Happy New Year's Eve!

In celebration of the last day of the year, our morning started off with a dance party in the living room. And as fun as it was Ryan was right on when he said, 'This is definitely an activity we do before opening the blinds!'. Yes, we aren't going on 'So You Think You Can Dance' anytime soon. The good news is that we know we can't dance yet we just have a blast because Kaitlyn LOVES doing it!

Wishing you a lovely New Year full of joy and wonder!

Thanks to Nicole for capturing this great picture.

The McMansion

OK, I totally dropped the ball on pictures at Christmas this year. My sister took a TON so I need to get some of those to share. Nonetheless, here are a few I captured of KP's McMansion.

The Hap, Hap, Happiest Christmas

As you can tell from the blog title our Christmas season was kicked off with a viewing of Christmas Vacation. It isn’t Christmas around here without some of those classic lines being thrown around, most of which are way too inappropriate to post on here. Nonetheless, the movie is super-duper funny and a great way to get in the holiday mood.


As for the festivities, Christmas Eve was spent with the Pedersons. We headed over to Jason and Christie’s in the afternoon. Of course the kids were excited to get to the presents so we did that and then had dinner. Soon after, we headed home and I got to enjoy some really lovely family time with Ryan and Kaitlyn. More gift opening and then the fun of helping Kaitlyn figure out all her new goodies.


The next morning was Christmas. And oh boy was it a blast! Kaitlyn woke up to find an over-the-top but absolutely fantastic doll house waiting for her from Santa. It’s hilarious, she can’t even reach the top floor it’s that big! She’ll be loving this house for years to come (or at least she better be – lol!). On a side note, we have it on good authority that it took Santa and Mrs. Claus approx 3 ½ hours to put that McMansion together on Christmas Eve…but no worries, a few beers can make dollhouse construction seem more pleasant. Oh, and I hear that qualifying for the mortgage on this baby was really difficult. So glad Santa pulled it off!


The Krauses and Mosers joined us mid-morning on Christmas and the rest of the day was spent lounging, eating, laughing and just enjoying ourselves and each other. And of course, some stories from our younger years were recalled. It makes me wonder what stories Kaitlyn and Emily will be telling years from now that will have them laughing so hard that they’ll be crying.


It’s amazing to see the difference in Kaitlyn from last year to this year. She’s grown so much physically, emotionally, and intellectually. It was such a joy to see her this year and all the excitement she had around holiday lights, Santa, and Christmas trees. Also, she’s definitely got the ‘opening presents’ thing down…next year we’ll have to continue to work on the whole spirit of Christmas concept.


Wishing you all peace and joy during this season!

Soooo Sweet!

Jen took this picture a couple of months ago. I just came across it again and couldn't resist sharing our sweet little princess.

More of the Fun Captured

Thanks, Jen for this great photo from Leavenworth!

Holy Lederhosen, That Was Fun!!!

This weekend we packed up the family truckster (aka suburban rental) and headed to Leavenworth with the Mosers for the lighting festival. It was fun, fun, fun!! With the softly falling snow during our sleigh ride (which was beautiful), watching the village light up, eating yummy food, and sledding we couldn't have asked for more.

I do have to say though, I'm not sure how the heck people do it in really cold climates. Getting a toddler bundled up is not the easiest/quickest/or most fun thing to do. And the diaper changes...argh! Such a pain. For a weekend no biggie, but thank goodness this isn't an every day dealo.

One of my favorite moments: Jen and I sledding together, hitting the snow hill and getting some air. Ahhh, it was like being back in the Beachcrest days of sledding down the beach hill. Fantastic!

The hotel we stayed at provided a little kit to decorate your own tree. KP was all over that!


Waiting for the lights to come on with Auntie Jen


Hanging out with Daddy as the snow falls


The Moser Family

The girls doing some shopping with us, hanging out in one of the dressing rooms

The ultimate in fun...the sled!

Auntie Jen is the Best!

Dear Auntie Jen,
You seriously rock! Thanks so much for my snowmen pajamas and my Curious George ornament. They are both absolutely perfect!

Cutie-pie hanging out in her holiday pj's from Auntie Jen

It's tradition...opening the annual ornament from Auntie Jen

Her George ornament got the privelage of being the first one on the tree

Just hanging...

Santa Visit

For the first time we braved the weekend trip to see Santa. Over the past two years we've done a weekday trip early in December and always walked right up. Well, this year a weekday wasn't going to work so off we went this morning getting there right as Santa was arriving. We thought we'd beat the crowds. Well, although the line wasn't awful we still ended up with an hour wait. I think we'll go back to the weekday visit for next year. Regardless, Kaitlyn had a great visit with Santa and she got her very first candy cane. Of course, she loved it!!! Then she not only looked really sweet, but smelled sweet, too!

Dear Santa...

Dear Santa,

I've been really, really good this year. Thus, can I get my own iPhone? I'm a little tired of sharing Mommy and Daddy's.

If you come through for me, I'll set you up with extra cookies and milk.

Luv, Kaitlyn

Santa Pub Crawls are the Best!

Although extremely quick, our mom/daughter weekend to San Francisco was fantastic! Thus, wanted to share some pics from all our fun.

Here's the Macys Store in Union Square all dec'd out. My Mom counted 60-some (68?) wreaths in these windows. In front of the store is our cable car that we had such a blast on! Love all it's festive lights!


