Vance, Erin, Luke and Rebekah

Sibling Fun!

2011-05-06T09:45:00.000-05:00

Ok – I know I’m WOEFULLY behind on my blog posts…I think the one before this was Luke’s first day of school – and now he’s about 3 weeks from the end of the school year! Over the next week or so I’ll be going back and doing posts from the past year, but I had to share a few pictures I took yesterday while Luke and Beka were watching an episode of Dora (while Mommy got some much needed stuff done around the house). I heard them laughing hysterically every few minutes, so I grabbed the camera and went in there to see if I could get some cute pictures – I ended up with a series of photos that just really made me laugh!!

They may fight like all siblings do, but they seem to genuinely like hanging out with each other most of the time, and are having more and more fun playing and doing things together!!

Luke’s First Day of Preschool!

2010-09-01T20:20:00.001-05:00

Tuesday was Luke’s first day of school at Faith Academy.

He will be going to school Tuesday mornings, Wednesday afternoons, and Thursday mornings, for three hours each. We attended an open house on Sunday where Luke was able to say hi to his teacher, Ms. Heather, and drop off his supplies. Then Tuesday morning we headed to school!

Luke has been very excited for school to start and telling everyone that he is going to school “Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday!”

Here’s Beka walking with us into school. She really likes his classroom! She was a bit confused on Tuesday morning, she kept saying “Luke?” and looking around!

When we got to his classroom, he immediately saw some of his friends (that’s Carter in the background) and he was very excited about that. We gave him a hug and took a picture and said our goodbyes.

The last thing I saw/heard before we left was Luke picking up the big magnet (that Carter is holding in the picture above) and saying “Cool!” So I wasn’t too worried!

After we picked him up after school, we went to see Daddy to tell him about Luke’s day, and then had a celebration lunch at All Around Sweets, one of Luke’s favorite restaurants here in Holton.

He said he had fun again today in class and is ready to go back in the morning. Congratulations to our big 3 year old starting school!

Summer Fun!

2010-08-21T21:32:00.001-05:00

The last few weeks, the kids have been participating in some fun summer activities! First, Luke took a week of private swim lessons from twins that go to our church and are lifeguards at the pool. Luke had a great time!

Standing in the pool by himself! I had no idea he’d be able to stand with his head above water yet!

Getting ready to “swim” under the rope – he was wearing goggles, which really helped him want to stay under longer. He was very proud that he went under the rope twice during that lesson, and announced it to the whole pool!

Earlier this week, Luke was able to take a “Stop, Look, and Listen” class through Parks & Rec to help prepare the kids for preschool and kindergarten. He had a lot of fun with his friends:

Copying animal sounds and movements from a book…

Following verbal directions to do a craft project (no visuals, just spoken directions)…

Playing “Red Light, Green Light…”

And making a snack based on photo directions. Hopefully the class helped him understand how he will have to listen to the teacher at preschool in a few weeks.

Lastly, while Luke has been at “Grandparent Camp” in Peck this weekend, Beka was able to go to a Parks & Rec class all by herself! She did pretty well for her first official time participating!

Kitchen utensil painting.

Putt Putt Painting.

And painting on bread with colored milk.

The finished (toasted) product was yummy!

Beka also attended a 5th birthday party for her friend Tuley today – she was all dressed up for the Princess (and Pirate) party!

Retro Camera Fun

2010-07-13T00:31:00.001-05:00

One of the apps on my new Droid phone is a retro camera. So the kids and I have been taking fun “retro” pictures when we have a few minutes. Here’s some of our best!

“The Bärbl”

“Little Orange Box”

“Xolaroid 2000”

“Pinhole Camera”

Enjoy!

Luke the Builder

2010-07-13T00:26:00.001-05:00

One of the projects that the children got to do at the volunteer childcare during Build Week was a birdfeeder from Lowes. Luke wasn’t with me that day, so I brought home a kit for he and I to do together. He got right to work with his construction apron and hammer!

Here he is examining the “blueprint.”

Working on the top:

Putting the final screw hanger in:

And the proud builder with his finished bird feeder!

