Where to begin???

I realize I'm terrible at keeping up with this blog, but I am going to say my excuse is I love my kids and I love this stage that we are in that I don't want to take the time to do updates. However, I know I still find time for Facebook, so my excuse doesn't carry me too far I know :)

To say the kids are cute is such an understatement! They are so different, so challenging at times, but so stinking cute! We love that they make us laugh, amaze us with what they know and learn, love the sweet sides of them and even find appreciation in the testing of boundaries...at times :). They are fun kids and here is a little of what we have been up to.

Dathan loved swimming and enjoyed trying to swim underwater. His favorite thing at the pool was jumping off the side.In January we spent a week in Tucson with my parents at their "Snowbird" home. We had fun swimming, going to the zoo and a Children Museum.

The kids really like to play with toy guns right now. We often have nightly family gun games :)

Santa Land in Cloudcroft, NM

We had our 2nd annual soup potluck and Santa Land event this past weekend. We had 3 other families and Chad's parents with us this year. We enjoyed a yummy soup potluck at our home and then drove up the hill to Cloudcroft to see Santa and Mrs. Claus arrive to the park on a firetruck. Dathan and Kacy had a great time with their friends and enjoyed seeing Santa and the firetruck.

Kacy backed in a close as she could to Santa wanting him to put her in his lap too, but he didn't take the hint.

Kacy's first haircut, well really just a trim. She had a wild patch of hair that Great Grandma took care of us for us.

I think this pictures captures a bit of Dathan's personality. He loves to be silly.

Happy 2nd Birthday Kacy!

I think many of you have given up on me by now on adding new posts to this blog. I have been overwhelmed with the thought of "catching up", but have made the executive decision to just move on to current events.

To start off Kacy turned 2 this month! She is our green eyed red head that gets attention wherever we go. She is a cutie and has lots to say these days. She is starting some of those great 2 year old tantrums and very different from out experiences with Dathan at this age. When she throws a tantrum it goes on and on and on, unlike Dathan who would throw one and then get over it. I guess she really is a girl :) She loves her babies, shoes, hats, riding her tricycle, and drawing. She is very shy with strangers and particularly with men. She wants to do whatever her big brother does which leaves me to find her trying to climb up the side of the bunk bed, trying to jump off things...basically trying to be a nearly 4 year old boy.

Dathan has begun going to preschool 2 half days per week this fall. He loves his school and has lots of friends attending the same program. He is able to spell his name and is getting better at copying it down onto paper. He enjoys reading books, jumping, running, climbing, playing with cars, and many more things that wear his parents out:) He is a sweet boy that watches out for his little sister, but is a big brother that expresses his dominance at times too.

We have had a very fun and busy summer. I took the kids back to Kansas in early July to visit my grandmother and extended family over the 4th of July. We had a fun time and the kids were amazing travelers. We brought Mady back with us and enjoyed her stay until late July. In July we met a group of our Carlsbad friends for a weekend camping trip. We had a blast despite getting rained out and cutting the trip short by a night.

My mom made this cake for one of my birthdays when I was little. I had fun making it for Kacy.
Kacy trying to hold up two fingers while saying "I'm two". She's so stinking cute! Bribery material right here! Kacy was given dress up outfits for her bday and Dathan loved this one that he has on. He wore it for 2 or 3 hours today. He keeps saying he is going to "fly" and wants Chad to throw him in the air and not catch him. I think he really thinks he should be able to fly with the wings on. I said something about him being a girl fairy and he corrected me that he was the boy one from the book. He went and got Kacy's book on fairy's and showed me the boy that he was pretending to be. I think this is a good picture for highschool graduation...hehehe

We LOVE Mady! She is absolutely amazing with Dathan and Kacy.

Spring 2010

I have neglected this blog so much lately. Now to try and recap our spring feels nearly impossible. Trips to Colorado, San Diego, Iowa, Kansas...lots of miles on the van.

Kacy is getting close to being 22 months old and in the past month has really began talking more and more. She is putting 2 and 3 words together and her vocabulary has expaneded. Some of the cutest words she says right now are "wattie" for water and "coco" for cookie. She loves playing in the water, with her baby dolls and generally just playing. She is full of spunk and doesn't let much slow her down.

Kacy is 18 months old!

Kacy turned 18 months old last week and is growing up so fast! She is our little climber and is determined to keep up with her big brother. Her vocabulary is expanding and she is learning how to hold her own around the house. She loves to wrestle with Dathan and is often the one that starts the wrestling session. She is a tough little girl! In the past month she has become very interested in potty training and likes to sit on the potty multiple times a day. We still have a long ways to go before she is "potty trained". Kacy rises early everyday at 5am no matter what we do to change that routine, uggh!

Dathan is Kacy's biggest cheerleader with potty training. He is so good to help her get her clothing off and sit with her while she is trying to go potty. Kacy's favorite thing to tells us when she is on the potty is "Go Go" and closes the door on us. She likes her privacy!
We got away to the cabin a couple of weekends ago and met some of our friends from Carlsbad there for the weekend. The kids (Dathan, Kacy, Brenna, and Reagan) all had a great time sledding and playing in the snow.

Kacy playing with Daddy's hats.

January

January began with Chad's parents visiting from Montana for a week. We enjoyed playing in the snow and having the extra attention from Grandparents for the week.

Kacy has been doing really good feeding herself with a spoon and loves to drink the milk out of her cereal bowl (most of the time it goes all down the front of her). She is independent as ever and is a "determined" little girl. She still prefers to play with trains, balls and cars over dolls or "girl" toys. She has learned to hit her brother when he is in her space or takes something from her, which we are actually happy that she has a way to defend herself now. She seems to be picking up more words all the time. Her favorites right now are: ball, "ba-ba" for book, "day day" for Dathan, baby, "mo" for more, "eese" for please, and "all doo" for all done. She can throw some impressive tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants and will continue to throw the tantrum even if we cave and give her what she wants. I can't seem to go anywhere without getting comments on how cute my "redheads" are or how lucky I am to have redheaded children. I must say I agree=)

One of Kacy's last days with the paci. She had not been sleeping so great, so decided if the paci was not helping we might as well get rid of it. After a couple of days she didn't seem to miss it. Kacy loves to read books and Dathan is always right behind her fighting for the attention too. =)

Grandpa and Dathan had a fun snowball fight.