We have almost survived Christmas. We have one more to celebrate - this weekend Derek's family is coming into town to stay with us for a couple of nights. Owen can't wait to see his Grandparents, he has a special relationship with Derek's Dad and with my Stepdad. Grandpas can play and play and play and play Starwars until the cows come home!
Christmas begam for us when we went to Illinois on the 17th. Over the course of five days we slept in four different beds. Even though it was hectic to be away from our house and our routine it was awesome to see all of my family. My mom's side of the family always gets together at my cousins house in Chicago and I can't believe how many of us are in one house and the noise level that we create. I think at my cousins house there are at least 50-60 people! We all bring a gift to exchange for a game and it is a 20 dollar minimum so they are pretty decent gifts but the ones that go the fastest are the lottery tickets and alcohol! After Chicago we spent a couple of days in Galena with my mom, stepdad, my sister and the boys in a house at Eagle Ridge Resort. Derek took Owen skiing for the first time and he loved it. It is so neat to see him trying out new activities and being excited about his accomplishments. He got to ride the ski lift so I think that was the highlight of the whole trip! Then we packed the boys back up and drove to Sterling, to see my Grandma and my Dad and Diane. We only spent one night there because I had to get back to work on Thursday. Good thing we have a van because we wouldn't have gotten all of our things home. Let's just say my children are a little spoiled. Owen is so use to my sister getting him tons of presents that this year I told her get him one little thing because she spent way too much money on him for his birthday. After opening her gift I said OK Owen that is it and he replied "you're just kidding, right."
Christmas day was just the four of us and we went to the Water Park of America and that place is awesome. It is super warm inside and great water rides for kids and really reasonably priced. I want to make it a tradition that we go every year on Christmas - next year Keaton will be tearing the place up just like his brother was this year! Owen really enjoyed Christmas this year and he is still in a funk that it is over. I still have the decorations up and he wants to open the the advent calendar every morning. He told me today there was a piece of candy in number 14. I think Derek put a piece in there to cheer him up! I can imagine how disappointing it could be after Christmas is over for kids because there is all this hype and then the next day is just another day. Kind of like your birthday as you get older - just another day! I can't believe that I am going to be 32 in 2011. After having kids it does seem like the years fly by just a little bit faster.
In November we took some family pictures with Christine Wood and so happy with how they turned out. I am highlighting some of my favorites in this post.
Keaton turned 6 months old in December and still not sleeping the best for me at night. I want to give him a break since we were gone and messed up his schedule but I just think I have a bad sleeper. He does go to bed around 6:30 and sleep until about 6:30 but is up a couple of times at night crying out to to me to feed him! I also think he is going to be my trouble maker! Owen was and still is a very special child - he never opened up any of my kitchen cabinets to play in, I never had to lock things up because he wouldn't get into drawers, etc.
On the other hand Keaton is almost ready to crawl and tries to stand up in his baby bath and looks at me when he does it like he knows he isn't suppose to be doing it. He refuses to eat his baby food and wants to eat what we are eating so I have just resorted to giving him breadsticks to eat when we are eating dinner and then try and sneak baby food in his mouth. Derek said the other day he could see the mischievous demeanour in his eyes!
I have my race schedule all ready to go and super excited about 2011. I have some goals I want to accomplish for myself and for the future. I have registered for one race since it was discounted in December and want to register for the rest of them but holding off just in case a unforseen circumstance happens. I will be putting my race schedule up here in the next couple of days so stay tuned. Happy New Year everyone!
