Holiday Hooplah

Well, the holidays are among us and it's been a fun (& exhausting) time! We had a really great Christmas this year. Kylie is very caught up in the magic of Christmas which makes it so fun for us.
We spent Christmas Eve with the Biehlers and D'Amuras which is always a fun, but crazy time with 4 little ones. Little Lucy is pretty quiet, mainly just the other 3 musketeers!

Adam and I didn't sleep well at all Christmas Eve... maybe out of anticipation, but that did make Christmas day a bit harder.
Kylie really loved her gifts from Santa and her family. Her favorite gift from Santa was her pink Mustang. She is quite the envy of the neighborhood! She also loves the baking kit Gigi and Gramps gave her. We've made cookies a few times already with it. She's quite the cook (unlike her mommy).

We've enjoyed playing with her new games and reading her new books. This was also the year of the baby dolls. She got one that says the names of body parts in English and Spanish, one that pretends to go on the potty and brush its teeth and one that actually does potty. Oh boy, we're having fun now!

It's hard to believe that 2009 is going to be here so quickly and what a big year it will be. It's still sinking in that we'll have another baby and Kylie turns 4 years old on the 24th. So exciting!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy Happy Holidays

We are all so excited about the holidays! To make it even better, it is stinkin' cold here. Maybe a cold Christmas this year? I hope so. Kylie got her picture with Santa Claus and Adam and I are enjoying using Santa as leverage for good behavior. "Remember, Santa's watching..." I hope we can hang on to that for many years to come! Here are some ideas of what we have on our wish lists this year.

Kylie - A Barbie Car (pink, convertible, mustang). She has very good taste.

An easy-bake oven

Slippers

Pretty much anything else she sees on tv or in the store.

Adam - Rockband - oh yeah baby. Fun for the whole family!!!

Becky - A digital picture frame and a gps system for my car. When God handed out the capacity to configure directions and geography, I think He skipped me! Anyone who has ever gone anywhere with me would know that.

Harley - A new bed

Pudge - Maybe a good belly rub and a brushing. He's easy to please.

Holiday Kick Off

Every year on the weekend before Thanksgiving, a group of girls from Baylor all get together to kick off the holiday season! I look forward to this weekend every year. I am so blessed to have this group of amazing friends. We all went to Baylor and were Tri Delts. It's been almost 9 years since our college days, but our friendship is still so strong. These girls are really the greatest friends in the world! We spend time shopping and eating, but the best time is really when we're in our jammies talking about, well, anything and everything. I love you Schayot, Trimble, Amy, Heather, Jackie, Courtney, Emily, and Maggie!!!

Exciting News!!!

Some of you may already know, but we have some exciting news! We are going to have another baby. We heard the heartbeat this morning and it sounds strong. The doctor said that is a great sign that the baby is thriving and doing well.
Our due date is set for June 4th, so we'll probably end up having the c-section around the end of May, but we'll keep you posted!
We probably won't get a sonogram until 20 weeks, but then we'll find out what we are having! Adam keeps calling it "junior" but I told him he better just wait and see!
We are so very excited to add this blessing on to our already wonderful family. More to come later!

Happy Halloween

Sorry it took me a bit to post some pictures from Halloween! This is such a busy time of year for me work-wise so things get a little hectic!

Halloween was a blast this year. Kylie was so excited about her costume (especially her purple hair) and about the tons of candy she would get.

She was a little more apprehensive about Trick-or-Treating this year but that may come with another year to figure out that she's knocking on strangers' doors. She got over it pretty quickly after she saw all the candy she was getting.

Adam carved an awesome pumpkin of none other than...Tinkerbell! He let Kylie pick out the image and she picked out the most challenging one to carve. He did a super job. I was impressed!

It's hard to believe the holidays are right around the corner. I love the holiday season so much. I just love the joy that surrounds us through those holiday months. Really, it should last all year when we think about what Christmas really means and what it means to be blessed by friends and family. On to another busy week!!!

Fun weekend!

