Party weekend

It seemed that this past weekend was the weekend to have parties! First there was a baby shower, then a Christmas party, then another baby shower - too much fun! It was great to be able to spend time with so many different friends and family. Unfortunately, that meant spending very little time with the kids - good thing they were in good hands. Grandma and Grandpa Loken had the kiddies the majority of the weekend with me popping in whenever possible between gatherings. Luckily, we did manage to find some time to do a few fun things. First up, a basketball game with Grandpa, myself, and Ryan. It was Ryan's first real experience at a high school basketball game and if I have to say so myself, I thought he did a pretty good job. Sure there were a few extra trips in and out of the gym to wash hands, buy popcorn, or any other excuse he could come up with, but overall he did a great job. After the long night at the game, we started off the next morning with a little extra rest, then it was off to what could be called the highlight of the weekend . . . . sledding! Ryan has been dying to get out in the snow since the very first snowflake so when Grandma offered to take him, he was very excited. After 20 minutes spent getting everyone bundled up, we packed up the mini and headed to South Elementary to tackle the "big" hill. I was a little concerned that the hill might be too much for Ryan, but after his first trip down with Grandpa, I had nothing to be worried about - he loved it.

After a few trips with Grandpa, Ryan was ready to take on the hill all by himself. He started out by going down from middle of the hill, but by the time we left, he was going down the whole thing - top to bottom - apparently he is more brave then I thought. Here he is on his making his first solo run.

And here are a couple more pictures from the morning.Everyone heading up the hill just moments before Lauren flipped out of the sled landing face first in the snow. This led to an eventual meltdown and the end of her sledding days - oh well, I guess there is always next time.Grandpa and Ryan making the treacherous walk to the top of the hill - just one of about 15-20 trips they made - talk about exhausting.Ryan taking a breather after one of his runs.One-eyed Willie (also known as Lauren) taking in the action from the safety of Grandma's arms.Pulling the kids back to the car (notice Lauren is crying - she really hates sledding).

With sledding done, we headed home to have some hot chocolate and warm-up. After that, it was time for me to start in with my busy schedule of parties so I left with the kids (and Grandpa) napping with Grandma while I headed out for my first baby shower. With one shower down, I headed back to Grandma's house, chatted with the kids for a couple of minutes, then got ready to head out again, this time for the Christmas party. It was great to see old friends and catch up with everyone, but the long day was creeping up on me and soon enough I was ready for bed. With two parties down, a short night of sleep, and one shower still to go, I was running low on energy. To get things going the following morning, we all had a big breakfast (thanks to Grandma) then headed out for a brisk morning walk. I had serious doubts about making the whole thing (especially at Grandpa's super sonic speed), but to my surprise, I did, and it actually revitalized me. After the walk Grandma and I spent some time outside with the kids making snow angels and "special" snowmen (special because the snow wasn't great for packing so we had to draw circles in the snow instead and decorate them with twigs and bushes to complete their faces - pretty creative on that one Grandma). By then, it time for me to get ready to head out again so we all went inside to warm-up. I again left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa, and this time when I came back and was ready to take them home for good, they didn't want to leave - oh, it's so nice to be loved! Eventually they got over it (Ryan said he needed, "just 9 more minutes than he would be ready") and we packed up and headed home.

It was a long weekend with lots of fun, but it's always nice to be home sleeping in your own bed (which is where I'm heading right now).

One more quick thing, finding out the sex of the babe tomorrow - can hardly wait to know if we'll have a Sally or a Braxton!!!

