Even More Christmas!

Our third (and final) Christmas was with Grammy and Pops (my parents) and Uncle Kyle. It has thrown me off a little to be celebrating Christmas on New Years Eve, but it works!!

The kids got a kitchen, shopping cart, and cash register from my parents. They were a hit! The kids drew Pops pictures for his desk... and got Grammy a coffee mug!

Uncle Kyle got Brayden some Ariel jewelry. It was a hit!!!

He also gave Kennan a K'nex/Lego building set and they worked hard to put it together!

Preparations for our New Years Eve celebration have begun! The kids are helping Grammy make "clock cookies". Kennan got the idea from Max and Ruby...

Do they look like clocks?

We plan on celebrating a New York New Years Eve since Kennan plans to stay up until midnight. Should be a fun night!

More Christmas Fun!

Our next Christmas celebration was with Grumpy and Lala (Kenny's parents) and Uncle Chris.

Sweet kids!

Kennan got a Fisher Price Smart Sports. He calls it his Wii...
and he loves it!
Brayden got her very own Leapster. She is to young to really play the games, but she loves Kennan's so she decided she needed her own. Santa left it for her at Lala and Grumpy's.

Uncle Chris and Katherine got Brayden a camera...

she is still trying to figure out how to take pictures!
Helping Grumpy open his present...

Playing games with Lala on the computer.

Thanks for a great Christmas Lala and Grumpy!

Christmas Fun!

Well, it is New Years Eve and we have just celebrated our third Christmas! Our first celebration came on Christmas morning with our family of 4 at home. It was the first time we celebrated at our house since we have been married. It was wonderful to not feel rushed and to spend time with the kids.

Santa was good to us!

We spent Christmas day evening with some friends and enjoyed a Mexican food feast. After church on Sunday we headed to the metroplex to visit family!

More Christmas Eve!

Before we went to church tonight, we let the kids open a present - their matching jammies to wear tonight. Here is the before...during the excitement of opening the present...

And here is the after...when Kennan realized it was just "boring (his new favorite word) clothes" and not a toy... However, Brayden loved them!

Ready for church!

All ready for bed (in above mentioned jammies). By this point Kennan had decided that these were his new favorite jammies because they are so comfy!

Tracking Santa (He was in Canada!!)

Putting out reindeer food!

And now all is quiet. The kids are in bed...having a slumber party in Kennan's room. Kenny is at church preparing for the 11:00 candlelight service. And I am enjoying the peace and quiet and waiting for Santa!! Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Eve!

The snow began to fall yesterday afternoon. At the first sight of it, we bundled the kids up and headed outside. By the time we got out there the snow had stopped. A few flakes fell here and there and the kids tried to catch them on their tongues!

This morning we woke up to what seemed like a blizzard! Lots of snow and 40-50 mph winds! Makes for a cold day!

We have spent the morning in comfy clothes, watching Christmas shows, drinking hot chocolate and reading stories!

For the Record...

Having a stomach bug when you are 28 weeks pregnant (or any time for that matter) is NO FUN!

Today was Kennan's Christmas party at school and I was called on Monday to call the other mom's and organize it. Okay, I can do that. Well, go figure I get sick and can't go.

This is where my incredible, superman of a hubby steps in. He takes Kennan to school at 8:30. Then he comes home from work and makes 18 PB&J sandwiches (which for future reference was entirely too many). He loads up the car and takes Brayden with him to the 10:45 party. Then he brings everyone home and heads out to speak at a luncheon. After the luncheon he comes home and spends the rest of the day with the kids...

All this to say I am grateful for Kenny and the kids...that I was able to rest on a day when I wasn't feeling at my best! And no worries about Grayson. I believe he has been more active today than any other day!!!

Getting Ready for Christmas!!

If I posted more often, I wouldn't have a post like this one with 15 pictures!! We've been busy preparing for Christmas!

Decorating the tree with dad.

Playing dress up (a constant around here...Christmas or not!)!!