We’ve since painted it red and hung it outside in the tree. Not bad for his first building project!

New Playground!

2010-07-13T00:21:00.001-05:00

For the past year, Holton has been doing fundraisers to build a new, big playground. Finally at the end of June, the plan came to fruition with a massive build week, with 5000+ volunteer hours over 5 days. Grandma and Grandpa came up for the week so the Grandpa could be one of the build captains. Vance was as well, on the last three days. Grandma watched Luke and Beka in the mornings so that I could go help provide childcare to many of the volunteer worker’s children. It was a long week, but very successful!

Here’s a picture of what the former playground at the park looked like. They are moving the old equipment to one of the other parks in town:

In about a week, this is what resulted!

Amazing work by everyone in town! Sunday night, June 27th, they had a grand opening celebration for the new playground. The kids were all more than excited, especially since it was such a family effort to build it!

Some of the highlights include a side for kids under 5,

“Luke Sized” (as he says) monkey bars, (there’s full size ones too)

a troll bridge,

a big slide,

and Luke’s favorite, the spinner – he had a look of absolute glee on his face – I think he thought it was cool to be hanging out with the big kids, too!

All the pretend leaves on the playground were painted by local children, and their names are all on the leaves as well. All the captain’s children and grandchildren have names on there too, so Luke, Beka and Ida are all immortalized on the leaf wall!

One of the projects that Grandpa spent a lot of time on was the music area – he was one of the two primary builders of this instrument, which Luke and Beka both had a great time playing:

The celebration also included free ice cream – Beka did a great job feeding herself, and Luke also was pretty happy about the ice cream!

Two of the playground fundraisers were handprint tiles and fence pickets, so we have several of each – here’s Beka with their fence pickets:

and Luke (and a not very happy Beka) with their hand/footprint tiles:

All in all, it was an amazing project for the whole community to work on together, and the kids will enjoy it for years to come!

Parks & Rec Fun

2010-07-12T23:56:00.001-05:00

So far this summer we’ve been able to do a lot of fun classes through Parks & Rec. Addie, the Activities Coordinator, does an awesome job planning and putting on all the classes.

We were able to do Book and a Bite again this summer, a 3 week reading/cooking class. The first week they read “The Hungry Caterpillar” and made apple & cherry turnovers…

as well as banana caterpillars:

It was a lot of fun watching Luke be able to do more of the tasks himself, being a year older!

They also decorated their own aprons – Luke likes anything with his name on it!

Once they were done with the aprons, Luke and his friend Taven somehow ended up on the stage at the two podiums. I think they look like they are ready to debate, but they were actually singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (sorry the picture is dark, there weren’t very many lights on in the room!)

The next week was an ocean theme and they made fish pizzas and “fish food” necklaces. I didn’t have my camera with me that morning though.

I taught the 3rd week, and we read the book “Cupcake” and the kids got to decorate their own cupcakes with piping bags of frosting and lots of colorful sprinkles and sugar.

Beka even joined in, though I’m pretty sure all she ate was the frosting. Can’t blame her, it was delicious buttercream!!

And here’s Luke with his decorated cupcakes!

Other classes we have done are “A-B-Seas” – a reading readiness class, Nursery Rhyme Math, and Ka-Boom. Here’s a picture of Luke, Carter & Lexie eating their watermelon popsicles at Ka-Boom:

Beka has been a trooper at all these classes – sometimes I have to keep her in the stroller so she doesn’t wreck havoc on what the other kids are doing:

Other times she tries to participate in the class as well. I’m not sure how she ended up with the clown wig on, but it was pretty funny!

A little later in the summer there will be some classes just for her – we’re excited!

Thomas the Train

2010-07-12T23:40:00.001-05:00

In June we took a trip to Baldwin City with Gramsie, Kristy, Carter & Cade to see Thomas the Train. It was a surprise for the kids – we didn’t tell them till we got to town. The boys were very excited to see the “real” Thomas!

We had a while before our scheduled departure, so we explored all the activities. Luke and Carter’s favorite had to be the giant inflatable slide – it was very difficult to get them off of it to go try something else! (Luke is on the slide, Carter is at the bottom.)

