Monkey see, monkey do

All day long Kaylee follows Isaac around and (tries) to do whatever he is doing. Here are just a FEW examples.

"washing" the floors
waiting for their dinner
watching a Little People video (with Hannah and Jaimie)
riding in the "car" to the "campsite"
"helping" mommy bake cookies
eating lunch in the "cave"
licking beaters

watching MSU

fight, fight, rah team fight!

on the potty

More things I never thought I would say

To add to the ever growing list of things I am surprised to hear myself saying are:

1. Please do not use the potato masher on the dog, he doesn't like it.

2. (to Isaac) You are not allowed to do a head stand when you are not wearing your diaper. (It's just not appropiate)

Those Bad Guys

At the end of the day I often ask Isaac what his favorite part of the day was.
Last night he said it was when he ate an orange. (Easy to please)

Then, I guess he was thinking back over the day because he said, "I want to see those bad guys again."

I asked him what he meant, bad guys.

He said, you know the kids in the water, the bad guys.

It took me a few minutes but I finally got it, no Isaac not bad guys, bap-tized. (He sat in the church service with us yesterday and saw three kids get baptized.)

Funny Kid

Kaylee's new do

I think it's kind of cute.

Matt calls it her antanae

Snowy the Snowman

It has been in the 40's for the past few days and today it is raining (hard) so snowy is no longer with us, but earlier this week Isaac and I built this masterpiece:

I suggested naming him Frosty, but Isaac said that Frosty has boots, and since this snowman does not have boots, "we will have to name him Snowy".

OK, sounds good to me.

Potty Training Update

Current "score"

Isaac: 1

Kaylee: 2

Potty Training

I think I am going to start a competition. So far the score for successes on the potty would be:

Isaac: 1

Kaylee: 1

Kaylee LOVES sitting on the potty. This doesn't surprise me as she loves all types of little chairs. Since she always insists on taking a turn, I figured I might as well take her diaper off and see what would happen.

I think she may be completely trained before Isaac, who has better things to do than sit still for several minutes in a row.

Quiet Time?

Since Isaac has officially given up napping, I decided to insist on a daily quiet time. So today after lunch I set him up with his books, stuffed animals and an old alarm clock. I told him he wasn't allowed to come out of his room until the alarm went off. I set it for 30 minutes, and walked out the door, fully expecting him to walk out after me. But he didn't. He actually stayed in his room the entire time. He spent approximately 25 minutes yelling "mommy" and 5 minutes doing something quietly, hopefully looking at books. But I am not complaining. No napping has certain advatages, namely an earlier and much easier bed time. And if this quiet time thing works out, I will be a happy mommy.

Our 12 Days of Christmas

Day 1 (Dec. 21) We woke up in Kalamazoo, drove to Holland, hung out with Jon and Jodi (& kids), drove to Zeeland to attend cousin Ben's wedding and then to Hudsonville for the reception.

Day 2: (Dec. 22) We woke up in Holland, then drove to Hamilton to celebrate Christmas with the Sternberg's (stopping on the way to visit Grandma Sprick).

Emily&Kaylee, Grandma, Dad, Matt & a very happy Isaac

Oops, we forgot to ask who was going to buy the annual tootsie roll gift. I guess you can never have too many.

Day 3 (Dec 23rd): We woke up in Hamilton, went to church in Overisel, had a yummy lunch in Hamilton, then drove to Aunt Pat's in Rockford (in a snow storm) for another Christmas party. We barly even noticed that the storm had knocked out the electricity at their house. Matt and I had already eaten, so we missed out on the Christmas hamburgers and hotdogs, but we did enojoy all the other goodies. I think there was enough food to feed 50 people! (There were only 12 adults there). That night we drove back to K-Zoo (it was still snowing by the way)

Let the opening begin!


She still likes bags just as well as presents...

Day 4 (Dec 24): We woke up in Kalamazoo and drove to Sturgis to celebrate with the Brenner clan. We had our now traditional $20 gift swap. The most coveted item was a repeat from last year- an atari. Michelle was teaching Kaylee how to play.

The reason Kaylee's not wearing tights? She stepped in the cat's water dish...

Seems like the same thing happened another year with another child...

Kaylee opened a puzzle, and her cousin was happy to help her with it

Isaac and Benny - that's the lego toy, not the little girl (that would be Katie)

Despite all the fun gifts, the thing Isaac liked most were Mike's old matchbox cars (good thing Mema and Bepa got him some of his own for Christmas!)

Day 5 (Dec. 25th) CHRISTMAS!

For the first time in 10 years, Matt and I did not drive anywhere on Christmas! We actually decided to spend the entire day at Matt's parents. We had a very nice day, I even found time for a little nap!

We woke up early and opened stockings, followed by a nice breakfast. It was slightly diffiuclt for the kids to concentrate on eating due to the LARGE pile of presents waiting in the living room, so after everyone finished it was onto the gifts.

Merry Christmas Mema!

Bepa did take some time to read the Christmas story (Luke 2) to the boys before we began the gifts.

We spent the rest of the day enjoying a wonderful lunch and playing with Isaac and Kaylee's new toys (and eating Christmas cookies) What a great day!

don't take the almond bars, those are momm'y favorite

Day 6 (Dec 26th)

After waking up in K-Zoo we drove to Holland. The kids spent the day playing with Nathan and Katie's Christmas presents...

and they spent a fair amount of time"sleeping" on the steps...

Later in the afternoon my parents came and after dinner we all went to the Holland Aquatic Center to play in the Splash Zone. By the end Isaac was soooo tired he actually agreed to get out of the water!

Day 7 (Dec 27th)

We spent the day in Holland, again hanging out with Jon and Jodi & watching the kids play nicely with each other all day (yeah) and then after dinner we checked out the critter barn (Zeeland)

Just one of the many "critters" the kids got to pet

Day 8 (Dec. 28)

We drove from Holland to Kalamazoo in a snow storm, and then rode with my parents from K-Zoo to Pokagon State Park in Indiana. (still snowing)

Isaac had been waiting all year to see Bria!

Mom had been waiting all year to get this picture

Day 9 (Dec. 29)

We spent the day doing all the things you do at Pokagon: eating breakfast in the inn, having the family party, going to the pool, visiting the nature center and finally the sledding down the tobaggon run!

We saw some very interesting animals at the nature center

Amanda, Mom (it is amazing what she'll do for her grandkids), Isaac and Matt

Day 10 (Dec. 30) We left Pokagon and drove back to Kalamazoo. Matt went to the Big Burrito with his parents and brother and I went to visit Carlie, Mindy and Danielle.

Mindy with Isaac and Aubrie, those two are too cute together!

Hey, I have an idea, let's go in the dog crate!

Day 11 (Dec 31)

New Year'sEve!

Chris was there to celebrate with Jon, Jodi, Matt and I. We did a little gift exchange during the day, but the big excitement was the frying of the french fries! Since Matt & I and Jon & Jodi had not eaten any french fries in 2007, this was a big treat!

Chris and the kidos

Making the fries was quite a process, a 3 stage process to be precise

stage one, blanching

What exactly does blanching mean anyway?

hmm, the boys relive their glory days when they worked at Boardwalk Fries

I guess they figured it out, because the fries turned out great!

Day 12 (Jan 1)

After a long day of traveling, and driving in yet another snow storm, we arrived home at 11 pm to a driveway full of snow (about a foot and a half deep). We parked along the road, and Matt got out to snowblow a path so I could carry the kids inside.

After getting our stuff inside and the snow out the driveway and off the deck, we had a good night's sleep in our own bed!

check out all the snow!