Santa's Lap

Here's our annual pictures of sitting on Santa's lap. Matt had his Preschool Christmas Party this morning. Adam was invited to attend, too. Adam told Santa he wants a Wii and a Nintendo DS (expensive taste). Matt said he wants a snowman action figure (????).

Piano Recital

Last night we had a piano recital at our house for my piano students--all three of them. Adam had been looking forward to it all week with much anticipation. He did tell me afterwards, he was so nervous he thought he was going to wet his pants. He did very well, considering he's only had lessons for six weeks. Each student played two songs. Adam played, "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" and "Just a Second". The actual recital took 10 minutes max, followed by 20 minutes of refreshments and 60 minutes of playing downstairs with all the kids.

My piano students--Abe Kentner, Adam Kennington, and Spencer Hunt--notice they're all boys.

Let The . . . .

Nesting Begin!!! I shampooed our carpets yesterday. Ahhhh, it's nice to have that done. Now on to the next project.

Happy Trails & Happy Times

Here are some of our newest photos. I'm a bit late, and perhaps a bit lazy, but at least they're here. Adam has been thrilled to be taking piano lessons. Nearly everyday after school he asks if he can have another lesson. Sometimes I have time and sometimes I don't. On those days that I don't have time, he asks if he can teach himself. He's doing quite well. He has now started "teaching" Matthew, which they are both very excited about. I love the photo above--they both look so cute.

Here's Adam riding one of Aunt Kim's horses. I didn't think Adam would want to do this because he has an issue with germs & animals. He really enjoyed it, though.

Matt didn't want to ride the horse but he was definitely curious as to what they were eating and drinking.

St. Nicholas visited our house the night of December 6th and filled the boys' shoes with goodies. It such a fun tradition that we adopted from living in Europe as children.

I'm So Crafty...

I'm so crafty............I (unexpectedly) create people!

ETA is May 17th (happens to be our anniversary).

Final product is a boy! (thank goodness I don't have to buy a bunch of new clothes)

This was so completely not planned. To be honest, I'm still in shock and can't completely believe I'm pregnant--even though I've had 16 weeks to process it. And I never thought I'd be having a baby at 36. So, how's that for a shock. It was the surprise of the century for us.


As for other news, Adam has been tested and put into the gifted program at school. Typically the students don't start this until the 3rd grade. However, the 1st grade curriculum was simply not challenging Adam at all. We're really glad and grateful his teacher and school recognized his need for something more demanding. Since he's the only 1st grader in the program, he'll have one-on-one instruction with the gifted teacher each week.

Rob is off to Topeka for the next few days on a business trip. We just got back on Sunday and now he's gone again.

All & all, it's been quite a week.....and it's only Wednesday.

CO/WY Trip

We had a fun week up in Colorado and Wyoming. We spent a couple of days in Fort Collins, celebrating (some more) Adam's birthday. What can be better than swimming, Toys-r-Us and Chuck E. Cheese? Tuesday afternoon we drove up to Cheyenne, so Grandpa could do dental exams on all of the boys. Adam had to have an extra procedure done, too. Thank goodness for free dental care and Grandpa. Talking about teeth--Adam lost two teeth while in Cheyenne. On Wednesday, Adam and Matt spent the day with Grandma, which means McDonalds, chocolate chip cookies, and new toys, while Robert, my sister, Holly, and I drove down to Denver to go to the temple. We didn't have Thanksgiving on Thursday because Derek, Alexis, Evan and Greta (my brother and family) weren't arriving 'til 6pm. We went to the Salvation Army during the morning and volunteered. My mom and stepdad also happened to be driving their truck through northern Colorado on Thursday so we all got to see them. That was a fun and unexpected surprise. Adam and Matt were enthralled with the big semi and all of it's buttons. Holly and I got up before 5am on Friday and headed out to do some shopping. I found some good toy deals. The great thing about shopping on Black Friday is I'm always home by 7am. Adam and Matt really enjoyed playing with their cousins, Evan and Greta. I wondered how much the boys would pay attention to them since they aren't quite two years old yet. But, they had great fun together. I think Adam and Matt loved the attention Evan and Greta gave to them. I was a bit surprised how patient Adam and Matt were with them. We had our big Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. Then on Saturday we went back down to Fort Collins to Owen and Kim's house (brother and sis-in-law). They train and board about eight horses on their property so Kim gave the kids pony-rides. Matt wasn't up for it this year but Adam really enjoyed it. In fact, he went twice. We then headed into town for some close-to-authentic British fish and chips, which were yummy. We're picky about our fish and chips since we've had the real thing from our relatives and travels in England and New Zealand. We burnt off lunch at the swimming pool. It was a fun Thanksgiving trip. We hadn't been anywhere for Thanksgiving for the past four years so it was nice to go and especially to have everyone there.

Hip, Hip, Hooray...

...It was Adam's birthday! Doesn't that face prove he had a great day?! Adam loved his birthday. He said he wanted to eat junk food all day...so he did--doughnuts for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and of course, his favorite, McDonalds for dinner. He wanted to stay in his pajamas all day...so he did--until 5:30pm when we went to McDonalds. He opened his gifts in the morning and spent the day playing with them. After dinner, we let him rent a movie from Hastings and stay up late to watch it. Last month he decided he didn't want to have a birthday party with friends but instead do a fun, special activity. Tomorrow we're heading to Cheyenne, WY for Thanksgiving break. On the way, we're stopping in Ft. Collins, CO to go to Chuck E. Cheese and Toy-r-Us. We even found a killer deal ($45) at the Hilton, so we'll stay a night (even though it's only 45 minutes from Cheyenne) so the boys can swim and have fun.

Hip, Hip, Hooray...I'm 7!!

Posing with his presents. Thanks Grandmas, Grandpas and Nanna for the fun presents!

His version of cake and ice cream was a bit different this year. He wanted a KitKat Ice Cream Pie and SpongeBob cupcakes. He enjoyed both.