Conner

Conner of course loved all the boxes and paper! I like this pic of him enjoying some cardboard! Feet straight up in the air!

Christmas Spirit

They love each other!!

Cool

Okay, as you can see I have posted several new pics this morning. It is Christmas AM and I couldn't sleep past 6 am and i went to bed late ( for me) at midnight! As my family well knows, I just get too excited Christmas morning and I just can't sleep. I am actually surprised I slept that long. I do work tonight so i should probably try to get some more sleep but oh well. This year it is a little different. Usually, I am SO anticipating my gifts but this year I just can't wait to see how excited the kids get ( well Kaitlyn at least). We haven't pushed the Santa thing because she just wouldn't understand it yet anyway so we didn't do the cookie thing or presents from Santa. We intended to go to the candlelight service but Conner wasn't having it. He went to sleep about a half hour before we were to leave. So we just stayed home and read the Christmas story! What a beautiful story! We are so blessed to know it!
This pic is of K opening her stocking stuff. At the bottom of the stocking she found a new pair of sunglasses. She didn't take them off the rest of the night. She opened a few presents with them on, she walked in the dark to the neighbor's house with them on and she looked through her new view finder with them on. She is so silly! She did try to go to bed with them on but I had to put my foot down.
Alright enough for now. I am sure after I get some good shots today, I will post more.
Merry Christmas to you and your families! May God's amazing peace be with you this coming year!

Kissing Neighbors

Kaitlyn is after a younger man! HA! She is just infatuated with our neighbors. We went over to give them their Christmas gifts last night and when we went to say goodbye, Kaitlyn handed out her goodbye kisses. She is very affectionate.

Prayers

Kaitlyn loves to pray! We pray before all meals and at bedtime and then some times sporadically throughout the day when she feels the need. Lately, with her eyes closed she starts listing off people for us to pray for (daddy,nicknessmimi, our neighbors cat, baby). It is so funny because she is adamant about us always praying for our neighbors (nicknessmiminick'sdad) this would be nick, vanessa, amy and nick's dad. She wants us to pray for them every single time we say prayers. I really have no problem with it but it gets old and maybe God is speaking to her little heart. I let the neighbors know that if they feel extra blessed they can thank Kaitlyn for it! I have given up saying their names and just add in "neighbors" so I can cover everyone! Kaitlyn will keep her eyes closed and hands folded for the longest of prayers. I have a hard time actually praying because i just love to peek and look at her while she is looking SO Innocent. I love these kids to pieces!

Crawling

Conner has been crawling for well over a month now. He is SO fast! He is still doing the low crawl but i really can't imagine him going any faster on all four. He has been attempting to get up on all four though. Conner thinks it is so funny!

More Snow????

It is only mid December. Winter hasn't even hit yet. We do live right close to several beaches but this definitely isn't San Diego. I want to still have fun outside. Even though the weather isn't warm we can still play in it. I just have to continue to invest in really warm dry clothes. We had fun outside. It has been snowing all morning. We already have added another half foot of snow to our several feet. Kaitlyn is really starting to take to the white stuff. We had our snow ball fight and ooppps i hit her square in the face. What kind of mom am I? Kaitlyn was struggling to walk in the stuff. In the backyard we have several feet of snow! We were taking running leap and jumping/falling into it. Great Fun!!

2 1/2 years and 9 months

We had a good time at the mall today despite the crowds. We first went to Sears and took pictures. We were there just last week taking a family photo (which i can't display on here because Tim doesn't want his pics all over the Internet :) ). So we returned today to get pictures of K now that she is 2 1/2 and Conner is now 9 months. They did really well. We attempted pictures with Santa but neither were buying it!! Both were screaming and at first I thought i would get one of Conner but then I can't believe how much they cost!!! It was like $25 . Crazy!!! I do hope to get at least one since it is his first year and all but who knows. I don't plan on going back to the mall anytime soon!! Can you believe Christmas is less than a week away. Another Crazy! After Santa, We went and ate in the food court and then we rode the carousel Kaitlyn doesn't totally understand that when the ride is over we have to get off. So I had one kid in each arm marching out! Other than that they were basically angels which is not the norm for them in the mall. They were even patient with me while i returned something at Macy's ( which had a huge line). Good times today!!
These are a few of the pics we took today however I took pictures of the pictures with my camera so they aren't the best quality but you get the idea.

I'm a big kid!!

Look how mature this kid is getting. He likes to eat cookies and he like to cook with Kaitlyn in Dora's kitchen. He can move that kitchen five feet from the wall. He is SO strong! He loves eating from the array of food available. Kaitlyn likes to serve him different entrees. They can crack me up!! Such a delight!

