Casa Bonita

So we all acknowledge that the food isn't the best, but it seems like we always seem to visit the great place of dragon caves, divers, and puppet shows when my family is all in town. Kaitlin absolutely loved it, and we all had a pretty good time. I was remembering that last time we were there, Kaitlin burst out "there's a baby in mommy's tummy" in the middle of dinner. Cat was out of the bag I guess.

The grown ups - Christmas 2009

This was by far my favorite holiday since we've been married. I love staying home on Christmas Eve and making Polish and Russian food together. It's so fun starting our own family traditions. We got to go to a Broncos game on Sunday, and my parents kept the kids all day. Michael got golf clubs and every accessory to go with it, I got new shoes and a nifty hair straightener. We had fun visiting my parents in the morning and Baileys in the afternoon. I feel like we got to see all of our extended family, but the holiday was really about spending time with our beautiful girls and really enjoying time as a family. We have much to be grateful for this holiday!

Kaitlin Christmas 2009

Favorite things about Kaitlin this Christmas:

• Favorite present: Care-alot village. Waita go Santa on this one!
• Really got it this year. She was excited to leave Santa cookies and carrots for the reindeer.
• Frosting sugar cookies with sprinkles and no frosting - "why won't they stay?"
• Perfect pictures with Santa every time.
• Came upstairs the day after Christmas asking for a stamp and envelope so she could mail Santa her thank you letter. We were very touched over that one.
  
• Had fun playing with James Preston when Devores came over on Christmas Eve. He is the sweetest, most well behaved boy I've ever been around. We love having them over and are grateful that we've been friends all these years.
  
  

Allison Christmas 2009

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  Favorite things about Allison this Christmas:



• She started crawling a few weeks before Christmas, and by the big day she was everywhere (including up stairs). Our Christmas tree had very few ornaments on it this year because her little curiousity just kept getting the best of her.



• Constant babababa and dadadada coming from her directions



• Favorite present: wrapping paper. Not the cool rag doll I was so excited that she'd want:)
  
• Best kisses ever!
• So afraid of Santa Clause. We never did get the perfect picture with him.
• Being told that she fit right in at Bass Pro shop when she was wearing her cheetah print coat.
• Wore that little Santa suit about 5 times...and always received a million compliments over it.

Memo from a Child to Parents

My mother-in-law gave me a really cool parenting book for Christmas (hmmm, should I read something into this:). I came across this list this morning and just loved it.

From a child:

1. Don't spoil me. I know quite well that I ought not to have all I ask for - I'm only testing you.

2. Don't be afraid to be firm with me. I prefer it. It makes me feel secure.

3. Don't let me form bad habits. I have to rely on you to detect them in the early stages.

4. Don't make me feel smaller than I am. It only makes me behave stupidly "big."

5. Don't correct me in front of people if you can help it. I'll take much more notice if you talk queitly with me in private.

6. Don't make me feel that my mistakes are sins. It upsets my sense of values.

7. Don't protect me from consequences. I need to learn the painful way sometimes.

8. Don't be too upset when I say "I hate you." Sometimes it isn't you I hate but your power to thwart me.

9. Don't take too much notice of my small ailments. Sometimes they get me the attention I need.

10. Don't nag. If you do, I shall have to protect myself by appearing deaf.

11. Don't forget that I cannot explain myself as I should like. That is why I am not always accurate.

12. Don't put me off when I ask questions. If you do, you will find that I stop asking and seek my information elsewhere.

13. Don't be inconsistent. That completely confuses me and makes me lose faith in you.

14. Don't tell me my fears are silly. They are terribly real and you can do much to reassure me if you try to understand.

15. Don't ever suggest that you are perfect or infallible. It gives me too great a shock when I discover you are neither.

16. Don't ever think that is beneath your dignity to apologize to me. An honest apology makes me feel surprisingly warm toward you.

17. Don't forget I love experimenting. I couldn't get along without it, so please put up with it.

18. Don't forget how quickly I am growing up. It must be very difficult for you to keep pace with me, but please try.

19. Don't forget that I don't thrive without lots of love and understanding, but I don't need to tell you, do I?

20. Please keep yourself fit and healthy. I need you.

I was really touched by this list. As I work on my goals for this year, it kinda helped remind me that my kids don't need me to perfect, but they do need me to try to understand where they are coming from. Here's to us all becoming slightly better in 2010, starting at home with our families.

Just some random crazy people...

I was working on our Christmas card and was whining how we have so few pictures of Michael and me together (duh, one of us is usually taking the picture:). His dad snapped some of us in his back yard over Thanksgiving and they turned out fun and silly. I'm glad that six years in we still seem to bring out the silly in each other.

Nine Months Old

We got some cute pictures of our sweet Allison aka Alligator over Thanksgiving, and it occurred to me that she's nine months old. It's going so fast.

