Christmas in Utah!

This year Bryan and i were lucky enough to be able to fly back to Utah for Christmas and take a 3 week vacation! Wow, 3 weeks seemed like a long time but we still didn't get to see and do everything we wanted. We had so much fun! It was so hard to come back.

Here is Kaitlyn reading the airplane security pamphlet. :). The kids were good on the plane as always but man are we exhausted when we finally reach our destination. How do you keep the 2 busiest kids on earth entertained for a full day of traveling.

This little girl can fall asleep anywhere. :) We really wore her out this trip!

Kaitlyn and Ashley were such good helpers to Grandma Hendriks. They helped decorate the Christmas tree (and un-decorate it) and helped grandma make dough in the kitchen. Don't you love Kaitlyn's fake, little, cheesy smile she always does for pictures:)

Christmas Eve and morning was spent at my parents house. The girls had a blast opening all of there presents and helping everyone else open theirs too.

After visiting Bryans family for their little get together of opening presents and lunch, we went to my brothers house for Christmas dinner. (Tara, Rachel, Lisa, Larissa and Carter lounging around)

We finally were able to get all of the Grandkids together for a picture. We found it is impossible to get them all to sit still and face forward let alone smile. Doesn't Kaitlyn look enthused!

Kaitlyns very first time bowling! She had a lot of fun until about half way through when she lost interest.

Date night with the family was a blast! We went to dinner then bowled for a couple hours! I have to say i finally beat Bryan in a game!!!

Oohhhh look at the happy couple! My little sister Tara got engaged a few days after Christmas. She is the last to fly the coop. We are so excited for her and Matt!

New years eve with my sisters! We spent the evening playing games and drinking martinelli's!

I wish i would've taken more pictures, but this always seems to happen. I'm sure this summer when i go back for Tara's wedding i will be plenty camera happy. I can't wait, i already miss everyone. Rachel and i became addicted to Super Mario Bros. for Wii. I miss playing with you Rach. I think I'm going through withdrawals..he he. Thanks everyone for such a wonderful Christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I have been such a slacker this month. Although November has been pretty uneventful, I didn't even take pictures of the few things that were considered "blog worthy".

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year, thanks to our good friends, Chad and Kate. Kates parents live here in Ohio and they were so gracious to invite us over and let us be part of their family. yummmm, what a wonderful meal. I attempted to make candied yams for my first time and they turned out deliciously!

Our little Ashley has a new favorite hobby, and that is climbing on anything she possibly can. Her favorite is our kitchen table and chairs. She has taken a couple little falls that you would think would maybe dissuade her from climbing back up again, but nothing stops her. We have now resorted to tying the chairs to the table with bungee cords so she can't climb up. A few weeks ago we had a chair that was not tied to the table, so of course in the 10 seconds we weren't watching her, she climbed up and took a little fall. She got a little cut on her eyebrow that we thought could possibly leave a scar. Of course these things always happen at night and on the weekends when your doctor is not available, so i took her to The Children's Hospital where i got to spend a few hours of my night. She was such a brave girl!I think it was harder on me watching her get her 4 stitches then it was on her.

Hopefully my next post will be full of pictures of our trip to Utah! We leave on the 15th and will be there for 3 weeks! We are excited to have Christmas with our family this year (last year was a little lonely hear all by ourselves) and we can't wait to see everyone!

October!

A couple of weeks ago, i was given the experience of becoming Bryans very first patient! I don't know how i ever got so lucky. Jk hun :) This checkup was a 4 hour event. (not Bryans fault of course) He had to do a lot of poking and prodding and checking around for who knows what. Does this picture look posed or what. He didn't really work on me sitting up :) I considerd this good quality time spent together..he he I'm so proud of you honey! I was honored to be your first patient.



When we bought our house,we were lucky enough to inherit a hot tub with it! We finally decided to check it out and see if it worked. After changing and fixing a couple parts, we had it running! Kaitlyns favorite thing to do now is swim in her pool with Daddy!

One thing i never did in Utah was go to a pumpkin patch, but they seem to be a really big thing here. We happened to go on the COLDEST! day of the year (so far). We went on a hay ride to a field where we got to pick out a pumpkin and go through a little corn maze. The kids also got to pet a little bunny. Normally there are more activities and animals for the kids but we were so cold we just wanted to grab our pumpkins and go. We'll try again next year and maybe have a better experience.

The other day we went to "Boo at the Zoo" at the Columbus Zoo. The Zoo was filled with fun decorations and places set up for the kids to trick or treat.

Halloween has been a week long event for us. The kids have had to dress up 5 times for various events and activities. Thanks to Kaitlyn and Ashleys Grandma, they both had super cute Halloween costumes (thanks Cindy).

