Girl's in their Christmas Dresses

I took a couple pictures of the girls at the house before Maddie's program. Maddie has been so excited to wear that dress ever since I got it for her. Every night this week, she has come home from school and put it on.

Maddie's Christmas Program

Tuesday night was Maddie's school Christmas program and she did soooo great!! Her teachers had been telling me what a great job she has been doing during practice for it and how she stands up there by her friends like a big girl and doesn't cry or anything. Before they went up on stage, all the kids meet in the basement to rehearse and so I stayed down there with her until it was time for them to go up. As they were going up, she got teary and I wasn't sure what to expect. As the kids were walking onto the stage, I did not see her and I was getting worried that she wasn't going to come out. Right before they started singing, I spotted my short little girl in the very back row, grrr! I filmed a little of one song but it is really hard to see her since she was in the very back. I did get to see her face though and she was singing her heart out and even saw me and smiled and waved! The video is cute, there is one little boy that decided to be cute in the microphone as the song is starting. See if you can spot Maddie.

Maddie and her friends before they went on stage

Where's Maddie??

Weekend

I took the girls to Matt's basketball league tournament on Saturday in Topeka. We cheered hard, but they lost to finish in 4th place. After the game, Matt rode home with us and we ate and did a little shopping before coming back to Emporia.

That night was our turn to watch the Lake kids for the monthly date night. I decided to take the older girls to the ballet, The Nutcracker and Matt stayed home with Kynzie and Gavin and played playstation games all night. The girls and I had a great time. The ballet was put on by Maddie's dance workshop so I was telling her that she could be doing that someday. She wasn't too sure about getting up on stage but she did have a great time watching it. After the intermission, I could tell the girls were starting to get a little antsy so I told them that if they were good we would go out for ice cream after it was over. So of course, they were and we did. When we got home, the girls wanted to dance all over the living room showing off everything they had just watched. It was really cute. Now if only Maddie would be able to do that on stage. Her first recital is this Spring and they are doing "My Little Pony." I wasn't planning on putting Maddie in it because I figured she would be waaay too shy. After she saw the costumes that they get to wear, she got really excited and said she wanted to do it. So we'll see.

Sunday was church all morning and then we didn't leave the house the rest of the day :) Kind of nice to just stay home.

Kynzie's night wandering

Last Friday night, we stayed in with the girls and Matt and I rented a movie for after they went to sleep. We were downstairs watching the movie and Kynzie kept getting out of bed and coming down. I had to keep getting up and putting her back in bed. However, the last time I heard her upstairs walking around, I was too lazy to get up and figured she would just find her way back to her room. Well.....after the movie, Matt and I went upstairs and I was brushing my teeth and Matt went in the computer room to turn the lamp off and I hear, "Adraina, get in here hurry" so I go in there and there was little Kynzie fast asleep on the floor. Kiki in hand, water by her side and pants inside out! Gotta love it! Of course I had to take a picture!

Weekend

Friday night we got to go the the high school boys basketball game WITHOUT the girls. It was nice to not have to get up at every quarter and run to the bathroom or worry about pop spilling in the stands or who gets what snacks. ;) After the game, we went to Bruff's for dinner with friends. The girls had fun at home with a babysitter.

Saturday morning I took Maddie to a gymnastics meet so she could watch the older girls and get an idea of what goes on. I think she had a good time and it was fun to watch them do the flips on the trampoline. Maddie's eyes were pretty big watching those girls flip around. After the meet, we decided to go with my mom to KC to see Drew at KU Med. Center. Mom stayed at the hospital with him that night and we got a hotel. We ended up staying at the hotel the whole night and swimming with the girls. They of course had a blast. Kynzie had an "AH HA" moment when she had to get out of the pool to go poop. I took her back to the room and she actually wanted to sit on the toilet to go poop. She jumped up there and that was that...she went! She has been pooping in the toilet ever since! Whoo hoo! I was worried that she was going to take a while to get trained on that.

Sunday we got up and ate breakfast and went swimming again before we did a little shopping and back to the hospital to get mom. Sunday night, Maddie decided that she wanted to watch old home videos of her when she was 2 and Kynzie was a baby. That was pretty funny to watch and we realized how much Kynzie looks and acts like Maddie at that age. Wow!

