Good Things to Come

I've been looking forward to next year for most of this month.  This year, while it has also been good, has been challenging.  I sent out Christmas cards for the first time this year and debated on a letter, but really didn't think that I could sum things up well or really express what this year has been for us.  Mostly, it's been a year of adjustment. Of course there was the adjustment to two kids, but there was also the adjustment to Cystic Fibrosis.  It's an adjustment I hope none of you ever have to experience.  There were many tears, as well as lots of laughter, smiles, and wonderful milestones.  I've learned a lot about myself, my family, and many of those "worldly things" that I never thought I'd have to deal with.  It's been a full year.  In reality, it feels as if it's been a lot more than a year.  It has been a lot.

With the coming of the New Year, I've been looking forward to a lot of good things to come.  Sadly, at the top of that list is a change in health insurance company and FSA management.  I know, silly things.  But I'm hoping it'll make my life a little easier.  Crossing my fingers.

There are also some big milestones coming for us.  In just a couple of days Kai will officially be entering Primary in our church as a member of the CTR 3 class (formerly the Sunbeams).  I think I might just cry.  I can't believe he's gotten so big.  I also expect that in the next couple of months he will be fully potty-trained.  In just a few short months, he will turn 4 years old and by then he will probably also be reading.  We also plan on enrolling him in preschool this fall.  I can't believe enrollment is coming up in the next two months!  So many exciting things for him this year.

For Finn, we look forward to purchasing a large and rather expensive piece of medical equipment.  I'm looking forward to getting that expense done and over with and behind us.  And it'll make his daily treatments so much easier.  I'm also looking forward to hearing him learn more words and to hear what he really has to say.  He's such a wonderful little guy!  We truly love him!  I also expect that he will be all kinds of trouble this summer at the playground.  And I look forward to our one-on-one time together at the end of the year when Kai is in preschool.  Maybe he'll start coloring and playing with play dough this year.  And so many other things.

As a family, I'm looking forward to going back east for my sisters' wedding in the spring.  Kai is going to be the ring bearer!  And we're hoping to make it a fun family beach vacation.  It would make it our first one.  Hopefully we'll also find time to see more family and have more little family vacations together.  Maybe a trip back to Glenwood Springs?  Maybe something else?  Maybe more?  There are so many possibilities.

It really will be a good year!  I can't believe it'll be here tomorrow.  2010 has been great, but we can do better and I can't wait to try in 2011.  Happy New Year everyone!  We appreciate you and all that you do for our family!

No!

On Sunday Finn started throwing a fit during the opening prayer in Relief Society.  So, I quickly took him out into the hall and calmed him down.  Once we were ready to go back in, we slid into the room and I took a seat. No sooner had I sat down then Finn looked at me and shook his little head saying "No" and then began to throw a fit again.  We spent the meeting in the hall!  He loves his new found skill.  Any question you ask him is greeted with a shake of his head.  It's super-cute!

Christmas 2010

Christmas morning Kai slept until nearly 8am.  It would have been a perfect Christmas present for me, if only Finn hadn't insisted on getting up at 5:45am!!!  Ugghh!  By the time Kai woke up, Finn was about ready for a nap.  So, the boys looked through their stocking and then I set Finn up for breakfast while I made cinnamon rolls.  Once we were done with that, the boys opened their Santa presents and then Finn was off for a nap.

Kai's stocking and Santa gifts.  He got rockets and dinosaurs (as requested) as well as Hot Wheels, new socks, and stuffed Buzz Lightyear, and a snowman Pez dispenser.  Santa left the light ball on the plate where the boys left cookies, for both boys, and they have loved it!  Oh, and Santa used towels to lay out the presents so each boy knew which pile was his.

The favorite light ball!

Santa left the boys Rudolph noses.  Kai has really enjoyed his!

While Finn napped, Kai ate breakfast (cinnamon rolls and cantaloupe, which Kai has declared a Christmas fruit) and played with his toys.  Once Finn woke up, we started opening the rest of the presents.  We managed to get about half-way through before stopping for lunch.  And then we went back to opening presents.  We were finally done with the presents and able to go downstairs to see the final (and only unwrapped gift)  by 1:30pm.  Yep--5 hours of opening presents!  Christmas was very good to the boys!  Since Reid had the video camera running most of the time, we actually got very few pictures on Christmas day.  Since Christmas, I've taken a few pictures to show off their new toys.  Here are the highlights.

