Happy Birthday to My Wonderful Husband!

Today is a wonderful day to celebrate because it is Darin's 35th birthday! I have such a wonderful man who not only is a wonderful husband but also a wonderful Dad...

Who loves playing in the snow,

or rough housing inside.

Or learning what it's like to play dress up with his daughter. And enjoying their snuggle time.

He also loves spending time and playing with his nieces and Godson.
Emily

Collin (Our Godson)

Meghan

Adee

Riley

He is the love of my life and I wish him a very Happy Birthday!

Welcome New Comers!

We'll our Christmas cards are finally out so some of you may be venturing onto our blog for the first time. We hope you enjoy what you see and "stop by" to check in on us through out the year.


I'm not one to blog everyday or every week for that matter. Sometimes I'm lucky to get one on here a month. So for that reason I have a great tool on the right hand side, "Subscribe via e-mail". When you enter your e-mail here you will receive an e-mail telling you when I have posted a blog. If I post multiple stories on a particular day you will still only get one e-mail telling you all the stories I posted that day.

We also LOVE comments from our readers on our blog too so we know who's out there following our family fun.

Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season and have a safe New Year!

Another Visit with Brynn

Went up to visit our niece again. This time Uncle Darin got to come along too.

I posted some additional picures on Meg's blog too. She actually had her eyes open during this visit.

Brynn Cooley Tredinnick

Molly and I have volunteered to post some pictures on Meg's blog for her so if you'd like to see her you can click on the following links to Meg's blog. Rather than duplicate the pictures.

SHE'S HERE
Brynn Cooley Tredinnick

As Molly mentions you will notice the lack of kids in this picture and the proud Uncles. Josh and Darin were home watching the kids so we could go to the hospital. Thanks boys!

WE HAVE A NEW NIECE!!!

I am so excited to announce that Meg and Chris are the parents of another healthy baby girl today!

Brynn Cooley Tredinnick was born at 8:31 AM!
She is 7 lbs. 13 oz. and 20" long!

I've been told that she has lots of hair just like all the babies in our family so far. :-)

Meg is doing well especially since she had no epidural with this one. There was no time! She started having contractions at 5:00 this morning. We got a call at 7:00 that the contractions were 5 minutes apart and they were on their way to the hospital. They got there at 7:15 and she was at 8 cm. Too late for drugs! Meg did say she came really quick though. 1 minute of pushing and Brynn was out. Good baby!

I will post pictures as soon as I have them. I'm off to the hospital very soon. Unfortunately none of the kids can come with. Unity has a policy of no kids younger than 5 can be in the maternity ward due to the H1N1 crap. Although we were told on January 1st that policy will be changing. Bad timing. Poor Adee won't meet her sister until she's home.

Stay tuned for more...

Merry Christmas

For your viewing pleasure we present Zack's version of Jingle Bells! :-)


Translation in case you can't hear it well:

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse (or house) stop (or stuff) and stay. Hey!


He gets a little mad when you try to correct him with the right words. :-)

It amazes me the songs he's picked up this year by listening to the radio and our CD's. It's quite fun catching him singing, (he won't do it if asked).


Kiley has also started "singing" the Jingle bells song. She will just start throwing random "Hey"'s in when the song is on. Darin was getting a little annoyed with her one time in the car because she was screeching this until I realized what was on the radio and explained she was singing. She stopped once the song was done. She doesn't even need people to be singing the words. She recognizes the melody.

She also likes "The Drummer Boy" rum pah pum pum part and the part in "Frosty the Snowman" thumpity, thump, thump. She does pretty well singing along there too. She is very musical already.

Santa is on His Way!

Well the stockings are hung by the "chimney" with care hoping our shelf elf, Pat, has had good things to share...


Of course our holiday preparations included a visit to Santa and our bank provided us the perfect opportunity to do this. They hosted a meet and greet with Santa at their branches. It was very low key for the kids, only two or three ahead of us in line, and milk and cookies afterwards.
Zack seemed a little nervous as we waited in line but then he heard that the girl in front of us was 3 1/2 too and was having no problem with Santa he could do it too. So he walked right up there and tentatively hoped on his lap. But he talked to him and told him he wanted a helicopter for Christmas.

Kiley on the other hand... fine with him at a distance. Not so fond up close... :-)

...but she loved the cookies. This one was her second one. She swiped it off the plate before we noticed.