There was also a bounce house which Luke and Cade were pretty happy about.

There was also a petting zoo, bubble station, Thomas temporary tattoos, story time, a magician, and other activities. But soon it was time for us to board the train for our official ride on Thomas!

Here we are on the train – we chose an open air car, which was really nice, it was a VERY hot day!

Sorry – the kids were not cooperating for this picture! Like I said – very hot!!

Once we got moving though, Luke was so excited to see all the railroad crossing signs on our short trip. He had just read a book about street signs and so he recognized the RR crossing right away!

It was a very fun day with friends – maybe we can do it again in a few years when Beka is a bit older!

Memorial Day

2010-07-12T23:30:00.001-05:00

The Lassey family tradition has always been to head to Miltonvale, KS for Memorial Day. That is where Grandpa grew up and Vance spent many a summer. They have a beautiful cemetery and put on a very nice program each Memorial Day.

This year, Grandma and Grandpa were already in Holton helping us out on our new shed (blog to come when it is closer to being done!) and so all of us headed West to Miltonvale for the day. The kids had a great time walking around and seeing all the flags and new people.

We were able to spend time with a lot of family, some of which we don’t see very often!

Front Row: Cousin Kurt, Vance, Beka, Grandpa Greg, Luke, (Great) Uncle Bob – Back Row: Erin, (Great) Uncle Melvin, (Great) Aunt Linda, Grandma Anne, (Great) Aunt Sharon.

Thanks to Linda and Melvin for hosting a wonderful day!

Future Class of 2025

2010-07-10T17:43:00.001-05:00

Luke’s high school class will be the class of 2025 (scary, huh?) and ever since his first year, our friend Addie has put together a class party so all the kids and parents can get to know each other. It’s an awesome event, and we’re all so grateful that she puts it together! (I’m sad that she doesn’t have a child Beka’s age – some of us may need to get together and form our own 2027 group!)

Here’s a picture from the first get-together in February of 2008. As you can imagine, it was kind of chaotic with all the babies. Luke is wearing the red and blue sweat outfit in the lower right

Here’s a closer up picture of him from that day with only the boys in his class.

UPDATED – I found a picture from their 2nd class party with all the parents too – we’re close to the front, this was only a few weeks before Beka was born.

Hard to believe the same group of kids has turned into this:

Such great picture takers! We had the gathering in the summer this year so we could be outside. Actually, the first date was rained out, which I was not upset about because we would have missed it since we were in Florida. Glad we were able to make this one!

All the kids played on the playground out at Banner Lake, and then we had a potluck dinner. Here’s Luke eating with his friend Taven – they will be in preschool together in the fall.

Beka stayed home with Grandma so we could have some Mommy and Luke time. But we don’t want to forget about her!

We’re all set for a great summer!!

Trip to the Dairy

2010-07-10T15:08:00.001-05:00

In May, our playgroup took a trip to the Iwig Family Dairy in Tecumseh, KS (SE of Topeka).

Once we got to the dairy, we had all brought picnic lunches.

It had been a REALLY muddy week, so we were not able to see all the cows in the milking area, but we did get a tour of the bottling plant.

First we saw the bottle washing machine. It was very hot and humid inside!

The milk tanks were also very cool to see – lots of milk in there!

And finally the bottling machine.

The huge walk in refrigerator was apparently very scary, and Luke didn’t want to go in. So we weren’t a part of the big group picture. But outside we got to see one of the calves.

Once our tour was complete, we all got samples of the yummy chocolate milk – it was definitely the best chocolate milk I’ve ever had!

We had a lot of fun on our trip to the dairy!

Luke’s 3rd Birthday

2010-07-10T14:32:00.001-05:00

Lucky Luke had MANY birthday celebrations this year! We celebrated in Florida:

And again at Applebee’s in St. Louis on his actual birthday during our drive home from Florida (we didn’t take a picture, but he got a brownie sundae!)

And a small family party with Grandma and Grandpa:

And finally…the MONKEY PARTY!

Luke’s been into monkeys lately, so we threw him a monkey party with a few of his friends.

