A few more pics

  Here are a few more pictures from before Christmas at Union Station, one of Jeremy's favorite places.

The end of the holiday season

 We always host New Year's Day at our house for our family.  We had a great time watching the Chiefs game together, eating chili and steak soup and playing cards. The kids all had fun running around and playing together.  Jeremy and Haley always love to spend time with family and friends.  The rest of January is pretty quiet. The next two gathering are in February when we host Super Bowl with friends and then Jeremy's birthday party with friends and family.

Jeremy with his cousins Owen and Blaire

Jeremy LOVED playing with his Great Aunt Patricia's Ipad.  He has talked about it a lot ever since!

Haley watching the Chiefs game with Grandpa Ficklin

New Year's

For New Year's Eve we went to our friend, Marty and Emily's house for our annual gathering. The kids played great together and we did an early countdown at 9:45 for them before sending the three youngest upstairs for bed. The three older kids stayed up for another 30 minutes and then headed upstairs too at 10:30. The adults then played Family Feud that Marty had made for us using power point. We had done trivia in the past years and he wanted to change things up a bit this year. It was a lot of fun! Jeremy fell asleep quickly, but then all of a sudden at 12:30, he came downstairs ready to party. He told me the next morning he "wanted to see mommy play the game". He sat with me and was very happy considering what time it was and no other kids were awake. Jeremy and Haley were sharing a bedroom and he did a great job getting out of bed and joining us without waking her up. He ended up going to bed at home at 1:45 am, luckily he slept until 9:45 the next morning.

Yummy cake

Waiting patiently while mommy takes her turn at Family Feud

Happy as can be at 1:04 am with all the adults

 

Santa

Cookies and milk for Santa

Lebowski waiting for the kiddos to come up to see what Santa brought

Christmas Day

Haley and Grandma Ficklin

Grandpa Ficklin giving Haley and Jeremy a "pre-celebration" snack of dried mango.  Jeremy asks for it all the time!

Jeremy and Grandma Ficklin

Haley enjoying an olive off her finger, one of her favorite things

Jeremy watching his cousin Rocco playing the leap pad, Jeremy definetly needs one now

Watching his cousins Rocco and Nino play their leap pads

Jeremy and his cousin Bella and Ashawna

Jeremy watching his cousin Frannie with her lite brite

Jeremy snuggling with his cousin Mia and her phone, she played games on it with him and found train pictures, he loved it!

Christmas Eve

Jeremy and his cousins Rocco and Nino

Jeremy helping Grandma Steffens open her gifts

Grandma Steffens looking at the photobook of Haley we made for her

The playhouse!

Christmas 2011

  Our Christmas celebrations started with traveling to Springfield the Saturday before Christmas.  Jeremy and Haley both had a great time playing with their cousins in the playroom.  There were trains, so Jeremy never wanted to leave and asked us for weeks to go back.
 Then on Christmas Eve morning my parents came over to our house to open gifts. Jeremy loved opening and his favorite thing to say when he was opening was "what's in there" and "a box".  Haley opened a little and then wandered around playing, she doesn't have much of an attention span yet. That afternoon, they played with their new toys while we watched the Chiefs lose :( The favorite gift of the morning was more trains and a Cars racetrack.
  Christmas Eve evening we went to Tim's parents' house for dinner and opening gifts with them,  Jeremy again was excited to open and Haley wandered around and watched.  Haley got a lot of clothes and Jeremy got a small drum set, more trains and a few clothes.  The favorite gift though was a playhouse for both of them
Christmas morning started at our house with gifts from Santa.  Santa brought a train they can drive, which they loved!!  Then we headed to my parents' house for Christmas with the whole family, 37 total people-14 were kids.  It was a lot of fun and Jeremy again was excited to open gifts.  Haley was falling asleep as we were opening, so she promptly went upstairs to take a nap while everyone ate lunch and played.  Both Jeremy and Haley had fun playing all day and evening with their cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
  It was another great Christmas and now we looking forward to Jeremy's birthday next month.  Here are a few pictures from Springfield and Christmas Eve morning at our house, more from Christmas Eve night and Christmas Day will be coming soon

Springfield