Happy Thanksgiving!

Another wonderful Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone (boo).  I love this weekend as it is a time to think about and give thanks for all of the blessings we have in our lives, get together with family, indulge in a wonderful meal (a few times!), and put up all the Christmas decorations! I wanted to do a little Black Friday shopping but decided against it as I remembered what I told myself at Toys R Us two years ago “I will never do this again!” (Besides, I didn’t have any lists yet so I didn’t want to venture out blindly as I would have likely bought things I didn’t need.)

Here are a few pics of the fun time we had on Thursday.  It was extra special as we celebrated Katelin’s birthday with family too.  My mom, Scott, Grammy Myrt, Dad, Nancy, Libby, Mikey, Kim, Corrie, Mike and Sam were all together.  It was a very nice day and reminded me how lucky we are to have a wonderful family (we missed my Aunt, Uncle, cousins and of course the entire Clemens family!).

The Newlyweds!

The guys and their football watching!

Little Man!

Katelin opened presents for her 6th birthday!

Annie and Gramps!

The only family photo we got!

The girls playing Wii Kinect…and LOVING it!

Katelin Turns 6!

It’s hard to believe that my little girl is 6…going on 13! It is amazing the difference one year makes.  She acts so much older by the things she says and does than just one year ago.  She is also one of the tallest kids in her Kindergarten class so she looks older than 6.

I think it is pretty safe to say Katelin had a GREAT birthday.  Katelin, Annie, Brian and I spent the entire day together doing fun things at the MOA for her special day. Probably the most exciting part for Katelin was opening her much wanted American Girl doll when she woke up!  She was SO excited!

Then we went to American Girl where she picked out an outfit for her doll (from Annie), we had lunch at American Girl (the girls loved it but I would say it is not a place we will be frequenting often…$$$$!).  Annie even got to “borrow” a doll for lunch which made her day.

Then we saw the new Muppet Movie and all agreed it was really funny.  The rest of the day we spent going on rides! Katelin is now tall enough to go on any ride she wants at the mall.  Annie is also FINALLY tall enough to go on the “big Orange coaster” and LOVED it! They truly had a blast together. 

Oh, and I can’t forgot to mention she also got her ears pierced! Wow, was that a production.  I have never heard one girl scream so long (and loudly) over something she wanted to do! I also had no idea that it was going to cost us $50 for the starting earrings.  She now has more expensive earrings than me!

Katelin got to celebrate her birthday on Thanksgiving the next day with our family.  We enjoyed a great traditional turkey dinner and then she opened more presents.  She was truly in awe over the fact that she got her pink “K” pillow from Justice she wanted.  She kept saying she had no idea how Grandma and Grandpa knew just want she wanted! What a joy it is to see the excitement on little faces when they get gifts they want. 

Then yesterday I took the girls back to MOA where Katelin spent some of her birthday money from cousins Mikey/Kim and Grandma and Grandpa Clemens picking out matching clothes for her and her doll.  (A lot of money will be spent in American Girl in the future I have a feeling!) The pic of Annie is because she wanted her photo taken too and I think it turned out adorable!

Next Saturday is her “Rock Star” birthday party at Manic Ceramic where she is having about 15 girls help her celebrate again.  It goes without saying she is counting down the days.

Happy Birthday Katelin Lily!  We love you!

Ear Infections…Be Gone!

Or at least that is what we are hoping! Yesterday James had his surgery to get tubes in both ears.  If that wasn’t enough for the little man to go through, he also had his clogged tear duct cleaned out.  Double Whammy!

Prepping for the procedure

He was a trooper.  The procedures only lasted about 25 minutes total but they still had to put him under. When we came out of surgery he was pretty groggy and confused about how he was feeling.  I am happy to report that he did not vomit like his big sister after getting her tubes. He barely even cried in recovery.  We were told that infants can become unruly when they wake up because they feel funky.  There was a little girl next to us that screamed for like 30 minutes straight so we were a little nervous hoping James would not have the same reaction.  Luckily, he only had a few tears and seemed to handle the transition really well.  By the time we got him dressed he was playing with his balloon the nurses gave him.  Both Brian and I stayed home with him yesterday.  The nurses said to watch him closely the first few hours as he could be a little unsteady on his feet from the drugs.  Oh great…considering he just started walking two days before he doesn’t need to have anything make him more unsteady!  By noon he was basically himself already.

Snuggling with Dad after as the drugs wear off (notice his purple marker dot above his eye to ensure the correct one got done)

His tiny little hand with an IV in it

So let’s just hope this helps ward off those nasty ear infections he was averaging monthly (in fact he had an infection on 11/1 and again when he went in for surgery yesterday).  Poor guy.  It will also be nice to not have “pirate eye” which is what I call him when he wakes up with his eye shut due to goop.

Proud of you buddy…you were a STAR Patient today!  We love you!

Looking exhausted but holding on tight to his new balloon!

Big day for James!

