Kieran-2 1/2 Years Old

Kieran-you are 2 1/2  You are wearing 2T clothes, size 5 diapers.  You've sat on the potty a handful of times, but don't understand what it is used for quite yet.  You weight approximately  26 lbs. and I'm not sure how tall you are, but you've grown. Ha!  You don't sit still long enough for me to measure you:) Your hair appears just a tiny bit darker with each passing month.  You are still attached to your paci and if it wasn't for your move we would have weaned you off.  It's such a comfort object Mom and Dad don't know what to do.  You are mostly easy going, but you definitely have your "age 2" moments.

 You sleep from approximately 8 pm-7am in the morning.  Recently you started struggling at bedtime just a bit.  One night you told us you were scared and pointed to your shadow.  We leave your bedroom door open about halfway until you fall asleep and then you go to bed.  Occasionally you will come and out and we just tell you to go back to bed and most of the time you do.  You still nap very well and will sleep on average 2 hours.  You really need your naps!  With how active you are and they say not hearing the best wears kids out because your little brain is working harder to make sense of what you are hearing. You are just getting two of your two year old molars and will bite your hands and cry.  OUch! You hate brushing your teeth.  Svea got an electric tooth brush and you seemed interested in it so we got you one too.  You like to chew on it and have it on, but you don't totally love it.  You like to play with your cars and "guys" such as Jake and Izzy from the pirate show you and your sister love. It's fun to watch you start to make them talk to each other, do actions, etc. You also are in love with all things dinosaurs! You also just love whatever your sister loves and look up to her and want to do what she is doing.

 You hate to eat.  The other night we went to the neighbors and you and your sister did not eat one bite.  I partially blame myself as I'm not a good cook (don't cook often/I'm trying) and so after refusing to eat we cave and give you peanut butter and honey sandwiches and bananas.  If it weren't for those things you'd be skin and bones:) You love taking your vitamin though! You are talking in mostly complete sentences although strangers and sometimes we can't make out what you are saying.  Since getting your aides turned up a bit last month we are understanding you much better and about 90% of what you are saying.  You speak 2-7 word sentences!   You pick up on everything and are learning new things everyday.  Your biggest struggle is sharing, but you are great with your thank yous! You are very polite, even when you are upset about something.  "NO ThaNK YOU" you will yell. You sometimes hit your sister for no reason just to see what'll happen and if you get REALLY frustrated and upset with her you still sometimes bite her. Half the time you will do something not nice to her and then immediately go to her all by yourself and apologize/give her a hug. Overall you are so sweet and kind and still love to give everyone hugs before saying goodbye.

 You have started to sing more.  We catch you singing Jesus Loves Me, ABC, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, The Wheels on the Bus, The Muffin Man, and a few others. Some of your favorite phrases are "hold my hand" when you want to show us something.  "I want a peanut butter sandwich" and you'll hang onto the fridge to get the bread out. Your personality is changing a bit.   You don't take long to warm-up still, but it was weird for us to leave you both with a sitter the other night.  You completely flipped roles with your sister and she comforted you when mom and dad left when you cried and sat at the door.  Break my heart:)

 You still love to pour through books and look at the pictures or read out loud and be read to. We had your 2nd cousins over tonight and you were all running around playing.  A book caught your eye and there you stopped to go through your book.  You were so focused and the playing kept going on around you.  You love your books!You love to do puzzles, draw on the chalkboard, line up and play with your cars, carry dinosaurs and other figurines around, play with your tractors/farm, or just play whatever your sister is doing.  You are still very active and love to run, climb, and wrestle. You got to bed with your pacis and a water.  You don't care about your blankets, stuffed animals, or little puppy blanket. In fact I'm not sure why we even keep it in your bed.  It's never been your go to anyway. You have no interest in what you wear, although just tonight for the first time you wouldn't take your shirt off because it had "Batman" on it.  We had to bribe you with spiderman jammies.  Your Dad couldn't be more proud:)   Here you are wearing your sisters underwear!

