A Warm Day

65 degrees in the middle of winter.  I'll take it.
 

 

Olive's first time on the tire swing.
 

 

Star of the Week

She was very proud of her Star of the Week poster.  She asked me how to draw different animals and decorated all of her letters herself.  The striped oval on the N is a zebra. ;)

McWeekend- City Museum

Our trip to St. Louis over MLK weekend started out with a bang.  When we were about an hour outside of KC, Olive threw up.  She has spit up before when she has a runny nose and then tries to eat something (which she was) and it doesn't mean she's really sick.  After pulling off the highway for clean-up and discussion on whether or not we'd noticed "sick poops" (Isn't being a parent awesome?), we called the McGuires to tell them what was up.  The bravely said "Come on anyway.  Even if she is sick, we've all had the flu."  So we continued.  And Olive seemed fine- ate, drank, played just like normal.  Whew.

The kids in age order: Olive (1), Gwyneth (1), Hannah (3), Colin (4), Kevin (6) watching cartoons Saturday morning.
 

 

Saturday we went to the coolest place on the planet: City Museum.  It is an indoor/outdoor playground in an old factory.  Everything is made from objects found around the city.  There are tons of climbing structures, slides, caves, and small places to hide. I think it is either a love it or hate it place.  If you are afraid of the dark, heights, or claustrophobic....it probably isn't the place for you.  We all loved it.

 

Kevin and Hannah climbing with Taco behind them.

Hannah's favorite things were the train (Olive eventually got brave enough to go on it too) and a skate park that she ran around on.
 

Olive wasn't able to explore as much because she was so little that her feet would fall through the bars, but she still had fun.  Her favorite things were the skate park and watching the turtles swim in the aquarium.

Kevin in front of the giant whale.

Me and Big Boy.
 

 The guys in the hamster wheel.

Some of the coolest stuff was outside.  Here is Hannah climbing super high.

 

That's her in the pink with Steve behind her.
 

Steve and Hannah are in the middle of the tube, and Taco and Gwyn are starting up.  Olive and I stayed on the ground and took pictures. :)
 

This is me going down a slide inside with Hannah and Taco waiting at the bottom.  Hannah and I also went down a 10 story slide!!  She was super brave.
 

Back at the house to make pizzas for dinner.

 

 

And then even more fun: Olympics!!  I think we might abandon the tradition of MLK Turkey Fry and do Olympics instead.  The long jump was not my favorite event, but it made for some good pictures.

 

 

 The funniest event was blindfolded cross dressing.  Jane told us they got these clothes in a thrift shop, but I'm pretty sure she wore that dress to our wedding.  Steve is breaking out some gangnum style before the event starts.

Sunday was a relaxing day playing around the house.  Then it was time to go out to dinner....and Olive threw up for real.  Steve was staying in St. Louis for work so I made the decision to drive home with the girls Sunday night.  The whole time I was praying Olive could make it home without getting sick.  We made it at 11:00 at night and both girls slept most the way.  Olive saved her really sick day until Monday.  She was a lump on top of me all day.  Then Steve was sick in St. Louis on Tuesday.  Hannah and I were sick on Wednesday, just in time for Steve to get back that night.  It hit all the McGuires too.  It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.  It took until Sunday for me to eat normally again.  Still, City Museum and the Olympics were awesome and totally worth it.  Probably.

 

Little Monkey Bizness

Hannah has been telling us we need to go back to Little Monkey Bizness.  The last time we went was in July, so we were due.  It's a good place to play when it's cold outside.
 

 

 

 

 

2013

I love starting a new year.  Starting fresh and making goals/resolutions is always fun.  This year my big goal is to be more "in the moment", which means to enjoy things while they are happening.  Too often I'm distracted thinking about all the things I need to do or trying to multi-task and get lots of things done at once.  I want to slow down and take the time to focus on one thing at a time.  The girls are growing up way too fast and I want to soak up all the little moments while I can- reading books before bed with one of them on each knee, talking about their day at preschool, playing dress up, and all of the little things that I don't want to forget.  Other goals for this year are to have more date nights with Steve and to organize one room in the house every month.  We've already gone out to a movie in January, so we're off to a good start! 

January is also a good time to reflect on what has happened in the last year.  Looking back I was shocked by how many things we did in 2012.  Steve changed jobs from Black&Veatch to Cogent.  He really likes the new atmosphere of a smaller company and more varied work.  Steve also ran the Boston Marathon and did the MR 340, a boat race on the Missouri River that took 4 days.  We went on a couples vacation to Maine and then a family vacation to Colorado, which was the girls' first time on a plane.  This year Olive started walking and talking.  Hannah got potty trained and started writing.  Both girls went from in-home daycare to preschool.  And of course the girls and I had lots of adventures this summer doing fun things all over KC.

The best thing about a new year is looking forward to what will come next.  I already know a few things that I'm excited about in 2013.  One of my best friends from high school is moving back to Kansas City in February and having a baby in April.  Two of my other good friends in KC are also pregnant with babies due in the summer.  And my brother just got engaged to his girlfriend over with winter break!  He proposed in front of the Nelson Art Gallery at night.  It sounded beautiful.  I can't wait to add another member to our family and dance at their wedding!

