One more post before we leave tomorrow.

Here's just a quick picture update from our week before we leave for MD tomorrow. I have been crazy busy trying to get everything together for the holidays and I'm finally done (except for packing)! Yay! Now, it's time to relax and enjoy this time of year. I'm so excited for this next week and a half! So many fun things to come - I'll try to update the blog as we go along so I'm not overwhelmed afterwards. :-)

On Sunday afternoon, were trying to take the kids to do pottery but it was too busy so we changed plans at the last minute and went to Jump Zone. Maddie, Noah and Eli jumped with the dads while Mason, Kylie and Cole hung with the moms. It was lots of fun!

Maddie and Noah

Waylon and Noah coming down a big slide - Noah couldn't climb up the big ones so Waylon had to carry him!!

Maddie, Noah and Eli



A few cute pictures of sibling love. Noah loves saying hi to Kylie when he gets home from school.




And Kylie likes hearing Noah's stories about his day. :-)

A cute outfit for Kylie - this was supposed to be a Christmas present but I couldn't wait to put it on her. :-)

One more update. Kylie had her two month appointment on Tuesday (two months already??). Here are the stats:

Weight - 14 lbs, 6 oz!!! - >95th percentile

Height - 23 1/2" - 75th-90th percentile

Head - 39 cm - 50th-75th percentile

So far height and weight are on track with Noah - head is smaller. We're hoping that will help with all the tumbles when she starts walking. :-)

Holiday Activites

This has been a very fun week. Thursday night, we had Noah's annual Christmas play with his school. This year, it was The Polar Express, so they all got to wear their pajamas. Noah was so excited about it all day. We went to dinner beforehand with Maddie and family and Stella Dot and Amy. The kids were wild with excitement. The 'play' was so cute. The older kids essentially read parts of the book and in between parts, each class is paraded in and sings a song. Noah's class sang 'Jolly Old St. Nicholas'. He was jumping up and down and clapping up on stage. It was so fun!

Ready for the show

After dinner

Noah's class - he's in the second row with the Santa hat on


How adorable is this?? :-)

Mason (Maddie's brother - in red)

he started daycare this month, so he got to participate, too!

As his class was walking out, he saw me and came running over.

After the play, enjoying refreshments

Kylie had fun watching.

She did really well and was awake the whole time.

Waylon got off work early on Friday so we took a family trip to the mall. We got some shopping done and had dinner out there, too. On our way out, Noah saw a stuffed dolphin that he said he wanted, so we said we'd tell Santa about it. He was okay with it at first but as we walked out of the mall, he got really upset about it. We kept telling him we'd tell Santa and he'd say (weeping), 'You will?!?' He's been talking about it all weekend, too so I think Santa might just have to bring it for him.

Saturday was a very exciting day. In the morning, we ran some errands and hung around the house but got Noah down for an early nap because we had tickets to the 2:30 showing of.... Disney on Ice!!! We've been telling Noah that we are going but don't think he really got it unil we showed him some You Tube videos of it. He was glued to the computer and was so excited. We were suprised he went right down for nap early. Last minute, we decided to ask some friends to babysit Kylie. We were originally going to bring her with us but decided it might be a nice special outing for Noah if we took him alone. Two of our friends (both named Meagn) came to keep Kylie and they said she did really well. We had a BLAST at the show. Noah was so excited and our seats were great. I teared up during the opening act just watching Noah and how excited he was. It's funny how exciting it was for me and Waylon - oh how things change having a toddler! :-)

Ready for the show



Watching - we had great seats - right behind a divider so he was able to stand and not bother anyone.

A family shot at the end of the show (Noah wasn't happy about leaving - we should have taken it before the show) :-)

It was a great week and we are so excited about all the other fun events coming before the end of the year.

Our past week

Last week, Grammy came to give us some help and company while Waylon had to work some extra hours. It was very nice to have her here and I was able to get a few things taken care of while she was here. We were so busy, we barely took any pictures, but here's one with her two grandbabies...



While she was here, Grammy bought Noah some big boy underwear. We haven't been pushing the potty training because, well, I think we have enough going on right now. But we are going to start soon hopefully. Noah hasn't shown too much interest yet so we'll see how it goes when we really try. For now, he found a good use for the underwear.... :-)

Grammy also gave him another big boy present - a music box with a train in it. She explained to him that it's not a toy and that he has to be very gentle with it and he's been so good with it. You can see here how much he loves it.

Just a silly picture with a bag on his head...

Grammy left on Friday morning to head back to Maryland before they got snow on Saturday! Waylon had to work part of the day on Saturday, so Nana and Grandad came to keep us company for a bit that morning.

Saturday afternoon, we decorated the house for Christmas. It's really starting to feel like the holidays now! It's so fun to be going through this season with two kids now. It just gets more and more fun each year.

Noah decorating our small tree. He did a lot of it all by himself, it was really cute.

