Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

Wow! Where has the year gone???!!!?? I can't believe Christmas is already this week! Thanks to all of you that have been following my blog this past year. I feel so blessed to have such a great family and great friends!! I can't believe that Maddy is almost 5 years old and Colby will be turning 1 soon -- I have loved my time at home with my kids and I'm looking forward to another crazy, fun-filled year next year. Things are always changing and there is never a dull moment around here, that is for sure! Our family has truly been fortunate to be able to live on one income and we are definately thankful for all of the blessings God has given us.

I have added many updates from the past month to the blog and I'm sure I will have many more Christmas updates soon! Until, then, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas with your families and many blessings in the year to come!!

My Top Five Blessings from this past year:
1. My faith
2. My wonderful, supportive husband
3. My 2 healthly, happy children
4. My sisters and brothers, mom and dad, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews and mother and father-in-law
5. My great friends (and my kids' friends) and support system

A few more Thanksgiving pics.....

Dana and Adam:

Lizzy and Diane:

Colby and Adam:

Colby and Adam:

Thanksgiving update -- very late!

So I never got around to blogging about Thanksgiving and I really didn't want to leave it out, so I am doing it now ;-) Better late than never, right???!!!?? We went to Sioux City to my brother Dick and his wife Dana's house. It was a great time and Maddy got to see many of her cousins, which is always fun. Colby had a great time seeing his little cousin Adam who is only 6 weeks older than him. His cousin turns 1 on Christmas day. Very cool! Here are some pictures I captured from the day:

Maddy making mini gingerbread houses:

Maddy and cousin Steph working on the gingerbread houses:

Colby exploring the house:

Maddy holding Colby; what a surprise ;):

Colby and cousin Adam playing:

Princesses on Ice....

I decided to surprise Maddy this year and take her to Disney Princesses on Ice the Sunday after Thanksgiving. She was super surprised and absolutely LOVED it!! We had pretty good seats and I'll have to say it was rather amazing. We have never gone to a live show like this before, so I was pretty impressed. We had a great time!



Maddy wore her Snow White dress to the show. There were tons of girls dressed up there. It was cute:


All the princesses came out at the end. Really cool:

Hellooooo Santa!!!!

So we took Maddy and Colby to see Santa at the mall and were totally expecting the worst out of Colby. We were all ready with the camera in hand and the plan was to put him on Santa's lap and then quick take the photo before he started wailing -- well, to our surprise, Colby took a liking to Santa and just stared and stared at him and no tears at all!! I couldn't believe it! Of course, then I had to talk Jeremy's ear off all the way out of the mall about how we should have had them dressed up and what a great Christmas photo we could have gotten, etc..., etc.....anyways, just another lesson in the fact that your kids will never fail to surprise you just when you think you have them all figured out :-)

Kennedy Family Christmas

We had the Kennedy Family Christmas the weekend of Dec. 12th. It was in Des Moines and almost everyone was able to make it this year. It was a great time of gift exchanges, food and of course, the annual bowling tournament!


Jeremy holding baby Finn. Awwwww....doesn't Jeremy just look like he's so ready for another one ;-)


Maddy and Cara at the bowling ally:


Grandma with some of the grandkids at the bowling ally:


Good ol' uncle Joe:


Maddy and Joe in the tent:

Maddy's Christmas Program

Maddy had her Christmas program at preschool last week. She was very excited and did a great job. Colby loved watching the kids sing and was clapping through the entire program! Here are some pictures:




Maddy and her friend Annelise -- She loves to tell me that Annelise is from China and always asks why there are so many people that live in China.

Maddy and her teacher Mrs. Graen. She loves her teacher this year!

Colby learns to clap....

So, Colby learned to clap a few days ago and he has not stopped clapping since!! It is so funny and he is so proud of himself when he does it. Here's a little video capturing the fun.....

Colby Turns 9 Months Old....

Colby turned 9 months old last Monday. He has now been crawling all over, pulling himself up on everything, clapping and climbing stairs (we finally got a much-needed gate up!) He weights almost 22 lbs and is in the 70th percentile for weight. He is in the 87th percentile for height and 99th for head size. So, overall, a pretty big little boy!! He loves to eat and is eating all sorts of baby food and table foods. We give him anything we can that is not something he could choke on. He loves it all!! We are looking forward to his first Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up. He seems to change almost weekly!

Just a good ole' laugh......

Every few days or so we will stumble upon something that makes Colby laugh hysterically and we are not expecting it. It is usually just a normal everyday thing that we are doing, that for one reason or another he decides is very funny. A couple examples are....watching Maddy walk down the stairs in front of him; hysterical.....sneezing; hysterical.....etc....so you get the point.....today we came across a new phrase that Colby can't get enough of....watch the video to find out what it is!

Happy Halloween and a Skeleton too!!!!