 



New Year's Eve 2012

We spent New Year's Eve in Weston, MO at the Benner House Bed & Breakfast.  The girls rang in the new year with Granny and Papa in Chula, MO.  It was a beautiful outside with big snowflakes falling all day long.  We were there with the Baileys, Vroomans, and Walter.  We had a great time doing a white elephant gift exchange and sharing memories of past New Year's Eves.  We've spent a lot of them together.  I should really make a list sometime.  I probably couldn't remember all of them, but the blog keeps track of the last few for me: 2011, 2010, and 2009.

 

The guys: leprechaun, normal, cowboy, and wolfman.  Wolfman got his shirt because of some Amazon reviews.

Some unfortunate headgear at O'Malleys.

Someone stole my camera and took pictures of random things around the B&B.  He didn't know he would leave behind evidence.  Caught!

Christmas in Jeff City

We went to Jeff City the weekend after Christmas to open presents with Steve's side of the family.  Hannah was very excited to give her cousin Ainslyn presents...and couldn't wait to help her open them and play with them!  Olive also joined in coloring on Ainslyn's new princess ColorWonder sheets.

  

One of Hannah's favorite presents from Ainslyn was a Hungry Doggies game.


The girls got so many presents from Santa, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts/uncles, and extended family that it took us quite a while to find a place for everything!  We have very generous families and they got some really cool toys.   Thank you!!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

I finally got to be the parent at parent/teacher conferences!  Preschool conferences were before winter break.  It was so much fun to hear about the girls through their teachers' eyes.  Hannah's teacher said she is a role model student, always follows directions, and is interested in everything that they do at school.  Olive's teacher said she is the most verbal one in the class, volunteers and wants to go first for everything, and she's the class leader.  Besides evaluating language, gross motor, fine motor, and social skills, their teachers also wrote down some favorites.

Hannah

• favorite time of the day: recess
• outside I like to: "Play with toys.  I like the dump truck toys."
• one of my favorite projects was: making Christmas trees
• favorite work space: house area
• favorite special: chapel, Spanish
• what I like best about circle time: "I like reading books"

Olive

• favorite time of the day: group times- songs, teacher directed activities
• outside I like to: do the slide and playhouse
• one of my favorite projects was: paper bag owl, felt board activities
• favorite work space: kitchen, dress-up area
• favorite special: music

Christmas Eve and Morning

This was the first Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that we were not in Chillicothe.  It was fun to do some new traditions with just our little family.  The girls went to their first Christmas Eve service...  and no one got burned on the candles! :)  However right after everyone finished singing Silent Night, Olive shouted, "Belly B!"  She is obsessed with belly buttons.  It was a little longer service than I expected, but very kid-friendly.  They passed out coloring sheets and crayons at the door and there was a craft time and hot cocoa afterwards.  At the end of the service they called the kids onstage to ring bells.  Steve and I are on the shy side, so we are always amazed when Hannah is outgoing and fearless.  Hannah marched right up on stage and took her bell-ringing responsibilities very seriously. 

 

Christmas morning everyone slept-in.  Except me- I was the first one up.  When we finally went downstairs, Hannah was very methodical about opening up presents.  She would carefully unwrap each gift and then play with it for five minutes before moving on to the next present.  It was very different from last year.  I was afraid Santa didn't have that many presents, but the way she did unwrapped it took over an hour!  All of the presents were for both girls to share, so Hannah just opened them all.  Olive mostly played off to the side with the pretend kitchen and only joined us when something interested her.  Her favorite gifts were sparkly silver Puma sneakers and some Tinkerbell lip gloss.  

 

It took awhile to convince Hannah to open up more presents after these monster feet:

 

Hannah's favorite presents were the stomp rocket, monster feet, and remote control helicopter.  We had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and then I remembered the stockings!

Despite my sinus infection, it was a great Christmas.  The aftermath:
 

Christmas in Chillicothe

The girls didn't have preschool on the Friday before Christmas, but Steve and I both had to work.  Grandma and Grandpa braved the snow on Thursday night to pick up the girls and take them to Chillicothe.  Grandma went craft-crazy and did about 10 Pinterest projects with the girls on Friday.  One of their favorites was making hand lotion, that they gave to their great-grandmas.  Their other grandma/great-grandma gift was snowflake ornaments.  Olive stuck on a few decorations, but Hannah mainly did them all.  She loves crafts! 

Some of the decorations ended up on her face, too.  She spent most of the weekend pretending she was Rudolph.

 

 We went to Great-grandpa's house for Meneely Christmas.  Here is Olive with her Great-aunt Sarah.

And here are both girls playing with Great-grandpa.  We had an epic game of Diminishing Words with all the cousins and even Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dennis.  I love playing any game, but especially any game with Uncle Dennis. 

Sunday morning we opened gifts at my parents' house.  It started with Hannah giving Grandma our present and saying, "Open up your present, Grandma.  It's a Garmin!"  That girl can not keep a secret.  This is probably the only present that Olive unwrapped.  She was more interested in chasing Stan the Cat around and yelling "Mao!  Mao!" in his face.  She has a thing for Communist China.

 And then I pretty much stopped taking pictures.  Sunday evening we visited Steve's uncle/aunt/cousins since we were going to miss the official Kerr Christmas on December 26th.  Steve is out of vacation time since it is a new job and he has taken so many days already with the Maine trip, MR 340, and Colorado trip.  We had another great family game at his aunt and uncle's house- this time it was Wits and Wagers.  We spent the night at Steve's parents because they were taking care of Ainslyn for the weekend.  The girls got some fun cousin time and we saw Great-grandma Alice on Monday.  With the back of the car loaded completely loaded to the ceiling, we headed home on Christmas Eve.