Christmas Day 3

Great news!

William is starting to tell jokes.

And Grandpa Kevin is responsible

While we were staying with the grandparents, we had spaghetti for dinner. William either really likes spaghetti or will NOT eat it. No inbetween. Of course, this evening was a WILL NOT EAT it kind of day.

So, Grandpa was making conversation with William in an attempt to distract him.

Grandpa said "Do you know what I like about noodles? They are so noodley!"

William stopped complaining for a minute and then completely cracked up. And then repeated the joke 400 times.

Interestingly (probably only to me), he is able to transfer this joke to other things. If I ask him : Do you know what I like about water? He'll respond: It's so WATERY! and laugh his head off.

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Outfits! I found these Candy Cane pants at a garage sale for a quarter. I totally love them.

Amelia's funny face...
Chewing on the finger...

The Second Day of Christmas

Wintery outfits!

William helping daddy put away the ratchet set after spilling it everywhere. There are a lot of pieces in there!

Antlers! How fun!

12 Days of Christmas

I love Christmas time. I adore Christmas music, the family gatherings, the cookies, the decorations and cards. It is so fun and a little emotional for me that William is finally old enough to participate in some of the fun activities. In preparation, I stocked up on Christmas attire for everyone. I think both kids have enough to compete in a 12 days of Christmas outfit competition. Maybe I'll get pictures to post every day for the next 12 days. Am I up to the challenge?

Here is Day One: Santa attempt #2! Santa was invited to the last day of our preschool session. Santa is a teacher at the high school where the preschool is held.

Here is William in his red Christmas sweater. He would NOT sit on Santa's lap, but agreed to sit with the preschool teacher and talk to Santa.

Talking to Santa about trains
William, Amelia with Santa (and a preschool teacher)
Amelia checking out Santa

And! We decorated a Christmas tree for the first time at our house! We always travel for Christmas and it has always been so much work to put the tree up just to take it down again when we come home after New Year's. This year, for the first time, it was WORTH IT. William was so EXCITED! Very fun. Although we ran out of branches after only half of our ornaments were put up. Bummer.

I Wish

William is currently singing "I'm the nap, I'm the nap, I'm the nap!" (from Dora the Ex.plo.rer)

He means to be singing this song.

But, I'd be heaven if it was a prediction for this afternoon.

UPDATE: success!

Over Thanksgiving, Amelia started making this face. It has taken us this long to catch a picture of it. My family reports that I make a similar face at the kids when I am being silly. I don't think I look like this though...do I?

Finally home...ahhh

We're finally home! It was wonderful to visit with family, see my cousin's beautiful wedding, have a date with some of our friends and help my mom Christmas shop. But, now it is back to reality!

I have all kinds of Christmas things to be getting done and a week less than usual to do it! ACK!

Anyway, on that note, I though I would share some pictures of Amelia's first snow this week (12/3/09).

Her first response: What is THIS?

Upon hearing William squealing, she took off crawling to check him out
Studying the snow...

Of course, it required a taste (see the snowstache?)
Happy girl!

What IS this?

Worth another taste....


Off to explore

Brr! I'm cold!

Standing is better than sitting in that cold stuff!
Pretty snow baby

William trying to catch some flakes

Santa has fallen! HELP!

Wedding/pizza crust

12/4/2009 Amelia had pizza crust for the first time. She loved it.

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My cousin, Ashley, got married the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Minneapolis, MN. Because of the distance, I elected to stay in MN with the kids for the week between Thanksgiving and the wedding to save the stress on the long trip with the kids.

Before the wedding, I called Ashley to see if she wanted me to come early with my camera to take some extra pictures of her and her sister getting ready together. Ashley thought that would be great as they weren't planning on having a photographer. I was instantly promoted to head photographer. A fun (and stressful) job! Sadly, I was so busy making sure I hit the shots for the bride and groom, I didn't get any pictures of my immediate family. Luckily, other people did.

The wedding was held at a tropical themed restaurant in the Mall of America called Kokomos. The couple invited their guests to wear their tropical themed attire - which we thought was very fun (and why you'll see my kids wearing summery clothes on a day when the high temperature was 18 degrees.

Uncle Mike and Mia. I hand made Amelia's headband flower to match her dress...and then I didn't even take pictures of her cuteness! She loved the leis people were wearing!

My mom and Mike - I handmade my mom's flower also :) I am so crafty!

Kelly the wonder photographer! I hand made the flower I am wearing in my hair :) Kelly the wonder crafty photographer.

William had a handmade flower also, but you can't see it very well here. Megan is to the right of William in this picture. Megan was my assistant today - which meant that she helped me EVERYTHING. Her biggest job was keeping Amelia happy while I was shooting pictures.

And because this sign made me laugh when I saw it while driving to the wedding : CONCENTRATE ON DRIVING. No kidding, people.

And, finally, if you interested in seeing the pictures I took of the big day, I made a quick (nothing fancy here) slide show of some of the pictures below.

Friends, Santa

Visiting in Rochester is always a lot of fun. This week we were able to spend a little time with our friends, the Gaedkes. The kids played together and the moms visited. It was perfect. Or as close as it is going to get for a few years.

Cana (WOW! Hasn't she grown?), William (who insists on holding his sister like this even though she can sit up on her own) and Amelia (who would like nothing better than to crawl away)

It is HARD to get three kids to look at the camera at the same time!

Thanks for hosting our fun playdate, Cana!
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From this morning at breakfast:

William: [crying]
William: I hurt my dimple (points to the general cheek area)
William: I hurt my dimple when I fell down.

Rudolph was a bust. We saw the previews on TV for Rudolph and Grandma asked if William could stay up past his bedtime to watch it with her. I agreed with the stipulation being when it gets scary with the abominable snowman, it needed to be turned off.

Rudolph starting

Look! Rudolph!

William lasted about half an hour until the scary abominable snowman made an appearance and then it was time to be done. Maybe next year we'll get a little more in.

We also caught up with our old pal, Santa. William was NOT interested in going anywhere near him. He wouldn't stand anywhere next to him, so this is the best we could do. Luckily Amelia wasn't phased one bit about being plopped onto a stranger's lap. She took a few minutes to check him over before deciding it was a good idea to play peek a boo with the photographer.


The last important person we got to see was Cindy Rapp. Cindy used to do daycare for me and my siblings. On top of that, she and my mom were friends. I spent a lot of hours at the Rapp house growing up. There really isn't a good way to explain how special it was for me to introduce MY own kids to Cindy, a wonderful woman who cared for me when I was small. So, I won't try to explain it. Just know it was a special moment that I will treasure.