Thanksgiving 2010

Wow, did we have a great weekend! It was SO much fun! We had a great time visiting with family and friends, and Brodie and Naomi spending time with family too :)

We got to Ellsworth Wednesday night. Brodie slept with Nana & Grandpa and Naomi slept with Auntie Eden. Ben and I slept in the bedroom downstairs, just the two of us and it was very nice. We were able to have uninterrupted sleep, which hasn't happened in awhile! :)

Thursday, on Thanksgiving, we went to Salina to visit my family and then that evening we were in Ellsworth. There was SO much food all day!

That night/morning, Eden and I went to check out some Black Friday deals. We left Ellsworth at about 11:30pm and got home at about 6:45am. We got some deals all right, haha I didn't wake up until about 5 that evening and then went to bed early too. Got most of the Christmas shopping done though! :)

Saturday was the Kruger family reunion! It was SO much fun! Bro got to meet some of his cousins and run and play around with them! It was so cute watching Bro and Braden Kruger playing. At first they would kind of take the toys away from each other and then they both cried, but then they got over it. When we were at the country club, Bro would lay his pillow down and Braden would pick it up and play with it, and he'd run around as if he were looking for Bro. It was cute! :)

Sunday Bro got a haircut and then we headed home. It was a great holiday, but I was glad when we got home. I was also super glad that we put up all of our Christmas decorations before we left so we didn't have to deal with it when we got back! :)

Oh and yesterday, I stayed home with Brodie and took him to the doctor because he has a cough. It's not just a little cough, it sounds pretty deep. But, the doctor said it was nothing, that people cough. He wasn't running a fever, not acting sick, no ear infections. Just a cough. But they did give him his second flu shot. I loved spending the day just him and I. We watched TV, got some Chick-fil-a on the way back from the doctor's. We cuddled on the couch. And he weighs in at 28 pounds. They didn't measure him, just took his weight. :)

Last night and the night before he slept in our bed too. But tonight he's sleeping in his! At daycare today Wanda said that he was really good, only had a couple fits. She said whatever we did/gave him, we need to do it more often! haha ;) I think he just needs more Mommy/Brodie days :)

OH, while we were in Ellsworth Brodie slept in Eden's old bed by himself two nights in a row! They turned the TV on and he just laid up there, pulled the blankets over himself and went to bed :) Growing up so fast. We tried converting his crib to a big boy bed but Ben couldn't figure it out, so we'll have to find the directions.

Anyway, we had a lovely time over the holiday and it was so great to see all the wonderful family. We are very blessed to have such amazing, loving people in our lives and our children's lives. Love you all! I'll post pictures in another post :)

Almost Thanksgiving

Next week is Thanksgiving and I couldn't be more excited! Excited to see family, to eat delicious food, and (maybe get the chance) to sleep in! ;)

I love this time of year-Halloween through New Years! It's so festive and wonderful! Always puts me in a good mood!

I've already got the kids some Christmas gifts too! I know they'll love them :) We still have some more shopping to do for them, but we have plenty of time between now and Christmas!

I've also already put up Christmas decorations. Brodie likes staring at the gold garland I have hanging above a picture frame in the living room. I don't have the tree up yet. And I just put up the stockings Saturday because I had stuff to fill them. We still need to get little Nomi a stocking.

We're not going back to Salina & Ellsworth for Christmas this year. We're going to start our own Christmas traditions this year. I'm pretty excited! Going to teach Brodie and Naomi to set out some cookies for "Santa" and a glass of milk, and even some snacks for the reindeer ;) And I can't wait to bring Brodie down that Christmas morning and have him see the gifts "Santa" left him and Noms! Nana, Grandpa, and Auntie Eden will be coming to spend Christmas with us too! It's going to be a lot of fun.

When I get home tonight I need to make Naomi's "First Thanksgiving" shirt, kind of similar to that I made Brodie last year. I doubt I'll be able to get her hand print though. So I might just use her little feet :)

Can't wait to see everyone, and I'm sure everyone can't wait to see the kids!! (And us, of course right?! Right? haha)

Happy 3 month birthday Nomi Maxine!!

Happy 3 month birthday little princess!

Our littlest Gwinner is 3 months old today. WOW! She's doing so much now too! Yesterday was the first time that I've seen her roll from her back to her tummy. However, Ben's seen her do it and our sitter, Wanda, has seen her do it! They each said they've seen her roll from her tummy to back too. I haven't seen that yet, guess she doesn't want Mama to see her new tricks ;)

The other night Ben was playing with Nomi while I was upstairs giving Bro a bath. He said that she was scooting on her tummy! I have a feeling she'll be crawling sooner because she's always trying to move somewhere when she's laying down!