We had Banana Smoothies, Monkey Mix, mini bananas, fresh fruit, and Monkey Cupcakes!

Luke had a special cupcake with his birthday candles on it (monkeys of course!)

The party went really well considering everyone attending was under age 4. But they all had a good time!

We also played “Pin the tail on the monkey” – I fortunately got a picture of the window the night before, so you can actually see it:

We weren’t sure how well the kids would do, but they really liked the game and did a good job.

Happy Birthday to our big three year old!

Finally…The Florida Trip!

2010-07-10T14:02:00.001-05:00

I am SEVERELY behind on my blog posts, and I am (again!) trying to catch up. So (better late than never) here’s the highlights of our trip to St. George Island, FL, with Gramsie, G-Daddy, Auntie Meg and Uncle Kevin!

We decided to drive down to Florida, since we had so much kid-stuff to take with us, and we split the trip into several days. On the way down we stopped in Mobile, AL, and toured the USS Alabama.

Beka and Mommy stayed up on deck and walked around with the stroller (and Beka fell asleep) while Luke and Daddy went all over the inside of the ship. They saw some bombs that were bigger than Luke!

And here’s our future ship captain!

Once we got to Florida, we had a mini-family reunion with Aunt Mel, Uncle Tom, Cousins Kim & TW, and TW’s significant other, Jennifer. Mel, Tom, and Kim all live very close to where we were staying.

This was taken at the birthday lunch we had to celebrate all the April birthdays – Meg, Kevin, Luke and Mel.

We had a great time hanging out in the pool and at the beach!

There is a lighthouse on the island, and Mommy, Daddy and Luke went up to the top – Luke thought that was pretty fun to climb!

We had a lot of great family time! Here’s a few more pictures we took:

On our way home, we stopped and saw my college roommate Stacy and her family outside Atlanta. The kids all had a good time playing together. We actually got them to all sit still for a few minutes to take a picture.

L-R: Luke, Paige, Beka, Alex

Luke and Beka had a good time on the trip and were still friends at the end after all that time in the car (ignore all the piles, we were almost home!)

Thanks Gramsie and G-Daddy for a fun trip!

Silly Kiddos

2010-05-19T01:23:00.001-05:00

I have a random assortment of pictures of the kids that don’t really fit into any categories, so here they are for your viewing pleasure! Some have a story, some defy explanation!

I have no idea how this happened:

I know how this happened, I gave the kids spaghetti, and then (foolishly) turned my back on the table for about 5 minutes. I came back to see this first:

then turned my head and saw THIS:

She was very proud of the “good job” she was doing eating her spaghetti all by herself…all smiles! They were both in the bathtub about five minutes later!

Beka came up with some new fashion choices during Easter weekend – I don’t think the world is ready for the “Easter basket on head look, though.

I don’t think they’ll both fit in a box together for much longer, this was an awfully tight squeeze!

Luke decided to take a nap during his quiet time the other day – I welcome the nap, however I question his sleeping position choice!

Yes, that’s Beka underneath the hamper. She wasn’t sure what she thought about this turn of events. I was impressed that Luke managed to get up on top of the hamper in the first place – but I told him that he shouldn’t trap her under the hamper until she’s old enough to tell him that she is ok with it!

And finally, hopefully Beka will follow in her Mommy’s footsteps and love to read – she seems to be off to a good start!

Lots of Easter Fun!

2010-05-19T01:02:00.001-05:00

Easter seemed to be quite the event around here this year…at last count I think Luke had participated in at least four different Easter Egg Hunts! Needless to say, we had a major stash of candy floating around for weeks after Easter.

The first celebration was with our playgroup here in Holton. Everyone brought eggs to contribute to the hunt, and then we turned the kids loose. Beka even tried to get in on the fun, though she still wasn’t walking very well by herself at the time. Luke tried to help her out though.

Once all the eggs were found, a hush fell over the park as all the kids immediately dug into their baskets, including ours. Beka joined in too, once I made sure to “edit” what was in her basket first. You might be able to tell by looking at their hair in the picture that it was VERY windy that day!

