More Pictures

On New Year's Eve, Jen and Daniel made a delicious batch of sugar cookies. On New Year's Day we frosted and decorated them. They were delicious!

While Nate went on his annual Ice Fishing Trip, Jen's parents came up and they all went to Chuckie Cheese's! It was Daniel's first trip, and he was overwhelmed after about 1/2 hr. With the tickets he won (and Tim and Liz's tix too), he got tootsie rolls! What a good kid! He left the spiders and snakes behind the counter. I sure have a keeper :)

Jen's friend Sara came over to watch the kids so Jen and Nate could get out. Here's Daniel and Chase playing together. Thanks again Sara!

Andie and her new kitchen from Santa! She already loves the phone.

Nate's shirt from Jen. (We do funny T-shirt exchanges...I'll get my picture up here soon). His says, "What? I can't hear you over the sound of my awesomeness"

Andie and her adorable Wisconsin Cheerleading outfit...Thanks Rena!

Daniel sporting a pair of glasses. (This is at Jen's friend

Heather's parent's house on one of our Christmas stops)

Daniel's Batcave

And...The First Annual Matching Christmas PJs

Wow...that was a lot :)

Mudroom!

The mudroom is finished! Jen has been thinking of how to make the mudroom functional since we moved in, but has been a lot more now that Daniel is more independent. With the brilliant design ideas from Jen and the construction capabilities of Nate, we have a fully functional mudroom! Of course, we had to work with the lack of space we were given, but this works great. As you can see, Jen and Andie are home today :)

Nate's New Job

I just realized that we may have forgotten to talk about Nate's new job... (well, Nate's new old job!)
He went back to Target on the 17th. He's on the same team as when he left, doing the same thing. He's very happy to be back and to be challenged again.

The kids are amazing us every day

Andie

She'll be 16 months on the 5th. That's a very big milestone because that will make her a 'toddler!' I can't believe it myself. We officially won't have any more babies in our house! (I hope that means more consistent sleep for Nate and I :) ) But, that means she transitions to the toddler room at day care next week. She gets outside play time two times each day, eats with utensils and a plate. Her vocabulary has just exploded. Since the last post she started saying: Sit, Stand, Thank You, Yum Yum, Tickle, Juice, Truck, Tractor, Banana (or Nana), duck. She can moo and neigh too. She tries very hard to sing Twinkle Twinkle and Happy Birthday. She will also give everyone really nice kisses except Nate. She laughs soo hard when she turns her head away. It's so darn cute. She is still a mommy's girl and loves to dance, but usually will come running for Jen when music starts to dance together.

Daniel

He is getting incredibly smart and he annunciates his words very well. He's learning Spanish at school and does very well with it. He wants to learn more so he can surprise his teacher when he goes into school. We just found out he can sign the alphabet and can individually tell us what sign is what letter-no idea he was taught that :) His memory is amazing. He can recall things and specific events and names of people Nate and I have no idea. Just last night he referenced a line from a movie we haven't seen in months. He has also started learning how to 'really' manipulate us. Fri morning he said he didn't feel well, so Jen stayed home from work thinking he was getting sick. (but he was fine) Then on Sun night, he said his ear hurt...Monday at school, he told the teachers many times that different things hurt and they should call Mommy to come get him. Here are some of his pictures from his camera from Santa. I didn't want to rotate this first round because I wanted to demonstrate how much of an artist he is:

Grandma Fedie

Monkey (Not just a description, that's his name...)

The Newlyweds 1st Christmas as a married couple

The Hoffes

Little B

Ahh...

Andie's 15 months

Here are her stats:
Height: 2ft 7in - 73%
Weight: 22 lbs - 41 %
Head: 97%

She's moving very quickly now. She LOVES to imitate us. When Jen vacuums, she grabs her little one and starts cleaning. She also likes to wipe the floors clean when she spills something. She will grab the phone and say 'hi' on it and holds it between her ear and shoulder. She is starting to understand and tell us 'no' when we ask her if she wants more. The other night when Nate was reading her books at bed time, every time he would pick a book out, she would shake her head until he picked the book she wanted. Now that's smart!

She loves to communicate. She's very good at signing. She knows and uses more, please, all done. She knows the potty sign and uses that when Daniel or one of us goes into the bathroom. She wants to sit on the potty like us, but that's just entertainment for her right now. She will make her signs with a big smile on her face. We're teaching her book right now. She will frequently use please and more when we're playing.

For words, we're at mama, dada, all done, up, down, her version of Daniel, her version of book, and I swear she said 'shoe' last night. She loves her shoes :) That's my girl!!

She is a very healthy girl (except for the sinus infection she currently has). We only have one bad habit to break...her bottle before bed. We'll try that eventually!

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas

We had a very eventful Christmas. We've started a new family tradition this year. The family is going to get matching pjs for the Christmas holiday. We won't be spending Christmas at home for any time in the foreseeable future, so we've decided to have matching pjs to start the activities :)
(Pic to come-i know we have one somewhere)

It all started at our house on Christmas Eve morning. Santa came early since we were not going to be home on Christmas morning. He ate all 3 cookies Daniel left and drank the full glass of milk. He was so shocked when he came down stairs. Andie got a kitchen and Daniel got a camera. Go Santa! Then on to the extended family with a quick stop to see a friend. We saw Jen's old college roommate, Heather, and her husband John. It was so good to see them. Then off to Jen's Mom's side for lunch. Christmas Eve night was spent at Jen's parent's. Christmas day was spent with Jen's Dad's side at Jen's parent's place. We had a nice time with Jen's parents and brother's and their families. We have recently misplaced our camera, so we're relying on Daniel's and other people's pictures :)

On the 26th, we ventured up the the Quist side. It was a great time at Nate's parents with his sisters and their families. Daniel and Brooklyn even slept in the same room! Yeah-our kids are getting soo big! Here are some pics of the night.Then Mon the 27th we ventured home to have our family Christmas. We took a quick stop at the neighbors for pizza first-Thanks Schwab family!!

We've been very blessed with love and support this holiday season. Thank you all very much.

New Years Eve was great. We had some very good friends up - Ross and Bri and Korbin. They brought up some very tasty lobster and we had some bacon wrapped venison T's to go along with it. It was a great dinner. Then the games started. We played some of Daniel's games - I Spy in particular :) But, Pictionary Man was the most fun. Of course, the girls kicked butt, but the boys tried really hard!

New Year Cards are coming soon!

Santa!

Last weekend, Daniel and Andie's school had a special visitor, SANTA!!!! We all went in on Saturday morning to see him, have a little breakfast, and make some Christmas tree ornaments.

Here is Daniel working on a penguin ornament

And the Man himself! This was the best picture of all of the ones taken between our camera and one of the school teachers.

After lunch, Nate had some work to do in the garage, and with a little more help from Neighbor Tom, got all the doors on and adjusted. Don't they look beautiful?? Now, to figure out where to put everything. Nate says he's going to be so organized now, that he's not going to be able to find anything.

Lastly, a pic taken this morning of the kids sitting together on the step with their morning cereal snack, getting ready to head out for school. It's not very often that we get a photo op of the two of them sitting nicely together, and smiling.