Happy 2nd Birthday Olivia!

Happy Birthday to our sweet cousin Olivia!  We love having you at our house to play!  We celebrated her birthday last Thursday when she was here with some yummy cupcakes.  The kids all just like the frosting of course!

Big Girl!

We have definitely had a big week here at our house!  Kadence decided she was a big girl!  She has been pottying in the potty on and off for awhile now, but after this week, she is officially trained!  She loves her big girl underwear and tells us when she has to go each time now!  I am so proud of her, with 2 months to the big 2nd birthday!

So...after some contemplation, we decided to transition Kadence's bed into the toddler bed-meaning she could get in and out on her own.  I just thought the idea was a little silly for her to be potty trained and still sleeping in a crib.  She has never climbed out or even tried (her big brother climbed out at 17 months  the day we brought her home from the hospital).  She has always been such a great sleeper we were hoping this was not going to be the end.  No time like the present, she couldn't sleep in a crib forever!  It has been 2 nights and she has slept wonderfully.  She hasn't crawled out or forfeited her wonderful sleeping habits...wohoo!!!

Here she was playing when we first switched it, she thought she was pretty cool!

And...of course her and big brother have another bed to play in together!  I have two bed jumpers that I have to tell repeatedly, "NO JUMPING ON THE BED, IF YOU WANT TO JUMP, GO DOWNSTAIRS AND JUMP ON THE TRAMPOLINE!"

***Cute Story***
I had checked on Kadence about a half hour after she had fallen asleep last night and found one of her puppies laying on the floor beside her bed.  A few hours later, I went in to check on her before I went to bed and the puppy was no longer on the floor, but back in bed with her.  I immediately checked with Ryan to see if he had gone in her room and thrown it back in her bed and he had not.  She must have woke up and realized her puppy was on the floor, got out of bed and rescued it, and then went back to bed all on her own!  What a little sweetie!

My little jumping bean!

This little munchkin has been a jumping bean lately!  We have a mini trampoline at our house that the kids are loving right now.  Once Kadence figured out how to jump and actually get air, she has not stopped!  She jumps on the ground, trampoline, and her favorite-the bed.  Jumping on the bed has recently been outlawed at our house as I find it much too dangerous and do not want either one of my children to have stitches as many times as I did.

Kadence's love for jumping showed through even more at gymnastics today.  They have a bunch of big trampolines which is where she spent the entire 45 minutes.  What a joy it was to watch her bouncing around loving life!

"Whatever, Mom"

Landon has just exploded in words and expressions lately.  He says some pretty funny things on a daily basis.  As long as he's not repeating anything Ryan and I say during our Wii playing, he's ok.  Today we were talking and he looked at me and appropriately said, "whatever, mom."  It was classic.  Had to post this one so I would remember the first time he said this dreaded expression.  Too funny.

Let's Go Vikes!

1 game to go to Superbowl Sunday!  Let's go Vikings!

Go Away!

We have had a rather long week at our house.  Wednesday afternoon turned ugly when Kadence got the nasty stomach bug that is going around.  She was a very sick little girl Wednesday afternoon and evening.  I spent the night sleeping on the floor in her room next to her crib.  This was not a fun slumber party!

Kadence has been better today as she could keep some gatorade in her tummy, but that's about all she had.  She was very tired so I put her to bed early.  Needless to say, less than a minute after I came back downstairs from putting her to bed, Landon started with the nasty bug.  So, I made a bed on the floor for the 2 of us and I am up for another slumber party.

The picture is from Wednesday when Kadence first got sick.  Her big brother was pretty worried about her and I caught him laying next to her rubbing her back.  They don't usually like to share anything with each other, but didn't seem to waste much time in sharing this nasty bug!

Oh the joys of parenthood.  Did I mention I am exhausted?

Preschool!

This cool dude is all registered for preschool!  I think it is a little ridiculous that you have to decide by this time in order to get into a preschool.  I played the game and was at the preschool with my application the night before the registration opened to the public, and it worked.  He will be going two days a week for just 2 1/2 hours starting in September.  We talk about him going to preschool and he says, "next time, next time, mom I want to stay home with you."  Good thing we have a little time for him to warm up to the idea.

I love this picture of both of the kids as I find it hilarious.  Ryan was telling Landon to give the thumbs up, so that was his version, and Kadence's version of thumbs up is a little different!

Animal Lover

This blue-eyed beauty has just grown up too fast!  Hard to believe my baby will be 2 years old in just three short months!  Kadence has hit a new stage which consists of two things: drama and hoarding.  She seems to have big dramatic crying outbursts over everything lately.  I don't know if it is a girl thing or if she is hitting her terrible 2's a little early!  We've been powering through the days using the expression, "shake it off" quite frequently.  That used to work really well with Landon, but Kadence doesn't really think it is that great of an idea.  I think she cries harder when I say it to her!  She has been hoarding toys A LOT, too.  The thing she hoards the most frequently are her stuffed animalS (that is not a type-o, an accentuation rather).  The other day I counted how many she had in her crib-12!  She tries to get me to take them all with her when she wakes up in the morning and then we have to have them all back by nap time. It is kind of ridiculous and I think when we switch her to a bed she will be doing the hauling herself.  Here are some of her favorites (what she calls them): bear, tiger, puppy, other puppy, other puppy, other puppy, kitty, tow, little bear, big bear.  I had bought a really cute netting tower that hangs from the ceiling from IKEA in hopes of putting some of the less favorite stuffed animals in there.  This was a good thought, but Kadence didn't think so.  She gets really upset and wants them all taken out.  So for now we will just have a kajillion stuffed animals scattered about our house.