That night after the playgroup hunt, we had an Easter Arts & Crafts night at Parks & Rec. Luke made lots of fun little bunny and chick projects, and Beka got to paint for the first time (helped by Addie and her daughter Lexie).

The next day we headed down to Peck to spend the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Uncle Micah, Aunt Wendy and Cousin Ida were all there too! It was very fun to see Beka and Ida start to interact more and more. We think they both got to be better walkers just by spending time together that weekend.

Luke got to “drive” a tractor with (Great) Grandpa Bob too – he was very excited about that!

And after our Easter dinner…another egg hunt!

All in all it was a very fun weekend – the kids always have a great time when we visit family!

Luke’s Three Year Old Photo Shoot

2010-05-19T00:34:00.001-05:00

I am WAY behind on blog posts, so I’m going to spend the next few days catching up. I’ll start with some pictures of Luke that Amy Cyphers of Cyphers Photography took about a month ago. While we’ve had some issues with him not being too willing to get his picture taken when we’re in a studio, he LOVED being outside, and she got some awesome pictures. Thanks so much Amy!!

And one of Beka, too!!

Family Fun Walk!

2010-03-31T15:14:00.001-05:00

Last weekend the kids and I did a family fun walk in town that was a fundraiser for the Linscott Park Playground project. We’re very excited about the playground that hopefully will be built in June. Visit the website to learn more about it!

There was also a 5K run that day, but we didn’t participate in that. I’m on week two of the Couch to 5K program – so I didn’t think I was quite ready for the run! Pushing 60+ pounds of kids in the double stroller during the walk was enough for me!

Fairy Tale Village and Kaleidoscope

2010-03-20T22:13:00.001-05:00

On March 18th, we went to Kansas City with Kristy, Kylie, Carter and Cade for a day field trip. We left Beka and Cade with Gramsie and G-Daddy and headed to Crown Center. They were having a “Fairy Tale Village” exhibit that we wanted to check out with the older boys. It was very cool – they had re-created the houses of many fairy tale characters, and the kids could go in and out of all the stories!

Here’s Luke sitting on Baby Bear’s chair in the Three Bear’s house.

Luke and Carter posed for a picture inside the house from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

They had an enchanted forest as well – here’s Kylie, Luke and Carter getting a quick pic!

After Fairy Tale Village, we hustled over to Kaleidoscope, where a Family Art Session was just about to begin! The kids had a great time working on all the different art projects. Luke got to use watercolors for the first time – though I think he was more excited about the drying machine that you sent your completed project through!

Here he is working on his crown.

After Kaleidoscope, we at lunch at Fritz’s inside Crown Center.

The kids really liked the big train set up outside the restaurant.

The restaurant had an awesome meal delivery system – you place your order over the phone, and then a train brings your meal. I somehow managed to not get a picture of the trains, but if you go to Fritz’s website there’s a video.

The kids all got engineer hats to wear – Luke kept his on during the whole meal! Our booth had a window next to it and a train periodically went by! It was a very fun day!

The Wizard of OZ

2010-03-20T21:55:00.001-05:00

Luke and Beka’s playgroup took a trip to the OZ museum in Wamego on March 16th. To prepare, we had everyone over to our house for a potluck dinner and a movie viewing the week before. We had lots of fun, though the kids started to gradually make their way to the playroom instead of watch the movie. But they all started out watching!

Then on the 16th we headed to Wamego to the museum. Unfortunately a stomach bug has been going around town, and so not everyone was able to join us. But those that made it had a good time!

Here’s the kids that did make it – posing in front of a giant Tinman, signed by the great-grandson of L. Frank Baum (who wrote The Wizard of OZ).

The museum had life size reproductions of all the main OZ characters – here’s Luke and Beka in front of Dorothy!

My other favorite picture of Luke was the one we took in front of the Scarecrow.

They also had a very neat quilt displayed at the museum depicting many of the scenes from the movie.

After the museum, we all had lunch at “Toto’s Tacoz” next door.

We needed to do some shopping, so we headed home through Topeka. No visit to Topeka is complete without riding the merry go round at the mall - even Beka participated this time!

Happy 1st Birthday, Beka!