The kitchen that we got the boys

Finn has really taken to the kitchen.  He cooks food and will pretend to eat it, or feed it to us.

The rocking Tigger that Grammy and Papa got Finn.  At first he wasn't sure about it, but now he'll pet it and dance to the music.  He still doesn't want to rock on it though.

Our climber!  This is what Finn thinks the oven is for.  (Don't worry.  I stop this the instant I see it!)  He already has tried to climb up onto the counter several times.

A shopping cart and a load of food that we bought for them and the kitchen.

Finn cooking a waffle.

Finn's ride-on that Santa brought.  He LOVES it!  (And so does Kai.)

A dinosaur box/play mat that we got for all of Kai's dinosaurs.  (He's been earning them by potty training.)

Tank the Triceratops from Dinosaur Train.  Santa brought this and two others for Kai.

And this is what Kai was doing while Finn and I were taking pictures.  Playing the Kinect for our XBox.  Kai has become quite good at playing Kinectimals by himself.

Driving a RC car on Kinectimals.

 We had a good Christmas.  It was nice to spend Christmas Eve talking about the Savior and then enjoying our family on Christmas day.  I love my family.  I love this season.  I love our time together.  I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and that the New Year is full of wonderful things to come!

He can write his name!

**From December 22nd**

Kai can write his name!!  He is doing such a good job with his letters, spelling, and reading.  He can easily spell words such as box, fox, wall, ball, and frog.  I'm sure there are more, I'm just not thinking of them off-hand.  He loves practicing his letters and learning to spell new words.  He's too smart!  Here are some of his recent "pictures".

This is a picture he sent to my Grandmother.  It's an airplane with people and then the letters are his words to her.  Each letter is the start of a new word.  I = I, J was for just, etc.

His name!

This is his name followed by a self-portrait.  On the top is his hair and he's pointing to the underwear that he drew on himself.  :)

Denver Aquarium

**originally written on December 3rd**

While Rob was here we took a family trip to the Denver Aquarium.  We had been early last year with Kai and had a good time but I'll admit that I wasn't convinced that it was worth the trip.  This time I changed my mind.  Kai LOVED the aquarium.  He had a great time and has talked about it several times since.  Even Finn did better than I expected, especially since he had to skip his afternoon nap for the trip.  It was so fun to see Kai enjoy it so much and we got to see the tigers so close.  That is definitely the closest I have ever been to a tiger.

We started our day out with a trip to Chicago for an Italian beef for Reid and lunch for the rest of us.  I got a meatball sandwich, Kai got a corn dog, and Rob got a Reuben.  We all enjoyed our food very much and the atmosphere was fantastic.  (Reid has pictures on his cell phone and I had been waiting for them, but it's been a while so I'm going ahead without them!)

From there it was on the aquarium.  Here are just a few of the highlights, including the tigers, of our trip.  I know I've already said it, but we really did have a good time!

This fish is almost as big as Finn!

Even Finn knew that there was something special going on here.  He couldn't take his eyes off of the tiger.

Divers pay to go diving in the tanks here.  These divers had stopped to play with the crowd.  These two played with Kai for quite some time.  The one making the monkey arms was particularly funny.  We enjoyed them!

And bunny ears!

Touching a stingray.

Christmas Eve

Last year we were invited a friend's home for Christmas Eve dinner and a small program.  Those same friends invited us again this year, and we were thrilled to go.  The whole day Kai spent getting more and more excited about the party to come.  Before we went we were able to make gingerbread cookies.  Kai had a good time doing that.

Finn watched while eating a banana....yum!

Then we let the kids open one present--pajamas--before we headed off to a fabulous dinner with great friends and a wonderful program about the Savior.

We got home a bit later than we would have liked, so it was straight to bed (in new jammies, of course!) for Finn while Kai set out cookies and milk.  Then he was tucked in and off to sleep.  Good thing, too, because Santa showed up not too long later!

