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! :)