Christmas 2008

We have had some great Christmas celebrations in the past two weeks. Our first get together was at my Aunt Diane and Uncle Dan's house so that we could spend time with the VanDeven/Talbot side of the family. It is always fun hanging out with my cousins. There was only mild chaos as there are now 6 kids under the age of 5!

The Sunday before Christmas Kaleb participated in the Sunday School Christmas Play. He was too stinking adorable. His famous lines were "Christmas" two times and he also had a part in the bells playing Twinkle Twinkle. He did so good. Is it cheezy that I actually cried watching him?!

Finally, we celebrated Christmas Eve at my parent's house with Lindsey, Derek and Grandma Rice. The kids had a few presents to open and got into the bath so they could get in their Christmas pajamas. After we left my parent's house we went down to Desmond's Landing to see the lights, which has now become a tradition for us.

The next morning Jason and I actually had to set the alarm for 6 am and get ready before we woke the kids up at 6:30. We're crazy. In a few years they will be up way before us and we'll wish they would sleep in! We opened all of the presents from Santa at home, including an air hockey table for Kaleb and a slide for Emerson already set up in the basement.

At 7:30 we arrived at Jason's parent's house for present opening. This way all of the cousins could be together. The kids all got dress up clothes and pajamas from Grandma. The older kids will also be taken out on Monday by Grandma and Grandpa for a full 24 hours of fun. They are all looking forward to it.

Brunch was at Grandma Rice's house, another tradition. There were no more presents to open, which disappointed Kaleb, but it was a nice relaxing morning. Dinner was spent back at Jason's parent's house and we spent the last few hours of our evening at the Erickson's house. This is a fun time to catch up with my friends that I don't get enough opportunity to see during the year.

It truly was a very Merry Christmas!

a funny outtake

This picture was rushed as I was trying to do it with a timer. I don't think I made it there quite on time. It was made all the more difficult because of a crying 2 year old in the back ground. Pay no attention to the monster behind the curtain!

Busy much?

Almost another month has flown by at our house. I love and hate the holiday season for that. It makes work seem to fly by, but this wonderful time of excitement for the kids also goes by too fast.
What have we been up to? Emerson's birthday party went well. We had about 14 people in our comfy little house and Emerson was surprised by a big cupcake birthday cake decorated to look like Elmo (her first love!). Aside from Kaleb being jealous over the attention shown to Emerson and wanting all of her new toys for himself, the day was great. Our little girl is now two. We're not worried about the terrible twos because they hit over 4 months ago!!! The girl is scrappy. She can fend for herself and talks back like a 16 year old. But she is so dang loving. She still says "I hold you" daily to me and then climbs up onto my lap to cuddle. She is now extremely obsessed with the movie Annie. Yes, our two year old will sit through an entire movie of the original Annie. Daily in fact.
Emerson had her 2 year well check last Friday. She weighs 27lbs (50%) and is 36 inches(95%). No concerns for Emerson. She seems to be on track with all of her milestones and progression. The funniest part about the whole visit was Kaleb working her all up about getting a shot. He kept telling her it was going to hurt and that she would cry. He even told her he would hold her hand when she got the shot. Getting a little too much excitement out of Emerson getting a shot, and not him this time! Well, it came time for the shot and while Emerson did cringe she never did cry. I pulled her pants up and she grabbed her leg, said "Owwww" and whimpered a little which was all made better when daddy held her. Kaleb almost seemed let down that she didn't cry!
Kaleb is doing great. He is pumped about Christmas this year and best of all he believes us when we say that Santa is watching. Jason also like to pull out the "I'll call Santa" trick when he is desperate!! Kaleb is so dang smart, at times a smart mouth, but for the most part he is a really good kid. He enjoys doing 'homework' daily. I brought him home some pre-k workbooks and he loves doing them and putting a star at the top. Lets hope this homework appreciation continues into school. Kaleb is starting to turn into more of a boy, ha ha. He loves playing with his cars and is now talking all about the bumblebee transformer and the black and red power rangers. He has never really gotten into playing consistently with toys, especially boy ones, except for tools and Lego's. It is nice to see him finding more things in common with the boys at school.
Kaleb and I have been regulars at St. John's church since this summer and he will now be participating in the Christmas play in two weeks. I think they gave him a non speaking role such as a shepard, but I still can't wait. The kid is a ham. Everyone at church tells me how cute he is and how they love seeing him go up for children's time because he is always doing something to draw everyone's attention.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. We ate dinner with my parents, Grandma Rice, Lindsey, Derek and even got to see Chris and Craig Dahlke for a little bit. Chris seems to be doing well after fighting cancer over the past year. I hope she continues to recover. I know the family has a lot to be grateful for this year! The day after Thanksgiving, Chris and Sarah brought the kids for a visit. They all love playing together so much. Emerson likes to call them ClarCarElsa (Clara, Carter, Elsa). It was a nice visit. The weekend after Thanksgiving was of course spent putting up our outside lights and Christmas tree. We have only had one major tree accident this year. Don't worry, Emerson will be ok! I heard a crash, Emerson crying, and Kaleb saying "Sorry Mom" all at the same time! No shopping on black Friday for me though. Jason had to work and I wasn't in the mood to go alone. Instead Jason and I did our shopping this past Saturday. While I feel like we should be done, sadly we are not! There are still a few more gifts to get before we can begin wrapping.
We are busy, but doing well. I am really looking forward to our family party this coming Sunday at my Aunt Diane and Uncle Dan's house. I love getting to hang out with my cousins. I can't wait to see how big Dylan is now. In a little over a week Renae and the girls will be coming home from California for a 3 week visit. We can't wait to see them as well.
I'll also come on later to update with some pictures. We took the pictures for our Christmas card yesterday. I have some good outtakes to share with you!
Take care.