Anticipation

Kai was so excited for Christmas to come this year.  He even wrote a little song about it.

I love him so much!

Here's our Christmas tree in the days leading up to Christmas.  It was so full with presents!  Notice the poor stockings, though.  We couldn't let them hang down because Finn would climb up and pull on them.  I was worried our pretty metal stocking holders would seriously injure him.  So, no hanging stockings!!

Christmas post coming soon!

Notice something funny?

This is Kai.  He wanted to listen to some Christmas music on the computer.  Notice anything funny about this picture??

Christmas Lights

For Family Home Evening on Monday the 13th, we decided to go out and look at some Christmas lights.  Since the houses that we had heard about were down by Reid's work, we started by picking Reid up at work.  From there we drove to these houses.  Aren't they beautiful?  There are over 50,000 lights on these two houses and it took them over 100 hours to put them up.

From these houses we went to get dinner at Panera.  The kids enjoyed it a lot, but especially Finn.  He loved saying "bah bah" to the people walking by us and waving his little hand.  He was sure animated and a lot of fun!

Finally, we stopped at a house that had lights choreographed to music.  It was a 20 minute show that went through 3 different songs.  There were over 17,000 lights on the one house.  It was a great show, but admittedly I was disappointed in their music choices.  Kai sure enjoyed it though and didn't want to leave.

Ok, so I tried to post a video here.

It didn't work, so you'll just have to trust me that

the light show was pretty amazing!

It was a good night.  Maybe if we're feeling adventurous again we'll try to go and see even more houses.  There are a couple of others that have some great displays that I've heard about, so we'll see.

Another one of Finn's games

Finn LOVES putting things on his head.  And he LOVES this game!  I love his squeals, smiles, and clapping.  He's my precocious sweetheart!

Odds and Ends

I don't know why I've fallen a bit off of the blogging bandwagon lately.  But I have.  There are few little things I wanted to share, though.

Remember how I said Kai has picked up on phrases?  Well, one of my favorites that makes me laugh is "easy as a peach."  For example, "Mom I fixed it easy as a peach!"  So cute!  He hears things that I say, but doesn't hear them correctly and I think this is one of those results.  It makes me laugh when he tells me what he thinks he heard.  I guess I better start talking more slowly!

Kai in his "hospital bed".  Yep, it's a strange game.

Kai has taken to pushing Finn around in the walker wagon.  Finn loves it so much that he'll just crawl into the wagon and hang out for minutes on end waiting for someone to push him.  And this morning when we walked past the wagon he started throwing a huge fit.  It turned out that when he saw the wagon, he wanted in there and nothing else.  So, we had to go back.

Kai is also making great strides in his reading.  The other night at dinner he told me that "o-w" makes the "ow" sound.  I praised him and asked if he could then spell cow.  He slowly repeated "C-C-C-Cow" and then said "C (a few second pause)-O-W!"  Perfect!  And tonight he received a present from his grandma that had a sticker with the words "CANDY INSIDE" on it.  Well, I wanted to remove the candy before they knew it was there.  While I was working on getting everything open and the candy out, Kai saw the sticker.  He said "It says Kai!"  I told him it didn't and so then he asked what it said.  While I was trying to come up with a good answer he told me that the letter C made a "k" sound and then the letter A said "ah" and so it had to say Kai.  Good thing he didn't see all of the letters or I might have been in real trouble!!

Finn's favorite game

As you can see, this game can go on and on.  I just love his little wave.  That's new sometime in the last two weeks.  So cute!!

Bananas

There are exactly two things that Finn can have without needing me to give him pancreatic enzymes:  fruit and 100% fruit juice.  This week he's discovered the joy of bananas.  His little eyes just light up when I get out a banana.  It's been fun to watch him shove as much as he can in his mouth.  Such happy times!

Learning to Write

Kai has really taken an interest in learning his letters and the sounds they make.  I truly think he's getting so close to reading.  He will most likely be reading before he starts preschool in the fall.  Poor kid is going to be bored in school, I'm afraid.  Anyway, last night while I was getting dinner ready, Reid and Kai sat down to practice writing his letters. Kai did a fantastic job!  I'm super proud of him!!