Kylie's thoughtful ways of giving gifts...

On Sunday morning, Kylie came into my bedroom, while I was sleeping and said, "Mom, I think there's a present under the tree for you -- you should get up and open it." I said, "but it's not Christmas yet." She says, "It's ok, it's a fake present."....LOL! said, "Ok, let me sleep a little longer." She comes in about 5 minutes later...

"Mom, get up and open your present." I rolled out of bed and went to the tree and she gives me my present (in the meantime Dawson woke up too) -- it's wrapped and taped all the way around...and as I was holding this I was wondering what in the world?? I started opening it up and SURPRISE, it was my cell phone...LOL!!!

She says," see Mom, I told you it was fake." -- "DO YOU LIKE IT?" I said, "of course, I LOVE IT -- THANK YOU SOO MUCH!!!!"

Then we proceed with Dawson -- she gives Dawson two wrapped presents...one in wrapping paper and one in a piece of copy paper and Kirby wanted to help too -- so he grabbed one and started ripping it and Kylie freaked...but Dawson started on the other...and WAAALAAA it was two "My Little Ponies"! Dawson looked at me like, "what is this Mom?" He didn't know what to think. BUT, Kylie was quite excited about it...LOL!!!

Then it was Daddy's turn....and umm...yeah, Daddy's gift was no where to be found (Dave remembered her wrapping it). Dave says to Kylie, "umm...Kylie where's Daddy's gift...that's a very important one, we should find it." She says, "it's downstairs, you stay right here and I'll go get it." So she goes downstairs, grabs another piece of copy paper and the tape and a pen and I helped her wrap Daddy's gift. She gives it to him...and it's taped all over the place. He starts opening it and notices its HIS cell phone...he started jumping up and down, and saying, "thank you SOOOO much Kylie, this is exactly what I wanted -- How did you know this is what I wanted." and Kylie was just laughing!

So we had a very eventful Sunday morning that was just hilarious and Kylie put lots of thought into this morning :)

**I'm STILL laughing over this!

Guitar Hero "Rockstars"

Last night Dave was playing Guitar Hero on PS3 and Kylie was playing along with her Barbie guitar and totally getting into it -- it was hilarious :)

Kylie got her hair cut in a salon...

YAHOO!!! For the first time ever, Kylie finally got her hair cut in a salon. I've cut her hair 2-3 times since she's been 3 and we've attempted to have it cut in a salon but its never gone over too well in the past. I've heard some good things about this place called, "The Jungle" in Elk River and they have these little playground animals (as chairs) for kids and they have movies to watch while they are getting their hair cut -- it's fabulous!! We didn't get a whole lot cut off as we still like it long, but thank the lord we can now get it cut more often :)

As I mentioned in an earlier post...

Dawson loves to play in the cupboards and underneath the sink when I take the garbage out (and yes, he has his book in there with him...lol) :)

Promised Pictures!

Kylie and Dawson with Santa

Kylie's Christmas dance recital - Dec. 13, 20o8

Kylie and her friend Madison

Kylie and her friend Kristen

A few other highlights...

The kids got to meet with Santa on Dec. 2. Dave took the day off (his birthday too!) and I took Kylie to work with me on the bus and let her have a fun day with Mom and Dave came downtown around 11:30 and we headed over to Macy's for their spectacular event "A Day in the Life of an Elf" and then met with Santa afterwards. Kylie told Santa that she was a REALLY big doll house and a pink elephant (not sure where this came from) and that Dawson wanted a really big truck that goes really really fast. As for sitting on Santa's lap, Dawson wasn't quite sure -- he tried to squirm his way out as Kylie sat on the drum next to Santa (picture to come). But I was quite proud as she was still able to tell him what she wanted -- we're progressing every year :)

My friend Kelly had baby Lauryn on December 8 (yes, I now know 4 people with this birthday and two were born this year, hehe) and she weighed in at 8 lbs. 15 oz. and 22" long! I finally got over there last night to visit and she's absolutely gorgeous -- she's got a full head of hair and her face is soo pretty -- she already looks older than she really is.

Kylie had her Christmas dance recital on December 13, 2008 and Grandma, Grandpa and Grandma Denis came to watch. It was a lot of fun and Kylie looked beautiful as always! :) She is doing really well this year and really getting into it. This is her second year of dance and she's really enjoying it! (Again, pictures to come -- I haven't had time to get them uploaded.

This last Monday, we had some nasty snow storms come through and Dawson only allowed us about 4 hours of sleep, so I ended up calling into work and kept the kids home with me and around 9:30 a.m., Dave rolled in and said his crew didn't show up, so we had a nice family day at home. Kylie and I baked peanut butter/hershey kiss cookies and Dave baked his chex mix -- we had a really fun day!

