Christmas 2010

This year we were heading to Grandma and Grandpa Hingst's house on December 23rd after daddy got off work. We loaded the kiddos in the car, the dog and ourselves (after loading ALL our luggage and a TON of presents!) and the car wouldn't start. FRUSTRATING! Kyle went in hunt of jumper cables (yes we are those people with out them!) and a neighbor/volunteer fireman came to the rescue....or so we thought. He ended up hooking the cables up WRONG!?! (who does that???) on his side, so when Kyle connected them w/o knowing the guy had done that their was a HUGE spark and the fireman went to check, sure enough hooked up wrong. So the battery was charged and the car was still black. NOT a good sign. I was crying bc I was sure on Christmas Eve no one would be able to fix the car!! We went into town (which is 20 minutes away), and went to an auto parts store. They tried to help Kyle figure out what it could be and we came home with a box of fuses....I started reading online about all these horrible things that could have happened to the tahoe from that wrong hook up but found one thing that said it was probably a LARGE fuse right next to the battery. So the next morning we went back to town to find that large fuse, and it WORKED!!!! YAY! Christmas was saved!!:) We left town shortly after and made it to G&G Hingst's house for Christmas eve festivities. And then went on to Kearney for midnight Mass (Kyle was a skipper and stayed at home with the sleeping boys!).
The next morning Kayden ran into our room and told us "Santa was here!!!!" and we all got up, to my surprise it was 7:30 (I was expecting at 5am wakeup at least!). We let the boys open their stockings while they waited for the rest of the crew to arrive...but they slowly kept opening presents:) They couldn't contain themselves! Loved seeing the Magic of the day in my little angel's faces. They were so excited and so happy to be celebrating Christmas. We spent the rest of the day EATING and EATING, playing games and spending time with the family.

Kayden LOVES spending time with all his family so much that one night when people started leaving after a game of "shit on your neighbor" he said, "why are people leaving? Let's lock the door so that no one else can leave, they all need to stay here!"

We went to Little Fockers with all of our cousins (mommy and daddy did anyway, the boys had a playdate with Erica and Grandpa:), and then we all went bowling one night (the boys included, Kayden LVOES bowling w/ his family!) It was a lot of fun and a Great Christmas to remember:) The "funny" gifts this year got pretty crazy and people had black baby dolls to open, pregnancy tests, and some other things that can't be mentioned!

We stayed in Kearney until the 28th and then went to Milford for a Christmas dinner with the Hingst crew and then drove back to Manhattan bc we had to find a new house! While in NE our homeowners said if we wanted to we could move out Feb 1st!! SO excited to move into town!!!

Oh yeah...and Kayden and Breck were surprised with some pet frogs from Santa! Kermit and George joined our family on Christmas morning:)

Kansas City Fun!

Kyle took a couple random Fridays off this year to just have nice 3 day weekends at home with the kiddos and I. It was super nice and a treat we've never had before! When we lived in AZ all of his vacation time was used flying back to NE for family visits or events. Now that we are a quick drive away we get to use our vacations for real vacations again!!! YAY!! So one of his Fridays we took the boys to Kansas City for the day and did some Christmas shopping at the Plaza with the pretty lights lit up and took the boys to the Dinosaur exhibit at Union Station and on the Christmas Express train. They loved the day and were amazed by the size of the dinos and the Christmas train decked out was a favorite too!

13 months

and your mommy is in the doghouse for not keeping up with your monthly updates very well! With the holidays and our trip to Vegas I haven't even had a second to write a blog post lately!
At 13 months you are still as adorable as I could possibly imagine a baby being. You still have that smile all the time, love everyone and everything way about you that just makes your mommy as happy as can be! You teach me about joy and happiness everyday little guy. You are such an incredible gift to our family, I seriously do not know how we lived without you!
*LOVE to dance! You "get low" and shake your booty with your knees bent down whenever music comes on!
*Know where your nose, eyes, mouth, teeth, tongue, feet and toes are!
*Love "didi" and call her all the time. You will randomly go to the cupboard where we have her treats and get her one:)
*Are obsessed with your bath, if you hear the word bath you demand one, if you go into the bathroom you try and get in the bath. You ask us to take a "baa" often. You LOVE LOVE LOVE it!
*Love to wear clothes and shoes. If you see your shoes on the ground you bring them to me to put on you and lift your foot in the air to let me know it needs to happen. You put hats on all the time, and you want to wear your vest whenever you see it.
*Make lots of animals sounds, monkey, ape, pig, sheep, cow, dog, snake, lion, duck, and bear.
*Say "Mama, dadda, didi, boo (balloon), ba (ball), baa (bath), no, yea, bubbles, vroom"
*playing chase and hide n seek are 2 of your favorite games
*drink organic whole milk
*nurse on demand (usually before nap, before bed and then right when you wake up in the morning. alot of times you nurse during the night still too)
*eat and eat! you love food and so far the only thing you really don't like is grapefruit, you give me a very disgusted look when I offer it to you.
*love your brother! If he is in time out (usually for being mean to you!) you will go join him in his room and keep him company. You just love to follow him everywhere!
*bring me books to read to you all the time. you love stories and have to climb into my lap while I read them to you. I LOVE this.
*You are my snuggly little guy. You love mommy snuggles and being right up next to me is your favorite.

