More Christmas & Birthdays

We made the trip up to Rock Island to celebrate Christmas with my dad's family on January 5.  We also celebrate my Grandma & sister's birthdays that weekend, too!

I was a terrible photographer that day and didn't get many pictures of anything besides Kinley...imagine that.  Even though I take tons of pictures, I still feel annoying when I ask everyone to pose for pictures.  My cousin Kari also blogs and feels the same way but we both agreed that we are so happy when we actually have lots of pictures of everyone! (I'll try harder next time).

Kinley entertained us while we waited to eat.  She is SUCH a cheeseball & I love it!

Ryan & Kari's son, Tyler, got a hold of my camera at some point so I had lots of beautiful self portraits!  I think he's following in mommy's footsteps.

My brother, Andy, & Alicia (recently engaged!) and Cora.

Do we have a future gymnast in the making?  Kinley practicing her bridge on the table...maybe we need to start working on manners? Oops!

Here's big sister practicing on cousin Jake!  He's only 4 months younger than Kinley but is still a peanut so she thought she was big stuff playing with him.

Hhmmm...I'll take that bottle!  She was super sweet but laid on him a few times, ha!

Here's G-ma & G-pa opening their gifts. 

This post has been all over the place so I'm just going to wrap it up.  I love getting together with our family from up North but it's never long enough!  We had a great extended Christmas season and feel so blessed that we can make time to get together with everyone in our huge family.

Christmas 2012

I'll start off by apologizing for the amount of terrible pictures from Christmas.  Our camera charger went MIA so I couldn't use my good camera so you all get to enjoy iPhone/Instagram photos of our Christmas celebration.  I'm still kicking myself for not buying a charger on Christmas Eve so I feel like I missed out on some great Christmas morning shots - worst.mom.ever!  (yes, I'm a little dramatic).

We started off Christmas Eve at my Aunt & Uncle's house.  We ate tons of food and played the annual white elephant present game.  This is the only picture I got - Kinley all dressed up in her fancy Christmas dress & coat from Aunt Beth!

 

We went to Rob & Sue's house after that to end our evening.

The kids tracked Santa on the computer and Kinley was VERY interested this year!  Well, maybe she just loves computers, but it still made for some cute pictures!

Maille & Christie showed us all how to do "the wobble."  Is this not normal at other family Christmas parties??  Ha!

The only Tucker Christmas picture we took.  I'm hoping someone else has one that's better than this, eek!

I got lucky and got a quick pic after Santa came!

Our 3 stockings...soon to be 4!

All ready for Kinley to wake up!

 I don't have any pictures of Kinley's excited face when I carried her out from our bedroom at 6:30am but she was actually really thrilled to see all the presents!  Luckily, we have it all on video but I'm looking like a hot pregnant mess so that video will not be posted. :)  Just trust me - there were many Ooohhs and pointing!

This girl got right down to business, trying out her new rocking elephant first.  Then she discovered her first real baby doll.  She has a paci, falls asleep and says mama, sleepy, etc.  Obviously from the picture below, this was another HIT!

She also got a puppy dog.  She loves dogs and always lets out a high pitched "oof, oof!"

Of course we needed a breakfast snack break - Cheerios to the rescue!  (Don't you think Santa should have got the hint NOT to bring toys based on the toys piled in the corner, yikes!)

Kinley finished opening her clothes (not real impressed) and other fun stuff while Scott & I exchanged gifts.

Christmas Day #1 was in the books by the time the sun came up and we were scrambling to get ready for Christmas #2 at 8am!

We opened gifts & ate breakfast at Scott's parents house and were beyond spoiled again.  Kinley got a sled, clothes, and a rock-n-ride tricycle!

(Babydoll had to come with us to our other Christmas celebrations).

By 10:30, we were on our way to my parents house to exchange gifts.  We were on a time crunch as family usually arrives for lunch right before noon.  We tore through our gifts and Kinley was really impressed again!  She loved her purse from Andy/Alicia, 2 pairs of Toms from Aunt B/Michael, tent from Coco, and wagon from G-ma & G-pa!  I loved watching her face light up with each gift because I wasn't sure if she would be super excited this year or not.  She definitely was!

She looked like a little diva carrying her purse around in her hot pink sparkly Toms!

We ate too much for lunch and lounged on the couch for the afternoon while visiting with family.  Kinley found a good spot to relax in her wagon.

We gathered all of our goodies and went back to Scott's parents for Christmas Day #4.  After dinner, we played the annual white elephant gift game.  This game gets intense and there are always some hilarious gifts dug up from other peoples basements.

Kinley was on daddys team this year and one of their gifts was a Zhuzhu pet, which she loves! ha!

Delaney acquired quite the collection of gifts during the game.