Our town has a "Soup with Mrs. Claus" every year. We have soup or chili and then get to visit with Mrs. Claus. The kids love it!

After soup with Mrs. Claus is the parade downtown. Here we are with some friends!

An (unsuccessful) attempt at a family Christmas card picture. If you get one from us this year, you will notice this one didn't make the cut!!

We had an Advent Fair at church this year that was sooo much fun! The theme was "A Candy Cane Christmas" and we talked about the meaning of the candy cane and brought it all back to Jesus. Here are Kenny and Brayden making a beaded candy cane ornament for the tree.

Reindeer Kennan working on a bookmark.

Singing Christmas carols/hymns...

More dress up (or dress down is more like it)!! This girl loves to have on the least amount of clothing that I will let her get away with!

Watching some Christmas shows...

Painting!!

And finally, the biggest surprise for me may look like nothing to you...

We got carpet in the kid's bedrooms! Our entire house is hard wood or stone. To some this may seem like a dream come true...but to me it hasn't been! You can see every piece of dirt or dust, it is cold, and there is nothing to absorb the sound of kids running up and down the halls or screaming! We've been wanting to get carpet in the kids bedrooms since last winter. For some reason or another we never did...but I got home from a day in the "big" town yesterday and my husband surprised me with the carpet! We are also going to get a large rug in the living room but are waiting for it to get bound. Anyway, long story short...we have carpet now, it is super soft, keeps the kids rooms a little warmer and absorbs their noise, and it looks really nice!! (For those looking really closely, it really is just a wall-to-wall rug with padding and non-slip stuff underneath. This way, we can roll it up when/if we move and it won't hurt the beautiful hard wood!!)

Hopefully, I won't wait so long before my next post...but no promises!! What are you doing to get ready for Christmas?

Baby Update

We only have 14 weeks until Grayson's arrival! It seems like this pregnancy is going by so slow, but in other ways it seems to have flown by! His growth and heartbeat are great and we continue to be blessed with an "easy" pregnancy. Grayson is a mover and a shaker...he showed off for the family at Thanksgiving with his acrobatics. My next appointment is on the 21st when I will do the glucose test (yuck!) and hope for great results from that! The kids are getting excited about his arrival...Brayden more than Kennan I think. He hasn't shown too much interest in my growing belly, but I know once Grayson arrives Kennan will adore him and be the best big brother!

Here is my 25ish week belly shot. Excuse the surprised-deer in the headlights look...the belly is all you need to look at anyway!! In preparation for Grayson's arrival, Brayden's transition to a big girl bed has begun!In January, the plan is for these cuties (seen below) to begin sharing a room. Rather than do 2 new things at once (big girl bed and being with brother) we decided to make Brayden's crib into a toddler bed so she can begin to get used to that "freedom". Then in January she will move in with Kennan into a big girl twin-sized bed and the crib will get put back together for Grayson.

Don't worry Kennan was just giving her a good night kiss!

Our First Thanksgiving

Kenny carving the turkey, with my dad supervising!

This was the first year we have hosted Thanksgiving at our house. We even used the china we got for our wedding...to use for the VERY FIRST time (after 6 years of marriage!!!).

Brayden and her Grumpy waiting in line for some Thanksgiving food!

Us with both families

The entire Thanksgiving Day crew from my mom's side of the family...

On Friday, we enlisted the help of our families to decorate our house (inside and out) for Christmas. It was great to have so much help! Here is my brother adjusting the bottom of the tree and the tree skirt. It looks like our tree has legs...really long legs!!

Kenny, my dad and brother working on Christmas lights and cleaning out gutters.

Uncle Kyle teaching Kennan how to play basketball...

Reading Christmas stories with Grumpy...

We had a really great Thanksgiving! It was nice to have family at our house and the food was super yummy! The only downside began happening the day after Thanksgiving and has continued through this week...6 people have come down with strep throat. YIKES! Not a fun thing to share with one another!