The Magic Moby

 As most of you know, Kenzie has been sort of a fussy baby.  She isn't too bad, but just much different than we were used to with our first two.  I guess we were just really spoiled-with Kadence especially.  We were spending a lot of time trying to soothe our little peanut, walking around the house until she would calm down and go to sleep.  I have a couple friends who have used the Moby wrap and I decided to get one for us.  I mostly thought I needed to do this so that I could keep my newborn happy and attend to my 2 and 4 year old at the same time.  It turns out Kenzie absolutely loves being in the Moby wrap.  Once she gets in it and is wrapped, it takes her less than 5 minutes to calm and usually goes to sleep or just stays awake happy.  It is truly like magic.  I can not believe the difference this piece of material has made in our household and in our little sweetheart.  It is amazing what I can do with 2 hands free!  I strongly recommend the Moby to anyone who has a newborn!!

*Ryan wasn't thrilled that I put a picture of him with the Moby, but I will note that he is now able to hold Kenzie with the Moby and play Wii tennis...sweet deal.

A visit from Linds

We were so lucky to have one of my best friends Lindsey come and stay with us for a few days.  I don't know what I was thinking, but didn't take any pictures!  Lindsey lives in Austrailia now and was home for 3 weeks over the holidays.  She drove down from the cities on Monday night and stayed until Wednesday afternoon.  Landon and Kadence had so much fun playing with Lindsey, I know they were sad to see her go.  I had such a great visit and even got out to see a movie kid free!  I wish I had been feeling better, but it was still great to have the company.  I can't wait until I can see Linds again and Ryan and I hope to be able to visit her in Austrailia sometime!  Love ya Linds!

Christmas 2010

Christmas was finally here, and Santa had finally came!  We had two very excited children on our hands when they woke up.  As we waited for my parents and sister's family to get here from the hotel, the kids opened one Santa gift each and looked in their stockings.

Landon was so very excited when he found diesel 10 (cranky) in his stocking.  He had been talking about his cranky train for over a month now and he could hardly believe he had it in his hands.

Kadence was very excited when she found special treats in her stocking!  Love this shot of her morning crazy hair.

And...Santa had brought Rapunzel.  This was the doll Kadence had been talking about for over a month and she was so happy!

Landon was also pretty excited for his transformer...almost as excited as his dad!

The kids were taking turns and Kadence was not going as fast as Landon would have liked!

Santa brought Kenzie a cute little giraffe stuffed animal and she was pretty impartial to the whole thing...

Kadence, Landon, Annabelle, and AJ all checking out their Santa gifts.  Good thing Annabelle and AJ left a note for Santa to tell him that they were going to be at our house this year!

Opening the rest of the gifts upstairs by the tree.  With all the chaos, I forgot to take a tree picture...next year.
After a little breakfast Keish and bagels, we let the little ones nap and headed for the water park at the hotel.

It is the perfect size water park for our kids and they all had so much fun!

It was very nice to have somewhere to go where the kids could run off some steam and play.  We had a fabulous Christmas and are so blessed to have been able to spend it at home with my family.  Unfortunately, I caught Kadence's bug and didn't feel very good Saturday and Sunday, but it was great to have my mom here to help!

Christmas Eve 2010

We had a very relaxing Christmas Eve at our own home.  We spent the day laying low with the kids and Grandpa and Grandma Limmer.  We went to a nice Christmas church service at 3:30 then came back home  for dinner.  After dinner we thought we would continue the Limmer tradition and go look at Christmas lights.  Kenzie didn't think this was such a good idea and after about 10 minutes of screaming, we took her and Ryan home and the rest of us drove around for awhile.  Ryan had texted me within 10 minutes and she was already inside and sleeping...she just doesn't like those car rides!

I think we will have a protective big brother on our hands!

I love this picture.  Kadence was so excited and proud to be holding her little sister.  Kenzie was not really enjoying our little photo shoot.

The kids had a ton of fun playing with Grandpa Ken.  His phone has some pretty neat applications on it...the kids did not want to stop playing with Grandpa's phone!

My mom spent a lot of time holding this little lady.  She stayed at our house 3 of the 4 nights so that she could take Kenzie after I nursed her in the middle of the night.  I got more sleep than I had for at least 2 weeks and didn't know what to do with myself!  Love this picture of my mom.

We set LOTS of cookies out for Santa to eat when he visited our house.  This is the first year that Santa has been a big talk in our house, so it was pretty fun to do.  It was also nice to be at our own house for Christmas and to have some of our own traditions.

Kenzie is 1 Month!

