Merry Christmas to You too!

This was a great Christmas for us! It was the first time we have had one on our own and while we missed seeing all our family it was nice to be at home. We didn't have to worry about packing, traveling or moving between houses. We just enjoyed the time together at home and it felt like Christmas. We tried to do fun things leading up to Christmas with Kenna and I think she really enjoyed herself. Downtown Frisco has a lights display that is set to music. All the lights jump and dance and blink and Kenna LOVED it! She asked (almost every night) if we could go see the dancing blue lights and get a sucker (a cupcake on a stick). She would spend the whole night saying, "Oh wow! Look at dat daddy!"

Kenna also learned the words 'accidentally', 'enormous', and 'also' and has begun to use them very frequently. For example -
"Sorry mommy. I accident bite you."
"Sorry daddy. I accident frow it down duh stairs."
"Wow! The museum is enormous!"
"This crayon is purple and black also."

She keeps us laughing and we have lots of fun together. We also took Kenna to her first movie. We went to a Studio Movie Grill to see a collection of Olivia shows that lasted about an hour. Kenna was insistent that Jenna come with us. Jenna was enthralled in the movie and could barely eat the french fries we got for her. Kenna also thoroughly enjoyed herself and at an entire basket of popcorn. She also spent the whole movie shouting out to the characters, "Look! Perry take Mathilda!" or "Mommy! Olivia talk to duh turkey!"

Kenna learning to dunk and oreo

Kenna also found a Santa costume that belongs to one of her bears and wore it almost all month saying, "Ho! Ho! Ho! I'm Santa!"
Kenna became more and more excited about Santa the closer Christmas got. By the time we were down to a few days left she was telling everyone that Santa was going to "poof down duh chimney" to bring her presents and "eat duh cookies but not olives cause he not like dem" (something she learned from 'Olivia'). We did our best to explain how it worked, but she was still confused because when she went to bed on Christmas Eve she kept asking if Santa would wake her up when he got there.

Kenna got a phone call from Santa a few days before Christmas. She couldn't believe it was him on the phone.


We had a big dinner here on Christmas Eve with Jarom and Lix and our friends the Allreds. They have a daughter the same age as Jenna and Kenna and they all love each other and call each other 'best friends.' They are pretty cute. We stuffed ourselves on lots of good food and even better desserts and then managed to play a game while the kiddos watched the Curious George Christmas movie. We had a great night and it was lot of fun to be home with friends and family.
Kenna woke up early enough on Christmas morning that we decided to open some presents before church. Nate went up to get her out of bed and as I'm waiting downstairs I hear him say, "Merry Christmas Kenna!" to which she replied, "Merry Christmas to you too, Daddy!"

My parents were up and on Skype and got to watch her come down the stairs and open presents. Kenna found her new Tigger first and was so in love with him that we had to point out the unwrapped, set-up doll house from Grandma, which came with babies and doggies so she was in heaven.
She got a 'dance like a ballerina' (a barbie) from Anna.

She got some princess 'click-clacks', a wand and crown from Mee-maw and Pap Pap.





Nate beat me on presents again this year. He got me some boots, a scarf and a zoom lens for my camera. All of which were awesome. I guess I'd shown him some boots I like and he found them in my email and ordered them. He is pretty amazing.
I got him some NFL Eagles t-shirts so that he could get in lots of fights with the crazy Cowboys fans here. Really I got them in a 'tall' size so that he could comfortably wear them. I also got him a 'tall' Polo. All shirts need to shrink a little be we are hopeful about the outcome. At least now he can bend over without his entire back hanging out. Not exciting, but useful.
Some of you will remember his blog about poptarts a few weeks back. Well, Annie wins the award for best present this year. She got him an entire case of poptarts. Way to go Annie.
That was as far as we made it before church. Kenna took her tigger to church with her and wore her pink princess 'click-clacks' with her pretty Christmas dress. She told us she didn't want to go to nursery and was very happy when she found out she didn't have to go. When we got home she spent her time playing with toys and occasionally asking, "Mommy, can I open another present!?" It took her until noon to open everything.

She got a tent from Grandpa-Great and insisted that I play in there with her. It gets a little steamy after forty minutes.
Kenna also discovered her stocking candy after church. She got a candy necklace which she devoured and stated that she would ask Santa to bring her another one next Christmas.
And she got some musical instruments which included a harmonica, triangle and recorder among other things. We all spent a good half an hour playing music and singing 'Down By the Bay' together.

After that we headed to Jarom and Lix's for breakfast. We had fun but Kenna decided she really wanted to come home to play with her new toys. When we got home we got to skype with Grandpa Bruce and Grandma Nancy and Kristi and David. We planned this so that they could see her open up their Christmas present - a train table (which I am just realizing now I have not taken any picture of her playing with) that she has not stopped playing with for two days.

