Lovely time with Friends

Our buddies, Erin, Caleb and Madeline, came by to visit us last week.  They were in town from St. Louis to see family over the holidays.  We are always so blessed to see them and we love our time together.  They are just those friends that no matter how long it's been since you've seen them or talked to them, you can just pick right up where you left off.  

Even though the time was short, we had so much fun.  It's really cool to see our kiddos interact together and see their differing personalities.  I'm sure they'll be best of friends as they grow up!

Erin and Maggie.  Just hanging out.

Splish Splash in the tub.  We bathed poor little Maggie first so she didn't have to contend with the older kids splashing her all over.  It was a good decision.

The best picture of the mamas & the kids.  Sorry that Erin wasn't looking, but she was desperately trying to hang onto a wriggly little girl.  

While the girls chit-chatted, the boys played video games and drank.  It always seems like they act like teenagers when they get together...but, now they have families and wives to take care of.  It's nice to see them just have fun and enjoy each others company.

Creepy face

Silly boys.

We also played some board games and looked at pictures.  It was a nice evening.  It's too bad they don't live in town, but it's always such a great time when we get together.

Playing with the toys

 Well, I think we found a toy that will provide hours and hours of joy to Colin (and Daddy!).

It's called Build a Road (iPlay) and it is a flexible track that you can build a million different ways.  It comes with 2 cars that just zoom along the track.

So much fun for Colin and Daddy to build really cool race tracks...

And for Maggie, too, as she tries to catch the cars and eat the tracks.

Bridges and tunnels 

Maggie laughing at Daddy and Colin trying to explain to her why not to touch the track 

So much fun!

We've played with it everyday since we opened it.  What a great new toy!

Christmas Day

It was a Christmas Miracle!

Brian and I woke up, on our own, at 7:20 a.m.  It was then that we realized we had better get our booties in gear to get ourselves all situated (teeth brushed, faces washed, breakfast casserole in the oven, etc) before the kids woke up & Christmas began.  

Maggie got up a few minutes later, then Colin woke up when we were jingling some bells outside his door, which in the past, he would hear and say "Santa's coming!"

Usually Colin will give us hugs and kisses in the morning before he comes out of his room.  Not this morning.

He bolted past us, down the hall, straight for the Christmas tree.  He wanted to see if Santa had been here.

Santa brought the kids each a Pillow Pet and got Colin a Thomas train set.

Colin quickly checked out the train set...

Then headed over to make sure Santa drank his milk and ate the cookies.

There were a few crumbs... Santa must've been in a hurry because he was quite messy!

And...there were 3 tickets for Colin, Mommy & Daddy to go see Sesame Street Live on January 29th that Santa brought.  Colin wasn't so excited about them that morning, but he will be in about a month or so!

Maggie was checking out her Pillow Pet.  She especially liked the tag!

Maggie had to open her gifts pretty quickly so she could get down for her morning nap.  Colin helped her out and was really great about sharing the gifts.

Maggie with her Bumble Ball (which used to be Colin's bumble ball, that was in storage for over a year, so it was like a brand new toy for everyone!)

Colin picked out a baby doll for Maggie.  

She thought the foot was tasty!

My new slipper socks that Colin and Daddy got me.  I also got a really pretty new scarf, a hairdryer, a bottle of Baileys, and a fantastic personalized calendar that Brian made for me. I started crying when I looked at it, so very thoughtful of him.  Plus, there were pictures of Jake on the calendar and Colin explained to me how he used to walk Jake and would say "come on Jake" and that he's in heaven now.  

So sweet!

Santa left us some scratcher lottery tickets in our stockings.  Brian ended up the big winner with winning $10!  Way to go Brian!

He got a new baseball glove, a bottle of Crown Royal Black, some KC royals baseball cups, and some BluRay movies.

After our morning at home, we headed to Grammie & Grandad's to see the rest of the Teson family (minus Scott & Suzanne's family, boo hoo!).  Colin and Olivia had a blast playing in Olivia's princess tent.

Michael got his first piece of Mizzou apparel from the family.

He has officially converted...

While the kids were napping, we played a great game of Wits & Wagers!

Chris and Caitlin playing with the babies.

Colin and Olivia opening up their gifts from the Tesons.  

Colin got some new jammies, a few puzzles, a few books, a new Cars chair, a really cool cars (build a road) play set.  We busted that out the next morning and Colin literally played with it for the entire day.  We had to switch out batteries for the cars twice that same day, he used them so much.  It was a hit!

Maggie got some jammies, a couple ornaments, and a teacup play set.

It was a wonderful Christmas weekend!

We are headed to Topeka next weekend to celebrate with the Dudley side.  We can't wait to see everyone there.

Christmas Eve

Well, the day started off with some tired parents...

Maggie was diagnosed with her 2nd ear infection on Friday morning.  I got her to the doctor just in time before they closed for the holiday weekend.  She started her Zithromax prescription on Friday, but still wasn't feeling very well on Friday night.  We went to a Christmas party that night, and Maggie was a bit of a grump.  She didn't sleep all that well on Friday night...so we didn't either.

But, we made it over to Grammie & Grandad's house just before nap time on Saturday, to watch some football and get ready for Christmas Eve mass.

Colin helped Grammie cut some potatoes up for dinner that night.  