She's also a side sleeper. LOVES sleeping on her side. We'll lay her in her crib and she'll go to her side with her arms over her face. :)

She's smiling SOOOOO much!! Her gummy-smiles are SOOOO sweet!!! Love them! She definitely loves her big brother, always watching him and smiling at him. I love it!

Naomi also likes sitting up! She can't sit up by herself yet, we prop her up. But she still loves it, and really likes looking around.

She's such a good baby! Brodie was too, and then he turned into a toddler ;) haha! So I'm sure we'll have our hands full when she becomes a walking/talking toddler too! :)

Sleeping at night is still the same, waking up one-two times a night. She always, always wakes up between 5:15-5:30am every morning. No matter if she wakes up before that to feed or not. Always between those times. She'll eat and then go back to sleep, long enough for me to get ready and get Bro ready for the day. Ben brings her downstairs and gets her ready :)

Naomi is such a joy to have in our family. Sometimes it's still unbelievable that we have two babies! With Brodie, his first year went by fast but with Naomi, it's going by even faster!! Soon Brodie will be 2 and four months later she'll be 1! It's all going to go by so fast! Are you ready?? We are!! hehe :)

The littlest Grinny-Gwinny :)

Too cute for words, this face melts my heart. Love this little girl. So blessed to be her mother :)

Happy Halloween 2010! :)

Happy Halloween everyone!! Hope your weekend was just as wonderful as ours :)

Our Halloween festivities started yesterday. We went to Bass Pro to get a free Halloween picture taken, as you can see above. Then we went home, dropped the dog off and went to downtown Overland Park to trick-or-treat. Brodie had a lot of fun! He got a lot of candy too, but loved the Dum-Dum lollipops the best. While we were walking around we saw only one other little boy dressed as Wolverine. It was a bit different though. He had the claws. When Ben & Brodie were walking in one of the shops downtown, the other Wolverine and his mom were walking out and he goes "another Wolverine!" Then his mom was telling him to come on and he goes "but that's my cousin!" haha About Brodie being another Wolverine. It was so cute! :)

Today we went out to the Legends shopping area, like we did last year, for their Halloween festivities. We trick-or-treated and walked in the costume parade. Neither kid won the costume contest, but that's ok! There's always next year :) Out at the Legends we saw quite a few more Wolverines, but we didn't see any other mermaids. We did meet up with two of my co-workers and their kids. Grace's daughter Ariana-who's 19 days older than Brodie-was a little prisoner. Keiko's two girls, Aya (who's 3) was a mouse and Jun-ko (who's 10 or 11) was cheese. The kids had a good time! Brodie had fun with the girls. When he first met Grace's daughter, he tried giving her a kiss!! Little ladies man he is :)We did take the dog with us again this year, but I don't think we will next year. haha, She was just a little too much ;) But she did get quite a bit of attention!

We got home and Brodie and Naomi were out! We wore them out! It was a really great Halloween. It's become our family tradition to go out to the Legends for their Halloween events. :) As long as they do it, we'll be out there. Well, until the kids say they're "too old" to do that stuff. :)

Oh, and at last minute we decided to go get some candy just in case we got a couple trick-or-treaters. Ben went out and got 3 bags of candy, but now at 9:31pm, no one has came. No one! We have this big bowl of candy-trust me, I'm not complaining! :)

Hope everyone had a safe Halloween!! :D

Brodie & Vida's Halloween costumes

Well, if you're on my Facebook you may have read about the trouble we've been having with Brodie's Halloween costume. We had originally ordered a 2T Wolverine costume from Toys R US online, when we got it it was the wrong size. We called, they sent us a new one claiming it'd be the right size. Wrong! A size bigger, again. Ben called them again, that way I wouldn't be ripping someone a new one. They said they'd send us a new one again. That didn't happen.

So, last Tuesday I went to Target to find Brodie something for Halloween. Unfortunately, it was pretty much slim-pickin's there. The choices I found were a dinosaur (which he would step into and appear to be riding it), garden gnome, firefighter, or superman. I sent Ben pictures of all the costumes and we decided on the dinosaur.

Get home that night, show Brodie and immediately he screams. Doesn't like, doesn't want to have anything to do with it. We try to hug the dino to show him that its not scary and its nice. He kinda laughs when we do it. Then we tried, probably about 5 different times, to put him in it-note that he'd just have to step in it and pull the straps around his shoulders kinda like a dinosaur overalls. Every time he would kick and scream. So, the dinosaur costume is out-gotta take it back.

So yesterday, Ben and I talk and we decided to have him try on one of the Wolverine costumes. It's a size 3-4T and he wears 2T. When I first show him he has a little more interest in it than with the dinosaur, but still not too much.