As for the upcoming holidays, we have a busy few days (as if it hasn't been busy all month, LOL)...on Saturday, Grandma is taking the kids so we can get some gifts wrapped and then that afternoon, we have Christmas at my Aunt Ivette's house in Anoka with my Mom's side of the family and then on Sunday morning, we're headed down to Albert Lea to celebrate Christmas with the Sletten's (Dave's Mom). With Kylie getting into the whole entire Santa thing now and Dawson not far behind, we've decided we will be staying close to home for Christmas Day. I'm super excited for this year as its Dawson first year hopefully opening gifts and now that Kylie is a bit older, she totally gets into it. :)

If I don't get to post prior to Christmas -- I hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas!!

Dawson's 15 month check-up

Dawson went into the dr. for his 15 month (15 1/2) check-up on December 5 -- he weighed in at 22.4 lbs. (25%), which is a 1.5 lb. gain from his 1 year check-up. As for his height and head circumferance, they were both in the 25% tile as well...so he's seriously a little runt to us...Kylie was always in the 75-90% tile for everything all along. He finally completely graduated from his 6-9 month pants and is in a solid 12 month pants (with some pants still big in the waste) and 12-18 month shirt...yahoo! Otherwise, he's doing really well and is right on track with things. He got to show the dr. all sorts of tricks he does now :)

His new thing is to crawl underneath the sink cupboard where the garbage can goes...as soon as Dave or I pull the garbage can out to take it out, he's right there ready to get in...it's really funny (picture to come). He's starting to really interact with Kylie and she's really enjoying his company these days...they play so well together (most of the time) and yes, Kylie will literally run from one end of the house to the other and Dawson will chase her and just laughs...they both find that hilarious!! Dave and I just sit back (usually) and watch them, it's so much fun to watch them interact and watch Dawson learning each and everything that Kylie now does...he catches on quite quickly and is starting to copy everything she does :)

It's been a long time since I updated...

...I don't even know where to start with updating!!

We had a great Thanksgiving at Dave's Dad's house in Sioux City, IA. When we got there on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, we went bowling and then had a great dinner on Thursday and got up nice and early (3:45 a.m.) to go shopping on Black Friday!! We actually ended up leaving a bit early as Dave was not feeling well. We came home Friday night, but were planning on staying until Sat. But we did manage to stop on our way home at the home of the Blue Bunny Ice Cream! The kids and I and Dave, of course, had fabulous ice cream cones (Dave just had a little as he wasn't feeling well).

Christina, Kylie and Casey Jo

(Christina and Casey Jo are Dave's little sisters)

Grandma Semple and Dawson

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we got our Christmas lights put on the house and our Christmas tree up! It's beautiful. This is our first year with a fake tree...unfortunately with Dave and Kylie's allergies, we're unable to get a real tree anymore :( But we were fortunate enough to get a tree from my aunt and uncle and it's big and beautiful -- we love it :) Kylie had a blast being able to help decorate and thought it was really cool putting her own ornaments on the tree! But I was really in the spirit early this year, I was super excited to get the tree up and couldn't wait to get it done! We also got a lot of our Christmas shopping done early too! Now, we just have to find time to wrap! :)

Update on Weight Watchers!

I wanted to post that Weight Watchers is still going REALLY well -- I just weighed in for the third week and I was down another 2.5 lbs. :) That's a total of 7.5 lbs. in 3 weeks!! I'm totally pumped!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Quick updates!

I just looked at the blog and realized its been 10 days since Dawson started walking -- he has progressed soo much! He's walking from room to room to room and he's working on standing up from not holding onto anything. In the last couple of days, he's figured out that he can walk on his knees!! :)

He also has learned the word "that"! If he wants something he'll say "that". LOL! It's quite hilarious...I figured he picked it up from us, saying, do you want that? What do you say if you want that? What is that? But he's totally able to identify items and identify things that he wants. He'll bring us right to what he wants. If he wants milk, he'll go the fridge and try to open it...lol. If he wants a banana (seriously his obsession!), he'll walk over to the counter with his arms up and say, "that"!

This morning, Dawson was in the kitchen with Dave while he was making his lunch and Kirby barked because he needed in and Dave says to Dawson, is Kirby outside? Dawson seriously walked over and kindof peeked his head around the counter corner (under the breakfast bar) and pointed and said "that" and then waived "HI"!!! We laughed and thought that was soo cool! :) He's learning so fast -- it's like a month ago, he wasn't walking and now he's walking, talking and acknowledging things and dancing like crazy! It's so much fun!