I am not quite sure where the past month has gone, but Kenzie is 1 month old today!  We have had a somewhat stressful month with her elevated bilirubin levels.  We made several trips to the clinic and the poor dear had her feet poked WAY too many times.  We even made a trip to the Children's Hospital for an ultrasound of her abdomen as well.  We are finally done with all of the bilirubin checks and should be able to relax, finally (well as much as you relax with a 4 year old, 2 year old, newborn and a husband in school).  As it turns out, Kenzie is just fine and her bilirubin level was just decreasing slowly from the breast milk-just as we thought.  She is eating well and growing well.  She already weighed in at 8 pounds 10 ounces at her appointment on Friday.  We are so lucky to be blessed with a healthy baby!  Now if we could just get her to sleep better!  I have been taking her to the chiropractor which seems to be helping with her fussiness.  I am not sure exactly why, but whatever works!  Love her to pieces!

Big brother and sister still love her to pieces as well.  They are so helpful and thought it was pretty neat when she was able to take a bath in the tub like they do.

All kinds of help!

Love sleeping baby pictures!

Graduation.

The day is finally here!  Ryan graduated from Mount Marty with his Masters in Nurse Anesthesia!  I am so very proud of this huge accomplishment for him!  The last two years have been busy and chaotic to say the least, but so very worth it for Ryan and our little family.  He has just 2 short months of clinical experience left and he will officially be done the end of February.  Then it's on to some serious studying and after Ryan passes his boards we will finally be able to move to Fargo!  We are so excited for this next step in our lives!

Ryan's Nurse Anesthesia class.

It is so hard to believe that graduation is finally here!  Our "someday" is getting closer and closer.  I still find it hard to believe that he is actually going to be done soon...something we have been anticipating for a very long time.

Landon Gary wearing Daddy's cap.

Kadence Jean with Ryan's tassel.

Ryan's graduation ceremony was held in Yankton, SD.  We had a good day celebrating.  Gary, Sue, and Arin all came with us.  After the ceremony we ate dinner with the Carlson's and had a fabulous time.  The only thing that would have made the day better would have been if our sweet little Kenzie didn't cry the entire time in the car...

Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Strasburg

 This year was our year to spend Christmas with my side of the family, so we had a little Christmas celebration when Ryan's parents  and Arin were here for graduation.  The kiddos had a blast opening gifts and were spoiled of course.  Kadence really was into gift opening this year and Landon could open gifts ALL day!

Happy 30th Birthday Ryan!

 Today is Ryan's 30th Birthday!  Happy Birthday to the best dad and husband!  We had a little celebration and of course a Dairy Queen ice cream cake-topped with Vikings decor.

It was a fun day for Ryan as he had his last class EVER for his Master's degree.  He has his graduation ceremony tomorrow and will have just a couple short months of clinical left before he is finished!  So exciting for him and our family.  We went out with some of his classmates for a couple drinks to celebrate his birthday and their graduation.  Life is good!

Playing with Grandma...

This is what happens when we leave the kids with Grandma Sue!  The kids (Landon especially) have a very hard time leaving Grandma Sue alone when she is around.  They want to be right with her doing whatever she is doing...even putting makeup on!  This was how they looked one morning after "helping" Grandma get ready.  The funny part was the red on Landon's nose was permanent lipstick and almost did not come off!

Changing.

 It is amazing how fast newborns change in look.  I look at pictures of Kenzie from day to day and she looks different in each one.   She is starting to fill out now with pudgy little cheeks.  She is looking less and less like a newborn and more like a baby each day.  I love all of the expressions she makes but my favorite is when she smiles in her sleep.  She looks so pretty when she smiles and I can't wait for those smiles to be intentional!

Yawn...

There is something special and absolutely adorable about an infants yawn.  It is one of many expressions that Kenzie makes on a regular basis.  I think this photo describes the general mood at our house lately.  Kenzie has not been letting us sleep much.  I have been getting about 4 hours of sleep a night and learning to function pretty well, amazingly.  Oh how I have forgotten life with a newborn.

Best Buds

Kadence and Landon have been so good since Kenzie was born.  Lately, they have been chumming around playing better than ever.  They love running around the house together and making each other laugh.  Of course they have their moments where they are not getting along, but for the most part they are best buddies.  They are so close in age that I sometimes feel like I have set of twins. I love my little munchkins so much and am very blessed by how well they have adjusted to a little sister.

Christmas Baking

I decided it would be fun to do some Christmas baking with the kids this year.  I think I may have gone a little overboard, but it was a fun Saturday activity while we were all home.  We spend most weekend days at home right now with baby Kenzie, so it gave us all something fun to do.

Baking cookies is very fun!

I am thinking this is why the kids really like to help...eating the dough.  My favorite part as well!

*Thanks to Ryan for being a good sport and acting like he enjoyed baking cookies for my sake :)