Hoomaide - Kynzie

Kynzie saying Old Maid

I wash my haaaaands - Kynzie

Kynzella Strikes Again

So, last night at 10:00 pm ........(an hour after I had put Kynzie to bed)........I heard a bunch of noise coming from her room so I finally decided to go up there and see what was going on. This is what I walked into. She had gotten into two of the girls keepsakes boxes along with various other things. She was just having a grand old time. Notice her shoes on her feet, she sleeps in her shoes.

Kynzie's early Christmas!

So I finally got a few presents wrapped and put under the tree.......then little Miss Kynzie decided to help me unwrap them! In a matter of 15 seconds, Kynzie had one of Hunter's presents shredded! GRRRR, she is KYNZELLA! Well at least it wasn't one of her own that she opened.

4th Day of Thanksgiving Break

Saturday at the Holopirek's consisted of eating, eating, and more eating. Oh yeah, there was some napping, football and kid's playing in there too. I managed to get a good picture of Coco and his girls!




After eating all day, we had to head back to Emporia! It was a pretty easy ride home with the girls taking turns sleeping. We got back about 11:00 pm and it was straight to bed!

3rd Day of Thanksgiving Break

Well, this day started out unusually early. 1:50 am to be EXACT. Well, for Amber it never actually ended from the night before. We had decided that mom, Amber and I would do the Black Friday shopping in Hays this year. The leave time kept getting pushed up and we finally settled on leaving Kinsley at 3:00 am. Long story short, we ended up leaving at 3:30 am and getting to Hays about 4:40 am. We started the morning off at crazy Wal Mart. We all scattered our separate ways and I was able to get almost everything I wanted. After Wal Mart was the Mall and then various other stores. We made it back to Kinsley around 2 pm.....just in time for naptime :) After naps, we went over to see Grandma and Grandpa Castaneda. Then it was on to Burdett to be with the Coco and Grandma Brenda. We all kind of got a second wind when we got there, snacking on food, playing the wii, making smores, and decorating a ginger bread train.


Kynzie had more fun eating the icing from the plastic


Maddie doing it right!


Finished Product

2nd Day of Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving Day was a nice and relaxing day. We got up slowly and then ate a yummy dinner at Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Joe's house. After lunch was naptime for the kids. After naps, Grandma Alice and Katie, Tyson and Kali came over to the house. I managed to get a pretty good picture of the 3 girls with Grandma Alice.

Kynzie was able to get a taste of holding a baby.......and she "liked it." So Matt let her sit on the couch with him and hold Kali some more. It was so sweet to see Kynzie being this soft because she is NEVER this affectionate to anyone, not even Matt or I. She was even giving her kisses.

I thought it would be cute to get a picture of the girls with ALL of their cousins since this probably won't happen a lot. The picture's not the greatest, their not all looking at the camera, but hey it's a picture and they're all in it!

After Grandma Alice and Tyson, Katie and Kali left, we just sat around ate more and had fun watching the kids play. Maddie was all about Hooper and Kynzie and Hunter played together really well. They were like a little old lady and old man walking around the house together going "shopping." I finally snapped a couple pictures of them.

1st Day of Thanksgiving Break

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break. Matt and I didn't have to work on Wednesday so we helped out at Maddie's school in the morning. After lunch, we headed for Kinsley. Wednesday evening we got to see Nicole, Blake and Jaxon. It took the kids a little warming up, but they eventually played together. Jaxon is about 2 months younger than Maddie.

coloring at the table

trying to get them to sit by each other for just one picture

Catching Up

Well it's been a while since I last updated the blog. It's been busy between Matt's basketball and then Thanksgiving. The week before Thanksgiving, Matt had games 3 out of the 5 weeknights and then an all day Saturday tournament. Then on Sunday Jamie and Amber came up with the boys so we could take family pictures for Christmas. I think they turned out pretty good but haven't got them back yet. The kids did as well as could be expected for 4 kids under the age of 5.

Sometime in here we managed to get our Christmas tree up but no presents under it yet. This is always fun to do with the girls. We let Maddie hang some of the balls on the tree and I had to laugh when I saw where she put them all........at the bottom where she could reach :)