Christmas Fun

From Christmas 2008

We just got back from Peoria on Saturday. It was a great time and lots of fun was had by all! We are now looking forward to Jeremy's whole family being in town tomorrow through the rest of the week for Christmas Part III.

Here's what we did last week: ate lots of yummy food, played tons of cards, Settlers of Catan, and Celebrity, found out all of our Wii ages, listened to screaming children (fun screaming), ate, opened lots of presents, chased after kids, watched movies, watched kids attack Uncle Jeremy, ate, played more Settlers of Catan, shopped just a little, listened to fighting children (near the end of the week), played more Wii, gave messy kids baths, and cleaned up many messes. Did I mention that we ate? Click on the picture to see some more from our fun times.

By the way, Ansley's third round of antibiotics did the trick...so we thought. She was great the entire time we were gone. She slept at night, and was all-around happy. She even began really taking off walking. However, she finished the antibiotic yesterday, and last night and today we have been miserable. We have to take her in again tomorrow. This probably means shots, and the word "tubes" has been mentioned a few times as well. We'll see what happens and keep you posted.

Christmas Comes Early This Year

From Christmas 2008

Our family is traveling to Peoria for Christmas this year. We decided instead of taking so many gifts back and forth that Santa would just have to come to our house early this year. Today was the magic day. We basically pretended it was Christmas day and got up early and opened all our presents. Of course, Ansley still is miserable with a double ear infection (we're on our 3rd antibiotic), Kennedy is on an antibiotic for her cough/runny nose/etc., and I (Laura) spent the morning at a Walgreens clinic to get an antibiotic for a bladder infection. Jeremy has somehow managed to stay healthy though (knock on wood!). Overall we had lots of fun and Kennedy has spent the whole day entertained with new Polly Pockets and High School Musical dolls (the ones she didn't already have!). I bought Jeremy and Kennedy a High School Musical Sing-A-Long game for the Wiii, and that has been quite entertaining as well! Click on the picture above and it will take you to more pictures of our early Christmas. Hope everyone has a great holiday! Merry Christmas!

Not Much Going On

This week has been pretty uneventful. Kennedy's been recovering from Pink Eye and somehow Ansley still hasn't gotten it. She has another runny nose though and didn't sleep well again last night. She is getting her entire top row of teeth right now which hasn't helped either. Kennedy is going to a tea party tomorrow that our junior high girls at church are putting on, and she is excited for that. I'm sure we'll have some pictures to share later. Kennedy did write a letter to Santa this week asking him to come early this year. We'll be in Peoria for Christmas and since my sister and her family are flying there, they don't have room to bring "Santa" gifts too...so we decided Santa would come to our houses early this year...not like 3 year olds really know the difference between the actual 25th or not. So Santa wrote back and said he would come next Friday. I'm sure by this time next Friday we will have successfully destroyed the pretty wrappings under the tree! I guess we did have one event occur this week. Ansley has taken her first steps! She'll take 4-5 steps at a time and then decide crawling is easier. I'm sure soon she'll be taking off and not stopping! Here are some pictures of the girls and I playing on the computer.

KK and Pink Eye

Well, Ansley's ear infection is coming to an end, and now we have a new unwelcomed visitor in our house. Kennedy has pink eye. We are fully expecting it to jump into Ansley's eyes any day now. Fun times. On a brighter note, Ansley has a new word. She calls Kennedy "KK". It's so cute. I'm not really sure how we started referring to Kennedy as "KK" but Ansley picked up on it. The other night (while Jeremy was still gone) both girls slept with me (it was a rough night...and to top it off we woke up to the pilot light on the heater out...the house was 56 degrees) and when we woke up Ansley sat up, looked over at Kennedy, and said "Hi KK!". Those were her first words of the day. Here's a picture of puffy-eyed "KK" and Ansley. Notice Kennedy sipping on some hot tea in her favorite mug with a straw :)

Classic Picture with Santa

Even though we still have snotty noses and what sounds like smoker's cough here at our house, Kennedy was so looking forward to Breakfast with Santa at "her school", or rather what will be her school in two years. Jeremy is gone this weekend, so I decided it would be nice to get out of the house for a hour or two to go see Santa. I realize this is not a super high quality picture, but you can get the idea of how pictures with Santa went. At least Mrs. Claus is happy.

Hide and Seek

The girls found a hiding spot while I was busy in the kitchen. I could hear them giggling from behind the chair. I had to snap some pictures!

Christmas Card

The other night we took some pictures of the girls for our Christmas card. Here's a few of the pics we got. Thanks to Nana for the black dresses the girls are wearing. The red dress Kennedy is wearing in some of the pictures was mine, and the red dress Ansley is wearing (along with the nice bow) is from Denise, my second mother. Thanks ladies for helping us look festive! Kennedy was trying to steal the show and wanted the camera on her most of the time, hence the reason there are much fewer pictures of Ansley by herself.

Pitiful Picture

As promised...Ansley with a double ear infection. Poor baby!

Christmas Cookies

Well we were right about Ansley having an ear infection. In fact, it was a very bad double ear infection. After 2 pretty much sleepless nights between her, Jeremy and me, we were able to get her into the doctor Monday morning. After a couple of doses of Amoxicillin she is doing much better! The poor baby was not herself yesterday...it was pitiful. Jeremy took a picture of her I'll have to post when I can.

Today, Kennedy and I cooked our first Christmas cookies of the season. Notice I didn't say bake. I don't think opening a rectangular box, removing circular shaped dough with reindeer imprinted on them, and sticking them on a pan in the oven qualifies as baking, but they taste good none the less. As I was eating one, okay maybe it was more than one, but who's counting...Ansley was looking longingly at my mouth and opening hers with every bite I took. Feeling sorry for the past few days she had, I decided to give her a piece, which ended up being about half a cookie. Here's how she felt about it.

She actually was waving and saying hi to herself...I took the picture on my computer and she could see herself.

Playing around