Remember Christmas?

Even though I am a month late, Christmas totally happened. We were sick, but it occurred. I am just late in posting because I have been sick with growing two babies for a while now.

We went to see Santa at the Riverwoods because you can take pictures with him for free. You just have to bear the cold to go and see him. No big.

Luckily, neither child was afraid of Santa this year. They just sat on his lap and Nicole asked for a turtle (which she did not get) and Dano didn't ask for anything. He just looked at me like, "Why have you placed me on this man's lap?"

Christmas eve, we went to Jake and Jill's for Derington Christmas dinner. Even though I was feeling crummy, it was fun to be with my family. Last year, only I went because the kids were too sick to go.

Christmas morning was full of tears. Even though the kids got some great stuff for Christmas, I suspect that it was a little overwhelming getting a bunch of gifts at once. Or maybe it is just difficult to watch your sibling open a gift and you want it so bad.  Difficult to say.

And that is the only picture of me on Christmas morning because I was behind the camera. That is Nicole modeling her new robe which at first she hated and then she eventually loved after we forced her to try it on. Kids!

Christmas evening, we went to our Kimball family dinner at Momma Kimball's and it was funish. The kids were still emotional about... everything, so it involved a lot of tears... again. Christmas was a day of tears for us. The day after Christmas was a lot better.

We had fun even though it was emotional and I was sick, but we all survived.

Not the Worst Thanksgiving

For months, we have planned a trip to Albequerque, New Mexico to see my sister, Sarah for Thanksgiving. I called her an excessive amount of times about the trip and we took weeks prepping Nicole for the prospect as she is very anxious about any change.

And then, the curse happened. Dano got a double whammy of croupe and strep. The day before we were supposed to leave, we went to both the doctor and the ER with Dano because he was so sick. And we thought that maybe he would feel better fast and we could go a day late, but, alas, he did not. His fever persisted through Thanksgiving and we were forced to accept that the trip was not going to happen.

This happened last year too. Sarah came out for over a week for Christmas and the kids got the croupe and I got bronchitis and we did not get to spend hardly any time with her. I am cursed. Doomed to not spend time with my little sister!

So, we spent our Thanksgiving apart. I went to my parent's for dinner, then brought food home to Matt and the kids and then Matt left for his Mom's to have dessert. Even though it was a fairly crummy Thanksgiving with sick kiddos, it still was not the worst Thanksgiving ever.

I can only hope now that Matt and I will be able to plan some other get away to New Mexico to see Sarah and hopefully it will happen next time.

Pumpkin Painting

We painted pumpkins again this year as the kids are a little too young to be carving their own pumpkin. They love painting them thought!

Dano hasn't grasped the concept of painting an actual picture on the pumpkin quite yet.

Pumpkin Land!

This year, we got to do Pumpkinland with Nicole's preschool class. Which means that we got in for free! It was a lot of fun going on this school field trip with Nicole and seeing how she interacts with her teachers and classmates.

For those who don't know, Pumpkinland is a local Nursery that has a halloween attraction for kids complete with corn maze, animals, and lots of pumpkins. The kids love it! We go every year.

Nicole's favorite part was the bunnies. She asks me at least every other day for a pet rabbit. She wants one so bad.

Dano liked the rabbits too, just not with the ferocity that Nicole did. She said to me, "Mommy, can we get a real rabbit? Not a pretend one?"

Here is my picture that I take every year, but I had to do it more quickly then I would have liked because Nicole's whole class was behind us.
You can see pictures from previous years at pumpkinland here.

Nicole and Dan spent a large amount of time feeding the chickens corn that had been pilfered from the corn maze. They loved it!

I really liked this baby cow. He was very friendly and kept trying to lick me when I walked by. His name was Sir Wellington. He will make a delicious meal some day.

I didn't get a whole family picture this year because we were constrained by the time table of the class, but we had a lot of fun at Pumpkinland. Like we always do.

Sparklers

Back on Pioneer Day, we had Marie and Anthon and Johnny and Krista over for dinner and then we did sparklers afterward. We had a bunch of left over sparklers from the fourth and we wanted to use them before the allotted firework window had passed.

Johnny and Krista were not that interested in sparklers (weird right?).

Krista is all pregnant and tired all the time and she fell asleep

Johnny played on his phone. Apparently kid games are boring for non kid couples

what ya mee mee da dat

So, we brought the kids outside to do sparklers and Nicole and Damon were really excited and Dano was really scared. He wanted me to hold him the whole time, but after he saw Nicole and Damon running around with the sparklers and having fun, he decided to try it, but he was still tentative about the whole holding fire thing.

