Super Uncle and Aunt Visits!

This past weekend we had the pleasure of seeing Uncle Chris for a brief visit. He was in Madison, WI on Saturday interviewing for a fellowship (he is an orthopedic surgeon) and flew out of O'Hare on Sunday, so he stayed with us on Saturday night. We had a great time visiting with him and the kids had fun playing with him. As you can see here, Abbey and Juliette quickly clung to Uncle Chris...

And Ben was super excited to see his Godfather too...

Then on Sunday, after we watched the disappointing Bears game, Aunt Theresa came over for some super hero fun! Ben pulled out the costumes he got for Christmas and everyone got into character. Check out Batman and Superman here...

Look out, we have 4 super heroes in our house...

Look at our little Batman...
The kids love dressing up in their costumes. Here is a picture of them this week...
Even Batman gets tired sometimes...

Home fun

Besides play dates, we have also had some fun just hanging out at home. We had a "slipper party" where we all got into our new slippers we received from Santa and danced around to a corny song we made up about slippers!

We have had some movie nights watching all the new movies we got from Christmas...

And we posed for some pictures...just in case you didn't know who was the big/little brother/sister, be sure to check out their shirts...

Cuties...

With all the cold weather recently, we have been having lots of fun inside. We had the Kurby's over for some fun and as usual, the kids clung to Uncle Phil...

Joey and Ben played trains together...

And Juliette got in some Uncle Phil one-on-one time...

We also had Caroline and Aunt Domi over for some fun. In this picture, Ben is pretending to be Woody, Caroline in Jessie and they are riding Bullseye!

Juliette got into Abbey's tutu and showed Aunt Domi her baby doll...
Then Abbey and Juliette went to work on primping Aunt Domi...she looked beautiful!

Sledding!

We finally had the chance to have some fun in all this snow...Ben has been asking for a while now if we could go sledding, and it finally worked out. We made some last minute plans with Aunt Theresa, Aunt Domi and Cousin Caroline and headed down to Naperville to sled with them. Abbey is all ready to go!

Juliette was a little unsure of the whole thing, but she was quite the trooper. She didn't laugh as we went down the hill, but she didn't cry either.
Ben was thrilled to go down as often as possible.
After a while, Juliette just wanted to be held...thanks Aunt Theresa!
Aunt Theresa did get to go down a lot though - here she is with Abbey, who also loved it!

Aunt Theresa also got to down with Abbey and Juliette - looks like fun!

Ben loved going down the hill with anyone or by himself too - check out his face here...yeah, I think he enjoyed it!

Daddy takes Juju down the hill!

Aunt Theresa with Abbey, Caroline and Juju...
Mommy and Juliette...

The Cone of Shame!

Chien is 8.5 years old now, which is getting up there for a large dog, and he has so far had zero health problems, which the vet was pretty amazed at. However, at his last check-up, I asked them to check a lump on his left back and they wanted to remove it. At first, we were unsure whether we really want to pursue taking it off due to the high cost and being unsure as to what we would do if it came back as something serious. But, we decided to go ahead with the procedure. Poor Chien went into surgery to have it removed, but thankfully, it came back benign! Now he just has to wear the "cone of shame" for 2 weeks while he has his stitches. He is quite clumsy with it on and has knocked poor Juliette down several times to the point where she runs away if he comes near her! It is pretty funny to watch him try to go up the stairs though as he gets the cone caught on each step and has to thrust his head back to clear the step.

His incision...

Abbey is 2.5 years old!

I took Abbey in for her 2.5 year appointment today and she is doing great! She weighed in at 28 3/4 lbs and was 35 inches tall, which put her in the 40th-50th percentile. She still takes an afternoon nap of about 1.5-2 hours and she mostly stays in her bed (or at least stays in her room) during nap time so Juliette can get her sleep as well. We got her a toddler clock, which has been amazing. We set the nap time and what time she can get up in the morning, and when the time comes, the clock turns from blue to yellow so she knows it is ok to get up. She usually comes out yelling "My clock is yellow!". She is non-stop chatter all the time, so her verbal skills are excellent after all that practice! She has been fully potty trained for 3 months now, even in spite of a bladder infection that she had in December. She is a typical 2 year old - loves to do everything herself, is quickly learning about time-outs, and loves to test our limits. She is a very sweet little girl, when she isn't driving us crazy as a "terrible 2 year old"!

NYE 2010

We came back from FL before New Year's, so we went over to our friends, the Weck's, to celebrate (Aiden and Ben are best friends and were born 1 day apart, Connor is about to turn 3 and Gavin was born in August). We had a big countdown to 8:00 with noise makers, hats, and sparkling cider to toast. Here we are counting down...

Happy New Year toast!

Best friends...

Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Home again, home again

After spending 10 days in FL, it was definitely time to come home. We had a blast and loved seeing all our family that we don't get to see often enough, especially Mimi, Nana and Grand Patch, but there is something nice about coming home and getting back into our routine. The kids were very excited to see Chien too!

Thank you Madgie and Patch for hosting us for so long and for the wonderful holiday memories! Love you!

MOSH

While in Jacksonville, we decided to take Ben and Abbey to the Museum of Science and History - a place we went to when we were younger and had many fields trips to while in school. It looked great and the kids had a blast. Here are Ben and Abbey checking out the big fish...

Mommy and Abbey learning about the different types of animals that live in Jacksonville (mostly turtles, alligators, lizards and snakes).

They also had a dinosaur exhibit that the kids really enjoyed.

Patch and Mommy resting for a bit while the kids checked out the dinosaurs...

Ben and Mommy with a dinosaur...
We stayed for a while because we wanted to see the astronaut show in the planetarium, but Abbey got pretty tired before the show...
I thought she would fall asleep during the show because the seats are very reclined and it is all dark, but it wasn't Abbey who fell asleep as soon as the show started...just don't ask Patch any details about the show! Ben really enjoyed it though...