The "Deleted" Tunnel Pic

Taking a little trip through the tunnel from Uncle Kye

Happy New Year!!

Christmas Day

On Christmas morning we spend the early morning at our house seeing what Santa has left for a good little girl. After checking things out and of course giving everything a try we get ready and head to Kane's parents house for our traditional gumbo prepared my Kane. I am not sure how many years we have carried on this tradition. I am thinking at least five and hopefully we have many more years to come.

One of my favorite things that happened this Christmas was sharing the true meaning of Christmas with Lydia. I know that she fully doesn't understand but I want her to know that there is SO MUCH more to Christmas than just getting gifts and Santa. Early in December Lydia had received two Nativity Scenes. Of course her favorite individual was Baby Jesus. She would carry them around wanting to wrap them up and hold them tight. It was so precious! So, on Christmas morning we asked her what today was. We got little response. We soon told her that it was Christmas and Baby Jesus birthday. She quickly said..Happy Birthday Jesus. It was priceless. The true reason for the season.

Santa's special delivery for Lydia Grace

I love taking a quick pic while she is still in her bed on Christmas morning. She has always been such a happy little girl!
Love this pic! Lydia coming around the corner to check out what Santa has brought her.

Taking some time to shoot some hoops :)

Digging in her stocking. She wasn't too sure about this, we had to tell her to keep looking.

Uncle Kye is always a BIG hit when he comes home for the holidays. I am sure he thinks he has a mini me attached to his leg. She insisted that he help open all the gifts. It was very cute.

Lydia in her new ride from Grandma and Papa! OR as she calls it "my tractor"

Taking a little trip through the tunnel from Uncle Kye

(just deleted the picture..I will post it)

What a great holiday! I am excited to see what next Christmas brings us with two little ones. They sure make it fun and entertaining :)

Christmas Eve

For as long as I can remember my mother's family would come to our house for Christmas Eve. We would have chili, beef stew and plenty of other things to snack on. When my parents sold there house (my childhood home) and moved into a very small house we started celebrating Christmas at our house. My mom always brings the stew and I make the chili.

This year we had a very small crowd. Getting to our house was difficult due to the snow drifts. In fact our drive way was four wheel drive only. My dear husband even had to play shuttle driver. I was sad that my grandma wasn't able to make it but, know it was defiantly for the best. I wouldn't have wanted her to fall and hurt herself.

Lydia is the only little one so after we ate she settled into her role of opening gifts. When she turned two in November she really mastered the skills of unwrapping gifts.

The Christmas tree right before the madness started!

A set of my little ponies..I hope she doesn't want a real one!
A gift from Aunt Gretchen

Say cheese :)

For Christmas this year Kane and I got a new camera. I absolutely love it. It came about a week before the big holiday and unfortunately I really didn't get a chance to "learn all about it." After all the pictures were taken Kane downloaded them...and these were his words. Well, one of us need to learn how to focus...not mentioning any names. So, unfortunately most of the family pics I took were real blurry.

I hope to post about Christmas Day later this evening!! We had a blessed Christmas Eve and are very thankful for great family.

Santa

On Sunday we decided to eat at one of our local Mexican restaurants and then go through Isle of Lights. After being there a while I noticed that there were a lot of kids around. I told Kane that Santa might be coming. Lydia is a huge fan of Santa in BOOKS. She loves her Santa books or she often just calls him ho-ho. The first year we went to see Santa, Lydia did great..of course she was only about a month old. Last year was a totally different story and I think Kane ended up holding her beside him. This year was no different. When we saw him come it we really started talking him up and she seemed excited until she actually saw him walking towards our table. She wanted nothing to do with Jolly Old Saint Nick! I tried holding her, but that was still too close for her. We then tried it one more time with Kane holding her and she was able to calm down for one picture. As you can see she is NOT too sure about the whole situation :)

This Santa is extra special. He is actually the Minister that married Kane and I. It is always great to see him around town and now we are able to share our growing family with him.

Thanks Karen for snapping the pic!

Happy Birthday Justin!

Happy 29th Birthday Justin! We hope that you have a wonderful day!

Love this picture...Justin and his new born son Barrett

Happy 30th Birthday Amber!

Happy 30th birthday Amber! We hope that you have a great day.

25 Weeks

Sunday marked 25 weeks of pregnancy. I am growing...growing....growing AND still feeling great. I found out a couple of weeks ago that unless something happens before I will be having this baby on March 22, 2010 @ 1.30 p.m. We are getting really excited and know there is lots to get done before baby #2 arrivals.

One day I just know this is another girl and then the next I am thinking boy. SO, I really don't have a clue! I think we are getting closer to finalizing names which is really exciting.

I will share a little story that happened to me last night during a Christmas Party. A women came up to me and asked if I was due on Christmas Eve. I looked at her and said nope...not until the end of March. She then looked back at me and said S*&T? Really, was that necessary?!?!

Cookies Anyone?

On Wednesday Lydia and I decided we would make some Christmas sugar cookies. She has helped out in the kitchen several times but, we haven't ever made sugar cookies. She was very excited. I had a hard time getting things ready because she was already and wasn't she what the hold up was. She is a little impatient :)

Grandma Connie got her this cute apron for Halloween and she really liked wearing it...it is super cute! Please excuse the light..it was really bright that morning!READY and WAITING!

Using the cookie cutters was one of her favorite parts...what a BIG helper!
Ready to go in the oven....yummy :)

I think at this point Lydia was thinking what is next?!?!

