Being creative!

When it was a little warmer outside I decided to take the kids to the park so that we could get out of our house for a little bit!! It ended up not being as warm as I thought and we were only able to stay for about 10 min. However in that 10 min they had a GREAT time! Sometimes all it takes is just 10 min. at the park to have a good time and as you will see later in this blog sometimes you have to be a little more creative! :)

One thing I noticed is that he is braver then he was in the fall when we would go to this park. He would climb up these stairs all by himself. I like that he can do this all by himself however it did scare me a little! Visions of when I was a child came rushing back. I was at school on the jungle gym and fell off of them all the way from the top! I was fine except I chipped my two front teeth and my dentist had to fill them in!!

This little girl had a blast swinging!

After the park the kids still wanted to be outside but we were sheltered from the wind in our garage. We took wagon rides in our garage and they loved it! :)


We put Brody's new scooter together that he got for his Birthday (thanks Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Brandy). He loved riding on it!

Kaylee is at the point now where she will walk anywhere as long as she is holding on to something and when she wants to! :) Here she went all the way from the living room to Brody's room by holding onto the wall. :) As soon as she makes her mind up that she can walk she will. :)

Brody and I decided to do a Science experiment with a marshmallow.
Our Thesis: How many things can you do with a marshmallow.
We melted one, froze one outside, stuck one in water and felt it, ate a lot, played catch with one, tried to make baskets with one, and had spoon races with one.
Our Conclusion: Turns out a lot!! Brody's favorite one we did of course was eating them!! :)

Brody and Ja went outside while the snow was falling and he got to feel some ice that was on our tree branches.
Wow mom look at this icicle!

Some fun moments at our house!

Little miss Kaylee Jo is 11 months old! Wow!! I still can't believe that I am planning her 1st Birthday Party! She is just growing way to fast! She is doing so many things now and is really just a lot of fun! I love how she will give her baby dolls and stuffed animals a hug and point to their eyes, mouth and nose. She also loves to read books! I can set many different toys out for her and she will always go for the books first, she can say and recognize the ducks in every book! She also has found a fascination with dogs lately (one day she might be good friends with Jasmine because they have this in common). Each day it seems like she is picking up on new words to say (even though she still has not said mama yet!!), it seems like she is enjoying playing with Brody more and more, and it seems like her hair is growing and getting thicker. :) She is such a fun little girl!

Kaylee and I like to play in her room while Brody is at preschool. It seems like when he is here we are playing in his room a lot or wherever he is. :)

This picture was taken awhile back but I just had to put it on here because it is so funny! He was having a blast jumping off of this chair! I tried to get him to jump on some pillows but that was not as much fun! Boys!

Yes that is marker on his face!!! We were playing with some very fun and cool window markers (I highly recommend - they come off with Windex - thanks Aunt Holly) however when I was in Kaylee's room changing her diaper he was up to no good! He knows that he is not supposed to do that but I guess he was just to intrigued with what he would look like with a blue mustache. Yes he did get in trouble but I had to snap a quick picture while giving him a stern look. :) I don't think my stern look was helping because look at that smile! I was glad that he decided to mark on himself rather then the walls or something that would be hard to clean.

Here he is sitting in time out for what he had just done. This picture makes me smile because every time Brody is sitting in time out Kaylee wants to go over to him and play with him. :)
It reminds me of when I would get in trouble and my sister would come and try to comfort me and make me feel better. :)

We pray that they will always be this close!!

Christmas Part 3

After Christmas we were able to do "Christmas" with Jason's family. We had a great time with them! Every year we do an annual Christmas picture of the family. It is fun to see how much it has changed and grown in the last couple of years! Each time it gets harder and harder to get everyone in the picture, much less looking at the camera. Below is this years family pic. :)

What a good lookin family!

Here is Kaylee and Luke "playing" together. She loved his play mat and always wanted to go over to it and check it out.

Lilly got a little people bus! How cute! I am sure she is going to love playing with this and the little people will be going everywhere in the bus! Soon she will be pretending they are going to go to the mall in their bus! :)

Brody got this really cool drum set from Grandma and Grandpa. He really likes it and we have many concerts with it! Now he has the microphone, guitar, and drum! It is a regular one man band!! Lilly thought it was a lot of fun as well! Holly and Ryan you are more than welcome to borrow it any time you want... maybe when the new baby comes........ :)

I think this picture of Traber is so cute! He looks so cute in his little vest! Little did he know that as he slept he was getting some great toys that I am sure he is going to love playing with as he gets older!

Brody got some very fun Buzz Light Year wings! Now he runs through the house holding his Woody doll while pretending to be Buzz Light Year! So cute!

Forget the toys just give the girl a bow and she is happy and entertained! :)

This picture is cute of the kids playing with their toys they got from everyone!

Here is another cute little guy!! We were so glad that we got to see Luke again so soon!! He had changed just since we had seen him last at Thanksgiving! While he was here he got to see his first snow!