2010-03-06T23:00:00.001-06:00

We actually had several birthday celebrations for Beka – one with Auntie Meg, who was able to come visit from New Hampshire over Valentine’s Day weekend, and then another with family and friends a few days before her real birthday. (Her real birthday – February 24th – was spent in the car driving to Colorado for a family vacation!)

The kids were very excited to spend time with Auntie Meg – it’s always fun when she’s able to come back to Kansas for a visit!

Then we had a Cupcake Party on February 20th for the birthday girl – and Mommy made plenty of cupcakes for her!

Beka really seemed to enjoy her first ever cupcake as well. Thanks Britney for the great picture!

And last but not least, an attempted family photo before she “blew” out the candle!

Fairytale Fun

2010-02-15T22:22:00.001-06:00

Over the last three weeks, Luke has been in a Parks & Rec class called “Fairytale Fun.” I’ve saved up all the pictures for one big post.

Week one they read stories, then acted them out. Addie first read them the book “Silly Sally.”

Then each of the kids got to play one of the characters, and they acted out the story, focusing on the order of characters. Luke played a pig.

This got kind of crazy – the kids were mostly all right around three years old, and so something would set them off and they would all go running around the room!

Next they each got little action figures and acted out Humpty Dumpty. Luke was one of the “king’s men.”

Then they paired up and acted out other nursery rhymes. Here’s Luke acting out Jack and Jill with Averi…with Asher showing him how he should be tumbling down. Luke came down with some apparent stage fright and didn’t want to act this one out!

Then Asher, Taven and Luke acted out “Hey Diddle Diddle” – Luke was the dish and the spoon. This one worked out better and he did go running off!

They also acted out the Three Little Pigs, but apparently I didn’t get any good pictures. Luke was a wolf!

Week two they put on puppet shows for each other. They each got to pick out an animal puppet for the first show: Old MacDonald. Luke chose a pig.

The class was a little bit bigger this week, so it was a lot of fun to watch them all act with their puppets.

He did a great job “oinking” with Old MacDonald (the bear) when he was supposed to.

After that they could choose other puppets and put on their own “shows” for each other. Luke was more fascinated by the hole on top of the puppet stage and so his duck kept peeking out the top!

Tonight was week three – our final class. They worked on recognizing the order of stories. Addie handed out cards that represented different parts of the stories, and then they came up when their part came up in the story and stuck their card to the wall. First up was Little Red Riding Hood.

They did the same thing with Cinderella. Luke was excited every time it got to his part of the story and he could put his card on the wall!

Finally they did a shadow puppet show of the Tortoise and the Hare. Addie acted out the show first while all the kids watched.

Then the kids got to come up and act out the story in pairs. Here’s Luke playing the Hare.

After the stories were over, the kids all got to come up one at a time and do shadow puppets of their own. Addie showed them how to do some simple ones first. Luke decided that his shadows were going to be a circle and a diamond when he went up there!

He had a great time at all the classes, and we even brought home supplies so we could make our own story books!

Potty Success!

2010-02-02T22:11:00.001-06:00

I’m behind on my blog posts, I have several Parks & Rec classes to write about, but I wanted to get a quick post up about Luke’s potty success! We’ve been actively potty training since Christmas, and finally today, Luke filled up his Potty Chart!

He’s very proud and excited, because he got the special treat that’s been waiting on top of the fridge for the day that he finished the chart:

We’ve had the Leap Frog “airplane” for a while, but have been saving it for a special time – and this was it! We’re not 100% trained yet, but he’s doing really well, with almost no daytime accidents and only wearing a pull-up at naptime and bedtime.

On a different note, for those of you who haven’t seen this already in your email or on Facebook, Beka’s picture was selected for a weekly contest on Parents.com. Anyone can vote, and you can vote once a day. So if you’d like – please vote for Beka! Here’s the link!

I’ll keep you posted on how she did! (I don’t think you actually get anything for winning except the satisfaction that you won!)

Christmas Celebrations

2010-01-08T17:12:00.001-06:00

This was the first year that we decided to start our “Christmas Morning at Home” tradition, so on Christmas Eve, we set about making our cookies to set out for Santa. Luke was a really big help rolling out the dough.