SO, is it bad that I didn't let her frost them? I just knew that it would be a huge mess..so, she got to put on the sprinkles! Which she really enjoyed :)

REALLY ENJOYED!

The finished product...However, Lydia WILL NOT eat any of these. Not sure why...but, I haven't had a problem!

Celebrating Daddy's Birthday

Last Friday was Kane's birthday and we decided to make him cupcakes to celebrate! Lydia will only eat chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting..she is kinda picky thing :) So, after her nap we hit the kitchen to bake some yummy cakes.

Lydia waiting to "dump" all the ingredients in..this is your favorite part!

NOT real happy with the camera..I guess she wanted to keep moving along with the process.

After dinner we celebrated with the finished product. She really wanted to blow out the candle so of course Kane let her. She currently won't eat one unless it has a candle on top and she wants to "blow"

What A Little TRoOpeR

Yesterday Lydia had surgery to replace a set of ear tubes. She had the same procedure done in April and had recently lost both tubes. We were certain that we wanted to replace them. Lydia suffered from several ear infections and since getting the tubes in April she hadn't had one. She did an awesome job! She didn't even cry when they carried her away from us. This could have been because they were offering her a sucker :) This procedure is so quick. I don't even think it took 10 minutes before we were talking to the doctor. A nurse can and got us and we meet up with Lydia in a recovery room. On the way there the nurse said she was doing really well and hadn't made a sound. She was just really looking everyone over. Last time she was really upset when we met back up with her. This time she just looked sleepy. However, she did throw up three times before we got home. The poor thing. Today she is doing great. Both ears are clear and she is back to eating her regular diet.

Happy Birthday Kane!

Happy 32nd Birthday Kane! Thanks for being such a wonderful, caring, loving and hardworking husband and father. Lydia and I are two luck girls. Hope you have a great day and you get the deer you have been waiting for.

The Family Christmas Tree

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house! I just love decorating for Christmas. It makes our home feel some warm and cozy. This year we took Uncle Kye to the airport on the Friday after Thanksgiving and of course couldn't pass up the opportunity to purchase our tree.

We don't go to a farm and cut our own down...instead we head to a Lowe's store and find a special one there. I had never had a real tree until we got married. Now I can't imagine having Christmas without one. I love the look and smell. You could say I am kinda picky. I usually takes us a good 30 minutes to find that special one. However, this year we selected the first one Kane stood up---that NEVER happens.

Kane standing next to our Christmas tree 2009...and yes, we get a big one 8ft-9ft

Yes, that is me holding up a huge tree, a baby in my belly and a 30 lb little girl who doesn't look real sure about the whole thing!
Lydia helping getting things set up..she thought it was pretty cool!

AND then quickly lost interest :)

Giving the tree and much needed drink of water.

Two days later we got around to putting the lights and decorations on. I insisted on putting the light on while Lydia was napping. I put over 1000 lights on..so, it takes a little time and well, she would have been A LOT of help :)

Lydia loved everything about decorating the tree! She was a big up and her daddy couldn't keep up with her.

Lydia handing ornaments to her daddy to be put on the tree.

The finished result!

Our ornaments are so special to me. Most of them were made by my grandmother or have been passed down from Kane's grandma. We even have a few that were our childhood ornaments. Like an apple that has my name on it from 1984 or a baseball that Kane signed in 1991! I just LOVE it. I think Lydia really likes it too. Every time we come home she insists that we turn the tree lights on. Too cute!

Birthday Bash!

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgivings. I know our family had so much to be thankful for. This year for Lydia's birthday we decided to have a family party and a friends party. She had a blast at both! She really got the hang of opening up gifts this year.

She needed a little help from dad to open up her new easel from Uncle Kye

Lydia loved blowing out her candles and LOVED her chocolate cupcake..yummy :)

Monday the 16th was her actually birthday and we were invited to Megan and Norah Kate's house for a birthday snack. Laura and Barrett were there. Everyone enjoyed some muffins and of course some playtime together. Thanks guys!

Barrett and Norah Kate watching Lydia blow out her candle.

Lydia and her blueberry muffin (her favorite)

My great friend Christie offered to make some of her wonderful cupcakes for Lydia's "friends party." They were yummy! I might have had two--one of each kind :) Thanks Christie..you are the best!

The baker herself and Lydia
Round two with the cakes!

All the kiddos enjoying a tasty treat!

Everyone gathered around to see all the goodies! I think all the kids had a great time!

A family picture!

Thanks to all our family and friends for making Lydia's birthday special. We are blessed to have such a wonderful family and great friends.

Happy Birthday Laura!

Happy Birthday Laura! We hope that you had a wonderful day :)

Fall Harvest

A couple of weeks ago Kane's parents were VERY busy cutting beans. Kane missed out helping do to his work schedule at the refinery. So, one sunny afternoon Lydia and I loaded up lunch and headed down to one of the fields. After we ate Lydia was invited to take her very first ride in the combine. I of course rode with her. There is a perfect little set for a passenger. If you remember from a past post, Lydia LOVED riding in the tractor while we were planting in the spring. However, the combine was a totally different story. She pretty much cried for the first two minutes. And when your only going 3.8 miles per hour I knew I had to find a way to cheer her up or it was going to be a long circle back to our car. I quickly started asking her about Frost (Grandma and Papa's dog) and that seemed to do the trick. She was sure ready to "get out" when we circled back around. We still have sunflowers to cut so maybe we will try again with daddy.

Papa, Lydia and me getting ready to take off!

I think we are trying to get out...I had a hard time getting the door open.
This is my favorite part..I love watching it!

Lots of beans..Lydia did think that was pretty cool :)