Happy New Year!!

Just thought I would share some after Christmas fun that we have been having....just to keep the blog exciting :) Here is Super Hero Lilly!! Hayden got a book about a super hero boy that came with a mask, but Lilly thought it was pretty neat too. :)

Loving his paints. He has to paint at LEAST 2 times per day!!
Still loving baby dolls and pushing around in the stroller.

Also, didn't get a chance to take a picture of the actual making of Christmas cookies because our camera battery went dead, but here is Lilly in the cute little apron Randy/Pete (secret Santa) gave to us. I have an adult size apron/mitts that also go with the set. Thanks!! Both Lilly and Hayden loved wearing it this season. Lilly liked to pretend to feed the gingerbread man apron, and Hayden liked to try and tie it around his head so he WAS the gingerbread man!!

Close up of miss Lilly (aka cindy lou who) :)

Hayden got a sit-n-spin for his birthday from the White's and then Lilly got one from the Wagenblast's for Christmas. We just kept one, but it has been lots of fun!! Lilly is actually figuring out how to work it all by herself!! Not getting dizzy yet, but I'm sure will be soon!!
Hope everyone has a fun New Years Eve!!

Merry Christmas!

We had a fun Christmas this year at our house. Hayden and Lilly loved every moment of it!! It was fun just to get to watch their excitement in all the things we did. This year, we had Mark's family at our house. Here is Hayden helping grandpa put together the Christmas puzzle. He loved getting the little pieces together.

Christmas Eve bringing milk for Santa

Excited about Santa's cookies and reindeer carrots. I think they both wanted to try some!
This picture is out of sequence, but Hayden got a Handy Manny helicopter that he could put together. Notice the baseball hats.....Hayden noticed on the box that he wears a baseball hat, so step 1: put on hats before putting together the toy!!

Here is Santa's big present to Lilly and Hayden. How did it fit in his sleigh??
Loving it in the morning!! Can you tell??!!

Just staring at the stockings in AWE!!

Pretty excited about the bean bags too. These were our gift to the kids. I had made them, and hopefully they'll get good use out of them!

Lilly didn't mind hers either :)

Having fun in the tent.

I think Lilly was having fun! She had her hands full all day...she couldn't carry enough! She carried around this giant candy cane in her mouth most of the morning. Good thing it still had the wrapper on!

She also got a baby doll from Santa and stroller from grandma and grandpa and a knitted blanket from grandma great and LOVED them!! We were opening presents all morning, and Lilly was in her own corner, in her own little world just pretending with her baby all day long!!

"ho ho ho" is what she would say when she or anyone else wore this hat.

Playing with sword and studying the knights

Playing with her tea pot

Mark made a special display box for grandpa's flag and all of his military pins/purple heart for grandma. We did miss grandpa this year!

Knight Hayden ready to play

Feeding baby doll

Pretending to be baby doll!

We got a Wii from Colleen and Ryan!!!!!!!!!! Can you tell we were enjoying it??

Both kids had a fun weekend with grandma great too!

Uncle Ryan loves legos, and displays them at his office. Colleen got him a truck lego, so Hayden had a fun time "helping" him put that together.

This is just a funny picture if you zoom in on it.....What is grandma great teaching Hayden????? She was actually teaching him the "where is thumbkin" song, but Mark thought it would be funny to take a picture while they were on the "tall man" verse :)

It was a fun weekend! We are planning on going skiing (just Mark, Gary, and myself) tomorrow, so that will be a fun ending of the festivities. I think New Year's will be a little quieter. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Happy 3rd Birthday Hayden!!

Today is Hayden's 3rd b-day!!! I can't believe it! He is growing up to be such a big boy, talking all the time and always thinking! We celebrated on Friday with the family. We had a snow man theme. Here is the "king" ready and excited for his guests to arrive!

Decorating snow man pancakes
Playing pin the nose on Frosty. Hayden had to make sure Lilly was doing it right!

After the game was done....who got the closest??
Eating the birthday dinner

Birthday boy Hayden and Robin with Grandpa Gary

Snow man cake

Hayden the Fireman!! He LOVED this outfit that momo got him

We even got a perfect surprise visit from Santa and the firemen in their decorated fire truck! Hayden was wearing his fireman costume...perfect timing...not even planned!!! Can you believe it??

Lilly wasn't so sure about Santa....again...but at least he keeps giving her candy canes every time she sees him!

Lilly and her baby doll....she usually has one in her arms at all times!

We had a fun night, and I know Hayden did too! Merry Christmas...only 5 more days!!!!!

December For Us

I still haven't been able to figure out my scanner for the professional Santa picture, but thought I would post some of the other things we have been doing this month. We finally got a tree last weekend (it felt late, since i'm used to getting one the first week of December), but we love it and how it smells!! Hayden also loved helping to decorate. I couldn't put the lights on fast enough, as he was ready for ornaments!! Here he is after helping mark put on the star.

Decorating. He LOVES the nutcrackers this year. He was scared of them last year. We have agreed to letting him play with ONE per day (and 2 on his birthday). That way, he isn't constantly taking on/off ornaments. I caught him playing with a nutcracker and 2 of the soccer player ornaments that we didn't put on the tree this year, laying on his stomach and playing with them like action figures.! He just reminded me how BOY he really is!!
We had 1 good day of snow, but then it warmed up and rained it all away. The kids "helped" me shovel though and LOVED being in the snow, although Lilly had a hard time moving! She learned quickly to be careful, since she wasn't able to get back up without help.....kind of like Randy in "A Christmas Story".

Making snow angels

This week we got to go down town to meet up with Amy and the kids and Momo and Papa for lunch and Santa's lap. Here are Hayden and Robin cheesing....and of course Hayden is looking to Robin to see how she is smiling. He loves his cousin!

The group

Lilly loved going and sitting on Papa's lap. Even his grin doesn't scare her anymore!

Lilly saying hi to baby Jake

The 2 kids working on using their chop sticks

Safe and sound after seeing Santa