Katie's visit

I'm finally getting these pictures up! Katie took tons of GREAT pictures so she's not in alot of them, but I did manage to snap a few of her! This picture of Kenzie's feet is my absolute favorite!!

We went to Ripley for New Years and visited with Nana and Pop. We made a stop at Aunt Kathie's house and visited with her "puppies" Oreo and Bear. They were very curious about Kenzie! She warmed up to them pretty quickly too!

Hiding in Nana's curtains...where's Kenzie?? There she is!!

We had a couple of warm days while Katie was here, but the day after New Years was COLD!! We had to play inside that day.

Katie took lots of pictures during bedtimes, these are just some of the best!

Kenzie looks like she could be in a toothpaste commercial in that one picture!

Like I said, we had a few warm days and took full advantage of them!! Katie arrived just in time to break in the new playground!

Stay tuned for an adorable video of them playing with bubbles...in the house!

It's the Spongebob Dance!!

While I'm downloading more pictures, I thought I'd throw in a bonus video. She LOVES Spongebob and her friend Paige taught her this "dance".

A Linden Christmas

My camera started getting finicky and the lighting wasn't quite right so I apologize for the quality and low number of pictures. We went to Linden the weekend after Christmas and surprised Brian's parents by arriving a day early! We had a great time playing games with everyone and eating all kinds of nutritious meals like chocolate gravy, bacon, biscuits...well, it was delicious, if not healthy!! haha If I remember correctly, I think Brian and I were the Cranium champions!

Kenzie was a big help to Granny Mae! It was another warm Christmas. Highs in the mid 60's!!

And did I mention they gave her a WAY COOL swingset??? Words can't describe...all I can say is we love it!!!

Christmas Day

And if all those pictures didn't blow you away, here's a "few" more (don't forget, there are more Christmas posts to come, even a couple of videos!)

Since we had Christmas with Van and Kristin on Christmas Eve, Nana and Pop stayed the night with us and spent Christmas Day at our house! They helped Santa put all the presents under the tree. It was too hard to wrap the bean bag so we just left that out for her to use as her throne. Kenzie helped everyone open their presents!

Nana and Pop had lots of fun shopping for Kenzie! Among other things, they bought her a drum with lots of instruments inside (thanks.) and a bear that tells three stories! She was very impressed. Ace was enthralled with the bear too. He was Kenzie's shadow most of the day. You just never know when she might open something edible!

Aunt Kathie arrived just in time for presents! Of course Kenzie helped her too. Kenzie and I got matching Christmas purses from Aunt Kathie! They light up and everything! Aren't we stylish?!

She loved ALL of her new clothes and did the strip routine for every outfit (see Christmas Eve post for explanation). Looks like Kenzie's ready to travel with her supercool luggage and backpack with her initials on them!

I think she may have changed clothes 2 or three times that day! Isn't her princess dress beautiful? Finally, she decided she and her babies were ready to take a break and lay on the beanbag. WHEW!

Warning!!! Christmas Explosion!!

By Christmas Explosion, I mean it's going to take several posts to get all these pictures posted in somewhat chronological order in a timely fashion. (I'm already being bombarded with requests for pictures!!)

This first post is from Christmas Eve.Van and Kristin were going to be flying out on Christmas Day with her family to go skiing in Breckenridge, CO! Kenzie had a blast with her Uncle Van and Aunt Kristin. She can say both their names...mostly...I mean you can tell what she's trying to say. OH!! My biggest (and BEST) present came from mom and dad! They took Brian and I and Van and Kristin with them to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert tuesday night! Dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe set the tone for the night and the rest was sensory overload with music and lights and lasers and THE best pianists I've ever seen. Really made me miss playing the piano (though I could never play like that!). It really was the best concert I've ever been to and it was even more special because I was able to share it with my parents, husband, and brother and sister-in-law! Allison babysat Kenzie and they had a ball. I don't think she missed us at all!

Ok, let me explain that picture in the middle. Kenzie opened one of Van and Kristin's gifts and...I kid you not... as SOON as she saw it was clothes she started jerking her clothes off to change!! We were able to catch her doing it on Christmas day on video, but I don't think that would be appropriate to post, so you'll just have to ask me about it later! hahahaha So in the next picture you can see that she successfully got the cute pj's on. It really was hysterical.

Van was excited to get his Carharts (for work), but thankfully he jerked them on OVER his clothes. Guess I know where Kenzie gets it from now! Kristin was pretty pumped about her gift card to Ann Taylor Loft, that's a moment of bliss you see there. Mom and Dad are great shoppers!!

Backtracking...gobble, gobble

I tracked down my dad and got pictures from his camera from Thanksgiving! Happy, Katie? ;) He didn't take a whole lot of pictures, but I snagged a few cute ones! Just about everyone was there and we had the best time! Rachel and I looked at her bridal portraits (more pictures coming from her Dec. 20th wedding soon!) and Kenzie chased Carmen around. Carmen is Steve and Kim's Golden Retriever. Anytime Carmen was out of her sight, she'd start calling "Ca-men? Ca-men!". It was so cute! She and Lanie "played" foozball alot, though I don't have any pictures of that! Sorry. Kenzie's a sticker fanatic and only likes to stick them on skin, so we end up walking around with them on our cheeks, nose, elbows, whereever she decides they look best.

Van will eventually figure out how to get the grandfather clock to his house.

Christmas Time!!

It's my favorite time of year!! Kenzie is so excited about all the lights and the tree and baby Jesus's birthday! She likes snowmen ("momen") and santa ("ho ho ho") and penguins. She loves all the fun ornaments we have around the bottom of the tree! These are just a few random shots we've taken recently.

Night, night time with Daddy. "May we HELP you?" And today was unseasonably warm (low 60's!) so she wore her cute new vest!

We took this video of Kenzie playing with her daddy's deer grunt call. Yes, he's breaking her in early. Thankfully she still loves to shop!