You probably guessed it already, but James started walking yesterday! We've been working with him on taking steps this past week and he could make about 3-4 steps between the two of us and then he'd fall into our laps laughing as of Friday night. He was loving it! Yesterday though, he started out the day like any other day crawling and propping himself up on stuff but as the day went on he started to get more daring and then he did it; he just took off from the TV cabinet to the middle of the room making about 9 steps on the way! We erupted in laughter and clapping and lots of Yay James! screams much to his delight as he laughed and clapped with us! There's no stopping him now! Welcome to your new found freedom James! All of our lives will never be the same again! We're so proud of you buddy! Check it the video from last night and some pics from today!

Look guys! No hands!

The Tooth Fairy Visits Estates Trail

Well it finally happened…Katelin lost her first tooth! It has been loose for a few months and over the past few days Katelin had been wiggling it non-stop.  On Wednesday after school she went to our neighbors to play and with them to church.  She came home with a big grin and a missing tooth!  She pulled it out herself outside at recess at school. 

She was of course very excited that the tooth fairy was going to be making a visit.  Annie, on the other hand, was less than enthusiastic about the tooth fairy’s visit.  She didn’t want to sleep in the same room as Kate that night because she didn’t want to see her!

Earlier in the week I asked Kate what the tooth fairy brings in return for taking your tooth. Our conversation went as follows:

Me: “What does the tooth fairy bring”

Katelin: “Money!”

Me: “Like a penny?”

Katelin: “No! 20 bucks…so I can buy that bead kit from Costco!”

We were at Costco a few days prior and she saw a bead kit she “had to have” so apparently she thought the tooth fairy would be the solution to getting her beads. She decided to write a note asking for $20. 

She was a little sad in the morning when she saw a 5 dollar bill rather than a 20.  And of course she asked why her friend Cydney got $10 from the tooth fairy.  I can’t blame her for thinking that is a little unfair. I didn’t know what to say so the first thing that came to my mind was that there are different tooth fairies for different neighborhoods.  Thankfully she didn’t question it any further and amazingly hasn’t asked to go shopping!

The new do!

Tonight Katelin announced she wanted a haircut and she wanted it tonight! So we made an impromptu appointment and took her to get a trim.  I was thinking she was going to get a few inches off.  Boy was I wrong!

She was very excited about her new haircut and we all thought she did a great job instructing the stylist how to cut it.  After the appointment the stylist asked me “So is she your spitfire?” as she pointed to Annie?  After only 30 minutes she could quickly determine the personalities of both girls!  After we went to Costco to buy a few groceries.  I was very pleased when a lady commented to me that my family was very loving to each other.  That brought a smile to my face.  I must say that all three kids were being rather adorable and kind to each other.  James started giving hugs tonight by reaching out his arms, resting his head on your shoulder and putting his hand on your back.  It is so cute and of course the girls couldn’t get enough of it!

When we got home I asked Annie if we could cut her hair this week too.  She responded by saying “No, I am cutting it long!”  She explained that she is going to grow it very long and then cut it.  Of course, she had to have her own picture too though.

Family Feather

Last week Katelin had her first “family” project for school.  We were supposed to design a feather (with our family name) that would go onto her classes’ turkey.  We were encouraged to decorate it with anything we had at our disposal with everyone in the family contributing.  Katelin instructed us to tell her what we wanted to do and then she would say “yes” or “no” about our idea.  After all…it was her feather (or so we kept hearing)!  Katelin decided she wanted a rainbow feather so everything had to be bright colors.  Brian did get his idea of having brown construction paper as the base. My idea of pictures of our family did not make it onto the feather. But we still all contributed by helping with different tasks and it turned out to be a very fun art project.  Katelin loved that we were all helping her and she kept signing our praises as we each worked on our parts.  I look forward to many more family projects (well, except for science fairs…good thing Brian will be able to help with those)!

The Clemens’ Family Feather

A cute picture of Annie waiting patiently to help with the feather.

Still Haunting after Halloween!

Katelin and Annie have had fun the last few nights putting on some of their Halloween goodies they received from various parties.  I really just love these pictures so I had to share. 

You Get What You Get…

And Don’t Throw a Fit!  At least that is what we enforce with Katelin and Annie.  We usually don’t have a problem with Katelin as she is “our champion eater” as she calls it. Annie…we’ve actually sat for over 60 minutes (and reheated her dinner probably 5 times) waiting for her to eat something she “didn’t like”. It isn’t like we force them to eat disgusting food or something that they REALLY dislike.  We just enforce that they need to try something before they insist they don’t like it and then they need to understand that if they don’t eat dinner…no bedtime treat!

I am not so sure though that we are having much luck with this motto with James!  He is proving to be much more picky and determined to eat only what he wants.  We can’t give him any fruit before his veggie/meat or he will only want the sweets (ok…so maybe he is kinda like his momma!). Once he gets a taste of something he likes he throws a FIT if you try to get him to eat the other food.  I mean a full blown “throw his head back, cry so hard there are tears but no noise fit”!  It actually makes us laugh because he acts so ridiculous! 

“No, I don’t want that spoon of carrots, I want that applesauce!”

“OK, Now I am NOT Happy!”

“YES! Thank you finally giving me the applesauce!”

Another moment of disappointment in the food.

Showing us how serious he is about wanting the food he wants!