Christmas Part 1

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! My favorite time of year is here and we have been enjoying it. We leave for Wyoming on Monday to spend Christmas with my family and everyday since before Thanksgiving (when we told her the plan) Hadley has asked if we are going on an airplane. I can't wait for Monday when I can tell her YES! Janet was able to come down for an extended weekend and we celebrated Christmas with her (Kemper was watching too via Skype--gotta love technology). Our family....not everyday you can get a picture with both girls smiling and everyone looking at the camera!

I had to do some Christmas shopping one morning at the mall and got Hadley excited about the idea too when I told her we could go throw money in the water. I gathered up about 50 pennies and she was a happy camper when we got there!

One of her most favorite things to do now is "see Hadley" or "watch Hadley." She will sit for hours and watch videos of herself we have taken. It is getting more and more difficult to get her to smile for the camera...unless I say, "Smile nice then you can look at Hadley."

My mom sent us 2 giant boxes of Christmas outfits for the girls and they are all so so so cute! Here are a couple.

Andy's boss gave Hadley a gingerbread house kit and we had so much fun. It brought back all kinds of wonderful memories! Hadley was quite the helper.....

putting on gumdrops....

making the roof look nice....

giving her input....

putting on the candy lights....

and making sure the box was correct in saying "edible"....

......sure enough.

This was our happy Joni while we put together the house.

The finished product.

We opened presents that night. Janet is awesome and gets me Cricut cartridges (a craft cutter). I love them!

The girls opened all their presents. Hadley got her new favorite toy.....a Furr Real baby penguin that makes sucking noises and flaps his wings. She carries it everywhere, puts it to sleep and feeds it.

Joni enjoying her gifts.

Andy enjoying his gift....a Qdoba gift certificate! He was sooooo excited!

It seems like Hadley was just opening presents for her birthday....she is very good about being excited about every gift! Note her baby penguin already sitting next to her.

Then that night for dinner we had a special breakfast. We made Aebleskivers (with the new pan Janet bought us), thick cut bacon, and sausage with eggs. It was so delicious!

Then after dinner/breakfast we went to Lights Under Louisville. They have a mega cavern under the zoo that you can tour during the year but at Christmas time they fill it with lights and then you drive through it. It was fun (not counting the 1 hour wait to get in).

More to come when we get back from Wyoming! We pray that everyone has safe travels! Love to you all and Merry Christmas!!!

IT'S DECEMBER!!! But first Thanksgiving....

We are decking the halls with bows of holly and wishing you a Merry Christmas because it is Christmas time in the city! I love it! We had a great Thanksgiving with Andy's parents and Kemper's side of the family. First a couple fun pictures of the girls. If I had known that buttons would have occupied Hadley for....I kid you not, at least 45 minutes.....then I would have let her spill them much earlier. Who knew....buttons?

Enjoying Hadley's favorite seat in the house....her Dora couch. Joni is almost sitting up by herself does really well when supported. She likes Hadley's couch too.
Joni loves bending backwards like this too. I think she likes to look at things upside-down (who doesn't, really). Anyways, Hadley thought it was great and so here they are.
On to Thanksgiving....so we drove up to Milwaukee on Tuesday afternoon (pretty quick 7 hours thanks to the movie player from Oma and Opa---I'm not going to tell you what movie she watched because I'm sure you all know :)) The next morning we got up, had some doughnuts (see below) and headed to Minneapolis, MN to spend Thanksgiving at Kemper's cousin's house. Margaret is married to Greg and has twin daughters (Katie and Jenny who held Joni for 4 days straight). Margaret's sister, Mary, came too. Two of Andy's uncles, their families, and his Grandma Marge from Worland were also there. Lots of people, lots of fun!
Brian (Kemper's brother), his sons Curran and Callahan, and one of the twins.....I'm going to say Katie. (Sorry girls if you read this and I guessed wrong!)
Trying to get Joni to fall asleep....she tends to not want to do that when there are people to watch and kids to play with.
Just sitting around visiting....Margaret had some pop-up tents to play with, which Hadley did!
She also had some stuffed animals....Hadley found this bear she really liked and then took all it's clothes off and put one of her clean diapers on it.....she is turning into quite the "little mommy!"
Hadley and Papa
So on Thanksgiving, Margaret had the meal ordered from a catering place and it was INCREDIBLE! We ate so much good food! Then we all went to check out the Mall of America. Since it was Thanksgiving Day, the stores were all closed but you could still walk around inside. The roller coaster ride section was also open so Hadley got to go on a few.
She loved this bus and didn't mind just crawling in and playing with the steering wheel. Who says you have to spend lots of money to ride a bunch of rides when you can just play in something like this for free.
"Come Mama..." She took me for a ride too.

A ride we paid for.....she had fun though and that's what counts.
A big part of the crew....Mary, me, Katie, Kemper, Caroline (Andy's other cousin---Curran and Callahan's sister for those of you who really want to know :)), Jenny, and Andy
The grand kids, and great-grand kids at the mall (Grant and Anna--more cousins, and everyone else). Yes we are crazy and went to the mall on Black Friday. Little different scene let me tell you! Andy and I met up with some good friends from Laramie who live in Minnesota now (thanks for coming Winegars!) and everyone else went shopping.
Hadley headed down to the pool. We tried to go swimming every night since we were staying at a hotel that had a pool and a hot tub. We heard "Go swimmin" a lot that week.
We just thought this picture was good. Our camera goes underwater and this is Grant...and some bubbles.
The pool was a little chilly but Hadley loves it! It was fun actually being able to swim with Andy instead of him just watching us.
Almost the whole family....Joni didn't get in but she came down to watch with Nana.
Callahan didn't want to go swimming either....who would really when there are cute babies to hold.
Sitting in the hot tub....I'm pretty sure Callahan took this picture. Not too bad.
This is what we did every morning....as we'd wake up, we would go get something to eat and the last person at the table had to pay......just kidding. Thank you Hubers for EVERYTHING!
My cute girls are getting so big....I plan on doing more of this (dressing them alike) until they get to the age when they can dress themselves (I realize this will come sooner than I think). Janet picked out these outfits and I love them.
We had a great time!! The trip home took a little longer with Thanksgiving traffic and accidents but we made it safe and sound. Just a couple more weeks and we fly to Wyoming for Christmas. Hope you all have a wonderful December and remember the reason for the season. Love to you all.