Kaitlyn and her friend Mason "trick or treating"
These two love birds held hands most of the evening.
We got together with a big group of friends and took our kids Trick Or Treating together. The kids had a lot of fun and ended up getting way too much candy. I guess i will just have to help them eat it all...mmmm

On Halloween night we went to a Party at our friends, the Bowcutts. Thanks for all the fun and food.
Bryan dressed as Ron Burgundy from "The Anchorman" (minus the mustache, it kept falling off) and our friend Nate was "Napoleon Dynamite"
Me, with my good friends britni and Allyson

This last month

My girls turned 1 and 3 yesterday!! They are both so much fun and i don't know what i would do without them. I feel so blessed to be able to stay at home with them and enjoy every new thing they do and learn. Lately Kaitlyn has been talking in full sentences and saying the cutest things. We are still trying to get her potty trained. She tells me potty like 30 times a day. Sometimes she goes, sometimes she doesn't. It's making me crazy!!!!!!!! Ashley has been walking for about a month now! It's so cute to see someone so little walking around. Well, as we all know she's not so little :) but at least she is on the growth chart now and her weight has actually gone down since her last appointment. Her 12 month Dr. appointment was today and the stats showed she is 24 lbs (85%), height is 95% and head is 92%. She received 6 shots today, poor thing :( Not to mention her molars are coming in and have been very painful for her. Not such a great day for her.


Bryan and I went to our first OSU Football game! They played Illinois and beat them 30 to 0! Go Bucks! It rained almost the whole entire game. But while everyone else was wet and freezing, we were warm and dry in our full body rain gear (coat and pants). he he...I wish we had taken a picture. YES i know i am wearing a blue shirt. (An absolute no no because it is our rivals color) but i just hadn't put my red jacket on yet. (luckily i didn't get yelled at or beat up) :) Football for Ohioan's is like a Religion. They even change the days you trick or treat (Nope we don't trick or treat on Halloween) because they don't want that to interfere with football if it happens to fall on the same night. CRAZINESS!! Kaitlyn is turning into such a big helper. She wants to help us do "everything". Daddy let her help mow the lawn. Kaitlyn is also such a good big sister! The other day Ashley fell asleep on the couch and Kaitlyn took her "favorite" blanket and put it over Ashley. It was the sweetest thing!

They are peaking out the window of there new little play house. My girls are starting to play so good together. Kaitlyn is aways saying, "Ashley come here".

At the Zoo with the Gorillas.

Our September Utah Trip!

Bryan finished up his Summer quarter of school on September 2nd . That morning we boarded a plane to Utah to see our family and friends for a much needed vacation. (thank you so much Sheena for taking us to the airport at 4:30 AM.) It went by so fast and we were able to do so many fun things, i don't even know where to start.

We went boating a couple times at Willard Bay. Once with Bryans family and once with mine. The second time we went with my mom, sisters Rachel and Tara, and our good friend Holly and her little boy. The day started out beautiful! We knew there was a good chance it would rain later in the day but we still wanted to go out for a while before the storm came in. It started getting a little windy so we decided to head back to the dock. The second we got there the rain started pelting down so hard it hurt. Lets just say Bry vowed to never go by himself with a boat full of girls again. We had quite the adventure :)

Grampa let Kaitlyn drive the boat

Girls night out with Mom and sisters!!!! We went to Leatherbys for dinner, mmmmmmm. Then bowling!

Check out our form! LOL!! We played around at the little arcade attached to the bowling place and won some serious tickets. Wow Rach your rich :) We bought some bling with some of our tickets.

Aren't my sisters beautiful! I miss you guys so much. I love being completely goofy and nerdy with you. Don't worry i didn't post our nerdy pics. lol

Kaitlyn, Ashley and their cousin Cash swimming at Grandmas.

It was fun to see you Tyler and Amy. your little Cash is such a little cutie!

Our cute little princesses Kaitlyn and her cousin Kylee. These two used to play together at least a couple times a week when we lived in Utah. The older they get the more fun they have together. Too bad we are so far away. I miss playing with you too Lisa. It was fun hanging out!

Cute picture! Too bad Bryans eye was still crazy looking. I was surprised how fast it healed though.

Here is another picture of the big water slide Grampa Hendriks got for the girls Birthday party. Kaitlyn had a blast playing on it before we even turned on the water.

We got together with our good friends , the Offrets, and went to the park to hang out. We love you guys! We couldn't ask for better friends.

We finally got to meet there new beautiful little addition, baby Scarlet.

Everett and Kaitlyn. Soooo cute!
My sisters and there hubbies thought it would be fun to have a date night! Since Tara is not married we set her up with our friend Kurt. We went to eat at Texas Roadhouse then went mini golfing. This is a few of us after our date at Leatherbies. I think i went to that place 3 or 4 times while we were there. I just can't get enough of there ice cream. yummmmmy!

My cousin Kyle just returned home from his mission in Australia! We went to his homecoming and lunch at his house afterwards.

My girls crawling all over the table.

It was so fun to see everyone! We can't wait to see you in December!

Happy Birthday!

While we were in Utah this month, we decided to throw the girls a little Birthday Party! Even though their Birthdays are not for another month (Oct 12th) we wanted to be able to celebrate with family!
Grampa Hendriks rented a big water slide for the kids (and Bryan, he he) to play on. It was a big hit! the kids had a blast going down the slide and playing in the water!

We made a little cake just for Ashley! As you can tell she loved it!Presents! Need i say more.... We were so glad that Grandma Wilding was able to be there. I called her earlier in the month to see if we could drive to Idaho to see her since we would only be 4 hours away and she said she would be coming to Utah to see our cousin Kyle that just returned from his mission. So she was able to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and we didn't have to drive to Idaho.