After the game, we all finally settled into the couch for a little relaxation after a huge day.  This little lady was still going strong at 9:00 even though she only took an hour nap all day!

We made some amazing memories with our families this year and had so much fun.  I'm still trying to grasp the fact that we'll have 2 babies to celebrate with next year!  Even though we're exhausted by the time Christmas is over, we are so thankful that our families live close and we are able to share so much of the holidays with them!

Girls Night

Happy New Year blog readers!  I had fully intended on doing a 2012 wrap up but I'm not even caught up with Christmas so I'm sure that's going to get skipped.  We finally have most of the Christmas decor put away and we're prepping for a fresh new year.  So now it's time to play catch up!

 

Some of my high school girlfriends got together the weekend before Christmas for dinner and drinks at Karens house.  She's the only one that still lives in Rochester and we rarely get together - sad I know. :(

 

Kristin brought her adorable daughter Peyton so Kinley had a buddy to hang out with all night.  The girls loved harassing playing with the puppies all night, too! 

 

One attempt at a self-timer photo but Kinley wasn't interested:

Kinley actually decided to be independent that night and walked around talking on her phone, working on her laptop, and socializing with Peyton.  I was impressed!

And she even let someone other than mommy hold her, wow!  I promise she really does like you, Katy!

We enjoyed taco soup, white chicken chili, and plenty of appetizers (oh, and wine for the non-preggos).  One thing has never changed with us girls - our love for food!

I just love that we can pick up right where we left off like time hasn't flown by.  Even though I don't get to see these girls as often as I'd like, I still consider them some of the best friends I'll ever have.

We were missing a few girls who couldn't make it to town that day but hopefully we can catch up soon!  One was stuck in Dallas waiting for her new baby boy to arrive so I figured that was a legit excuse. ;)

 

What a fun way to kick off the Christmas weekend!

Tis the Season

I'm not sure what has gotten into me this year but I am SO excited for Christmas! I even started decorating the week before Thanksgiving - yes, I agree that's a little extreme. 

 

I decided to go bright outside: 

and had a little done in our dining room before turkey day hit.

 

The day after Thanksgiving, it was on!  It was pretty cold late Saturday afternoon so we bundled up and headed to the Apple Barn to pick out the perfect tree.

The hot apple cider warmed us up but I think we made record time that day!

Sunday was dedicated to tree decorating and we had a good little elf helper this year.

Of course we had to take a snuggle/nap break.

Have I mentioned that this little girl is a dare devil?  Yeah, I think I have...  She actually got to the 2nd step!

Here's the finished tree!  I used deco mesh for the first time and love how it turned out.  It sparkles off the lights and adds lots of fun color!

I had a cheerleader most of the time:

I just love when our house is all decorated.  It feels so cozy and bright!  Makes me happy!

Most importantly, our stocking are hung and ready for treats!

Now time to finish up ordering a few gifts and we'll be ready to kick back by the fire and enjoy the season!

Festival of Trees

We visited the Festival of Trees on Friday after Thanksgiving.  It's another one of our Christmas season traditions that I love!  There are tons of decorated trees, wreaths, and gingerbread houses that are all themed.  This years theme was Jingle Bell Rock.

 

I loved the bright colors and chevron walls in this display so we had our little munchkin pose for a quick photo op.

I promise she smiles sometimes...

 

Gracia Harrison (from Girard, IL) was on Blake Shelton's team on the Voice this season and she was performing.  The Voice is one of the only shows that Scott will watch with me so we both thought it was pretty cool to see her in person!

 

Kinley & her cousins - they were decked out for the State Championship football game that afternoon.  (In case you're curious, Rochester won the game & the State 4A title for the 3rd year in a row!)

 

Kinley rode the train for the first time:

The girls said she was waving and clapping so I'm sure she loved it!

Brayden hanging out behind the girls cracks me up - Mr. Cool.

 

We also enjoyed Gingerbread cookies and sat on Santa's lap.  I had already mentally prepared for a Kinley breakdown but we HAD to try.  These sequences make me laugh out loud (left to right, top to bottom).

1.  Kinley is clueless  2.  Her first Santa sighting
3.  Kylie, help!!  4.  That guy is really scary!

5. Kylie, I can't believe you would do this to me!  6.  Let me look at him one more time...
7.  Yep, still scary & you're taking pictures?!  8.  I'm just going to cry.

And if that wasn't enough torture for the poor child, I needed to get a picture by herself, too.  Fortunately, I knew she couldn't handle sitting on his lap again so I just held her next to him and she was still terrified.  Is it bad that we all got a little laugh out of it?

Later that evening I was going through our Christms decor and found Kinley's potholder that we made at the F.O.T. last year.  Oh what a difference a year makes...  <3