Santaland

Ash and I took the kids to Macy's 47th annual Santaland. The feature display was "A Day in the Life of an Elf." The kids, and adults, were both amazed by everything we saw. There were elves, reindeer, animals, dancing Christmas trees - you name it, they had it there. The display itself wasn't huge, but we took our time and made sure to see everything. Like I said, the kids could hardly take it all in. They would look one direction, be in awe, then turn around and be amazed all over again. Here are some pictures from the day.After walking through the display, we got in line to have our picture taken with Santa. Unfortunately Lauren still hates Santa so she didn't go anywhere near him. That left Ryan to chat with the big guy all by himself - he didn't seem to mind.After Santa, we grabbed some lunch then headed to "Holly Lane." This was basically a little section on the first floor of Macy's that has a bunch of decorated Christmas trees and pretty much anything Christmas you can think of. The kids wanted to touch everything, I wanted them to touch nothing. All I could think was, "please don't pull on that ornament too hard because I don't want to have to buy a Christmas tree full of broken ornaments." We managed to get through the store without incident and then we were on our way home. The snow had already begun to fall by that time which made for a slow trip home, but it was still worth it to see the excitement in the kids' faces when they saw everything. This event is definitely something I'd like to try and make an annual thing - we'll see if I can make it happen.

Lauren's 2 year check-up

Lauren had her 2-year check-up today. After we dropped Ryan off at school we headed to the doctor - this can always be an interesting situation. We actually made it through the waiting room and into the office before the crying started so I consider that an improvement over last time. She was still deathly afraid of the scale which has a Nemo sticker on it - sounds frightening doesn't it. After getting her weight, height, and head circumference, we had a brief dry spell with the tears until the doctor came into the office than it all started up again. Luckily our doctor is quick and efficient so Lauren's whole exam took less than five minutes and the crying stopped again. With the doctor safely out of the office Lauren started getting her boots and jacket on - she wanted out and she wanted out right now! Unfortunately we still had two shots to get before we could leave and when she saw the nurse come back in, she knew it wasn't good - bring on the crying. The nurse did a good job of getting the shots done quickly, we pulled up Lauren's pants, put on her winter gear, and she was all smiles as we headed out the door to get her well deserved sticker. On the way out she gave waves and said "bye-bye" to both the doctor and nurse she had just minutes before had no time for - such a forgiving little thing. Here are the stats on the babe:

Weight: 32 pounds - 95% percentile
Height: 37 1/2 inches - >97% percentile
Head: 19 1/2 inches - 92%
BMI (body mass index): 15.9 - 45%

The BMI thing is new. It basically just uses the height and weight to make sure the person is in a "healthy" weight range for their height. The doctor assured me that even though Lauren is on the high end for weight, she is just fine because her weight and height combined still puts her in a "healthy" weight range - she is just a big kid, but perfectly healthy. That's our little princess!

And just for fun, here are Ryan's stats from his 2-year check-up. You'll notice Lauren is actually taller and heavier than he was. I'm too lazy to actually convert the head measurements so I can compare them, but my money would be on the fact that Ryan still owns that category - let's just say he has a "nice" sized head.

Weight: 29.2 pounds - 65%
Height: 36 1/4 inches - 90%
Head: 50 cm - 90%

Project day

We used today's snow as an excuse to stay inside and do some fun projects. First up . . . a "countdown chain" to Christmas. I did all the measuring and drawing, Ryan did all the cutting and taping. We made a good team and got the thing done in just under an hour (which also happened to be just about the time Ryan started losing interest in the project). Here he is proudly displaying the chain.And here are the kids showing off the chain and the Santa Ryan made in school.With one project down, it was time to turn my attention to Lauren who had been patiently waiting. Projects with her tend to be a little easier - make something simple and she is happy. So I decided to go with a crown which would be the perfect finishing touch to her outfit. All it took was a couple of quick cuts, some tape, and there it was, a crown fit for a queen. Check out the dancing queen showing off some of her moves.Baby Robbie did his part by chilling in the bouncy chair and watching the kids so we had to get him in a picture too. Unfortunately the chain is pretty much covering his face, but trust me, he was there.

Lauren's 2 year pictures

I finally gave in and decided to have Lauren's 2 year pictures taken. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision but I am happy to say the pictures turned out great. Here is a quick preview. Ryan had to stand in and have some pictures taken first before Lauren finally warmed up to the photographer. As you can see, he didn't seem to mind.

Our baby is 2!