As for Miss Kylie -- she also is growing up so darn fast! Her imagination is running like crazy and she's constantly telling us stories! She loves to play waitress and loves to pretend play in any way she can! She's going through a phase right now, that she's afraid of the shadows in her room...so we've tried to do some rearranging in her room to avoid some of the shadows, but its quite hard to do. So we've started to make things in the shadows to make it fun for her instead of frightening.

This coming up weekend, we are headed to Dave's Dad's house in Sioux City, Iowa. Kylie is super excited, she loves playing with Dave's two little sisters! It's about a 6 hour drive from our house, so this will be both of the kids' longest drive/ride in the car. We'll see how they do and the Kirby is off to see his friends for 4 days -- he loves going to the kennels :)

I hope everyone has a fabulous Thanksgiving!!

Walking video -- check it out :)

We have a walker!!!!

Mr. Dawson is officially walking!!! YAY!!!! Last night, everytime he fell he managed to try and make it back up to his feet. I will post a video after I upload it, but he was walking from the couch in the living room to the dining room -- about 15 feet :) He's learning to catch his balance and everything -- we are soo excited...I just cannot believe it, I thought I'd never see this day come!!! He looks like such a big boy when he walks too...aww...I love these moments! Anyways, thought I'd share and I'll share a video this weekend -- so check back for another update!

Have a great weekend!!

Halloween 2008

My parents came up for Halloween this year -- Dave and I took the kids out and Mom and Dad handed out candy at our house! It worked out really well -- I guess after Kylie had her tempertantrum and decided she initially did not want to go trick-or-treating. But then decided if Daddy took her out, she'd go and she had a blast! The weather was perfect -- it could not have gotten any nicer out. It kindof stunk though, we didn't get started until around 6:30 or later. I liked daylight savings before Halloween instead of after! :)

Here are a few pictures of the kids and Kylie and her friend Kristen and her brother Josh:

It's been awhile...

since I've posted! I wanted to update everyone and let you know that I'm back on Weight Watchers Online! I'm super excited and after almost a week, I'm already feeling better about myself. It's going to be extremely hard to change my ways and I know this, but am fully confident that I can do it! It's been a long year since Dawson's been born and I finally feel "READY" that I can do this! :) I will try to keep everyone posted on my fabulous progress!

Over the last week, the kids have came down with some yucky cold. Last week, Tuesday (Election Day), I took the day off, since the kids didn't have daycare, I thought it would be a great day for a Mommy day with the kids. We got up, played a bit, went and voted, I stopped at the park on our way out of town, so they could play a bit and then we dropped a couple bags off at Goodwill. We then had a nice lunch with Jamie, Lydia and Elizabeth. :) The kids were completely exhausted when we got in the car after lunch. When we got home, I put them back to sleep in their rooms and Kylie just did not want to get up. I finally got her up around 4:00 -- to try and eat some dinner before dance that night. We got to dance and she just wanted to "cuddle". She had no desire to dance...did not even step foot on the dance floor. So I ended up taking her home and discovered she had a 103 degree temp. I, of course, felt terrible for taking her out of dance upset because she wouldn't dance :( But we then got her some medicine and snuggled a bit. She ended up staying home from daycare on Weds. with Dave and has been doing a bit better as time goes on. She still coughs quite frequently while sleeping, but we've also been doing her nebulizer a couple times a day, in which I hope to think helps :)

As for Dawson, he has had a runny nose since the weekend and part of late last week and finally yesterday, he got hit with the cough and its nasty!! Poor little guy. He still seems to be in high spirits for the most part. But when he wants to go to bed, he wants to go now! He did snuggle a bit last night, which was nice, because this little guy does not snuggle.

Oh yes and I have to post photos from Halloween yet! :)

Pumpkin Carving Time!

Last night, we carved pumpkins in the garage! We hauled out Dawson's highchair and pulled out the card table and chairs and we had a jolly ol' time carving pumpkins. Dawson had a great time eating the pumpkin guts (not much as he wasn't to fond of it) and a few seeds...lol. Again, another great family night -- it was soo much fun and the kids just laughed and played and were happy, which makes it SOO much more enjoyable :)

Our trip to the Pumpkin Patch

This years pumpkin patch was soo much fun! It was really great family time! The kids are at that age, where they are just soo much fun and funny!! Kylie is such a great big sister to her brother and its so nice that they are so close!

Kylie and Dawson

Dawson loved the pumpkins!



He was SOO happy and had so much fun!! :)

Off in the corn maze we go!

Dave wanted Kylie to join him in eating this pumpkin! :)

Kylie's Halloween Party at Dance!