And if Christmas wasn't good enough Grandma Dawnie came to visit yesterday. When we told Kenna she was coming, Kenna asked if she was going to 'poof down duh chimney.'

We had a great time with everyone and now the wind down begins and it is back to normal life, only with a few new toys to keep us occupied. I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I know we sure did!

Here are some old videos I found that you might like...

Kenna had a phase in September/October where she liked her animals to sing her bedtime songs.


Kenna the dancing queen



Kenna ice skapin'

Goings On

Last weekend, I decided to give Kenzie a break from the kiddo. Since she has to watch Kenna all day every day when she isn't working, I thought I would be a super dad and give her a couple hours on a Saturday to do whatever it is that a mom does with "time off". I took Kenna to the Fort Worth children's museum, which is an hour away from our house. She always talks about the choo choo zeum that was in Richmond so I thought she would be really excited about it. It did not disappoint. Apparently it was Santa day so Santa was chillin in the lobby with no line and Kenna got to spend a full five minutes on his lap explaining that she wanted a Barbie for Christmas and explaining that she would take just one of his candy canes and eat it right now before mom comes and she won't need a bib because she is a big girl. The rest of the afternoon was great. There were train sets and grocery stores and all sorts of things for her to play with. I am sure that she had a fantastic time but I re-discovered my admiration for mothers everywhere (and for Kenzie). After four hours of Kenna, I was tired and ready for a break.I don’t really know why, but it seems like we haven’t had many weekends where our whole little family just chilled out around the house rather than having visitors, going somewhere, or something like that. This weekend was perfect!

This weekend we took Kenna and Jenna to their first show on the silver screen. They were both excited to go and were very excited that they got their own bin of popcorn. We went to see an Olivia Christmas Special, a cartoon about a pig, and they loved it. Jenna was so enthralled she wouldn’t eat the French fries that she ordered and I had to take them and put them in her hand and then move her hand towards her mouth in order for her to eat her fries. She only ate three fries but loved Olivia. Kenna ate about a half pound of popcorn and had trouble not shouting Olivia or her dog’s name throughout the movie. She loved it though and Kenzie and I had a good time taking the girls. I think that might become a monthly trip!

The rest of the weekend was spent watching the BYU game with Kenna, cooking sugar cookies, churching, going out on a date with Kenzie to see Sherlock Holmes (very good), cleaning, grilling, and enjoying family time together. It was a very relaxing weekend and made me excited for the upcoming holiday when I have extra time off work to hang out with my girls.

Kenzie and I celebrated our 6^th year of marriage on Thursday. It is hard to believe that it has already been 6 years. We started going through our memories and old emails that we sent to one another when we were dating/engaged and Kenz almost vomited. She couldn’t believe that we used to be so sappy and even call each other “babe” every sentence. Pretty funny stuff. I gotta say that we have matured a little bit since then and our relationship is less “I can’t wait to see you” and more “glad your home, come get this kid off of me”. I am sure we will look back in another 6 years and think how naïve we were, but for now we are happy with how mature our marriage is at this current stage of our relationship. 6 years, no divorce. Go us.

I Can't Ever Stand It!

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat. We had a visit from Cyle and Athena last weekend and Kenna fell in love with Athena. She followed her around all weekend and was very sad to see her go. We had a great time visiting with them and it is going to be nice to have them close by.

There have been plenty of Santa sightings lately. The first time she saw him, Kenna didn't know what to tell Santa that she wanted him to bring her for Christmas. I'm not sure she really got that he brought presents, but I suggested a barbie. She has grasped firmly on to this idea and it has now progressed to requesting a big, big, big, big girl barbie. She can also tell you that Jenna wants a green ball and daddy wants a new pair of headphones. We have some presents wrapped and put under the tree and Kenna knows that we don't open them till Christmas, but this means that after every sleep (naps and night time) she asked, "It's Christmas now?"

Apparently I use the phrase "you're so cute I can't even stand it" way too much when talking to Kenna because yesterday I told her "you're so cute." To which she replied "you can't ever stand it!"

Kenna watches Barney nonstop. In one episode they are fixing up a bike and singing 'this is the way we oil the bike' so now every time Kenna goes for a stroller ride she first sings, "This is the way we oil duh stroller."

Other than that, things are just rolling along as usual. We had some friends from church over for dinner tonight and now Kenna has a new best friend, Carly. Kenna, Carly, and Jenna play very well together and I have a feeling we'll be getting together a lot.

The other day Kenna requested that I take pictures of her and her dolly

Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving this year we packed up and headed down to Killeen, TX to see Cyle come home from Iraq. The drive down was fine minus a little traffic and a lot of sun shining right in my face. At one point I saw a car drive by with what looked like cardboard and pillows stacked up over the passenger half of the front windshield. I figured they had the right idea but since I wanted to make the trip in once piece I opted for my sunglasses and holding my head at odd angles to keep the main blaze out of my eyes.

