Christmas 2010

And then she enjoyed wrapping up in her new robe and slippers.

Today Chloe got to play with her new mermaid slide bath toy, she had so much fun, a new bath toy was a great idea. Yesterday we went to gymnastics class and Chloe had a great time as usual, she loves Wiggle Bugs and we are so happy to have another trimester of classes, thank you Rich, Andrea, Brigett and Tyler!

And don't forget the yummy treats! We had a wonderful time seeing our families for Christmas and were so happy to get everywhere safely. Thank you all so much for the good times, great laughs, delicious food and generous gifts. We love you all so much!

There were so many cool toys, rooms and Christmas decorations at great gramma's house, Chloe was having a blast!

Jason was assigned clean up duty, I found this particularly amusing! I might have to borrow this hat for home;)

Then Sunday we headed back to Storm Lake for the big Smith ugly sweater Christmas Party. Tyler is sportin' his homemade sweater, pretty sweet!

Sunday morning we went to visit Gramma K. It was so great to see her, talk with her and see her precious smiles:)

Gramma singing to Chloe from her new princess Christmas carols book.

A Christmas family photo, after many, many attempts, this is as good as it gets! Thanks for hanging in there for me family;)

Christmas day we went to Sioux City to Gramma and Grandpa Kneifl's house to celebrate. Here are Tyler and Chloe with the card she made for him.

Merry Christmas grandpa!

Hugging her new teddy bear from Rebecca in her new, soft robe from gramma and grandpa.

Christmas morning is finally here and Chloe is helping pass out the presents!

Aunt Rebecca, Chloe and Caz getting in some down time.

Santa gave Chloe a couple presents to open! What a fun surprise!

Chloe was very excited to see Santa and gave him a big hug and told him that she has been a good girl.

Santa made a surprise visit Christmas Eve night!

Gramma and Chloe looking at the puzzle from Uncle Tyler, she got to open it early.

Chloe had a hard time waiting to open the presents so she decided to make piles and towers out of them:)

On Friday we went to Storm Lake to celebrate Christmas at Gramma and Grandpa Smith's house. We went to Santa's Castle and Chloe had such a fun time! She loved all the displays, trains, and of course sitting on Santa's lap and talking with him:)

Merry Christmas!

One thing that we are very thankful for this year is to only have to drive a couple hours to see our family for the holidays. In the past we have either flown and had someone pick us up in the airport or drove the 10+ hours across the mid west. This is exactly the change we had been hoping for and are so glad to call it our reality. It has been a very blessed 2010! Merry Christmas to all our family and friends, we love you!

Last night we had our family Christmas at home before we take off to visit our immediate and extended families. Chloe got a baby bed and loved being able to put her baby to bed and feed her milk.

She played for an hour and all I had to do was sweep up the floor! She had so much fun!

Chloe's cooking and baking didn't last as long as I had work to do. So she got to play a fun activity we learned about in this great book our friends have and swear by. She was drawing in the flour, her favorite things to draw were a farm, cows, chickens, butterflies, gramma, grandpa, mommy and daddy:)

And you always have to take a few licks while baking too;)

It has been a very busy middle of the week. Chloe and I had a lot of cooking and baking to get done before the Christmas weekend. Chloe is such a big helper in the kitchen:) Here she is stirring the pumpkin bread.

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Tuesday evening Uncle Rich came over to help Jason celebrate passing his exam. Thanks for the goodies and for spending the time with us, we all had a great time, even frogger;)

The start of our week....

Chloe had gymnastics class on Monday and it was easy to tell that there was a lot of excitement in the air! When we got home Chloe put on Tinkerbell's dress and played with her turtle, a jade turtle from Asia that our friend Alice gave her before she was born. She likes to hold it:)

Last night Chloe had fun doing some more dress up.

This was taken today at a play date with our new friends, Pam and her two daughters Madeline and Audrey. They live just around the block from us and we were able to walk to their house. Chloe had fun playing with the kids and of course with their dress up clothes:) She was pressing the necklace and singing along with the Ariel song that played from it.

It's a wonderful life!

Santa's horse stable. We had a fun and festive time looking at the lights while listening to Christmas music. Chloe loved calling out all the light displays.

The candy cane tunnel:) It went well with our peppermint white chocolate mocha lattes!

Sunday evening we went to Jolly Holiday Lights. 100% of the proceeds go to make A Wish Foundation. It's drive through Christmas light display through Grey's Lake.

We had an absolutely wonderful weekend! On Saturday afternoon Jason took and passed his IA electrician's state licensing exam! We are so proud of him, all of his hard work paid off. Congratulations Jason! Then that afternoon Brigett and Tyler came down for a visit. They are so awesome to make the trip and then babysit Chloe and give Jason and I a date night, thank you so much! The three of them headed to Jordan Creek for some Christmas shopping, smoothies, play land, car strolling, good fun! Jason and I went to dinner, drinks and a movie to help celebrate his accomplishment. We all stayed up late but that didn't stop Brigett and I from hitting the shoe jack pot Sunday morning;)

A long week for us but still some smiles:)

It works as toe nail polish too!

Today Chloe was doing her make up with the purple crayon.

Convincing myself that I have the energy for story time.

Wednesday I put a side pony tail in Chloe's hair and it was sooo cute! A little throw back to my child hood:)

But she made sure to keep her lips nice and hydrated with constant chap stick applications;)

Here is Chloe Tuesday in the height of her fever. All she wanted to do was rest, snuggle with Elmo and watch Sesame Street.

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What a week! Monday Chloe had gymnastics and was the wildest she has ever been! She just wanted to run and do everything the group wasn't doing! But she had fun and a few of the other kids had ants in their pants too;) I think it was the cold weekend and the snow, so the kids had a lot of pent up energy.

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Then she got a fever Monday night and it was gone by Tuesday noon. So we skipped our Tuesday activity but ventured out for Wednesday's story time. And I was a lot more sick than I thought, you know when you go out in public and realize you can't hear, can't breathe, and thinking takes a little longer, that was me! And her fever came back later that afternoon. So Thursday we stayed home and got a lot of movie watching and snuggling time in. .

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Today Chloe seems fine, no fever since Wednesday night. We went to the mall to walk around and of course stopped by to see Santa. Chloe was so excited, she ran up to him, gave him a huge hug, they had a very long conversation, she gave him a hug good bye and Santa gave Chloe a coloring book. It was so sweet, my heart melted.

1st snow of the season!

We switched out Chloe's changing table/dresser with my childhood dresser. My sister and I used this growing up and now Chloe gets to use it. Grandpa is right when he said it was the best furniture out there and Gramma had to have it for us girls:) It's in great condition, so sturdy and so fun to pass it down for Chloe to use!

What a fun morning outside!

And of course Chloe loved to help shovel the patio.

They found some snow drifts along the way to play in.

Daddy took Chloe on a sled ride around the neighborhood:) I think he forgot that we already bought a new, bigger sled this year:) But it's cute to see how much she has grown since last winter.

When we woke up on Sunday there was just enough snow on the ground to play outside for a little while.

It makes a good seat for reading too:)

Talking on the new cell phone that came with it.

Chloe got a vanity and new exactly how to use it!

Friday night we caved and let Chloe open a Christmas present. Not because she was asking, she wasn't, but because we were excited:) We won't be home on actual Christmas, and while she loves Santa she doesn't totally understand that he brings the presents and we thought this way it spreads out the excitement and she can play with her toys over the course of weeks and won't be overwhelmed with all of them at once, at least that's how we're justifying it;)