On Tuesday, October 28, Kylie got to wear her Halloween costume to dance class! The first half of the class was their normal routine and the second half they had a Halloween party. Here are a couple photos of her dance friends. :)

Kylie's Dance Friends (left to right)

Rose, Kristen, Madison and Kylie

Singing Dawson...

Our weekend in Wisconsin

This weekend, we went to Wisconsin for my cousin Angela's wedding (my dad's side of the family). We got up early on Sat. a.m. and the wedding was at noon, so we left our house a little after 7 a.m. to get Kirby to the kennels (his favorite place to go, seriously!) and then headed down to my parents house to follow them. Kylie stayed the night at Grandma and Grandpa's on Friday night so it was easier for us to get out the door on Sat. a.m. It worked out really well.

(Dawson pretending to drive -- it was quite hilarious)

We got to Wisconsin around 10:40 and checked into our hotel in Ladysmith and then unloaded a bit and headed to the church in Sheldon (about 20 mins. away). It was really nice to see all the family -- we see them a couple times a year and that's usually when they come to MN.

There was quite a gap in between the wedding and the reception, so we went to the local bar and picked up a pizza to go and went back to our hotel room and ate some lunch and Dave and Kylie went swimming, while Dawson and I took a snoozer. When Dawson and Kylie got back from swimming, they ended up falling asleep too and we didn't get up until 4:40 and the reception was at 5 p.m. Good thing its only a couple miles away.

(The kids were having a blast dancing - before the band even started)

(My Cousin Angela (the bride) and Dawson dancing)

(My cousin Doug and Dawson dancing)

(Kylie and Cheyan - Eva's Daughter)

(Paige and Kylie dancing their hearts away)

(Dave, Kylie and Uncle Ryan dancing some more - it's a bit foggy as they had a fog machine going)!

We left the reception around 9:30ish and went home and we all took showers and headed to bed. We were just exhausted from traveling out there and having a long day!

Dawson got up at 5 a.m. -- woofta, that was early! We tried to ignore him, while he kept saying, Dada, Dada! LOL! Dave kept waiving to him and finally he laid back down and fell back to sleep until 830 a.m. :) We all got up, got ready for the day, had breakfast and visited with family for a bit longer and actually headed out around 9:45 a.m.

On our way home, as we were passing through the border, it started snowing -- YES SNOWING! Our first snowfall of the year! We also discovered that Dawson loves to eat his feet like his big sister!!

A few funny photos...

Tonight, Dawson found a new place to play/hide! Check it out :)

Finally, the video of Dawson's crawling up the steps!

Kylie, Kylie, Kylie...

came home from daycare yesterday and said "Mom, guess what I did today?" Of course, I'm like "what, what? What did you do?" She says, "Declan and I kissed!!" I said, "WHAT? Where did you kiss each other at? On the lips?" She says, "no on the cheeks!!"

So this morning Dave asks Kylie, "Kylie, what are you not going to do today? And she says, "kiss Declan!" Dave tells her that kissing isn't for little kids and only for grown ups (sometimes!)...LOL! :)

So that's our new news with her...she's a little ham!

Lydia's Baptism 10-19-08

On Sunday, October 19, 2008, we were honored to share Lydia's special day with her. :) We were also very honored to be her godparents!! Lydia did great throughout the entire church service (she slept, hehe!). She was soo pretty too -- her dress was made out of Jamie's wedding dress!

After the service, we went back to Jamie and Brian's house and had lunch and visited with lots of friends and family to Lydia. Kylie of course, met a new friend (as she does everywhere she goes) and I tell you there two girls were two peas in a pod! They were soo darn cute!

Showing off their tattoos!

Just flat out being goofy -- they were prancing around like no tomorrow!!

Dawson also spent some time outside...he was crawling up and down the steps! :) I was then throwing him up in the air and he thought that was soo hilarious....

.....until who know what happened...he was not happy at all! He just let it all out...you will probably never see this little guy cry this hard...lol.

We also got some super cute photos of all of us girls :) Lydia is still soo little -- she barely weighs 8 lbs. -- it's like holding a little doll.

A couple accomplishments of Dawson over the weekend!

This weekend, we tried the fork thing -- he doesn't fork the food real well, but if we fork the food, he'll for sure put the fork in his mouth!! :)

Dawson also learned to climb the steps!!!! WOOHOO!! I was upstairs and Dave was downstairs...all of a sudden I heard pounding on the entry way floor, I look down and little Dawson had climbed up the bottom steps to the entry way. He looks at me and laughs! I said, what are you doing? and he just laughs! So of course, he "attempted" to go back down, but that doesn't work to well yet, so Dave had to run after him before he fell. I will actually post a video of him climbing the steps a little later (I just haven't uploaded it yet)! :)