Love you baby boy! You are so fun at this stage right now and I just love watching you grow and change everyday. I soak you in all day long and snuggle up next to you all night. Love you to the moon and back a million times! XOXOXOXOXO

Vegas Baby!

Crepe at Jean Philippe Patisserie! YUM!

Kyle and I happy houring it:)

Kyle and I went to Vegas. All by ourselves. No littles along. He had a conference there from Monday Nov. 29th-Friday Dec. 3rd. When he found out that his boss was bringing his wife he asked me if I wanted to go....this was way back in September. I said sure, but I'm bringing the baby. That was fine....or so he said. As the trip got closer he started letting me know he didn't really think we should bring the baby. I started kind of agreeing, yet not wanting to leave him either, so that left me not knowing what to do. My heart was super confused and torn. I wanted to be the good wife and go and make my hubby happy, but had this super strong urge to stay with my 12 month old. After lots of talks and moments of confusion I decided to go and leave both little people behind.
It was good. They both survived and Kyle and I got a much needed week to ourselves, the first time in 3 and 1/2 years that we had more than one night kiddo free! We ate at fun places, went out for drinks until late in the night and actually had some conversations with eachother without breaks to feed kiddos or pick forks up off the floor!
During the day while Kyle was at his conference I spent my mornnings drinking Starbucks and my afternoons walking up and down the strip taking it all in and shopping! I do love to shop and it was so fun to get to do it for 3 days!!! One day I had a chocolate crepe for lunch and another day I decided a fancy cupcake would be a suitable meal:)
On Friday as we were flying home I was MORE than ready to see my kiddos. I ended up being very happy I didn't bring baby Breck b/c Vegas is one big ashtray and having all that smoke around him would have drove me BONKERS! So the break was great and fun. But if I had to do it over again I wouldn't have been gone a Monday-Friday, I think 2 nights is the most I would choose to do with how little our babies are but we all survived!

Pumpkin Pie Day! (or as other's say, turkey day!)

Kayden with his pilgrim hats he made!

Thanksgiving was great this year! We got to be in Nebraska for the first time in 6 years for Thanksgiving! It was a special treat to get to see BOTH families at Thanksgiving and eat turkey 2x:) We spent Thanksgiving day in Kearney with my side of the family, eating lots of yummy food (we had THREE turkeys!) and 8 pumpkin pies! After stuffing our bellies we of course played games all night long and then headed to bed to get ready for an early day of shopping! Mom and I were up at 3:45 and went to get Erica and Chelle and met Martha, Sarah and Amber (and Amber's bff and her mom) at Target. We shopped till we dropped at Target, Walmart, Herberger's, Gap, Old Navy, Penny's and every other little store in Kearney. I did miss big city shopping on black friday but having all my cousin's and aunts around made it worth ditching the big city for small town Kearney's version of black Friday (they still had lines AROUND buildings to get into stores!!
Saturday we had Thanksgiving with the Hingst side of the family and did the turkey thing all over again! I managed to have a pot explode while I was making stuffing, have to have some disaster to make it a memorable holiday:) Kayden and Gabe had tons of fun playing together. They even got to go ride a 4 wheeler at daddy's best buddy Mike's in-laws house. Gabe tipped it over! Luckily Kayden rode with Trevin and no tipping happened while he was on!

Tonight....

I walked out of the shower to my 3 boys dancing and singing "get low". It was adorable and comical all at once:) Kayden was pantless and Breck was totally nekki. I can't believe Breck is good enough at walking now to "get low"! He was scrunching his little legs down to "get low" and raising his arms above his head to show us his moves. I got it on video, at least the end of it. Absolutely. Adorable.

Shared photo book from Kaisha

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