Merry Christmas Eve

So it is finally here...Christmas, well almost. It is Christmas Eve as I write this, both kids asleep and Eric and I ( well mostly Eric) just hauled up the Radio Flyer Wagon we are getting the kids from Santa. We have had a great week. Kennon is definitely such a good baby when he is feeling well. He has basically slept through the night the last several nights indicating his ear infection is gone for now. So we are hoping that with the tubes being put in on Tuesday that his good baby behavior and sleepiness will continue. We had an early start to our Christmas celebrations with family. Eric's brother, Phil, and his family came over from Ohio on Wednesday. Maddox got to hang out with her cousins Nicole, 8, and Jake, 12. Maddox definitely thought Nicole was pretty special. She is such a pretty girl with that long blond hair and dark eyes....and she thought Maddox was pretty neat too. They had a ball playing together. The Kies family spent the night and even went to Kcare the next morning with Eric and Maddox to check out Maddox's school. We had a nice time visiting with them, although too short. We wish we lived closer. Friday night Maddox and I made Christmas cut out cookies for Santa. It was really fun although they sort of turned into sugar cookie blobs!! Maddox just loves to cook and she has her special cooking chair that she quickly hurries to the minute you mention the word BAKE! Then today we had a fantastic day. Kennon and Maddox both took great, almost 2 to 3 hours naps and woke up to a house full of people. Grandpa Jim, Grandma Jean, Great Grandma Reta and the Thode family came over to celebrate Christmas. It was SOOOO nice to see everyone. Maddox loved all the attention and especially warmed up to Jackie or 'JAC' as she shortened it to. We sure wished Jackie lived closer...!! She would be a great babysitter...we pay well Jackie!! :) Both the kids were literally showered with gifts...books, clothes, Leap Frog toys, an Etch a Sketch and PJs just to name a few things. The kids were SUPER good and well behaved ( despite Maddox throwing a terrible tantrum this morning that landed her back in her bedroom to cry it out). Kennon didn't cry or whine the entire time they were here ( another sign he is just feeling well after having gotten rid of the ear infection). Then tonight we finished up our Christmas Eve celebration by loading up the kids to head out to see Christmas lights. We drove around town and went to a couple of houses that had the lights synchronized to music. Then Maddox and I put the finishing touches on Santa's cookies. I'm not sure she quite gets the idea of Santa yet. We'll see what she thinks about the wagon from Santa in the morning. Driving around looking at lights and listening to Christmas music, I couldn't help but think of my friend who was transferred to the Genesis Hospice House yesterday. She is dying of cancer, is my age and has 2 small children. Sophie, 4, and Hudson, 18months. It is just awful. So please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers. I literally can not imagine leaving this world at the ages that Maddox and Kennon are. There is a very low probability that she will be here this time next year. We are blessed to have our health but sometimes it takes something like having a close friend be stricken with cancer to realize that we need to treat each and every day like it could be our last. We love all our family and are very lucky that they are such a big part of Maddox and Kennon's lives. We are blessed each and everyday by those little guys. Merry Christmas everyone. We love you!!