Here are Maddy and Colby all dressed up for Halloween. Maddy is Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Colby is the Lion. Unfortunately, Maddy has been sick the last couple of days, so we'll probably just let her trick-or-treat at a few neighbors' houses and that is it. Colby's costume does have a head piece to it, but his head is so large, I couldn't get the head piece to fit! So, we won't be using that part of the costume :-) It will be a pretty low key Halloween around here this year with Maddy being sick, but I don't mind as it is cold and windy out, so I think I'd rather be inside :-)

I was at Hy-Vee today buying some Halloween candy for the trick-or-treaters and saw this skeleton guy on sale for $5 and I just couldn't resist! Maddy thinks he is scary, but I like him....so, I guess that is my splurge for the week!

Grandma Barb Visits!

We had a great week with Grandma Barb!! She came and visited and spent time with the kids, went to Maddy's Halloween party at preschool and just hung out for the week. She even let Jeremy and I get out a couple nights which was very nice!!! We went out and watched the Iowa game one night and then went out another night for a drink and appetizer at a local restaurant. It was a lot of fun spending time with Grandma especially since we are home so much more now....it was nice to have some company around!! Thanks for coming Grandma and for all your help with the kids and house!!!!!!! Come again soon!!!!!


Maddy's Halloween party at preschool. Of course she has to be right next to her teacher ;-)

Playing a game at her party

Grandma and Colby playing

Grandma and Maddy having some tea (and hot chocolate) in "breakable" cups :-)

Colby has a friend over......

Jeremy's best friend Jason, (whom he grew up with in Norwalk) and his wife Cari had a little baby boy, Ethan 1 week before Colby was born. It is funny to see Colby and Ethan together and how much they have both changed in the past 8 months. Jason and Ethan came over to visit the other day. Colby loved having him here and kept looking at him and laughing! It was really cute!

Colby is 8 Months Old!!

Colby turned 8 months old on Friday! I am a little behind in my posts as we were all pretty much under the weather last week. Jeremy had to stay home from work a couple days to take care of all of us sickies :-) We are doing much better now, though!! Some updates on Colby:

He got his top and bottom 2 teeth in the last few weeks. He has been waking up A LOT this past week from an ear infection and I think his top 2 teeth are bothering him. We are hoping this passes soon ;-) He is crawling all over and pulling up on everything! He seems to be about 2 months ahead of Maddy in these areas. She was over 9 months when she started doing all of this! I'm wondering if he'll be an earlier walker as well.......who, knows???!!! He is definately keeping us busy these days, but is so happy to be able to move around and get to his toys. Our next project is to get some more baby-proofing done!!

All the babies........and Colby

Relaxing Day....

Here is Maddy and Colby watching Baby Einstein together..........They really do just LOVE each other, it is really cool to see -- It's funny how Maddy can have fun with any of Colby's little toys or movies and he can have fun just watching Maddy go about her day.

Colby turns 7 months and Maddy turns 4 1/2!!!

Last Wednesday, the 16th, Colby turned 7 months old and it was also Maddy's 1/2 birthday!! She was pretty excited about it! We had a mini-party and bought a little bag of balloons and had fun that night just blowing up balloons and playing around the house. Colby is changing so much -- he is sitting up very well; still working on crawling; laughing at almost everything Maddy does and eating all different types of baby food. He takes 2 naps a day and sleeps well at night. He is really starting to show his personality so it's been really fun.

Time to breathe.....

This is Maddy's first full week of preschool and I feel like our lives have already changed/transitioned so much -- I feel like a have a little time now to get things done around the house and just stop and relax for a few minutes.... ;-) Colby has gotten on a pretty good nap schedule and sleeps for most of the time that Maddy is gone, so it's working out good. The past year and a half was just kind of a whirlwind with putting our house up for sale in Feb. of '08, moving in July '08, being pregnant and then having a baby in Feb. of this year; of course we then had the crazy newborn months and then a busy summer seeing lots of family......now, I am feeling like things are starting to settle down after all that time and our lives are a little more "normal" again.....I'll have to say it feels very nice to not be in a "transition" mode like we've been for the past year and a half. I'm looking forward to relaxing a little more this Fall and being able to get caught up on some things around the house!! Oh, also, I'm thinking my blog updates will be more frequent as well now that I have this new-found time!!!


Here's a picture of Colby trying to crawl.....He's been working so hard at it and can move forward just a little, but can't quite get going -- He wants to crawl sooooo bad! I actually want him to now so he can get to his toys and not get "stuck" a million times a day with either me or Maddy having to help him ;-)

Happy Birthday Grandpa Kennedy!!!!

Colby Laughing

I will have to say Maddy is the best at making Colby laugh. Basically he just looks at her and he'll start laughing; it's really funny!

Maddy's First Day of Preschool!

Maddy had her first day of preschool this week and she absolutely loved it!!! She has 2 really great teachers and I know she is going to have such a fun year. She goes Mon-Thurs. mornings this year, so that is going to be a big change from only 2 days last year. She is ready for it though and had no problem jumping right in the first day!!





Colby was so excited to see Maddy when she got home! He slept most of the time she was gone, but was still so excited when we picked her up and she was home with him again!

Maddy's First Soccer Practice

We signed Maddy up for soccer for the first time this year and it started a couple weeks ago. Here she is at her first practice. She has another practice this Saturday and then her first game next Saturday!! She is having a great time so far and seems to really enjoy it!!