Christmas Pictures!

So I wasn't going to upload pictures until later on but got kind of antsy so here they are! :)

Our tree!

My three kiddos opening presents on the 23rd...we did our family presents plus the presents from my parents before we left for Des Moines!

Kate just wasn't sure what to make of this paper you rip off of toys! :) She had such a fantastic first Christmas!!!!

Yummy!

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa!!!! I love my piano!

I LOVE my gator golf Grandma and Grandpa!!!!!

Grandma and Grandpa....my robot is AWESOME!

Helping their sister out! She was still fascinated with the paper!

Santa came to Des Moines! :)

The Optimus Prime Chris has been asking Santa for since LAST year!

Daniel got his own Tag! Santa is so smart! :)

Kate's first stocking was full of stuff!!!!!!

Love Little People!

What did Santa bring???

The cousins! :)

Takes after her mommy!

Making cookies with Grandma!

Kate with Uncle Bill!

We went to a reception for a friend of Greg's who got married out of town and this is what Kate wore! :) She looked ADORABLE!!!!!

Well, that is just a few of the hundreds of pictures we took over Christmas!!!!! :) There will be more to come later on! I have TONS more of Des Moines....I will get those up tomorrow!

Happy Holidays!

I know this post is a little slow in coming but I really hope that everyone had a very magical Christmas! :)

Our Christmas was great! We spent the time in Des Moines with Greg's family and the cousins had a blast playing together! :) Kate spent a lot of time trying to crawl...she can't quite do it but she manages to get around slowly in some mysterious way! :)

The kids had fun opening all of their presents and most of them were out of the packaging by the end of the day! It was actually easier to take things home that way! :)

We are now at home and I'm hoping to get the pictures off of the camera sometime soon. This season always reminds me of how blessed we are as a family...the five of us have a great extended family and phenomenal friends...we really couldn't ask for anything more!

We are spending the rest of Christmas break here in Kirksville and this weekend will get to spend 4 days together since we are out of school and Greg will be off of work! :) Who knows what we will do but I'm sure we will have fun doing it! :)

Hope this post finds everyone healthy and happy and here's to a brand New Year!!!!

Pictures from the last month....

So I've become very bad about updating the blog with pictures! These are pics from the last month...I just took them off of my camera today! :) Enjoy!

My three munchkins!

My dad and John messing with Chris!

A sweet picture of my middle man!

Someone CATCH!!!!
My sweet little sleeping girl! :)

Chris learning to tie his shoes! :) He can do it!!!!

Our first big snowfall of the year! Daniel wanted to go out and eat snow like Charlie Brown...he said it was yummy! :)

Chris tried clearing off the driveway but it proved to be a little much for him! But he sure gave it a good try!This is as far as we've gotten in the crawling department!

The Rubik's cube is the new big thing at our house! :) Daniel likes to mess it up so Greg has to fix it! Thank goodness they put the directions in with the cube these days!

Our first ice storm of the year....hopefully our last!

Kate wants to play Mario Kart! :)

Daniel got so many great things for his birthday and his reaction to each was exactly like this! :) This is the only one I managed to catch on the camera though...go figure! I need to work on that!

I think the thing that he looked forward to the most was blowing out his candles...he didn't really eat any of his cake but he liked the way it looked and LOVED the candles on it! :)

There we go! A great hodge-podge of pictures all from the last month! I took more off of my camera but these were some of the best ones! :) Have a great night!

Happy Birthday Daniel (posted a day late!)

So my little man is now THREE!!!! I just can't believe it!

We had a great day yesterday celebrating his birthday and tonight is going to be special as well when we celebrate with friends! :) Our schools even let out a couple of hours early due to an ice storm that was headed our way so I got to have a couple of extra hours with my birthday boy! :)

I sat last night and looked through my photos of Daniel when he was born and the three years since then and I just am amazed at how time flies...it seems like just yesterday I was swaddling him, changing his diapers, trying to figure out what in the world it was that the kiddo wanted! And who can ever forget that cleaning the garage is what threw me into labor...I don't think Greg will ever let me live that one down! :)

Now he is three and we are out of diapers, he is fully capable of telling us what he wants (and he doesn't hesitate to do so!) and when I watch him, I realize what a big boy he's become!

Love you my little man! Your daddy and I are so proud of you and love you more than I think you could ever know!!!! :)

Hours old....

A year old...

Two years old...

Three years old...how much you've changed!!!! :)

Christmastime is Here!

So it has taken me a little longer than usual to get fully into the Christmas spirit...not sure why but it just has. I am the type of person who has her house decorated the weekend right after Thanksgiving...lights outside start getting turned on, the tree decorated, cookies baked, and presents bought!

This year though I've been moving through all this a little slower....we do have our tree up and decorated and the house has various Christmas decorations up. Several batches of cookies have been made but not the stockpile that I usually have going by now. The lights are on the house but half of them aren't working right so they have yet to be turned on at night. A lot of presents are bought and some are even wrapped but I'm still struggling with what to get several people so I'm not done with my shopping yet!

However, this is all slowly changing! We had an amazing time at a Christmas party Friday night with all of our friends and seeing the kids' joy at opening presents and the friendships that have been formed over the years really made me realize how blessed we are.

We have family and friends who love us and who we adore....we have so much love in our lives. We are truly lucky. Everything else is just icing on the cake! :)

Have a wonderful day and stop back by soon!

Update on us!

I have some pictures to post later on but here is a quick update on what we've been up to!

* The flu has run through our whole house...it started the day after Thanksgiving and by Tuesday, we had all had it. Then to top the whole thing off, poor Chris also got strep throat. To say the least it's been an odd week of working partial days and keeping random combinations of kiddos at home! Thankfully though, everyone is now healthy and we are hoping to stay that way!!!!

* We finally have our Christmas tree up and decorated! :) Not much else is decorated but we are taking it one day at a time! :)

* Kate has cut two teeth!!!!!! FINALLY! She's been working on them for what seems like months and they have just barely cut through! Whew!

* Chris learned to tie his shoes on Monday (right before he got sick!) and he is thrilled with his new skill! There is still some frustration with it when it doesn't work quite right for him but we are working on it and he's doing a great job with it!

* Daniel went and got his hair cut...still screamed but the process went faster than it usually does AND he let them get around his ears and the back of his neck. Definitely have a long way to go before we are happy with haircuts...man oh man....

Other than all of that things are pretty status quo around here! :)

The kiddos are anxiously awaiting Christmas as are we! :) Have a fantastic Holiday Season and check back soon for pictures!