Proud Moment

Kaitlyn takes pride in her work! She loves her easel. She gets so close to her drawing so she can make it just perfect. In this picture, she is drawing our neighbors. Move over Picasso!!

First of Many

This is the first ornament Kaitlyn has made on her own! I am sure it is the first of many many to come! She found a special spot on the tree for her artwork! I love it! We have all of Tim's ornaments on the tree that he made when he was little and now we will start our own collection that one day maybe Kaitlyn's family will have on her tree!

Zoolights

Last night we went to the Zoo to look at all the lights and Santa's Castle. It started very very rough. Stressful when both kids are screaming and everyone is staring at you. They would walk by and say "it's cold out here". They would say it like we were torturing our kids for having them out in the freezing cold. It was more like they were torturing us with the crying. They both wanted to be held. So as you can see i didn't get many good pictures this time!! Oh well. Live and Learn!!

Preparing

We are suppose to get a couple more inches of snow tonight. Kaitlyn was out on the porch helping Daddy prepare. She was trying to scrap off the ice/snow that was left from last week's storm that blew through. Now that she has her special snow boots she is gun ho about getting out in the snow. I told her they were special boots for crunching snow. Before the boots, she was scared to walk in it. Thank God for those boots!!

Polar Express

What a fun night!! We went on the polar express to the North Pole. We sang carols, colored in books, listened to the story from the book Polar Express being read as elves walked around showing us pictures, ate cookies and drank hot cocoa, and then the big treat was picking up santa at the North Pole. He road with us on the train back to where we started. He spent time with each child and they each got a little bell to take home as a momento. The kids all loved it. Kaitlyn was swaying back and forth for much of the ride as we sang our little hearts out. Even Tim and I enjoyed the ride. It was about 45 minutes to the North Pole and then 45 min back. The only problem we had was waiting in the cold for 45 minutes before we could get on the train. Thank God it wasn't snowing as that time. Both kids were champs through it all and both really enjoyed the trip. As you can see Kaitlyn still isn't sure about the guy in red. She was clinging on so tight. The closer I got to Santa the more she pulled. A good time had by all!!

Graduation Day!

This is Kaitlyn's first Graduation in little life!! There are many more of these days to come! How exciting and scary! She swam the entire length of the pool...back and forth! She was awesome! We are so proud of her. Daddy is going to miss saturday mornings in the pool.

Skipping naps

Yesterday was the first day Kaitlyn has gotten to skip a nap in a long time. Kaitlyn's neighbor friend, Vanessa, came over for four hours to play. They had a really good time. Kaitlyn has started to learn how to stand up for herself.

Just hanging out!!

We had a low key day on tues. We were just hanging out at home fooling around with play dough and hats! These are the best days!!

Practice photos

Well since it is a snow day, I thought we would try some practice photos! They went pretty well as you can see. I now know that I won't dress them both in red and I better wait until Conner's little nose isn't so tortured! I tried using the edit function with this new apple. It turned out okay except as you can see in the last picture I tried to fix his little nose and somehow I erased his whole nose. OPPS!!!

Let it snow!

So last night and this morning the snow was beautiful! It was beautiful until Tim had to use the new snow thrower before he left for work. We had a snow day so no school for Kaitlyn this morning. She missed last week also so I wonder how she will be next monday. I'll keep you posted. We got about 4 or 5 inches. I was able to show rachel this morning during ichat! I wish you all had it so we could talk!

other friends

Conner was making friends on his own. Now that he is crawling everywhere, he enjoys making new friends. This snowman is his most recent buddy!

Friends under the tree

Kaitlyn thought her babies and friends would like to have a family shot under the tree! She took her time positioning them just right for the picture and then she had to approve the picture!

It's maggie time!!

So our lovely neighbors get to go on another vacation!!! Makes me want to get away. They are in a very warm place... lucky bums!! This allows us to play with cats everyday! Since Tim is allergic, we will never have any of our own so this way we get a cat fixed! Last time we cat sat, Kaitlyn would call for the cats and then when they came she would hide. This time she is going right up to them, feeding them and playing with them. What a difference a couple months make! So for the next week, we will bundle up and run over to the neighbors for maggie time!

5th Swimming lesson

We started swim lessons with the intent just to get Kaitlyn in the pool with other kids and Daddy was looking forward to it as well. We really didn't think she would learn too much but she suprised us this week. She kept pushing Daddy's hand away and saying "I do...I do". For those of you that don't really know K, she is a little cautious ( Tim is trying to change this a little.....some cautiousness is good). Well, this week she was out on her own. She was kicking her legs and moving her arms, she was blowing bubbles and just smiling with pure delight. It was great!! Next week are the last lessons for the year. We are going to try to join the Y so then we will get into more classes.