He loves to help out in the kitchen.

Yummy potatoes (with a little slobber on top!) 

I laughed so hard when I was loading these pictures on here...seriously, he still drools all the time.  

**Disclaimer**no slobber actually got into the pan with the potatoes!

Our little lady all decked out in her Christmas best (well, it was actually Olivia's Christmas best from 2 years ago, but who's counting...)  She was feeling much better by Saturday night and was in such a great mood for Christmas Eve mass.  We had to get there by 3:30 to get a seat for 4:30 mass, so it was just about 2 hours of being held and passed around.  She did great, and so did Colin really.  He had his buddy Olivia there to help entertain each other.

After a wonderful Mass and a super Christmas Eve supper (with pomegranate salad, beef tenderloin, asparagus, roasted potatoes, asiago cheese bread), we headed home to start the Christmas celebration at our house.
Colin was so excited to help get the milk and cookies ready for Santa.  He kept tasting the milk to make sure it was good.  Even after we said prayers and started picking out books to read for bed, he kept wanting to come out and taste Santa's milk.

The finished product.  Milk and cookies for Santa.

Merry Christmas Eve!

My little helpers

We decided it would be fun to make some cookies for Santa and Jesus.  

I decided that we should make my favorite (and Santa and Jesus') cookies...sugar cookies with peppermint icing and crushed candy cane on top.  YUMMY!

Colin and Maggie wanted to help.  

I had made the cookies the day before, so all we had to do was the decorating.

Here's Colin crushing up the candy canes.  Maggie looks a little concerned about her brother with a mallet so close to her feet.  Don't worry Sis, he did great!

Taking a little break for a picture with my cutie little lady!

Hard at work.

I would frost the cookies, then handed them over to Colin to dip into the candy cane.

The most difficult part was trying to get Colin to stop "taste testing" all of the cookies when they were done.  Hence, we are not giving our cookies to anyone other than family members and Santa.

The finished product.  

Colin was pretty proud of himself.  He really did a great job!

My Christmas cookie helpers.

Muppets movie

We went to see a movie for the first time with Colin. 

That was the intention at least.

We got everything arranged to have Maggie at Grammie & Grandad's house, packed plenty of snacks, picked a great movie matinee so we could still get home in time for nap.

Instead, we sat through, NO JOKE, almost 40 minutes of previews.  They just kept coming and coming.  During this time, Colin flew through the snacks and we lost a lot of his attention span.

So, about 15 minutes into the actual Muppets movie, Colin was ready to run the halls of the movie theatre.  Brian went out with him first, then about 10 minutes later, I took my turn and we went to the bathroom, then about 10 minutes later, Brian took another turn, then about 10 minutes later, we headed home to take a  nap.

I guess we learned our lesson about when to show up to the movie theatre.  And, we even got there about 5 minutes late, assuming there would be quite a few previews.  Sheesh!

We'll never know how the Muppets movie ended...but we can probably guess...

Colin and Daddy before the movie

So excited, ready to go in!

We all had a good time, and we'll try again sometime later.  

I mean, Colin is only 2.  We've still got lots of years for movie-seeing!  

Visiting Santa Claus

We made it out to Crown Center earlier this week to visit Santa Claus.  We usually would visit Santa at my work's company party, however this year they decided to forgo the party and just get us fleece jackets instead.  Not a fair trade if you ask me, but they didn't, so I guess I will just enjoy my new fleece!

We heard that Crown Center gets really, really busy on the weekends, so we opted for a visit during the week.  That was a great idea, because there was absolutely NO LINE at all for Santa and Colin did really well.  There was also a whole exhibit called Crayola Land with lots of things for Colin to play on.

Meemaw was able to come with us, too, which made it even more fun!

Colin talking to Santa.  He got a little nervous right before he sat down, but I had Maggie sit down first, which eased his fears some.  He told Santa he wanted cars, blocks, and a Thomas train for Christmas.  Sounds good to me!

This Santa was really nice, and the best part was, we could take our own pictures for free!

I thought this picture was great!!

Then we headed off to play on the Crayola displays...

There were slides...

And more slides...

And more slides...

And even Maggie had fun playing with toys on the walls

Maggie was in such a good mood!

We attempted a family picture in front of Frosty, however Colin didn't want to stop playing and was not happy about being contained in Daddy's arms

So we got one of the 3 of us

Meemaw showing Colin how to work the gingerbread men display

Such a cutie patootie little girl

Another try at a family picture.  Colin was looking at the Crayola Land employee that was coming over to tell us we were breaking the Crayola Land rules by sitting on the play structure.  Whoops!

Then we headed over to Union Station (via the Link, which takes you in catwalks over the streets) to see the trains and big Christmas trees.  Unfortunately, the train wasn't running on Mondays, but we still enjoyed the walk.

Colin and Daddy with the Station Master

We came back to Crown Center to get a bite to eat for dinner.  We ate at "a street car named desire" and it was pretty good.  Brian and Colin ran into this shark balloon that was being controlled by a gentleman at the toy store on the floor above us.  He flew it right by Colin, which was really cool for us to see! 

We had a great time visiting Santa at Crown Center.  The next morning, Colin woke up asking to go see Santa again.  Maybe we'll get back there before Christmas, who knows?!