I just love this little girl so much.  She has developed such a fun personality.  She talks amazingly in full sentences which most everyone can understand.  She literally absorbs any and everything you tell her.  She rarely asks what the same thing is twice because she remembers immediately.  She figures things out on her own and by watching her big brother.  Kadence is a girly girl at times, but a tomboy the next minute- I absolutely LOVE it!  She plays with her stuffed animals and dances around in her cute girly outfits feeling pretty and the next minute she is crashing cars and trains with her brother and begging her dad to wrestle with her.

I enjoy watching her learn and grow each and every day.  It only gets better by the minute.

Family Time

This last weekend was filled with lots of quality family time.  Ryan was asked by one of his professors to give a lecture for one of his classes, so he had Friday off to "prep" and then his presentation was Monday so he had most of the day off.  This gave the four of us a much needed long weekend together.  We had nothing we had to do and nowhere to travel to.  It was very cold and we didn't want to leave the house much with the kids.  By Sunday, we were feeling a little cooped up and decided to make a family trip to the Washington Pavillion.  The Pavillion has a science center in it with lots of room to run.  Our kids had a blast and it sure felt good to get out of the house.  Landon and Kadence spent a lot of time running back and fourth on this life size piano.  It always makes me want to watch the movie Big.  

They also have a water table which is a huge hit with both the kids if you can imagine.  It is very nice to live in a town with so many things to do with a young family.

Ryan and I also played a lot of Nerts (not too sure why he plays with me, he doesn't like to lose) and watched a movie every night!  I loved the extra snuggle time with my hubby and he actually stayed up past 9pm!

On a side note...this is the view we currently have in our upstairs living room

The drifts are so high it is crazy.  I actually had to put chairs in front of the windows so that the kids could stand on them and see out.  One of these warm days we need to scoop some snow away from the windows, it is kind of depressing to hardly be able to see out the window!  I am hoping for warmer days soon as I am getting tired of running in the closet!  We had originally had our treadmill in our downstairs family room.  I couldn't figure out why this house just didn't feel as cozy as our home in Fargo.  One night Arin and I had a brilliant idea to move the treadmill to the storage room.  Turns out having a treadmill in your family room doesn't make it very cozy.  We love the extra space in our family room now and the kids of course love the extra space to play.  On the down side, our treadmill is in the storage room.  The funny thing about it is that it is probably one of the most used home treadmills.  I usually try and run about 6 days a week and Ryan runs a few days a week as well.  Needless to say, I am getting a little bit tired of the scenery (or lack thereof) in the closet.  But I will just keep on keep on running...soon it will be warm enough to run outside (if we can ever get rid of all of this snow).  AND....SOMEDAY I will hopefully be able to have a nice workout room in my house.

More Snow, Really?

We have so much snow it is ridiculous...and it just keeps on coming!  It was snowing heavily when I woke up this morning and has not stopped yet!  I had about a half hour to go outside and shovel the driveway and walkway while my kids and Olivia were napping (or in Landon's case playing in his room pretending to nap until his sister wakes up).  The sad part was when I looked out the window a few hours later it looked as though I hadn't even shoveled at all.

So, then when Ryan got home from clinical, we all went out and shoveled the driveway together.  It is unbelievable how much faster it goes with 2 people!  Kadence had fun eating the snow (her favorite thing to do) and Landon had fun "helping" us shovel and throwing the snow at his daddy.  They both even went down our driveway in the sled a couple of times!

Here is my husband's proof that he does help shovel...on occasion. :)  I know that in the morning there will again be inches of snow covering our twice shoveled driveway.  Did I mention that snow removal is  included in our property.   HAHA!

Stir Crazy

I am not going to lie.  We are starting to go a little stir crazy here.  This concerns me for two reasons: 1. I should be happy to be relaxing without traveling since we just had a busy holiday season 2.  It is only the very beginning of January.

It has been record breaking bitter cold here the past week.  We also have more snow right now than the entire winter season last year.  These two things just do not seem to be a good combination.  Our kids ask to go for a "ride" just to get out of the house.  Sometimes we just drive around a little bit to get a change of scenery.  Although we have more toys than we know what to do with at our house, the greatest pleasure still comes from wrestling, blankets, and food (don't get me wrong, the toys are great and they do play with them as well).

I must also mention that I have watched enough college football in the last few days for my lifetime.  Thankfully Arin has been around so that someone can distract and entertain the kids when we no longer are adequate.

And...Kadence has discovered a newfound love for Emma.  She is a little bit obsessed.  I don't think the feelings are mutual at this point.  I think she just realized that Emma is a lot like a stuffed animal, only she responds more.  So when she doesn't have one of her 12 billion stuffed animals (or the zoo as Arin would say), then she is playing with Emma.  For Emma's sake I hope this is just a phase :)

Some days I wonder why we choose to live in a place that gets this cold.  I then think of the wonderful Fall, Spring, and Summer's and am quickly reminded.  But until then...