Christmas

Christmas has been spread out over three weekends this year with our first celebration in Lexington with Kevin's extended family December 20th. Unfortunately I don't have pictures to share of that day because Warner dropped our camera in the toilet that night. We are now the proud owners of a new digital camera.

My parents drove here from Texas last Wednesday. We celebrated Christmas Eve by visiting the train display downtown (a HUGE hit with Warner) followed by dinner and presents at our house. My dad built a train table for Warner for his gift and Warner loves it. Maren got fancy clothes and bows from Grammy. The boys hard at work assembling the train tracks.Maren with Grandpa and Grammy on Christmas Eve.Warner loved opening gifts this year. In fact, I think he opened the majority of the gifts, regardless of whether or not they were for him.This is what Santa brought Christmas morning. Warner's three "big" gifts from Santa were Elmo, a workbench, and a toy tractor. I'm afraid Elmo is his favorite, and am beginning to wish Santa didn't bring him. He talks a LOT.Warner also loved the small gifts in his stocking.
Kevin and I are old and boring and exchange mostly practical gifts. Example: a microwave food cover (or hat, if you're Kevin).We spent Christmas night in Muncie with my mom's family. This is the traditional eggnog picture. My grandpa makes the most incredible homemade eggnog on the planet. I look forward to it every year.
Apparently Maren enjoyed it too. We travel to Somerset this weekend to celebrate Christmas with Kevin's immediate family. I'll post more pictures soon. In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cookies and Snow

Saturday was one of the best days I can remember in a long time. Leslie, Abby, and Ashely came up from Lexington to bake and decorate Christmas cookies with us. We also had an added bonus: snow! It was quite festive. Warner "helped" me make the cookie icing by turning my mixer on the highest setting as I was adding more powdered sugar. The result:He was pretty excited to lick the sugar off himself after we took a few pictures. Abby and Ashley worked hard to make their cookies look just right.
Warner did a little bit of decorating and a lot of eating.
After we made the cookies we bundled up the kids and headed outside. I bought snow pants for Warner the night before at Target and I'm pretty confident they were the last pair available in northern Kentucky. Everyone was out of snow pants! Hence, the hideous, orange plaid, size 4T pants my poor child is wearing.
I hope Warner will forgive me one day. (If you look closely you can see that I even had to roll the pants to fit.)
The clothes didn't slow him down - Abby and Ashley quickly taught Warner how to make and throw snowballs. For whatever reason, Aunt Leslie was his favorite target:He also insisted that Leslie pull him in the sled instead of me.Abby enjoyed rolling down our hill ...And taught Warner how to do that, too.He enjoyed the rolling so much he didn't even stop at the driveway. He'd just keep rolling right across the bare concrete. Apparently snow isn't necessary for rolling.Ashley and Abby made this snowman. Unfortunately Warner destroyed it soon after this picture was taken. Thankfully they didn't seem to mind.After playing in the snow we came back inside for lunch and hot chocolate. Leslie texted me on the way home to tell me the girls said they had "the funnest day ever". My thoughts exactly.

Festival of Lights

We went to the Festival of Lights at the zoo Wednesday night with our friends the Wamplers. This was after our pediatrician/x-ray/fractured toe episode earlier in the day and a napless afternoon. So this was Warner by the time we got there at 6pm:Thankfully he woke up in a decent mood and was good the rest of the evening. It took nearly 15 minutes to get both kids bundled up - it was so cold that night. Poor Maren reminded me of Randy from the Christmas Story.I'm not sure she could move due to the number of layers I had her in. She was impressively quiet the whole night, but looking back this may have been because she was frozen. I'm not sure. In any event, she survived our adventure.
The biggest hit of the evening was the train ("choo-choo") ride, with the carousel coming in a close second. I personally enjoyed the reindeer but Warner wasn't that impressed. Despite the cold we had a blast and I hope this becomes a family tradition for us each year.