The Fourth

So, this post would be better if I had taken pictures on the fourth of July, but I did not. The night before the fourth, on the third, I had the stomach flu and it was awful. We were supposed to wake up early on the fourth and go and see the balloons launch with Marie's family, but since I had been up all night, sick, we cancelled. Which turned out to be okay since Marie reported that the balloons didn't launch due to bad weather.

So, for most of the fourth, we stayed home and recouped a little bit. Then, later in the day, we went to Momma Kimball's for the annual barbecue and fireworks. Momma Kimball lives a couple of blocks from the stadium of fire, so we always go to her house to watch the show.

I was still feeling pretty sick, but stuck it out and went to the family event and tried to avoid people. But, I had already been with the Kimball's the day before to take pictures... so... they were all doomed to get the stomach flu. Which they did. My bad. It was not my intent to get people sick but it is a little late for that. Sorry to all the people I got sick! *cough Marie* I was just feeling crummy and weak, so I spent most of the day on the couch while the kids played outside with their cousins.

So, we were a little nervous about doing fireworks with Nicole because she has a fear of loud noises and we have learned that it doesn't take much for her to get over stimulated and have a meltdown. But, we were both surprised that she was able to handle it quite well. When the fireworks started, she started laughing maniacally and started running around aimlessly (over stimulated), but there was no crying. She seemed to really enjoy them. Dan, on the other hand, was freaked out. The aerial fireworks in the neighborhood (before the stadium of fire) scared him and he cried and cried and clung to Matt or to me and did not want to let go. He had a little baby death grip. Which I didn't mind too much because I just pretended that he wanted to give me snuggles, which I love. But, he eventually got used to them because he slept on the lawn through the stadiums fireworks. I was so pleased that there were no major meltdowns about the fireworks and we got to just enjoy them. Plus, Dano snuggles are so nice.

One of the things that I don't like about the stadium fireworks is that they don't start until 10:30pm, which is super late for the kids. And, when we watch them at Momma Kimball's we get stuck there because of traffic. After the stadium lets out, Momma Kimball's street is immediately packed and not moving. We tried, this year to get out just after the fireworks ended... unsuccessfully. We ended up parking two houses down and walking back to Momma Kimball's to wait out the traffic. We were there until 1am and then we went home. Even though I enjoy the fireworks, I hate the traffic... and I hate keeping the kids up that late. After the events of the fourth, the kids were off schedule for a few days and it was unfun.

On the fifth, it was like the day of recuperation. We slept in, then we went to Freedom Days for an hour, only to return home and sleep for a really long time. We had wanted to have someone over for dinner because Matt had the night off from work, his first night off in the year he has been working there. But, we were too late in inviting and no one could come. Which was disappointing. It felt like a waste of a night, but it turned out for the best because Matt ended up with the stomach flu that night. One of us gets it and we all get it. Nicole ended up with it the next day. So, our fourth weekend was filled with sickness and Matt's very first night off from work ended in him staying up all night anyway... being sick. Bummer.

It seems like we are often sick on holidays. Last year, my family was all here for Christmas, but I missed almost all the festivities because the kids had croup and I had bronchitis. I hate it when people tell me that it is good that the kids get sick so much because that means that they won't get sick as much as adults. That is a bunch of BULL! I was sick all the time as a child and my Mom would tell me that I was building my immune system. So untrue. I get sick just as much as an adult as I did as a child. I am prone to catching sickness.

Patriotic Photo Shoot

Epic fail at using the airplane in a photo. Plus, Momma Kimball kept walking around in the background unbeknownst to me.

 Momma Kimball bought all the Kimball grandkids patriotic outfits this year and asked if I could take pictures of the kids all together. So, I pulled out my camera that I am not the best at using and just took a bunch of pictures of the kids.

Let me just say, it is extremely difficult to get a picture where all seven kids are looking at the same time. But, I got a few good ones, and a whole lot of subpar ones. It was fun even though it was extremely challenging.

Here are some of the pics that we ended up with.

Dan had the hardest time staying with the other kids. He kept running away. He was the most difficult subject.

And then we gave them flags and everything got worse. They all kept waving the flags in front of others faces.

And then we did the girls, which didn't turn out so bad.

And then we did the boys and didn't get one good picture. Dan was unruly and did not want to cooperate.

Well, I have a new respect for photographers. Especially ones that photograph large groups of children. How do they get them all to look at the same time? Not even smile, just look at the camera? Even though it was fun taking pics of the grandkids, I don't see professional photography in my future.