Mom on the holiday lights cable car. This was pre-santa hats and crazy Christmas caroling. Little did we know what we were in for. Once the hats got passed out and the caroling book we decided to go all in. Nothing quite like touring the streets and holiday lights of San Francisco in our cheesy hats while belting out carols that EVERYONE was singing. We got lots of laughs from those on the street seeing this cable car go by. One thing that made this especially festive...the drunk santas! Yep, earlier in the day there was a santa pub crawl so by evening as we were touring the streets we encountered lots of 'happy' santas and inappropriately dressed elves who hooted and hollered with us! So stinkin' hilarious!



Tree at the Fairmont Hotel. Their lobby was absolutely gorgeous!



This is a real gingerbread house. Stats:
*22 feet high by 12 1/2 feet wide and 10 1/2 feet deep
*5500 pieces of gingerbread
*850 pounds of royal icing
*425 pounds of candy
*8 gallons of chocolate

It took 160 hours to construct the framework and 375 hours creating the gingerbread house.



Thanks, Mom! I can't wait until Kaitlyn can join us for memorable times like this one!

Flying High

Today started out quite early. Unfortunately, Kaitlyn was having a hard time sleeping this morning. Finally at 5 am she says, "Mommy, I'm a hungry girl. I want breakfast!" With such a cute face, how can one say no. Plus, I was flying out this morning (more on that later) so it was actually nice to get to spend some time with her this morning.

So during breakfast we had two conversations...
1. I was explaining to Kaitlyn that this was going to be a special Daddy and Kaitlyn weekend. That they were going to go to Little Gym and probably watch Apple Cup. She looks at me and says, "Mommy, where are you going?" I said, "Grammy Jill and I are headed out shopping and I'll be gone overnight, but I'll be back tomorrow." She looks me right in the eyes and replies, "Mommy, I'll miss you!" Ahhhhhhh...

2. So I'm flying high on this last statement only to be brought crashing down. Not even 5 minutes later she says, "I want a special treat," She says this as she's looking at her Christmas calendar so I know she wants to open today's goody. I say, "Kaitlyn, I'm having breakfast with you at 5 am, that's a special treat." Again, she looks right at me and says, "That's not a special treat." Wow, there goes the 'I'll miss you glow'. LOL!

Anyways, as mentioned my Mom and I are off for an overnight to San Francisco. In fact, I'm writing this blog from the plane (gotta love inflight internet service!). It'll be really tough but we plan on shopping, taking in the Christmas lights/sights, and eating yummy food! It's hard but someone has got to do it.

A BIG thank you to Ryan for making this possible and hanging with the peanut this weekend! Much love!

Odds and Ends...Including Two Thumbs Up

So today's post is going to be a lot of random, unrelated items that I've been meaning to post for a while. Here goes:

Two-thumbs up: Yes, this is Kaitlyn's new way of signaling all is well. It goes like this, "Kaitlyn, how's your dinner?' She grins and gives us the two thumbs up. 'Kaitlyn, did you have fun today?' Again the two thumbs go flying. It's actually pretty hilarious! We have yet to figure out the different criteria between one thumb up and two.

Big girl bed, take 1: Kaitlyn's mattress was delivered on Monday. It was classic to see the delivery guy's face when KP looks at him and says, 'Thank you for delivering my big girl bed!" He had this look like 'did that just really come out of that little person? Am I being punked?'

So far she's taken a couple naps in the bed and those have gone well. The first overnight, however, sets the stage for quite a bit of improvement. She somehow rolled off the bed, rolled about another foot or so to where she was hugging her closet door. We walked into her room to check on her and couldn't find her at first. Anyways, not only was she snuggling the closet door, she'd pee'd out of her diaper, her jammies were soaked as was the floor. My immediate thought was thank goodness she'd rolled off because we don't have a waterproof mattress pad on the bed yet! It arrives tomorrow from Overstock (yes, I'm back to my internet shopping addiction). Big girl bed, take 2 will happen once the pad is securely covering the bed.

Master hide-and-go seeker: Kaitlyn's big thing these days is to hide from us. And she's gotten extremely good at it. She picks great places, doesn't move an inch, and the ole, 'what sound does a lion make' does not work anymore. The other day it took me a good 5-10 minutes to find her. I told my sister that story and she totally laughed at me. Well, she watched KP on Tuesday and experienced it herself. It was now my turn to laugh at her!

Heard in the halls: Kaitlyn is talking in complete sentences now. It's hilarious to hear this little two-year old talking like that. Anyways, a few cute things:

*Nana got Kaitlyn a Curious George tank top. She got the smallest size but it's still pretty big on Kaitlyn. Anyways, Kaitlyn immediately put it on and Jeannine told me she said, 'It fits quite nicely, Nana!'

*The other day she wanted cheese and crackers. So I got her our usual ones. She says, 'No, mommy I want the one with the container and the stick!' I knew instantly what she was talking about but we'd never given her those before. Evidently, she's getting the handi-snacks from school and is a HUGE fan.

*She's also seems to think she's quite the little negotiator. Everything is, 'One more time.' She says this while motioning with her pointer finger and a big ole smile.

*She pulled out the word 'usually' on us the other day. 'Mommy usually sits there.'

It's a blast hanging out with our little peanut. Every day there's tons of reason to laugh and be happy!