Otch

Warner got a little aggressive with the couch jumping Tuesday and hurt his right foot. He has been jumping off the couch without pillows on the ground to break his fall. This time he landed funny and got an "otch" as he says (pronounced like "watch" without the "w"). After limping pretty severely for 24 hours I called the pediatrician, afraid something was broken. We spent the better part of Wednesday at the pediatrician and later at Children's getting x-rays but thankfully nothing is broken. They think it's just a hairline fracture in his big toe. The doctor told me to tape his first and second toes together for 2-3 weeks until it heals. This was a novelty yesterday and went quite well, but today the newness wore off and he wasn't as cooperative. Hopefully he'll tolerate the tape until it's better.

Chef in Training

Warner loves loves loves to help in the kitchen. Seeing as I love love love to cook (and eat), this generally works out well. I try to involve him in cooking as much as possible (depending on time and my level of patience that day). His favorite thing to say is "Me! Me!" - as in, "let ME do it!" - but this is not limited to the kitchen. He wants to do everything himself these days. Oh, what fun to have a two year old.I was so excited to find this apron at www.theapronplace.com for $12. Warner picked out the colors for the apron and embroidery. Hopefully it will save me some time in the laundry room ... but at the very least, it's incredibly cute.

Girls Trip

Maren and I took our first road trip together this weekend. I was a bridesmaid in my friend Erin's wedding in Boone, North Carolina. Kevin couldn't get off work Friday so Maren and I embarked on the adventure together.

We left Friday morning around 8:30am and arrived in Boone at 5pm. I stopped twice to feed Maren (nothing like nursing your daughter in a gas station parking lot) and she slept most of the way as I listened to a murder mystery book on CD (my favorite thing to do on road trips!). We had a blast at the rehearsal and wedding the following day.Here I am with my girls from college - Katie (left) and Erin (the bride, middle). Katie, Maren and I stayed together at Erin's house and so enjoyed our girl time together. It even included a two-hour conversation over coffee at Panera Saturday morning. Divine. It was a gorgeous setting - a winery in the mountains - and Erin was a gorgeous bride. Maren pulled off the leopard print look quite well, I must say. We drove back Sunday, and got back to Warner and Kevin around 6pm. They had quite the boys weekend together (I'm not sure I want all the details) but I'm happy we're all under one roof again.

Santa

Santa and Mrs. Claus came to Boone Links golf course this morning so Warner, Maren, and I joined them for breakfast. He makes this stop each year, and last year Warner wasn't a huge fan, so I wasn't sure what to expect today. Here's last year's experience:So really we had no where to go but up this year. As suspected, the "breakfast" part (donuts and juice) was the biggest hit.This was Warner's reaction to Frosty and Rudolf:Once he got on Santa's lap he wouldn't stop itching his eyes. I guess it was a nervous reaction.
He did talk to Santa though, and in the most quiet, timid voice you can imagine he asked him to bring a choo-choo on Christmas morning. It was the sweetest thing. He also asked for a tractor.
Maren was happy to be out and enjoyed watching everything from the comfort of my arms. She was all dolled up in an outfit my mom sent her that is just about too cute to handle:
As we left Warner asked for "more Santa" so we might visit him again at the Mall. What a fun time of year.

Yum

Why Warner loves the fact that I made puppy chow for my MOPS group (and another batch for us, of course):Taste-testing is a very important part of the process, and Warner is always willing to take one for the team to make sure everything is just right. What a selfless guy.

Impossible

Maren has the most beautiful dark hair like her father. However, it can be a bit unruly at times and often works it's way into a fauxhawk:What's a girl to do?

Four Months

At four months Maren weighs 14 pounds (45th percentile) and is 25 1/4 inches long (75th percentile). She is a happy baby and smiles with her entire face. When she isn't happy she is quick to let me know but thankfully for the most part she's content. She can now roll over both ways - from belly to back and back to belly - and squirms all over the place when left on the ground. She's sitting up much better in her red chair and is handling the exer-saucer for longer periods of time (but still doesn't love it).
Her well-baby visit at the doctor went great - she only cried after one of the three vaccines. Warner was a different story. He threw multiple fits and I blew through two suckers, two packages of fruit snacks, and half a box of raisins to pacify him during the visit. At one point the nurse said "is there something wrong?". My response: "yes. He's two".