Ready for Christmas

So we've been getting ready for Christmas around the Kies house the last couple of weeks. I've been taking the kids to various shops on Mondays/Wednesdays and Eric has been able to stay with the kids on the weekends to allow me to do some kid free shopping to get everything checked off my list. Can't say that I'm totally ready yet but very close. Last week I had a cookie exchange with the moms in our neighborhood playgroup. It was a lot of fun. Maddox helped me bake up the cookies before I went. They were sort of a healthy cookie with almonds and dried cranberries. She was sure to let me know that she didn't like them!! But, she was happy to help herself to the sweet frosting. Lucky for Maddox I came home with a lot better goodies than I left the house with :) She loves to cook/bake, and is always asking to make brownies. I'm looking forward to making Santa's cookies with her on Saturday. Maddox has started using scissors at school. You can see in the pictures she found our scissors. Unfortunately they aren't the safety kind so she needs lots of supervision but enjoyed cutting the wrapping paper up today while I wrapped presents. Kennon enjoyed getting his hands on the crackly paper and any bows/ribbons I would let him play with. Although that was fairly short lived because he tended to put everything in his mouth. He doesn't really need the BUMBO anymore but since we were all working on wrapping presents I put him in it up on the table so he could join in. HEALTH UPDATE: So Kennon got his 4th ear infection this past week. We had actually been to the audiologist last Monday and she thought his ears looked a little infected so we made an appointment for that afternoon and sure enough his right ear was definitely infected and the left one didn't look all that good either. So he is back on antibiotics, but hopefully for the last time. We scheduled Kennon to get tubes on the 27th. We aren't too happy to have him go through the procedure, primarily the anesthesia, but the alternative is continued antibiotics until he outgrows the infections and who knows how many he'll have before that occurs. It is a very short procedure, only 7 minutes. Eric and I will take the rest of the day off to be with him. Hopefully he will do well and we'll be making less trips to the doctor in 2012. We all ended up with a terrible GI bug this weekend. Kind of made getting things checked off our Christmas to-do list a bit harder. But, Eric and Maddox rallied this afternoon and made it out to the mall to get a few more presents while Kennon and I recovered at home. We are looking forward to the upcoming holiday weeks getting to celebrate with family. You will all see how much bigger Kennon is getting and how much naughtier Maddox is getting!! She is definitely going through the terrible 2's. In fact I think we saw her absolute worst tantrum today. She was upset because she couldn't make her scissors work to cut the wrapping paper. Mind you, the scissors are way to big for her and she wouldn't have a BIT of help from us. So the cutting session ended in tears, pounding on the floor, kicking, screaming, finally exhausting herself into a nap. Hmmmm how much longer till she turns 3. Something tells me that won't be a magic fix though :)

Thanksgiving/Christmas Tree 2011

Soooo....since we got to see most of you over the Thanksgiving holiday I'll just post the pictures that I took and won't get bogged down in all the writing. My Christmas preparation 'to do' list is really long right now so I need to get on with that!! BUT....wanted to say a big thanks to all the Grandparents for the hospitality and fantastic food. It was so nice to have everyone together. And thanks to the Knowles family for making the trip. We loved seeing Carter and Maddox interact together. They are definitely going to grow up buddies...and Kennon will be in the mix next year. We did manage to make it to the Family Museum in Bettendorf with the Knowles family. Most of the pictures of Carter and Maddox are from that adventure. I think they both had a good time. The Christmas tree photos are from yesterday ( Saturday). Eric, Kennon, Maddox and I headed out to our usual tree farm on the west side of Davenport to cut down a tree. We got pretty ambitious this year and picked out a beauty....a 9 footer!! ( it actually took longer to get it secured to the RAV than it did to pick it out....our first year actually putting it on the top of the RAV instead of shoving it inside....we figured we didn't want the kids to get their eyes poked out sitting in the backseat with a huge tree...sounds like something the Griswalds would have tried to do :) This is the biggest tree we've ever had. We decorated it last night and it is so pretty. I think I'm hooked on big trees now. This year with all the additional toys we have out in the living room we opted to put the tree in the den in the front window so everyone can see it from the street. It looks really nice. Maddox put the finishing touches on it this morning when she put on her own 'Maddox' ornaments. We are looking forward to a great holiday season. Thanks again for everything over the Thanksgiving week. Can't believe Kennon turned 6 months old on Friday. We are having one of our neighbors come over this afternoon to take our family Christmas card picture and Kennon's 6 month photos. Hopefully I"ll have some good shots to share with you later. On to uploading......oh by the way, I've been trying for the longest time to get video of Maddox singing. She sings all the time but of course when I have the camera running she doesn't 'perform'. I'll keep trying. My favorite is the 'Itsy Bitsy Spider'. She doesn't really say the SUN came out and dried up all the rain she says the SONE came out and it is just priceless!!