Our trip

Well we're back! I went all the way to Garden with my camera and didn't take one picture. I'm dissappointed in me. I wanted to take head shots of the fam and put them on magnets so Kadyn can start learning the names of her relatives. Oh well. Another time.

Our trip down was good. We opted to travel overnight. Kadyn was great. She slept for about half of it. Surprisingly she was awake a good portion of the wee hours of the morning. She seemed a little dazed. She just sat there quietly and gazed at the lights. Our trip to Wichita on the way back wasn't as pleasant. 3 hours can seem like eternity when your kid starts getting restless. The trip from Wichita to Springfield was good. Play dough, crayons, toys, silly songs, snacks, and DVD's saved the day.

The family was good. Kadyn seemed to bond with papa (my dad) and baba (Jeff's dad) very well. She even cried, in fact, when she had to leave papa. We celebrated Christmas with my sister and parents and Kadyn got a vacuum which she LOVES. When I clean house I have a little mini me. We also went to the YMCA and went swimming with my family. This was Kadyn's first real big pool experience. She was very quiet and soaked it all in.

We spent one night in Wichita and visted our good friends Keenan, Sara, Ari, Kelsey and Brent, and Karis. They were all very good and the babies, of course, were cute as pie. Ari seemed especially fascinated with Jeff, perhaps it was the beard. Karis was a big ham. Cute, cute, cute. It was good to catch up and have a half way point to break up our trip back.

Overall we are pleased with our trip. Hope everyone else had a good time too. Back to normalcy. Until next time.....taa taa.

Pics of Kadyn's true love

Elmo reigns supreme!

Out of all the children's character's out there I've always heard that Elmo was the favorite. I guess this is true for Kadyn too. She spotted a stuffed Elmo last week at Borders and fell in love. She kissed and hugged it and said his name over and over again. Now I'm not one to just buy whatever my kid wants, especially right there in front of her, so we put Elmo back on the shelf despite her objections and said our sad goodbyes. Three days later she still spoke of Elmo.

I couldn't resist. Jeff drove me back, and we secretly bought him and gave him to her at home. Of course he went to bed with her that night, and 10 minutes after I put her down, I heard her in there having quite the conversation with him, saying his name over and over again, a little bit of jibber jabber, and a couple mentions of mama followed by smooching sounds. It was soooo cute. Ever since then he joins her for all storytimes and prayer before bed. He even went on a trip to small group with us last Wednesday.

So everyone, we are now the proud parents of one bubbly little girl and one giant red stuffed Elmo.

On to other news, we got our family photos taken last Saturday. Kadyn was not easy to persuade to smile. She thought the camera lady was nuts and wanted nothing to do with her. I tried everything from singing her favorite songs to doing jumping jacks (originally asked Jeff to do that one, but he wasn't a good sport about jumping jacks). Finally I hit the magic button, "Want a COOOKIE?????" Big smiles. I'm surprised I could ask her as many times as I did without having to follow through and get a smile each time. Of course when we were all done she did get her reward. Again, I am not a parent that uses bribes, but sometimes you reach for deperate measures to get your kid to crack a smile for those moments you know you will loose forever once the day it through.

We will be traveling to Garden for Turkey Day and seeing both sets of parents, my sister, and Jeff's brother. We are contemplating whether we should leave the night before and drive through the night or just chance Kadyn being a complete mess stuck in a car seat for 8 hours during her wakeful times. I really don't know what I prefer. I get worried about one of us falling asleep at the wheel if we drive through the night, but Jeff is such a night owl. With the right music and caffeine, he usually fairs pretty well. We could take turns but hmmm, still not too sure.

Well at the risk of this being rather lengthy I'll stop for now. When I'm free of kids I'll post some Elmo pics for you all to see.

Hope you all have a yummy, fun, safe, and happy turkey day.

Too cute not to post!

Kadyn got a new book and we started singing it together "The Wheels on the Bus." She made me read it so many times I lost track. She really got into it as you can tell.

New microwave drama.

Let's see if I can get this all typed before all 4 kids wake. It's a miracle they're all down at the same time.

Two days ago our microwave went blitz. We bought a new cheap tiny one to replace it for now. I decided I wanted to put it on this cabinet beside the fridge so I didn't take any of our countertop space up. Got the fridge pulled out only to find a two pronged outlet. Had to put it on the countertop whether I liked it or not. As I was pushing the fridge back, the water line to our fridge busted. Water was going everywhere. I started letting it drain into a trashcan and alternated with another bucket dumping them every two mintues. We don't have a turn off valve inside the house for the water. The only way to turn off our water was going into the crawl space under the house or going out to the street (we both fear there are snakes under our house). We opted for the street.

I had seen our culligan man do it once but didn't remember very clearly, so I sent Jeff out with a flashlight and a wrench. Apparently all you had to do was turn a knob half a turn for off and half a turn for on. Jeff just kept turning it round and round. The water would slow down and speed up, slow down and speed up. We were dumbfounded. 45 minutes later and one phone call to the 24 hour plumber (which never returned our call until the next morning), we finally got the water off.

The good news, I had a brand new microwave to warm up the water I got at the quick store around midnight to wash my face and brush my teeth with. No showers the next day; we were stinky, but we are now the proud owners of one brand shiny new shut off valve to the water on our fridge.

I'm still exhausted from that night.