Ho, Ho, Ho!

Isn't this the cutest Santa ever?

Saturday the ward had a primary activity. We "munched and mingled and met Kris Kringle!" The boy ahead of us who is about the same age as Addy was bawling histerically while sitting on Santa's lap, but not Miss Addy. She was lovin every second of it! Sometimes I just want to gobble this girl up :) I wonder what she told Santa she wanted for Christmas??

Let It Snow!

Last week we experienced the "storm of the decade" here in Des Moines. Looks like Iowa didn't want us to ease into winter so it just gave it to us full blown! We woke up to a foot and a half of fresh snow, 50 mph winds, -18 degrees below, and drifts that litterally made us snowed in!


This is what it looked like if you were looking at our front door. It was insane! And this is our car...ya, we weren't going anywhere.

Ryan's school was cancelled and even though he still had to study it was nice to have him around the house. After looking out the window we officially declared the day jammie day and enjoyed bumming around the house :)

I should have let Addy out to sit in the snow for a second, but I just couldn't do it. It was soooo cold!! Experiencing this snow storm made me very thankful for my nice warm house :)

Oh Christmas Tree

Look at this big girl standing up all by herself! It makes me a little sad :(

I was so excited to get Christmas put up that we did it the second Thanksgiving was over. I love snuggling up with my family next to the glow of the Christmas tree with a hot cup of cocoa and listening to Christmas music. Since we only have a few short weeks to enjoy it before we go home for the holidays I wanted to get it up ASAP. Ryan and I had a good time decorating it together and Addy enjoyed waking up to a new object to check out in the living room. I thought I was going to constantly be telling her "No, no Addy, don't touch that." But thankfully it hasn't been too bad. She only pulls off the ornaments that she knows she is allowed to play with. She must know how much I enjoy having the Christmas tree up and doesn't want to ruin it for me :) Atleast thats what I like to think.

It's wierd to think that this time last year I was very pregnant. It was definately a special time for us, but this year is even more special. There's just something about having a child in your home. They truly carry the spirit of Christmas with them and we feel so blessed to have Adalee in our lives.

Mary Janes

I wasn't going to blog about these little cuties, but because all of my sewing projects have gone wrong the past two days I decided they deserved to be blogged because they turned out perfect!! Last night I angrily told Ryan that I was never going to sew again, but after these Abigail Booties turned out so good my sewing machine and I decided to make up. I get such great satisfaction with each and every little item I make for my beautiful Adalee. She's what keeps me going :)

Let the Holidays Begin!

I love this time of year! For me it's all about family togetherness, traditions, gratitude, giving, and love. Ryan and I started out our Thanksgiving with the tradition of going to a movie. Wednesday night we ate out at Cheese Cake Factory and then hit the movie theater to see New Moon (I wanted a picture and the only poster they had was of Eclipes, but it's close enough right?). Loved the movie!









This Thanksgiving was unlike any one we have ever experienced. We were without our families, but we decided to make the best of it and go all out anyway! Ryan and I had a great time in the kitchen together making our first Thanksgiving Day dinner. There were a few mishaps. For instance, our cheese BALL turned into more of a cheese MOUND. I guess we softened the cream cheese a little too much. It tasted all the same anyway :) And then there was the turkey...oh the blessed turkey mishap. I was holding our oven bag to place the turkey in and Ryan was gently placing it at the bottom of the bag. Adalee was happily playing on the floor at our feet. All was well. Or so we thought :) Ryan gently let go of the turkey and then PLOP!! It ripped a whole in the bag and fell right on the floor, grazing little Adalee on the way down. She was not very happy about this incident and was sure to let us know, but we couldn't help but laugh. Good thing the box we bought came with two oven bags! Our last mishap was not letting our banana cream pie set up for long enough, but other then that our dinner turned out fabulous! But wow, it was lot's of hard work. Good thing we have many more Thanksgivings to come so we can practice.




Now we are planning our Black Friday extravaganza as we speak! Yay for shopping and holidays! Happy Thanksgiving, we love you all!

The Mall of America

A few weeks ago my friend Jamie was telling me she felt like going on a trip so I threw out the idea of us going to the Mall of America together. We ended up leaving it at that, but last week we really decided to do it! We got a hotel, packed up our kiddos, and we went! Neither of us had ever been before so we were very excited. We tried not to have too high of expectations since we figured our kids would have a bit of a rough time. Sitting in the car for 3 1/2 hours, no naps, and shopping all day doesn't make for happy children.

On our drive there we passed some outlets and decided to let the shopping begin! After arriving in Minneapolis we made our frist stop, IKEA!! I have really missed this store and I was so excited when I found out there was one in the same parking lot as the Mall of America. We spent a few hours wandering around there and then we went out to dinner at The Rain Forest Cafe.

Both of the Addy's in the shopping cart at Ikea. Turns out Adalee is terrified of elevators. Or atleast the ones at Ikea...


The gang at Rain Forest Cafe: Jamie, Trey, Addie, Adalee, and Danna


After a long day we decided to turn in for the night. This is where it got interesting. Two adults, 3 kids, one hotel room...yeah, it was as bad as it sounds. We thought for sure our battle would be getting them to sleep, but turns out our battle was keeping them asleep. We both spent a good portion of the night rocking our babies trying to keep them from crying and waking up everyone else. I even got to spend a lovely hour at 2 in the morning walking the halls of the hotel with a wide awake baby...ugh! We decided not to take pictures of us at the hotel because neither of us cared to remember that part of the trip :)

We woke up a bit on the groggy side, but after a good continental breakfast we were ready to tackle the Mall of America! It was pretty much the most amazing mall I have ever seen in my life! It had every store you could possibly think of (including a dollar tree...random), lego land, an underground aquarium, and an amusement park in the middle of it.

Lego Land. Everything was completely made out of legos!


The amusement park. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was really big for being in the middle of a mall.



We did experience a few melt downs from the kiddlets and at times we had some ourselves, but we really did have a great time. I can't wait to do another spontaneous adventure :)

The Mysterious Thump

This morning I put Adalee down for a nap and about a minute later I heard a loud thump followed by a cry I didn't even know she had. At that moment I was thinking to myself, "Please tell me she just bumped her head on the crib and that she didn't fall out!" Well, I rushed into her bedroom to find her on the floor. She had indeed managed to fall out of her crib. I felt so awful and sick to my stomach. All I could do was scoop her up and hold her.

Since I wasn't in there when she fell I wasn't really sure if she landed right on her head. I wanted to make sure she didn't have a concussion or anything so I wouldn't let her go back to sleep. Besides, I was not about to put her back in her crib and we don't have a pack and play either. After a few hours I walked into the living room to find her curled up on the floor fast asleep. I guess she decided the floor was going to have to do until Daddy comes home and can lower her crib down (again). Yes, that's right, again! We already did once, but apparently that's not enough. Looks like we have a climber on our hands.