Happy Birthday Emerson

Wha? Really? How can she be two already?

Not MY baby! Maybe it is because I'm busy uploading pictures to shutterfly from two years ago. I am very behind on printing my pictures! The look back makes me smile. Man we have made some cute kids! I love looking back at their baby pictures. I really do miss that time.

I'm sure you all know the story of Emerson's birth, but let me reflect will you?!! I worked right up until Friday, November 10th. I was due on the 13th so the 10th was to be my last day before maternity leave. I was HOPING that I would have her asap so that I could spend a longer amount of time with her rather than just being off of work and waiting. Low and behold I started feeling a little something that evening. I crashed early around 8pm and woke up at 11pm to go to the bathroom. On my way there my water broke. Really, how lucky am I to have my water break twice, at home?!!

I wasn't as panicked this time as I was with Kaleb but we still had some things to do before leaving for the hospital. Most importantly we had to call Dana to come get Kaleb. By then they had moved to Jeddo, so it took a little bit of time for her to arrive. Meanwhile I am having strong contractions and have placed a call to the ob. Dr. Zehn was the dr. on call and he phoned back. I remember him asking how long my labor was with Kaleb and I said 6 hours. Apparently this didn't cause him any alarm!

Jason and I got to the hospital and got put straight into a room around midnight. Jason hadn't been able to reach my parents but did wake grandma Rice up and she went to tell my parents. Jason's mom arrived at some point before the birth. I just remember the nurses thinking that my water really hadn't broken and that they had to do a little test to see. I was 4cm when I arrived. I was begging for the epidural and a nurse did come in to ask me all of the questions necessary for it. Things were getting intense. There was still no dr. to be found. Sometime near 1am the nurse asked me if I was feeling the urge to push. I said that I didn't think so and she checked me again. She looked at me and said "I'm sorry, you won't be able to have an epidural" I said "WHAT?" and she said "If you sit up to get it this baby will come out. You are 10 cm and the baby is right there." HOLY CRAP!! I pretty much freaked at that point and it was Jason who remained calm, looking me in the eyes telling me that I could do it. All of a sudden my body took over and I told the nurse I had to push. She let me and three pushes later two nurses had delivered Emerson at 1:12am. Or so we think. Nobody bothered to look at the clock. A nurse looked back at my readings and determined the time!

Miss Emerson was 8lbs 1oz and 21 inches. She was gorgeous. I don't think I got much sleep that night from all of the excitement. Infact, I don't think I have yet to catch up on my sleep!!

Today Emerson is a busy little girl with a lot of spunk. She can keep up with the big kids and has developed a great vocabulary in the past few months. She talks alot and climbs everything. The girl manages to wash her hands all by herself and she is showing interest in the potty. Just yesterday I watched her as she took a stool to the toilet, put kaleb's seat on it, pulled her pants down and climed up to 'go potty'. Disclaimer: She has yet to actually do anything on the potty but sit! She is very loveable and makes sure to tell everyone "I yuve you" but is quick to say "no, go away" in the next breath!! She'll keep us on our toes for sure!

Happy 2nd Birthday sweet girl!

Minutes old

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday
We are all home today celebrating. Emerson woke up to a room filled with balloons. Her first presents to open were of a stuffed dog and cat.

Every princess needs a crown!

Baby Gavin

So a little peer pressure from Katherine has gotten my butt in gear on getting Gavin's pictures done. A few anyway.

Let me first start out by saying how truly amazing it was to be at the hospital the day Gavin was born (to my friends Shannon and Jeremy). I have visited babies in the hospital before but aside from my own I have never been there for the 'before'. With it being a scheduled c-section I was able to plan my day around them. I was able to be there for the two hours of prep and waiting. The anticipation of seeing Gavin was awesome. While I know that Shannon and Jeremy where excited that I was able to capture all of these easily forgotten moments for them, I was equally excited that I had the chance to be there. It's not an easy time to have someone snapping away with the camera but they rolled with it.

I really hope that I can find a way to post the video. Help me if you can!

For now I'll show you a few pictures of Gavin at 6 days and 13 days old. The first time I went to take pictures the boy would not sleep so I went back a second time and decided to be nicer to him and let him stay clothed. It did the trick and he stayed sleeping the entire time.

One of big sister Jaden!

School Pictures

I think these turned out pretty cute. The colors are a little wonky, but that is what happens when you (illegally) scan the pictures. At least on my machine. I just wanted you all to see my adorable chitlens!

Halloween 2008

Halloween was so much fun this year! Maybe it is because the kids are getting older but getting them dressed, driven around town, involved and excited is so much easier.

The fun officially began Thursday night with pumpkin carving. Kaleb was into it and knew exactly what to do. Emerson on the other hand just kept trying to eat the pumpkin guts. Maybe next year she'll 'get it'!

We began the evening with our visit to Grandma Rice's house. Then it was back to our place where Dana, Mike, Keeley, Janelle and Grandma Hodgins met us for pizza. We made a stop at Papa VanDeven's house but missed seeing Grandma VanDeven since she didn't get home before we had to leave. Our final stop was Grandma and Grandpa Deland's house before heading into Lexington to do our trick or treating with Dana, Mike, Keeley and Janelle.

Trick or Treating was fun. We went to a lot of houses and the downtown shops were all involved too. The kids had a blast and were extremely tired out by the time we got home at 8:30.

Here is the adorable Princess Leia. The kids didn't end up carrying their lightsabers so some people were a little confused about what she was. Then there were other people who saw it right away and agreed that she was adorable!

Here is my little Darth Vader. The good side.And the bad!
Kaleb, Janelle (a ladybug), Emerson, and Keeley (Alice in Wonderland stuck in the house!)
The kids with Great Grandma Rice

The kids with Papa VanDeven