What started out to be a pretty yuck week, ended up with a lot of fun! Kylie got sick on Sunday afternoon with runny nose and cough and by Monday it had really progressed so I took her in to the doctor. Thank goodness I went ahead and took her! She had gotten the Croup! Don't know how, why, or where, but she got it. So, she was pretty poopy until Wednesday and is now finally back to her old self again. So, now we've had the stomach virus and the croup in the last month or so...I hope we're done for a long while!

On to the fun parts! We spent Saturday with our sweet friends Melissa and Lainie. Kylie and Lainie go to the same preschool and have been buddies since before they were two. Lainie's birthday is today and she told her mom all she wanted to do was have Kylie over for cupcakes! I thought that was so sweet. Instead of just having cupcakes, Melissa planned a fun day for all of us. First, we took the girls to get their nails painted. I must say Kylie picked the absolute ugliest color in the whole place - yellow! Then, we picked up a smoothie and headed to Zilker Park to ride the train. It was a beautiful day to ride the train and do some sight-seeing, mostly of people on the trail! After Zilker we went to get some pizza for lunch. The pizza place is right across from Hey Cupcake! this great little trailer that sells amazing cupcakes. So, after lunch we walked over there and each got one of the biggest, sweetest, yummiest cupcakes I've ever had. Wow, that was sweet! After we satisfied our sweet teeth, we headed over to Zilker Gardens for the Dinoland exhibit. It was a pretty neat exhibit. They had fairly realistic renditions of all kinds of dinosaurs in the trees and around the area. We were all tuckered out after this and decided to head home. I know I was exhausted!!! It was such a fun day and Kylie and I are both so thankful for Melissa and Lainie's friendship!

Today's excitement was the annual Candy Carnival close to our house. It was a fun dress-rehearsal for Halloween. I wasn't so sure how it was going to turn out, but Kylie looked adorable. I painted her face and her hair. She begged me to buy her purple hair spray at the store and I caved. It was cute though, definitely added a special dynamic to the whole get-up! She got to play lots of games and got enough candy to last us until Halloween for sure. After she took a two hour nap and then had her fair share of candy tonight, she's still awake and it's almost 10!!! Not a great way to start the week, but oh well, it's Halloween!

Good night, sleep tight!

Every time I hear another mom talk about how their kid goes to bed at 7 and wakes up at 7 I think to myself, really? Is that possible?
We've struggled for the last couple of months with the nap or no nap thing with Kylie. She really needs a rest during the day, but when she gets one she's not falling asleep until 10:00 at night! So, we decided that just isn't going to work. So, we've been trying the no nap for a while now. I'm happy to say night-times were going smoother and much earlier which is great, but the down-side is that Kylie acts like a little monster by around 5:00!
To top it all off, for who knows how long now either Adam or I lays with Kylie every night until she goes to sleep. Every night! Then, when she wakes up in the middle of the night she wants one of us to come in there and lay with her again until she falls back asleep! When this happens 2 or 3 times a night it's like having a newborn all over again. Kylie has never been a good sleeper, but Adam and I are at our whit's-end!

The good news! For the past two nights Kylie has gone to sleep completely on her own and has not woken up either night! I figure if she can learn to go to sleep on her own, then she can fall BACK asleeep on her own. It's only been 2 nights, but man I'm happy about it!

This parenting thing sure is hard! You want so badly to do whatever it is that you can to make your child happy and when you have to do those things that you know are going to hurt them (like a shot) or scare them (going to sleep alone) it's hard not to just crater and want to fix it. As I sit in the living room hearing Kylie cry for a good ten minutes that first night she was trying to sleep alone my heart just sank. It was horrible. I knew she was scared and I could almost feel what she was feeling. Last night I went by her room and said a prayer for her that she would sleep peacefully and not be afraid and then I felt I had done exactly what I needed to do in this situation. I know there are times where I'm going to have to let her face her fears on her own. I'm just thankful her angels are always with her! I know they'll watch over my baby even when I can't.