sleeping beauty

I just love all her different sleeping positions...

early present :-)

The great thing about Juliette being 1 is that she doesn't know anything about dates and time. So giving her a Christmas present almost a month early didn't really phase her...let's just call it her Hanukkah present! I am willing to celebrate any gift-giving holiday!! There is a kitchen that she plays with at daycare that she seems to love. We don't have that much space, so we got her a small one. It's kind of cool because it can be low, or you can expand it for when she is taller. It was super fun to watch her play...I have some video, but I still need to get that on the computer. Here are some pics of her first time playing with it...

what IS this?

on the phone and making dinner!testing the food

getting the baby ready for dinner

washing up

milk for the baby

we lifted up the kitchen and she found all the doors

this will keep her busy for a long time...

daaaaaady

I love how Juliette says "daddy". It's like this long drawn out daaaadyyyy. You may have heard it :-) Anyway, they were having quite the fun this weekend at dinner time!

making her laugh

all smiles

reading time...hugawugs. goo stuff!

gingerbread man...and sugar

I like traditions. With Juliette I am now super aware of them and wanting to start them early! The day after Thanksgiving is "put up the tree day", but I wanted to do something more. When I was in line at Joann's today I impulse bought some premade gingerbread cookies to decorate. I thought that would be a fun tradition for the day. We invited Unkie B and Antie K down to join us!

more :-)

helping spread the frosting around

picking out some gum drops...

...and after she sucked the sugar off of them, they went on the cookie

very precise ;-)

antie k, juliette, unkie b

mommy, juliette, daddy (as you can tell by height!)

with antie k and unkie b

playroom fun

working on her letters hugs for the bear

so smart...

working her cd player

this is how she got out of the desk...fell. and laughed. nice!

balls!

This bag of balls can kill a lot of time :-)

putting up the christmas tree

Are you ready to put up some decorations???"who's that?" she found mickey! we must have taken something away...i thought this was cute :-) decorating the Disney tree up in her playroom she was a fast learner very delicate concentrating so cute! all the decorations in one spot :-)
yay! we did it! putting mickey on top of the tree!

MERRY CHRISTMAS :-)

thanksgiving

Forgot my camera today, but snapped this one with my phone of Juliette and I in Grace's hats on Thanksgiving :-) We had a nice and busy day! I learned how to do the turkey, made my pumpkin cups, we did lunch at my parents, then went to the Fastner's to see my mom's family, and the Davern side for dessert. Then we all crashed!! Love it!

anniversary celebration

Joey and I had our night at the St Paul hotel on Saturday. The "Snuggle Up In St. Paul" package includes wine and cheese upon arrival, unlimited movies, and coffee or hot cocoa delivered in the morning. We love it! Watched 6 movies :-)

our wine and cheese (and joey's beer)

annual pic with the timer on the camera

self pic

room service for dinner! i have always wanted this!

joey thought it was cool to bang the things together!

after dinner drink down in the st paul grill...we got some yummy dessert too!

ok, they are dead in this pic, but joey got these for me on our ACTUAL anniversary. four years is flowers :-)

Antie K

This is just a cute pic that I wanted to share of Juliette and Antie K reading a book:

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Happy 4 years to my hubby!!! We are officially celebrating this weekend with our St. Paul Hotel night, but I still wanted to do something on the actual day. Last year it was on Tuesday, so my mom came over and watching Juliette while we dined on our taco by candlelight :-) This year we had nothing planned, but when I got home from work, I called Brent to see if he would come down for an hour so I could take Joey to Chili's. Yeah, we're classy. It's just close and easy. So we went up there and had some burgers and drinks. They also gave us a free dessert for our anniversary, which totally embarassed Joey. He wouldn't let me ask someone to take our picture because he said it was pathetic that we were there for our anniversary :-) So I took separate pictures...

joey, ashamed

me, happy with the dessert!
HAPPY 4 YEARS JOEY.....I LOVE YOU A BILLION :-)

BABY GROPPOLI IS HERE!

Finally, my friend Laura had her baby!! She was due on the 11th, but I told her right when she found out that she was pregnant she'd be late because she is always late to everything :-) AND...I was very eagerly awaiting this baby, as she didn't find out ahead of time what it was! So...she had a GIRL! Wahoo! Alaina Kaye was born 11/16 at 2:32 pm and was 8lb4oz, 20.5 inches, and with a TON of hair!! I got to go down and visit and hold her while she slept! SHe was so tiny and I just thought, wow, juliette was smaller than this! nuts! So mom, dad, and baby are all doing well and we can't wait to hang out with them! (Laura has a nice 6 month maternity leave!!)

me and alaina :-)

2nd annual cousins ichiban's birthday dinner

I love traditions. I like them because they are always fun to look forward to and you don't have to try and think up new things all the time. Last year when Rian and I turned 30 (for the record he is two days older), we got all the cousins together for an Ichiban's dinner. We loved it so much, we did it again this year. So now it is a tradition!!

Brent & Kristine

Bryan & Elizabeth Noelle & Rian
Joey and me

Panda Watch!!

FIRE! it looks like it is coming from the panda...also, note the expressions on everyone's faces!

samurai

birthday sundaes...noelle got grandfathered in

We asked someone to take our pic...Kristine got cut off...

so we took another one :-)

We had a really nice time and talked about our upcoming DW trip, where we also have reservations for some teppanyaki in Epcot in Japan :-) We also stayed long enough that the "Happy Bird-day" guy came by to sing for us :-)

and after we said our good byes...we ran into eachother again in the parking ramp. we stopped on every floor to look for the fastner/heaslip car and it was right by us :-)