Merry Christmas to All!!

Holiday Greetings to all of you! We had a wonderful Christmas together and hope that you did, too.

Our Christmas festivities started out with attending Connor's Christmas program at Second Friends. The pics didn't turn out that well, but he did a fantastic job playing the part of a horse at the manger scene. Here's one picture of our little star with Mommy and Daddy when the show was over. Grandpa and Lori, Aunt Sarah, Cara, Collin, and Uncle Jordan were also on hand to watch Connor's performance, and it was so special to have them there!!

We departed that next Wednesday morning for North Carolina, where we spent 4 days with the Carlson family. The kids were real troopers on both flights and had a great time playing with Drew, Amy, and Beth. This was our family's first time to meet Amy and Beth, and boy, are they PRECIOUS! Both of the kids loved "the babies" and also spent a great deal of time running around and around Justin and Mary's house with Drew. Anything that you might envision coming along with 5 young children in one house was a reality for us, and we are grateful to Justin and Mary for opening their home for our celebration. Highlights of our time included a trip to Chuckie Cheese to celebrate Drew's third birthday, and carousel rides and watching the "singing bears" at the local mall. We all enjoyed the time with Grandpa and Grandma Carlson, and had some great Christmas gifts to bring home with us. By the time we left, we were almost pros at telling the girls apart, so the trip was a success (they are pictured above--Amy on the left in the light pink and Beth on the right in the darker pink)!! :)

We arrived back home in Liberty on Christmas Eve afternoon, after a bit of a trying trip. Kylee started vomiting right before we left North Carolina, and continued heaving as we sat at baggage claim waiting for our suitcases at KCI. The poor thing held together well, and Mommy and Daddy were happy to shed their vomit-soaked clothes once we walked back into the house. :)

We then celebrated with Uncle Craig and Grandpa Haneke and once again ate too much. Jordan and the Milne crew were able to join us for an evening of food and fun, which was special for us all. We hit the Plaza for some after-Christmas shopping, which was fun, especially since the weather is so nice here. We look forward to another Christmas celebration with the McKinney crew this weekend.

Connor keeps asking "Is Christmas over?"--he's one lucky boy to have a celebration that spans more than a week!! He keeps asking to open more presents--Brandon and I have laughed about how frustrated God must get with us when we keep asking for more as we stand surrounded by more than we know what to do with already!! We have tried talking with him about being thankful for what he already has, and he does a pretty good job for being four.

Here are some pics of the kids celebrating with family and enjoying their loot. We hope this finds you all doing well!!

Thanks, Grandpa!!

These past couple of weeks have been busy ones for us. The holiday hustle and bustle has definitely set in, but we are having a great time! I am writing this post on a Tuesday, which is possibly the most exciting news of all. What news and why, you ask? This means that I am DONE with clinicals at Jewell for the semester! It is so nice to have things wrapped up. Now I am working on getting my Assessment course up and running--it's my "bread and butter" of all my work at Jewell, so I am excited about that starting up in early January.

We've had some additional (and probably more significant) exciting news in our family--we found out a couple weeks ago that Brandon is the recipient of DST's Gould Award for his division of the company. This is an award given to an associate who models innovation and creates money-saving processes or ideas for the company. Brandon built a self-service website from the ground up that has saved him and his co-workers a great deal of time and hassle, thereby saving money and resources. It will be a great resume builder for him as he continues his career at DST. Congratulations, Brandon!!

Grandpa Carlson flew out last weekend to spend some quality time with the grandkids while Mommy and Daddy went out to celebrate their 7th wedding anniversary. Connor and Kylee had a great time playing with "Pa-Pa", and Connor even got new bunk-beds assembled while Grandpa was here to help Daddy with the project. We enjoyed an evening away with a nice dinner out and an overnight stay at the Hyatt down by Crown Center (if you haven't ever tried priceline.com to get reduced hotel rates, we'd highly recommend it!). It's hard to believe that it's been 7 years already--we feel so blessed to have shared our lives with each other. We both got pretty emotional watching our wedding footage--both because of our commitment to each other and because of all of the support we've received from our friends and family. God has been so good to us and we look forward to celebrating 100 more together! :)

I took Kylee to storytime at the library yesterday. This is our special time together while Connor is at school. She loves to pick out books and do the craft, but is generally uninterested in participating in any of the other storytime activities. We sing songs, shake a parachute, dance, and play musical instruments, during which Kylee stays firmly glued to my lap. The interesting part is that as soon as we get home, she begins belting out whatever tune she refused to sing at the library. Amazing. I'm going to keep trying in the hopes that someday, she'll jump in. Here's a picture of the reindeer that she made yesterday.

We had a great time last night hosting the Chase/Blakemore/Carlson Christmas at our house. We all gathered together and ate, laughed, and watched the kiddos tear into their packages. Connor was thrilled with new swim trunks and flip-flops (if you recall the Elmo flip-flops that Connor wore until his feet literally hung off the back of them a good couple inches, but still had a meltdown when we told him they were too small, you know how exciting this was for him to get a new pair) from the Chases and a new Batman from the Blakemores. Kylee received a My Little Pony from the Blakemores, and a new Ariel swimsuit and sandals from the Chases. The Blakemores also gave us "Ants in Your Pants", a fun new game. We are so thankful to have such wonderful friends!!

We will be preparing for our big trip to North Carolina over the next week. We are excited to see Justin, Mary, Drew, Amy, and Beth!! This will be the first time we meet our nieces/cousins in person. We will spend a few days out there catching up and eating way too much before coming back to Kansas City to celebrate the holidays with the Haneke and McKinney families.

As you may have noticed, there are several pictures of Kylee on this post and not many of Connor. Connor has entered that lovely "I don't want my picture taken" phase of life again. Hopefully he'll snap out of it soon.

We hope this finds you all doing well and enjoying your holiday season. More to come....