You are a huge snuggler and we love it!  You like to snuggle in the morning, before bed, in the middle of the day when you just feel like it.  Sometimes you'll take our hands and show us how you want us to rub your back or you'll push mommy's head back on the chair a certain way so your head fits on my shoulder just right.  At night before bed we rock you and it's like heaven! We love you so much Kieran!  You just light up our days and are so much fun.  We are so blessed...we love you! 

Fun Memories

I don't have any pictures for this post, but I just wanted to document a few things so I won't forget. 

-Kieran and Svea have been so into playing The Three Little Pigs.  They want to hide in a room and have one of them or one of us be outside of the door and call out...Little Pig, Little Pig, let me in!  Then they answer and go on to different scenarios of what happens to the wolf.  Sometimes they line up their big bricks in the family room and blow those down too.  It's so sweet and cute.  Last night Kieran played the wolf and he was so clear as the wolf.  Super fun!

-Svea is just so sweet and empathetic. I was talking to her tonight about being humble and about how it's unkind to tell someone you are better than them, God gives us all different gifts and we should celebrate theirs and the uniqueness of ours too, etc..  She told me that if someone said that to her she'd tell them it makes God sad when you say you are better than someone else and that God gives us all special things.

-Kieran has been occasionally telling us when he is going pee in his diaper.  It's too late to get to the potty, but he is at least becoming more aware.  He told me one day he was peeing (in his own words) and I asked him if he wanted to sit on the potty.  He said yes.  We ran up to the potty and he got his pants and diaper off, pretended to go, got up and got some toilet paper, wiped, and threw the paper on the floor!  I told him it went in the potty so he picked it up off of the floor and threw it in the garbage:)  After that he wouldn't put a new diaper on so I told him he had to put on a diaper or big boy underwear.  He chose underwear and was so proud and excited.  He looked so cute too with that little butt in underwear for the first time.  After I picked him up at the nursery last Sunday he stood by the bathroom door and told me to "change my diaper".  He had pooped and he wanted it out of there.

First Snow...Kind Of

This was on Christmas Eve day.  We received basically our first snow.  We had a dusting about a month earlier, but this was a dusting and a half:) Ha!

Svea wanted to go outside and make snow angels...so we did of course!

Gag took pictures from inside!

They were all smiles for the 20 minutes we braved the cold.  It actually was quite nice out!

They would pile what little snow they could find on the bottom of the slide and then slide down into it.  Kieran was so cute with his little mitten hands trying to pick up snow and put it down.  He needed help up the slide with all of his bulky clothes on.

Sister wanted to catch him:) It was a fun Christmas morning!

Christmas in Wisconsin

One of the other positive things about moving to Moorhead is since we are closer to my family and it's easier to see them on Christmas now we can always go out to Wisconsin every year! We packed up the car on the 26th and buckled in for the 8 hour drive.  This is not for the faint of heart with two small children:) Ha! 

I just thought this was a cute pic of Kieran in the tub...it has nothing to do with Christmas:)

We celebrated with Dan's whole family on the 28th...our anniversary of 7 years!  We always pick one person to give a gift to and one person has us.  The Otto's had Svea and got her the Jolly Roger ship that Captain Hook has.  She loves playing with it!

Lukas is into Capt'n Hook too so it was fun to hear Svea, him, and Kieran all running around singing or talking about Jake and the Neverland Pirates. 

A great family picture this year!  I'm sorry though Kathy, I should have been bending down a bit further!

Kieran getting some one on one time with Hannah!

Elizabeth!

Another attempt at the three sibling picture that was blurry last year:)

Grandma D had all kinds of Christmas crafts that the kids enjoyed putting together!

Uncle Stuart with the two little boys reading stories!

All seven grandchildren.  Kieran's not having it as you can see:)

Sweet girls:)

Silly kids:)

Svea had the best time with her cousins.  It was so fun to see them running around and playing.  She just had the best time. She sure looks up to Ashlyn!

Merry Christmas 2014

We had a great Christmas at our new church, in our new town, and at our new house!

 

All dressed up and ready for church.