I have to say that Kenna is quite the traveler. She loves the car because she knows it means she can hold the little DVD player or iphone and watch as many shows as she wants. She didn't even ask to get out of her seat once. She just kept requesting more movies.

30 minutes later...

She fell asleep holding the DVD player after the first 45 minutes. I tried to gently take it away but she woke up and screamed so I let go and she want right back to sleep - she stayed that way for an hour.


We stopped at Jason's Deli so the bug could eat and to give her a break from the car. When we walked out she saw something that caught her eye. It was a 6 ft tall bear statue and of course we had to go see it so she could give it a pat and a kiss.

enjoying the complimentary icecream at Jason's deli

We finally made it to Athena's house. Kenna went to bed and we worked on the pies for Thanksgiving dinner - pumpkin, apple and chocolate. They turned out pretty good if you ask me.
I can't complain about hot sunny weather in Dallas anymore because it is much worse in Killeen. We woke up to a blazing sun on Thanksgiving morning and a nice, crisp 70 degrees. While not my idea of Thanksgiving weather it was nice for Kenna because she got to go to the park with Daddy. Apparently everything was a little wet so Nate used his shirt to dry the swing off for her. After that whenever she saw that something was wet she kept saying, "iss okay Daddy. just dry it with your shirt."
I got to have the morning off and Athena and I just hung around chit-chatting and deciding what she should wear to pick up Cyle. It was a lot of fun. Sometimes I forget that I am anything but a mom so it is nice to have reminders that I can still hang out with adults, not talk about kids and have fun at the same time.

Some of Cyle's family came in later that day. We have now added another Grandma and Grandpa to the mix - Grandma Colleen and Grandpa Chuck. Poor Kenna now has so many grandparents that she never has any idea who we are talking about when we say grandma and grandpa. Cyle's sister has three kiddos who came too. We kept telling Kenna that some 'friends' were coming so that is what she called them 'my friends.'

"What my friends is doing?"
"My friends is funny!"
"Where my friends?"

While I don't think she learned any of their names, she did have a great time and fell in love with the dog they brought with them - Whinnie. She followed that poor dog around the whole time loving it and giving it kisses. It was a trooper.

All day Kenna also kept telling anyone who would listen that we were going to "go get Cyle at Iraq on the airplane."

By the time it was time to go, Kenna was exhausted. We had tried to put her in her pack-n-play for a nap but somehow she managed to climb out of that (it couldn't have been from the 30 stuffed animals in there with her that Nate let her pack - I was working, he was packing) so the nap was a bust.

On base we got to see horses (since Cyle's unit is 2nd cavalry) and listen to loud music and watch the kids dance around and have fun. Finally the soldiers all pulled up in these buses and got out behind them and the crowd had to shout, "move that bus!" Kenna thought this was really funny and joined in the cheering with her own 'move duh bus!'

The buses pulled away and the soldiers marched across the field. There were quite a few and Kenna was confused. She thought we were going to get Cyle from Iraq and after trying to see him for a few minutes exclaimed, "There's too many guys here."

We did finally manage to find Cyle and took him home for a nice Thanksgiving dinner. Kenna stayed up until 10 that night and was so tired when we got to the hotel she fell right asleep. Unfortunately that didn't last all night. Now for my side note -

Normally Kenna is a champion sleeper but when we travel or when she isn't feeling well she will end up sleeping with us or one of us will sleep with her. I love this because it is the only time she will snuggle with me. She glues her little body right along side mine. If I'm facing her she snuggles so our foreheads are touching. I don't know why but she has to be right next to you so you have to claim your spot quickly or she will snuggle you right to the edge of the bed. Then to be sure you are really there and not going anywhere she will put her hand right in the middle of your face and fall asleep like that. If I didn't love it so much I'd hate it.

helping load up the car...

Back to Thanksgiving - the next morning we all went back to the base and visited the tanks and helicopters. They have some old machines lying around that you can look at and though your probably aren't supposed to, crawl on. Kenna is very fond of driving and thought it was great to have a jeep to herself.
We also visited the 2nd Cavalry museum where Kenna saw lots of 'angels' (i.e. the wax people dressed as Iraqis wearing flowing white robes). The museum was actually very cool and detailed the action of the unit from its formation. There was also a section dedicated to 9-11 and the events that followed.

We headed home soon after that and poor Kenna was so exhausted that she fell asleep and slept for the entire 3 hr. car ride home. Once again she was holding the DVD player and jerked it back when I tried to take it. I finally won by snatching it from her as she was stretching.
Overall it was a very great Thanksgiving. We are proud of and grateful for Cyle and his service but we are also glad that he is getting out and - moving to Frisco? We are pushing for that. Aside from Jarom and Lix, Cyle and Athena were our first taste of something familiar since leaving Richmond and I found that I was actually homesick for them after we left. I'm glad he is back now because that will mean lots of visits and good times!