He also did a great job helping decorate the cookies.

Here’s our finished product – lots of yummy sugar cookies!

Christmas morning, we had probably our last year of actually changing clothes and eating breakfast together BEFORE we opened gifts. Santa had brought presents to put under our downstairs tree next to the fireplace, so Luke didn’t see that he had come till we went downstairs after breakfast. The first thing he saw when he went down the stairs was that Santa had eaten the cookies and drank the milk that we left, and had also left him a note, along with a stuffed Rudolph and Clarice for him and Beka.

We had a nice morning opening gifts together by the fireplace, which kept us nice and toasty. Everyone was really happy with their gifts!

After presents, we had to decide whether we would be able to make the drive to Grandma and Grandpa’s down in Peck. When we woke up, this is what the weather looked like outside:

So we weren’t sure whether we’d be able to make it on Christmas Day or not. But after lunch it cleared up some and the highways were reported to be ok, so we set out. It took a little longer than usual, but was an uneventful trip. We made it just in time for Christmas dinner! Luke and Beka were having a great time in the car too, even though they were supposed to be napping.

After a yummy Christmas dinner, it was time for present opening #2. There was no shortage of gifts. Luke and cousin CR played “Santas” and helped hand out the gifts.

We all had a lot of fun!

Three generations, all opening gifts together.

One of the highlights was the new Thomas tent, from (Great) Uncle Rick & Aunt Betsy. Both the kids are going to get a lot of use out of this one!

Sunday we celebrated Grandma Ruth & Grandpa Bob’s 59th wedding anniversary. Lots of family members came to dinner.

We got a lot of pictures of Beka and her cousin Ida together. I particularly liked these!

Someday we’ll get a picture of all three of them smiling at the same time!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas Celebration Number One!

2009-12-22T21:26:00.001-06:00

Sunday Gramsie and G-Daddy came to celebrate an early Christmas with us since they are headed to see Auntie Meg and Uncle Kevin in New Hampshire for Christmas. We first had lunch at Holton House, a bed and breakfast here in town. They serve a delicious family-style fried chicken dinner. Very yummy! Even though Beka wasn’t participating in the fried chicken, she was very happy to be there! She even made friends with a little boy and girl who were there who kept playing peek-a-boo with her!

When we got home the kids took naps, and then we opened some presents! Here’s Beka opening her first ever Christmas present.

Once she figured it out, she found it was a doll from Auntie Meg and Uncle Kevin! She was very excited, and she has been giving it hugs and kisses this week!

Here they are (Beka still holding her new doll) opening another gift for both of them from Meg and Kevin. Luke was pretty excited when he saw that it was a blow up lion with a weighted base that they could push over. Big hit!

The last gift from Meg and Kevin was a great “toolbench in a box” – Luke was very excited, and has been hammering and using his screwdriver all week!

Here’s Beka with her new teapot from Gramsie and G-Daddy – both the kids have been pouring tea for each other since Sunday!

Luke also got a road map rug and some firetrucks to go with it. He LOVES maps and so this was a big hit. Beka thinks it’s pretty fun too, but we have to keep the small cars away from her!

After we were done opening gifts, Vance, Britney and I headed for Salina, where we saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones’ Christmas Concert with Anne, Greg, Kurt, Linda and Melvin. It was an awesome show!

Christmas Cookies!

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Last Saturday we decorated Christmas Cookies at Parks & Rec. Luke definitely had a good time, and didn’t do half bad of a job!

Starting the first cookie.

About halfway through (I did the candy cane!) He discovered with the circle cookie what happens when you dip your knife in the red, yellow, blue and brown frosting all at the same time!

Adding the sprinkles.

And the finished products!

While we were out we went to the post office, where we had some boxes to mail. Luke was telling everyone that we were sending a box to “Norway – Far Away!” Someone asked him how old he was and if he was four, and he replied, “No…I’m two – almost three!” He also was trying to open the door for anyone coming in with lots of packages. Such the little gentleman!

When we got home he treated us to a “dance party” with his jingle bells. In this picture he’s actually completely off the ground!