I love this picture..wish it wasn't as blurry, but it's just so sweet!

Svea's eyes looked like she'd had a few in this pic so I had to crop it to just this crazy smiling face.  love it!  It's Christmas everybody! Smile!

Christmas Eve Dan had to go into work around 10:00.  It was me, the kids, and Gaga. Grandpa Ron was in Jamestown because his daughter, Dannielle and her husband Eric were there with his side of the family.  We hung around the house all day and played.  Kieran took an early nap and then we got ready to go to church.

Kieran was super smiley I guess:0

I LOVE their outfits this year!  Kieran is rockin the bow tie like his Dad. We'll have to do a photo with the two of them sometime in their bow ties!

Another one with Gaga!

Kieran played in the nursery during the service and my Uncle John, Aunt Shawn, cousin Eric and his wife Erin, and my other cousin Laura joined us for the service.  It was amazing!  I got goosebumps at least three times:)  Svea fell asleep in my lap.  She missed her favorite Christmas song (Hark the Herald Angels Sing). It was heavenly fun though.  She was gearing up for this!

Presents! Kieran really got into it this year more so than Svea did at his age.  He was all about the presents and I eventually had to remove all gifts from under the tree that were to Daddy or Grandpa Ron or anyone else so that he wouldn't rip into them.

Penguin dress from Gaga!

Svea got a Strawberry Shortcake kitchen so she had to bring down all kinds of food.  Kieran got a dinosaur puzzle that he LOVES.  We've put it together now at least 10 times.

Love that face!  It was such a precious year to go through with the kids.  They are at that magical age where it is just so exciting to watch them go through everything.  Dan got a taste of it too on Christmas morning.

Good Morning Kieran!

Christmas Day!  I guess it was an orange kind of day!

Just taking some pictures together before my family arrived for dinner.  We had desert and appetizers and wine and my family brought in catered food.  Why?  Because it was last minute notice and no one wants to eat what I cook anyway!  Ha!  We were all supposed to head up to my Grandparents for the day and bring food, but my Grandpa was in the hospital in Mayville and Grandma was at the nursing home.  After we ate Dan stayed home with a napping Kieran and I took Svea up to visit both of them along with my family.

This girl loves the goofy pictures and requests them all of the time:) Love her!  At one point during opening presents...I can't remember if it was Christmas Eve or Day Svea said...."Ok, now we are done opening present. Now we need to focus on what Christmas is all about, right?"  Um, yep...(insert deeply humbled and proud suppressed tears).  We are so proud of her.  For the last two years we have been talking and talking about what Christmas is really all about and this year...she gets it!  We are so proud of her.  Bless her heart.  We are so thankful for another wonderful Christmas together celebrating Jesus's birth! 

Svea's First Christmas Program

Svea's first Christmas program was on December 14th at our church.  Up until two days before we seriously didn't even think she'd get up with the group to sing. Gaga came to watch and Kieran got a quick story before it started!

But, sing she did...and with a ton of enthusiasm as well.

Janice is their singing leader and Svea thinks Janice walks on water.  She would do just about anything for Janice!  We are thankful Janice asked her to sing:)

At practice she got up on the risers and I thought she would just stand there and not sing, but she did.  You can see in the picture above how "into" it she is.

It was an adorable little program.  They could all get up there and just stare at us.  I wouldn't care, they are all so cute:)

Christmas Card Bloopers

Now that are Christmas pictures out and sent to everyone it's time for the bloopers.  Taking pictures the past three or four years has been quite the ordeal.  We always hope for the best, but prepare to get an average picture:)  Is this not the cutest little Kieran face ever?

Kieran had stuck a white ping pong ball type of toy in my scarf in some of these.

Someone got wiggly and woops on the glare.

Let me go Mom!

Not sure, but  I don't think her mouth could be open any wider here:)

This one was close, but not quite.

This last one might have worked, but Kieran's blank expression didn't make the cut.

And here is our 2014 Christmas picture. I love our little family and I love taking these family pictures every so often to document how much the kids grow and change!