Merry Christmas!

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!! Santa just came and it looks like it will be a good day for the kiddos tomorrow. ;) Have fun everyone!

Stats!

We had Lexi's one year checkup today! Here are her stats for ya:

Weight: 18 lbs. 14 oz. (25%)
Height: 29 inches (60%)

Ummmm....yeah. So she eats TONS, but is still a skinny minnie. Time to start slippin' some butter into everything she eats. ;)

Alexandria's 1st birthday!!

Lexi turned 1 yesterday! Yay! She has her doctor's appointment on Tuesday, so I will post her stats later. She did have a helmet appointment (she's been in it 6 weeks) and the doctor said that she is 1/3 of the way done! Hopefully it should only be another 6 weeks. :) Anyway, our camera died so until I get pictures from Shane's mom, here are some of the pictures from Lexi eating her cake! :) (Which we all know is the main event...)

She wasn't shy about trying it out....

Loving the frosting

Totally demolished her cake! :) I was so excited!

She kept wanting more even after eating 95% of it. haha

The cake for everyone else. Nothing fancy, but it sure tasted good. :)

Lexi's first ride in her new forward facing car seat! She was awake for about 2 minutes of it (which she loved looking out the windows), then crashed. :)

Both the kids were so tired from the party, but we had to head to Shane's dad's side of the family Christmas party. :) That's another post for tomorrow. Happy birthday my big girl!

P.S. She STILL does not have ANY teeth. She has been teething for the last month, though, and her bottom ones are so close to breaking through.....I had a dream that she had 8 teeth come in all at once (which I would love and would explain her oneryness).

Pearls of wisdom from Shane

Remember last time I told you some things Shane said? I have a couple more for your viewing enjoyment. :)

"You DON'T joke about cheesecake!"

"Kaden, don't be high maintenance....that's for girls."

Bowling

So this is my 3rd post today. I keep going through pictures and realizing I have missed stuff! :) This is from when we took Kaden and Lexi bowling on Oct. 9th with our friends Danny and Steph and Steph's brother, Josh. This was the first time Kaden wanted to join in the fun! He wanted to carry the bowling balls all by himself. I let him try to pick it up. hahaha I'm such a mean mom. He then wanted to throw the ball, but, of course, couldn't (thankfully).

Someone had the good sense to put us right by these booths, which provided endless entertainment for Kaden (well, those and Josh chasing him around all night). :)

Kaden loved jumping on these.

Shane taking his turn.

Kaden rolling the ball down the stupid metal thing. It was wobbly and totally not helpful. We had to hold it steady or else the ball would go straight to the gutter.

Watching the ball very slowly roll down the lane.

Trying again....

Steph and I waiting.....

Cheering for Kaden when he knocked a couple of pins down! You can't see him in this picture, but he was soooo proud of himself when he knocked the pins down. :)

We ditched the stupid metal thing for a bit and Danny tried showing Kaden how to granny roll the ball.....right into the gutter. ;)

Me and Lexi. She is chowing down on a carrot.

LOL I love this picture.

Woo!! There it goes! Notice how Kaden is holding the stupid metal thing steady? He quickly learned that from seeing us do it. haha

Waiting for the ball to come back. We had to teach Kaden to NOT put his hand down the ball return. He thought it was cool that the ball just popped out of nowhere. :)

Shane and Lexi watching the fun.

Hanging out

We met up with some friends of ours and everyone brought some fast food for dinner and we just sat around and talked. :) It was so nice to see them all again. It's always too long in between visits.

Lily kept trying to get Lexi's helmet on her own head. hahaha

We met up at Kenzie's parent's house and they had TONS of toys, which all the kids loved.

Lily just turned a year old! Wow! She is only 3 weeks and 1 day older than Lexi. It really is crazy how fast the time goes.

I love this face.

Chowing down! That's Yuki, Josiah and their son, Kai. (Lily belongs to them, too....in case you missed the resemblance.)

This is Lexi's 90 year old lady smile. I swear she will get teeth someday.

Kaden still playing with the many toys.

Ok, so here we have Chad and Kenzie, and one of their two sons (Gaines) in between them. Then there's Shane and Lily and just a peek of Kaden. :) I don't know how I didn't get a picture of Logan, but he is getting so big! Next time we see them I will make sure to take lots of him. :)

Lotsa fun!

We have been having such a fun holiday season so far!! I LOVE this time of year! And kids make everything 150% better! For Thanksgiving, we went to Shane's parent's house in the afternoon on Thursday, then my dad's house later that day, then my mom's house on Friday and last but definitely not least we went to a friend's house on Sunday. 4 Thanksgivings?! Heck YES! I only took pictures at our friend's house......

Here Kaden is checking out the Christmas tree Stephanie was decorating.

Here is Maggie! She is Danny's parent's dog, but since they were out of town, they were dog-sitting. I know she's a Jack Russell, but seriously guys, she is the MOST calm, sweet dog I have ever met. She is a major cuddler and totally adorable. Kaden and Lexi absolutely love her.

(These next few pics Kaden took...)

Shane playing with our new camera (more on that later...) :D

Lexi looking so cute

With Kaden taking the pictures, we had a lot of these butt shots of Maggie since she was all he really wanted to take pictures of. haha

Kaden got a nice closeup tree pic. :) I was surprised because I was sure that he would turn the ornaments into bouncy balls and see how far he could throw them...but he didn't! He loved putting them on the tree and "helping" and didn't once even look like he was about to chuck any of them. :)

In other news, at the beginning of the month we potty trained Kaden! We used this ebook called 3 Day Potty Training. It took Kaden about 1 1/2 days before he was potty trained. :) It was awesome!! I totally recommend it to everyone! Part of it is having the kid run around the house in a t-shirt and underwear, which Kaden enjoyed. ;)

I, of course, put him to work sweeping. That is his favorite chore. :)

Kaden made sure that Elmo sat on the waterproof-potty-square-thing so that he (Elmo) didn't ruin our couches. :)

Kaden always has to make sure that his puppy and whatever other toy he has with him are all tucked under the blanket, too. He is so stinkin' cute. :)
It has been a little over 3 weeks since we potty trained him and he has been doing fantastic! I was extremely worried about hauling him all around for Thankgiving, but he did great and we took a potty seat everywhere we went to make life easier all around.

As for Lexi, she has just been being her adorable little self. She eats TONS which is such a nice switch from Kaden. For example, one day for lunch she ate two entire hot dogs (one was Kaden's that he didn't want), a container of mixed fruit, 6 ounces of formula, and was still snacking on Cheerio's afterwards. hahaha I think Kaden ate 3 crackers and some milk.

For those of you wondering about her helmet progress.....she is doing well. She is used to it and really doesn't mind wearing it at all. Her next appointment is on Dec. 10th and the doctor said that he wants there to be at least 1/8th of an inch of movement from when she first put the helmet on. So we will see what happens.... :)

My little T.V. junkie has claimed this body pillow as her own little chair. She is so cute!

She is happy 99% of the time. And entertains herself 98% of the time, too. What a great little baby! Kaden LOVES his sister and watches out for her. He also makes sure that he gives her her teddy bear before she goes to bed and gives her hugs and blows her kisses. :) I have the best kids in the world.

New family pics

We had family pictures done at the beginning of October and (slacker that I am), now you all get to see them! I will try not to post all 176 of them. ;) My friend Livia did them and (as always) I love her work and how they turned out. It was absolutely freezing (plus wind) and the kids were not happy. I was really glad that Livia was able to get some shots of them actually smiling! :) I LOVE fall and the gorgeous colors! Enjoy!