We had a rather busy past four days. Between Thanksgiving, celebrating Lauren's 2nd birthday, and decorating the house for Christmas, we were BUSY! Let's start at the beginning . . . Wednesday night we headed to Aaron and Ann's house to start the Thanksgiving celebration early. We also used this night to give Lauren an early birthday celebration. Check her out in her new ballerina outfit complete with star shaped sunglasses - she couldn't have been happier!Thursday we did the usual Thanksgiving - lots of food, lots of laying around, and some Wii fun. After the long day, we finally packed up the kids and headed home. The kids were both lucky enough to finally catch the cold I've had for the past month or so it made for a rather long day and night - needless to say, everyone needed to get back in their own beds and get some rest. We spent Friday at home with just the four of us. The kids were snotty and coughing so we stuck to indoor activities - the highlight being putting up the Christmas tree! Ryan did the majority of the work while Lauren spent most of her time putting up and taking down the same two or three ornaments. After the nice lazy day on Friday, we geared up for some more birthday fun with the Quast side of the family on Saturday. Lauren loved her bunny birthday cake that Grandma Connie made, sh also loved to be the center of attention while everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to her - such a little attention seeker. After all the birthday fun, the birthday girl was ready for bed so we left her home with Grandma and Grandpa while we took Ryan out for his first "big person" bowling adventure. Ryan was really into it at first, but by the second game he was more interested in the lights and music than he was in actually bowling - oh well, at least he still had fun. After bowling, we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house and started what would be a rather long night with the kids - lots coughing and congestion, very little sleep. By late Sunday afternoon, we were finally ready to put an end to all the craziness of the past four days so we packed up and headed home for good. Now it is Sunday night and both kids are in bed (coated in Vicks vapor rub and using vaporizers), I am able to finally sit back and relax for a while. Hoping the night goes better than the past few - keeping my fingers crossed. Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Balls and belts

With today being kind of a dreary and rainy day, I decided we needed to get out of the house and burn off some energy. So we packed up the mini and headed to the community center for a couple of hours of running, jumping, and laughing. Ryan was off playing with new friends within minutes of arriving so that left Lauren, myself, and Baby Robbie to make our own fun. Lauren wasn't too excited about all the kids running around so she stuck close to me for the first ten minutes or so. Finally I was able to get her into the ball pit (hence "balls" in the title), and once there, she had a blast. After a while most of the kids cleared out and Ryan and Lauren pretty much had the run of the place to themselves. With all the big kids gone, Baby Robbie even got in on the action.Before I knew it, it was lunchtime so we packed up again and headed home just in time to wash up, eat, and take a nap - what a morning.

After naps, I was feeling energized so the kids and I went to the gym so I could get a little exercise in while the kids played with some of their "gym school" friends. I wish I could say the exercise was good and easy, but it wasn't. I was exhausted, winded 50% of the time, and fighting back tears the other 50% - yeah, that's right, I was almost crying. Apparently Oprah's show on heroes coupled with my crazy hormones made for a deadly combo which made me cry at basically anything that sounded even remotely sad. I'm sure I was a sight to see . . . me in my paint stained sweats paired with a too big t-shirt (to fit over my ever increasing belly) laughing one minute, wiping tears the next - I can only imagine what people were thinking. On top of that, my hair was all over the place and my face was covered with acne (another blessing of pregnancy) - seriously, I would have been scared of me!

After my "workout" (that is what I consider a workout nowadays), we grabbed a quick dinner before heading out to Ryan's belt testing ("belt" in the title). This was Ryan's second testing and he was pretty excited about the idea of moving up to a yellow belt. All of us were there to support him and after two months of work, he proved his skills and earned himself the coveted belt - way to go buddy!

With his new belt in hand, we stopped at DQ to grab a celebratory ice cream treat before heading home and calling it a day.

We're heading to Aaron and Ann's tomorrow for our Thanksgiving celebration and then we'll head to Gaylord for the weekend to celebrate our baby girl turning 2! Hard to believe she is that old already. I guess we'll have to stop calling her "the babe" and think of something more mature to fit her new status as a "big girl."