Christmas with a Chance of Snow

Well Christmas has come and gone again and once again I'm looking around my house wondering where to put all of these toys. Unfortunately there was a large winter storm that threatened any Christmas travel which hasn't happened around here for years. The good thing was that we didn't get much but rain and a few snow flakes here in Kasson and that meant the Grandma and Grandpa Kilen were able to make it to our house for the Christmas Eve activities. They did decide to spend the night which made for an extra special Christmas morning. The bad thing was that Auntie Amy wasn't able to make it home for Christmas. South Dakota apparently got lots more snow than we did here. We are hoping to make up for this in January when Uncle Gary comes home to visit from Seattle.

While we were waiting for Grandma and Grandpa to get here, Gage decided that he needed to arrange the presents a little under the tree.
Gage is playing with the "Gat-tatar" that we got him for Christmas. He is very serious when he plays it. Maybe he will make it big in the next 2-3 years and his Dad and I can retire :)
Dylann LOVED her baby and crib that she got from Grandma and Grandpa! She has to kiss the baby good night every night before she goes to bed now.
Gage and Dylann had to do team work to get the presents from Santa open on Christmas morning.
All tuckered out after opening and playing with all of their new presents.
Even though they have more toys than you could keep in a toy store they still could spend hours playing with things a simple as a paper bag :)

While Aaron and the kids were down in Mabel celebrating Christmas with his family I stayed home to work on a surprise for Dylann. I finished painting her my little pony room and got her big girl bed ready for her. She transitioned to the big girl bed very well. The first night she went straight to sleep (I don't think she realized that anything was different because she was so tired from all of the Christmas celebrations though) The next night we read a book, she gave her baby a kiss and tucked her in and then crawled into her bed. I gave her a kiss and then a hug, and then one last kiss and left her to fall asleep. We only had to go back in there a couple of times and she quickly fell asleep. Then the night after that we didn't have to go in at all after putting her to bed. She just plays with her baby pony for a little bit and then goes straight to sleep. She has proven us wrong and put our fears of her in a big girl bed to rest (for now).

Visiting Santa at the hospital.

We went to Francis 1C today to see santa. My Mom works there and every year they have a Santa visit and a Christmas party for all of the kids. It is a great time. They have lots of great treats and Santa even gives out presents to the kids.

As you can see from the above picture, Dylann was a little frightened of Santa. I am surprised by this because she loves to point out all of the Santa's that she sees and love to go HO HO HO. She was okay with Santa until we got close and asked if she wanted to sit on Santa's lap. She instantly tensed up and started to squirm. The closer we got to more frightened she got until she was all out crying. After she calmed down a bit, we went over and found the food and she was as happy as can be.

Gage was very happy to see Santa. We have been talking a lot about Santa and about how he know when your naughty or nice ;). Gage went right up to Santa, sat on his lap, and told him that he wanted a batman cave, a batman helicopter, and a castle. (I wonder if Gage will get all of these things from Santa?) Gage was very happy to get a hot wheel car from Santa today. He couldn't believe that Santa knew that he liked hot wheels. Gage also gathered lots of treats to bring home after the party.
Gage showing off his cool new hot wheel car that he got from Santa. And believe me he will remember that he got THAT car from Santa for years to come.
Dylann got over her fear of Santa long enough to rip open the present he got for her. She loved her puzzle.
The best picture that I could get of the 2 kids from the night. Gage doesn't look too impressed and Dylann is making the candy cane Rudolph's fight.

Christmas cookies with little friends

We had 8 little ones over today all under the age of 4 to decorate Christmas cookies. It was a ton of fun and a little crazy. My kitchen floors will never be the same after today!
Going around the table we have Dylann (1 1/2), Asha (2 1/2), Elias (1), Jack (1 1/2), Andrew (2), McKenzie (3 1/2), and Gage (3 1/2). Missing from the table is baby Micah who is 6 weeks old. It was such a blast. We had all sorts of cookies, frosting, and all sorts of things to decorate. I'm not sure how many cookies were eaten during the session or how much frosting ended up in little mouths, but we had enough left over to last us until Christmas. All of the kids made a big mess, but Cindy's kids took home the prize for messiest. Asha's hands might be permanently green and Elias was caught drinking frosting out of the bowel.
Gage really took to the Orange colored frosting and made many orange Santas, bears, trees, and stars. He sat and decorated until the last cookie was decorated. I did catch him several times with his finger in his mouth but he refused to eat any of the cookies that he decorated.

Dylann would sit and decorate a cookie, get down and play, eat a cookie, and then decorate some more. She was very particular about her cookies. The would paint them until every last bit was covered with frosting, then she would put on sprinkles and proceed to pick off the sprinkles and eat them. She was very messy when it was all said and done.
When the kids had enough of decorating cookies they decided it was time to burn off some of the energy all of that sugar made. Dylann took the 2 little boys up to her room and they all ran around and giggle for a very long time. I don't think they were playing any game in particular, they were basically just running in circles.
Eventually Dylann had to take a nap, but kids that were still over were still on a sugar high. Gage, Asha, and Elias were running circles around our living room for about an hour while Cindy and I were cleaning up and Cindy was getting ready to go. All in all it was a great day and our goal for making a complete mess and having tons of fun was met.

SNOW!!!

Well it snowed today. A lot! It took an hour to go from our house across Kasson to our daycare and back. It was not very nice out this morning. Me and the kids had lots of fun during our snow day. Playing, making cookies, and lounging around in our comfy cloths.
Gage wanted to read Dylann a story and Dylann thought that she needed to sit on his lap. It was pretty cute to see them so close and not fighting :) She also weighs almost as much as Gage so I'm surprised that she fits on his lap.

We made lots and lots of sugar and gingerbread Christmas cookies after naps. We are having some friends over tomorrow to help frost the cookies and make a lot of mess.
Me and Gage decided to monkey around with the camera while Dylann was sleeping.

Happy holidays

As 2009 wraps up I have thought that it would be a nice thing to start a blog so our family and friends near and far can keep up with the things that are going on in our life. It seems hard sometimes for me to even keep up with everything that is happening. So here it goes.

Gage will be turning 4 soon and I can hardly believe how fast the time has gone. He started preschool this year and absolutely loves it. He comes home with many art projects every Tuesday and Thursday. He has learned how to write and spell his name and is practicing writing the names of things all of the time. He has a tendency to write letters and even entire words backwards, but I can still tell what he is trying to write (I might be the only one though). Gage has turned into a very well behaved little boy. He is always trying to be a "good boy." We call him our little hall monitor because he is always keeping order. It seems fitting that he wants to be a cop when he grows up. He is big into super heros right now and his favorites are Captain America, Wolverine, and Iron Man. He shares this fondness for super heros with his friend at daycare named Owen. Him and Owen are always pretending to be super heros together. Just today they were playing Batman. Gage was the Joker and Owen was Batman.

Dylann is 19 months old now and growing up very fast. She talks in nearly full sentences now and loves to sing Jingle bells and the Mommy Daddy song. This song basically goes "Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy, Gagey, Mommy" She is a very strong willed little girl and she knows exactly how to get what she wants. She loves to play with her babies and pushes them around in her stroller all of the time. She also likes to pretend to feed them and have little "tea parties" with them. She is very good at counting and has even been known to count all the way up to 15. I am completely shocked by this because I can't tell you how she learned this. She loves to do anything that Gage is doing and he loves to have her to play with.

Here is a video of the kiddos dancing to a little 80's tune