What a cute family pic!

Another cute family pic!

Brody went sledding in the front yard --- or should we say Jason pulled Brody around the front yard!! He does not really like the snow - which he has got to get over so that he can love skiing like I do!

Since there was ice on the ground it was very fitting that Grandpa and Brody play Brody"s new game Don't Break the Ice.

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Christmas Part 2 of 3

On Christmas Eve day we all loaded up our cars and went to my grandparents house to spend Christmas with them. It was fun having the kids put out cookies and milk, have Santa, play with their toys, and open presents just like we did when we were growing up.

Here are Drew, Brody, and Kaylee in their Christmas PJ's on Christmas Eve. The funny thing about this picture is not how the pictures turned out, but what we were doing to make the picture turn out! We had to do some good entertaining to get the kids to stay there and all look in the general direction! :) I wish I would of gotten a picture of us making a fool out of ourselves just for memory sake! :)

Here is our fam all wearing our Santa hats. :)

Eric, Amy , and Drew

Marmee and Pops with their grandchildren!

It is a tradition at our house to put out cookies and milk for Santa. This year Brody really wanted to put out chocolate milk for Santa so that he could have a change from all the regular milk that he was going to get. :) Funny little boy!

Christmas morning the kids got lots of good gifts and have enjoyed all of them! One of Kaylee's favorite is her puppy that says her name and sings songs to her! It is really a cool toy for someone like her who loves that kind of thing! I love that you can personalize it and that it talks to her. It is a great car toy!!

Drew got lots of fun gifts as well and one being this wonderful book! It is called Peek a Moo! It is great for children Drew and Kaylee's age and will soon be one of their favorite books! By reading this book so much to Brody when he was a baby he learned all of his animal noises! You can tell by the look on Drew's face that he is going to love it as well! When Kaylee saw Drew reading it she had to come over and listen to Uncle Eric read it!

If you asked Brody what he wanted before Christmas he would say a Woody Doll that talks when you pull the string. So you can imagine his thrill when he saw one from Santa! :) So cute!

We took a generational picture with my Grandparents. It was a lot of fun to be at their house and have our children there with them. I think they had a good time watching the kids open all of their toys, playing with them and riding on Santa's (aka Brody's) sleigh!

Kaylee is really into baby dolls now. It is funny how she just knew to hug it and love on it! It is so cute to see her crawl to her baby doll, pick it up and give it a hug! I captured this moment of her with her new doll she got for Christmas. Does it get much cuter than that! :)

Brody got a microphone and guitar for Christmas and we all put them to good use rocking out to all the different songs that are on there and singing along with them. Here are Pops and Brody playing with them.
Here Brody and I are having a blast putting on a show for everyone!

Now he is a true rock star!
We had a great Christmas and enjoyed spending time with our family!!

Before Christmas-

Well it has been awhile since I have last blogged- it is so bad that I still have pictures of things we did before Christmas that I need to blog about. It has been very busy around our house and I decided to take a break from blogging, however I am back now and ready to update our blog with what we did before Christmas, and all the fun celebrations we had with our family's! This post I am just going to concentrate on what we did before Christmas. Brody was really into helping put up all of our Christmas decorations this year! He loved helping decide where things should go and help me put the ornaments on the tree.

This year was Brody's first Christmas program! I loved watching him up on the stage and was so proud of him for doing such a great job! He had to memorize a poem and sing two songs up there! He did great and could say the poem with the actions perfectly!
Marmee and Pops came to see him perform.
So did Aunt Brandy, cousin Traber, Grandma, and Grandpa.

Kaylee and I went up to party with him and his class for his Christmas Party.
Kaylee really wanted to eat some of Brody's food --- lucky for her, her big brother does not eat much and she got to share some of his yummy snacks with him! :)

We took a family outing to a church in town that puts on a great light show! It was fun for the kids to walk through the lights and see all the different things.
It was really cold outside so we were not able to stay long. Next year we are going to have to go earlier when it is a little warmer outside!! :)

Visiting Santa-
It looks like Brody is not enjoying sitting on Santa lap here and in the pic below- but don't let him fool you! This is all he could talk about for days and many times he has pretended to be Santa and will want Kaylee to sit on his lap and ask her what she wants for Christmas! :)
This picture is not the best but the one I got from Bass Pro is much better! If you have a bass pro by you it is a great places to take the kids to see Santa because it is free! Yes everything is free- even the picture they give you and they let you pull out your camera and take one of your own! Kaylee did exactly what we thought she would do- she took one look at him and started waving her arms and puckering up! :)

I don't know how I got such a great picture of him in front of our tree but I just love it! What a cute little guy!
I tried to get a good one of him and Kaylee in their Christmas outfits but she was not having any part of that and wanted to crawl over to me. This pic is funny because Brody is trying to hold her there! :)
Even though I really don't like how this turned out it was the best I could get. :)

Stay tuned for more Christmas Posts! :)