!
We're heading down the Marlin's for Easter this year. All of Tom's brothers and the wives and aunts and uncles and grandparents are going to be there too. It should be a good time. It's really a great family to celebrate Easter with. It's truely getting together and never forgetting and always remembering what we're really getting together for! And thats whats most important.

Well...time to sign off for now!!

Take Care!!

Have a Happy Easter!
HE IS RISEN!!!!!!!!!

a heck of a start...

While I had great resolutions and great intentions, this new year hasn't started out the way I've wanted it too. I know things don't always work in our favor but things can truely start to turn around any day now in the positive direction...

It all started out with Tom being sick. And man was he ever sick. He had the typical flu like symptoms. Never good for anyone. Day 2 brought us Tom continuing to be sick. Day 3 brought us Tom and Kira being sick. Thats right...both of them now. And at this point I attempted to stay healthy. I worked so hard to keep sheets and blankets clean to make sure we didn't continue to pass it around our house. Day 4 came...Tom's back to good health somewhat but had absolutely no energy from being wiped out. And ALSO our furance broke. We had to call someone to come and paid them a lot of money to get this special part in and then get it fixed. Day 6 came - so far so good. We're making positive steps in the right direction. Day 7 - Yep...I got nailed with this flu bug! Day 8 - totally out of comission and spent what felt like my entire day in the bathroom. Day 9 - back to life but weak beyond belief. day 10 - well...while I'd like to say that things are starting to look great again, I had my beautiful daughter come tell me her tooth hurt and so I looked and sure enough, she has a loose tooth. Day 11 - well...thats today! I'm a little worried about the immediate future because while I'm feeling "okay", my stomach is a little on the queezy side and its rumbling...ALOT. So we'll see how this day ends!

So now onto more of a positive note...

On the flip side, we had our first volleyball game this past Wednesday!! While we didn't win all 4 of our games, we had an AWESOME time!!!!!! Our team has some close friends of ours and we had fun and managed to win 1 of the games. We were close matched teams and all the games were really close so its not like we totally got creamed but it was a great time anyway. The other team was really fun and we were all having a great time with it!

Tom is flying to Colorado on Sunday for awhile. While I'm very excited for him and very jealous at the same time (i would LOVE to go with him!), I'm nervous as to what the week is going to hold for me and the girls. I'm going to miss his help terribly and going to be both mentally and physically exhausted from my two wonderful daughters! So I need prayer to help get me through the week. Its going to be tough not having a break but I know I can do it. It'll be a great test of my patience and probably leave me stronger in the end. And I'll be trying to prepare for Julia's 1st birthday party that week as well, which may be a bit challenging. :-) We'll see!! Maybe things will go alot smoother and better than i'm predicting!

Well...I have things to get done and work to finish. I have to go call the sedation dentist to possibly check out Kira. (yeah...thats right...sedation dentist. our last dentist experience with Kira was NO GOOD!!)

Hope you're all doing well!!

Its been awhile...

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!

I've been slacking on my blogging...with the holidays and birthdays and get togethers, it was hard to stay on top of it! But i'm back!! :-D

How was your holidays?! If it was anything like mine, it seemed to be non-stop busy. Oofta. We spent Christmas with Tom's family a few weeks before Christmas and then with my side of the family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We had a great time with everyone. We were very blessed with wonderful gifts and lots of great company. We drove back home up to the Cities on Christmas Day night only to be welcomed home to a driveway FULL of snow! I had originally told Tom that I didn't want to shovel on Christmas Day but shortly after we realized just how much snow there was, we didn't have a choice. We begun our shoveling venture and our neighbor Jim, who is completely awesome, came and plowed our driveway out which led us to get to celebrate our own little family Christmas. It was a great time! Kira LOVED opening presents this year. She was much more into it. Julia on the other hand, she had no idea. She liked the paper and then that was it for her. She just wasn't into it. :-) We had a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year's party too. We had a get together at our house that was filled with food, video games, board games, pop, kids, etc! We had a few close friends over and had an awesome time. I'll be honest though, i did take a nap with the girls before midnight rolled around. i'm getting too old to stay up that late! ;-)

I remember when I was young and in elementary school that the teachers would always have us make a list or pick one New Years resolution. Nowadays, it seems like people don't do that anymore but it still doesn't stop me from thinking about it. My New Years resolution this year is to lose some weight. Unfortunately, i'm still hanging onto my pregnancy weight from Julia. In the end, I would LOVE to lose 40 pounds. That would put me back at the weight I *want* to be at. I'm going to start trying alot harder to get those pounds off now that the holidays are behind us.
Another one would be to take some sort of vacation, but we'll see if that happens.

Tom and I are going to be starting our volleyball league up starting this week!!!!!! I'm very excited!! We are very blessed to have a wonderful babysitter that is going to watching the girls for us so for the first time in a few years, we'll both be able to play. I'm very excited!! it starts this Wednesday and i'm already giddy about it! :-)

We'll soon be celebrating our little Julia's 1 Year Birthday!!!!!!! I can't believe how fast time has gone!! We're going to be having a birthday party at the end of month for her!! It should be a great time!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope you're all doing well!! I hope we keep in touch more!! Also, we have intentions for this blog to turn into a Katie AND TOM blog to keep family and friends in our Marlin loop! : -)

Take Care!!