On Sunday morning, we went and got our tree and ran a few errands. After nap on Sunday, we had my company Christmas party. It's a very family oriented event. They have a main ballroom set up and then another small one for the kids. This year, they had movies playing, a popcorn machine, a face painter and someone making balloon animals! Noah loved his giraffe balloon that he requested.

Santa even made a guest appearance at the end of the party and brought all the kids presents! Noah was so excited to see him and kept calling his name in line. Once on his lap, he got a little shy but still was excited. When Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas, he said, 'Presents'. :-)

Kylie got in on the action, too (although she slept through it all). :-)

Santa brought Noah the game, Hungry Hungry Hippos. He loves it and has played it every night since Sunday. Kylie got a Glow Seahorse (like a Glow Worm) - it glows and playes soft music to calm her down. I think she likes it!

A family shot from the party...

Here's a cute one of Kylie from the party.

This week, Kylie and I have been trying to knock out Chistmas shopping. I'm oh-so-close to being done. I can't believe we are so close to Christmas now!

Here are a few pictures from tonight before bedtime.

As for an update on Kylie's sleeping - she's been doing pretty well since Saturday night. Her feedings started spreading out then and she typically goes about 4 hours at night - sometimes as much as 5 1/2. We are starting to try to work out a bedtime routine for her. She gets really fussy in the evenings and has a hard time settling down, so that's still a work in progress. She's so sweet though and I can't believe she's going to be 8 weeks old tomorrow! I forgot to mention that she was 13 lbs, 10 oz at her doctor's appointment last week!! That's crazy! She's fitting into 3-6 month clothes now and in size 2 diapers. I'm curious to see how much she'll weigh at her 2 month appointment next week. We'll see if she beats Noah's record - 15 lbs, 11 oz at 2 months. I guess I just make buttermilk! :-)

Hope everyone is having a good week and is enjoying the holiday season as much as we are.

Thanksgiving Festivities!

Our Thanksgiving started last Tuesday at Noah's school. They had a Thanksgiving feast so Kylie and I loaded up and headed over to join the festivities.

Noah's class

Kylie and Mason at their future school

Noah and his Thanksgiving placemat

On Wednesday, we packed up and headed to the lake for our first trip as a family of four. We took two cars since Waylon came home on Friday and I stayed until Sunday so Kylie rode with Waylon and Noah rode with me (where he could watch a movie on the way up). Both kids did great although Noah fell asleep about 10 minutes before we arrived so that kinda threw off naptime. We thought we might just have to skip nap but around 2:30 or so, I asked him if he wanted to take a nap and even though he said no, he took his paci and laid in the bed. I told him he could just rest and left him thinking he'd come right out... well, an hour and a half later, he emerged! Too funny... I didn't even read to him or anything. He actually did the same thing the next day - actually laid down without being asked that time. Guess he knows when he's tired now.

Once we were there, we gave Kylie a bath in the sink... so cute. :-)

A few more shots from Wednesday....

Thursday was Thanksgivng and boy, do we have a lot to be thankful for this year!! We were lucky enough to celebrate with both families that day. Waylon's parents, Andrea, Sean and Savanah came to the lake and joined my parents and Leah and Casey for a super yummy dinner. They all stayed the night too so it was nice to have some downtime to relax with our entire family. Our actual Thanksgiving dinner was definitely a little different this year. With two toddlers and an infant, it was definitely a little louder and not quite as relaxing but that's what family is sometimes, right? :-)

Some pics from Thursday...

We got my dad to take some family pictures - we so rarely get pictures of all of us together!

Playing on the porch with Granddady

The dinner table - notice the extra decoration under the table! :-)

Brother and sister giving their kids a bath

Friday morning, we just lazed around the house and had leftovers for lunch...

Watching Elmo

Reading

Relaxing with Aunt Ditter

Cousin Love!

More cousin love...

By Noah's naptime on Friday, everyone had headed home except Grammy, Papa, Noah, Kylie and me. Noah took a good nap and we enjoyed the rest of the weekend.

Noah went fishing with Papa and didn't want to give up his worm so we told him he could keep 'playing' with it if he went out on the porch. You can't see it here but he has it in his hand. :-)

After being outside for so long, Papa made him hot chocolate (for the first time) to warm up.

We actually took the boat out for a quick trip, too. It was chilly but nice to get out on the water - and of course, there was more fishing. I'm not sure who enjoys that time more... Noah or Papa!

Saturday night we had Pizza that Noah helped make! :-)

It was a great trip and now we are back to 'real' life - whatever that is, right?? :-) My mom actually came back to our house on Monday night to spend some time with us this week since Waylon is going to be busy and working late. It's been nice having company and getting some appointments taken care of that would otherwise be hard to do with Kylie in tow.

Speaking of appointments, we had a consultation appointment with a pediatiric surgeon about Kylie's hernia yesterday. We have decided to go with the doctor's recommendation and hold off on surgery for now. Most likely, we will end up doing the surgery as it probably won't heal on it's own but they recommend that we hold off for a little while because the chance of recurrence is quite high in infants since the tissues are so thin. They want to monitor her though, so we are going back in January for another check up.

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!