So we go upstairs and play, I take the costume with me. I pull him to my lap and kind of have to force him into it. He's kicking his legs, but I finally get his legs in it and then get his arms in it. Got it on, woo hoo! He kinda stands there and just like "ok, now what?!" :) He walks around and plays in it. He did tug at the collar of the costume because of the tag in the back-I'll be cutting it off. But for the most part, he was ok with it on. The headpiece of it, not so much. Brodie's not really into wearing hats anyway, so when we'd try to put it on his head it'd come off as fast as we got it on. So that's ok. As long as the costume portion stays on! :)

So he'll be Wolverine this year, like the original plan. But next year, we're going to order the kids' costumes in September so we don't have to deal with this kind of craziness. :)

Last week a co-worker of mine gave me some red felt. I had told her I wanted to make a costume for Vida, a crab costume, to go along with Naomi's mermaid costume. Sunday I made that costume for the dog. And, it turned out awesome! As Ben said "better than I had imagined!" :) She's not too impressed with it, but she tolerates it. She's such a good dog!

Anyway, so here are a couple pictures of Bro being Wolverine and a couple of Vida as a crab :)

Brodie is officially 18 months and Naomi is 10 weeks!

Only 6 more months and my baby boy is 2!!! I cannot believe it! It seems that since we've had Naomi, time is just going faster and faster!

Brodie's thing he really likes to do now is climb up on our kitchen table chairs. He likes to sit up there like we sit for dinner. Soon we'll have to attach the booster seat to one of the chairs for him instead of putting him in his high chair! Such a big boy!! He's also mastered feeding himself with a fork.

I'm not sure if he's sprouted any more teeth since my last post about his teeth, I don't think he has. He does really well at brushing his teeth! I start for him and he likes to finish :)

OH! Brodie also LOVES to sing into the microphone! We have one of those echoing microphones we got from Target that he'll use, an Xbox or PS3 microphone, and we had another microphone that he got from Aunt Rita & Uncle Dave but he has since destroyed that one. :( But, he'll go around and just singing "do do do doooo" in them. It's so funny!

On his LeapFrog toy we got him a couple weeks ago-where you put the letter in it and it says the letter and sounds they make-he just loves it. And he's starting to really understand the letters. After he'll play with it he'll try to say the letters. He pretty much has "O" and "A" down, and maybe "E". :)

Last night he was trying to help me feed Naomi! He was holding the bottle himself and trying to put it in her mouth. She just didn't want to be fed at that moment, otherwise he could have done it on his own!! :) Such a GREAT big brother!! And he was talking to her when she was getting a little fussy and it sounded like he was saying her name, Naomi!! :)

Brodie is doing fantastic! His imagination is outstanding and his vocabulary is growing! Sometimes you really can't figure out what he's saying because it's mostly jibberish, but other times you can make out: "I don't know," "Sissy," definitely "no," "please" which kind of sounds like cheese, "whoa," "um," "bye-bye," "hi," "huh," of course "mama" & "dada," "Nana," "see" but not if he's really saying see or if its something else that sounds like see, "kee" or "keekee" for kitty, he's mocked Vida at barking a few times, "stinky," "yea," and he likes to shake his head no when he doesn't want something-like anymore food :)

Naomi is doing fantastic as well! Growing and learning! She's starting to become more vocal, not necessarily with cries, but with just letting us know that she wants something. :) She's starting to smile more and really show her facial expressions. She's so cute!

She's still a really good baby (knock on wood) and really likes to study your face and what you're doing. She's a little thinker, that's for sure. She is still waking up about one to two times at night, usually just the one time. We're going to wait until she really starts sleeping through the night to put her in the room with Bro.

She is growing so fast! We're starting to put her in her 3-6 month outfits, as most of the 0-3 months are too small!! :( Some she can still fit but some are just so tiny.

Naomi LOVES tummy time! Loves loves loves it. We don't let her go to bed while on her tummy, but if we're doing tummy time and she takes a little cat nap, we'll just let her sleep. We're always right there so nothing can happen.

She is ROLLING!!! She rolls from her back to her side, to her tummy. Sometimes she'll get so mad if she can't roll over, but she is so bound and determined to do so! She's rolled from her back to her tummy once at home and she's rolled either from tummy to back or back to tummy at daycare. She is holding her head up really well for a baby her age! We're trying her out in Brodie's bumbo-those little cushiony seats for babies. She does pretty well but she's still too little for it.

The other morning we were waking up and Nomi was laying in-between Ben and I in bed, and our cat-Zoey, came up and gave her kisses right on her nose! It was SO cute!! Zoey is always trying to come around Naomi too. You know, Ben really doesn't care for that cat but she really cares for the babies :)

It's still so mind blowing that we have two kids. Everyday I'm amazed by them. They're so wonderful, and sweet. Yea we have our moments, but so do all kids-no one is perfect. They're great babies, who are growing too fast! They're always learning and doing something new. :) Amazing they are (in my best Yoda impersonation,haha).