As we were leaving the bank Zack made the realized he had more to tell Santa about what he wanted for Christmas. So we told him he could tell our Elf when we got home. It was so cute. He looked up at Pat when we got home and was telling him everything he forgot to tell Santa.

Next we went to Arbor Lakes which is a few blocks away from our bank where they were coincidentally hosting Santa's reindeer!

Zack thought they were quite cool.

Kiley kept calling them puppies. She LOVES puppies!

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve and a safe one!

NOTE: Elf on the Shelf (Pat) = An elf that comes to your house during the Christmas season and reports back to Santa every night on whether you have been bad or good. And can tell Santa gift ideas. Your kids get to name the elf the first time he appears. When the elf flies back he finds a new place in the house to sit. That way you know that he's been to the North Pole and back. :-)

Fun in the Snow

While this isn't quite preparing for Christmas it is an activity Zack loves to do...

...and so does Coko! She sticks around us really well too! I am so shocked because as some of you may remember our Wheaten growing up, Nikki, would dart out of the house as soon as the door was open and then it was a full neighborhood chase with all of our friends involved yelling, "Treat" or "Cheese" to get her back!

Zack loves to watch for our "Sleepy Pooh" to wake up at night on our deck. I turned Pooh him up to see how tall he was to Zack. Wow how our little boy has grown!

Besides making snow angels and playing with Coko in the snow the other thing Zack loves best is his "sleigh" otherwise known as a sled. :-)

He even gives Mommy a ride!

Kiley is not quite the fan like Zack. She reminds me of the "Christmas Movie" with the boy who falls down in the snow and is calling for help with no one to help him get back up! She also doesn't like snow in her mittens so when we were out with Kiley it wasn't for long.

But it was long enough to go sledding down the hill in the outlot across the street. It's the perfect height and speed for our kids. Zack was great at sharing his sled. He actually recommended she get into the sled with him. And then offered to get out at one point and let her ride alone!

He even wanted to go down the hill with her first.

Kiley liked the ride.

Then it was time for a solo run...head first! He does this on the slides as school too! Then it was off to the house for some hot chocolate.

A fun afternoon!

He's also enjoying the shovel as well. He couldn't wait to get out on Sunday to help shovel the inch of snow on our driveway. I really hope he keeps this enthusiasm up for MANY, MANY years! :-)

Advent Chain Tradition

We had a tradition in our family to make an Advent chain with things on each of the links to do. Acts of kindness to prepare us for Christmas. In our house, once we finished our task we got to put a straw in a manger. Then on Christmas day baby Jesus would appear in the manger and a gift from baby Jesus was sitting by the manger for us usually thanking us for the nice deeds we did during the holiday season, (I do remember a few not so go reports). The gift was usually something the 3 of us could share, a movie, a game, etc. I was wondering when to start this tradition with Zack so when our Sunday school sent home the links with things to do already on them we decided now was the time.

I asked my Dad if he might be able to make me a manger like we had and now we have an even more special holiday tradition. Thanks Dad! Zack is also very eager in helping me to find the perfect baby Jesus and "cloth" to swaddle him in, (that word must be in one of our stories because he won't let me call it fabric). Instead of straw we are using the actual chains he takes off and completes and then Mom and I had the same idea of adding more pieces of straw by writing down on a piece of paper additional things he's done that are note worthy.

One of the things on his chain was to make an ornament. I had a hard time figuring out what to do for a while because I wanted it to be something that lasted. Then Meg's blog reminded me of the beaded candy canes made with pipe cleaners that we made when we were little. Zack loved this activity. He really concentrated hard and made not only one, but two. The second one was specifically for Daddy. Awe!

I truly do love this tradition we have. It helps kids understand that there is more to Christmas than presents and brings Jesus into the picture a little more.

The other benefit to the chain... you don't have to constantly answer the question of when Christmas is. He hasn't asked once. He counts the rings himself and tells us how many days.

Macy's 8th Floor

Also during this holiday season my sisters and my Mom and I took the kids to the 8th floor Macy's display. The theme was actually the same as last years, "A Day in the Life of an Elf". A little disappointing from the adults perspective but all brand new again to the kids even though all of them saw it last year. Kiley was tiny and in the Bjorn so she was in awe this year.

As last year Zack was a little nervous through out the display. But some glasses that changed the lights into snowflakes helped ease his mind a little.

After the display it's tradition to get a cookie which all of the kids enjoyed.