A few new things this month:

• Still not totally crawling...she's mastered the art of moving her knees and now just needs to figure out how to move the arms too. She'll try for awhile and then push herself into her sitting position.
• She loves to jabber. Mamamama and Dadadadada are her favorites. Dadadadada was first and is the one we hear the most:)
• She's finally consistently sleeping through the night. She goes down about 8:00 or so and we usually don't see her until 7:00 the next morning. It's wonderful!
• She loves pumpkin pie!
• What can I say, we were blessed with a truly happy little soul in our family. We've learned a lot from her about just having joy without a true reason.

Halloween 2009

Fun Halloween. Trunk or treat at the church on Friday night, Saturday night hanging out trick or treating with cousins in Fort Collins. Kaitlin just loved the attention and the festivities, Allison was just a little confused why we kept putting this thing back on her head. It was great!

For about the 3rd year in a row, Michael and I were awful about taking pictures of eachother. This is the one shot in my cute Komono, and he was a great moose!

Michael the Moose

The Cheerleader - oh so appropriate!

We couldn't get her to hold still for a single picture, but she looked really sweet.

The Giraffe

Hello Officer

We came home from Sams today, and there were 4 police cars parked a few houses down from ours. Kaitlin asks if we can go say hello, and we walk over to the police officers chatting outside of their cars. I was really afraid of police men when I was little, and I'm happy to try and talk to them if Kaitlin wants to.

Kaitlin: "Hiya officer, are you guys here because someone did something really bad...like not keep their straps on?"

The police officers all just bust out laughing. It turns out two of them have 4 year old daughters named Kaitlin. They gave her a little junior deputy police officer badge, and all gave her high fives when they left. It was like something straight out of Higgly Town Heroes.

A Matter of Perspective

A week or so ago I started noticing that my dishwasher smelled horrible. It doesn't have a disposal in it, so sometimes food that collects at the bottom can stink and I just blamed it on that. I cleaned it out several times, but the smell was still there. On Sunday morning I was doing the dishes and Kaitlin comes up and says "look mommy, with the tail." I had no idea what she was talking about, but we looked in the dishwasher yet again and showed here there were no tails in the dishwasher. This episode repeated itself twice that day. Yesterday we were making breakfast and she repeated "look, with the tail" again to Michael. He actually got down to her level to see what she was looking at (something I should have done too!) and sure enough, there was a dead mouse on top of the dishwasher but below the counter. Apparently it had climbed up the insulation and died there. He very kindly removed the dearly departed creature for me, and my kitchen smells so much better now.

I forget sometimes that those little kids see the universe entirely differently because they see it from a different perspective. Oh the gospel analogies are endless:)

CSU Homecoming Parade

Cookie time when we got off the float.

Kaitlin with cousin Corina and Grandma Bailey.

Michael's dad always helps the Colorado Academy of the Arts with their float in the homecoming parade. Basically, he and Michael set up sound equipment in the truck that pulls the float, and then a bunch of singers and dancers hop around the float doing the twist and other various "poodle skirt" dances. This year they had room for the entire family to climb on, and it was awesome! It was a bit cold (especially on the drive back to the Academy after the parade), but the music was really fun and we all had a good time doing the twist.

Care Bear Cuteness

Kaitlin's love for the furry friends has gone from adorable to borderline obsessive. She knows everything there is to know about the Carebears, and she'll talk about them with anyone that will listen. During one of our late night runs to Walgreens for teething meds for baby, we found a whole bunch of carebears on mega clearance. So, they came home with us.

"Look mommy, it's the carebear 'stair' ha ha". I just had to laugh.

Broomfield Days

Mike and I both love the various "carnival/festivities" put on by the various suburbs during the summer. We hit Thornton fest a few months ago, and decided to check out Broomfield days on Saturday. It was great! The best part was the firestation right there. They were giving tours of the firehouse, the firetruck, and of course, free fireman hats:) Fun was had by all.

First Day of Dance

We signed up for dance lessons with Eden and Larke Jones. Wednesday has become the highlight of Kaitlin's life. She's a good head taller than the other girls her age, and grace is definitely not her middle name, but she just loves it!

First Day of Soccer

New ball, new shin guards, any red shirt we could find in the house...we're ready to play! Big thanks to Jenny Anthony for organizing a fun soccer club for the youngsters.

Omaha

My cute sister-in-law and I spent the week in Omaha with our babies, and we left our three-year-olds with my parents. We saw the Omaha zoo, we walked over the bridge over the Missouri river, we ate lots of yummy food, we spent LOTS of money at the most wonderful consignment sale ever, we visited Cabelas (because you can't go to Nebraska and not see Cabelas:). It was fun! I babysat Anni quite a bit while her mom worked that weekend, and man do I have a new appreciation for mothers of twins.