It's a cute little voice ...

Just wanted to document for my own purposes ... Miss Paige has a few select words she's been saying. Her understandable ones are:

• Mama
• Dada
• Hi
• Puppy (She ADORES Pumba)
• Hot
• Uh-oh ... probably the cutest of them all to hear her say

Cele-brate good times ... come on!

It was a good turkey day for most all in Warroad. (Miss Paige is getting all four one year molars in at once and Thanksgiving wasn't a good day for her ... poor little girl.)

We celebrated everything we were thankful for on Thursday with turkey and all the fixings. Ryan's aunt, uncle and cousin were able to join us. It was fun spending time with them. The highlight of Riley's Thanksgiving was when Brad (Ryan's cousin) took Riley home with him and took him for a ride on the 4 wheeler.

Friday we hung around the house in the morning and then headed into great grandmas for some visiting and some ... wait ... yep, angel food cake. No, we couldn't go to great grandmas without some kind of pie or cake. (Not that I'm complaining by ANY means.) That night we celebrated the "babies" first birthdays with dinner and a fancy reindeer cake that grandma Fern had made. We had them sitting next to one another while they ate their cake ...and at first Paige was stealing food off of Weston's plate, but by the end she was giving hers to him. Weston was clean enough that a washcloth did the clean-up trick ... but Paige, not so much. (I have a ton of pictures I'll post once I get the chance to process them.) Into the bath she went.

Saturday we celebrated Christmas. Riley tore through his presents and was ready to help others as needed. Paige started opening but lost interest a little bit ... she was more interested with was was inside them once it was opened. Weston ... well, Weston was most interested in why one of his gift bags was loudly squeeling like a pig (this all thanks to a toy Uncle Ryan picked out). Needless to say there were many laughs. We rounded out the day with another big dinner and a "Final World Championship Cribbage tourney" between Clint and Tammy and Ryan and I (WE are the CHAMPIONS ... ha ha).

It was a fun time ... but it was also good to get home. Poor Miss Paige is still dealing with her molars. Her and I have cuddled the past few nights in the rocker in the living room because the pain wakes her up. While I LOVE that she lets me cuddle with her, I hate that she's hurting.

So there you have it ... it was a great weekend of celebrations. :)

We're off ...

Hope everyone has a grand Thanksgiving with lots of turkey, stuffing, mashed taters-n-gravy .. and most of all ... lots of time with the people you're thankful for!

We're soon headed off to Warroad to spend the weekend with Great Grandma, Grandma and Grandpa K, and Tammy, Clint and Weston. I got into work extra early this morning so I could get a half day in before we hit the road for the 8 hour drive. We bought Riley Shrek 3 as a surprise to watch in the car on the way up. That $18 is well worth an extra two hours of sanity. :)

We're doing an awful lot of celebrating while we're up north ... Thanksgiving, 1st Birthdays for Paige and Weston and Christmas. We may need to roll home after all that eating! :) I'll have lots of pictures to share when we return I'm sure. (And if Uncle Jim B. is reading this ... YES, we will forward you all of our calendar pictures after this weekend ... your daughter already warned me about the "reminder e-mail" ... ha ha)

Well, I better finish up my newsletter here at work. Have a great weekend everyone!!

Santa Claus is coming ... to town!!

Well, we did a "first" this weekend .. we went to the mall to see Santa Claus! Usually, our friend, Kiki (Charina), has a close connection to Santa and he comes to OUR house to see us ... but she seems to have lost his number when they moved this year so we had to go see him this time. (Do you like the story we came up with for Riley? ha ha)

We anxiously stood in line waiting. I'm assuming the people taking the pictures didn't have kids of their own for two reasons ... 1) They kept shooting and shooting to get that "perfect" picture of the kids with Santa. While I have to applaud them on the effort, most kids aren't going to give you that picture perfect grin when they're sitting on a strangers lap, Santa or not ... and 2) I don't think they had any idea how hard it was for the kids in line to stand still for that long. :)

Finally it was our turn. Riley marched right up there and sat on Santa's lap and we waited for the "picture people" to get everything ready before we did a dump and run with Paige. To my suprise though, Paige didn't cry at all. She sat there looking at Riley for a while ... then the strange man in the white beard ... and then the crazy people behind the camera who were trying trying all kinds of things to get her to smile. I finally had to just tell the "picture people" that it was okay if they weren't smiling .. just take the darn picture. (See, I think this is where I differ from the "mall studios" ... some of my favorite pictures of the kids are when they're not smiling. Kids don't smile 100% of the time ... and *geez* do we ALL know this ... so why have all the pictures of them smiling? End rant)

Riley told Santa that he wanted a camera (check), some Transformers (need), something with Spiderman (or was it Superman ... need to ask daddy and then find something) and something with Star Wars (check). Santa told Riley that he had to make sure to leave out two chocolate chip cookies and a glass of 2% milk for him (we have a picky Santa here I guess) and some carrots and celery for the reindeer. Oh, and we're supposed to go outside on Christmas morning to make sure the reindeer didn't make a mess while they were eating. Riley's made a mental note of all of this and told Santa he'd be sure to do all of that!!

So after all of that, we get to the point of buying this wonderful photograph. For $16 we get a 5 x 7 photo that was taken with a $5k camera (I looked) and printed on a desktop inkjet printer. I wasn't impressed to say the least. Whatever ... Riley got to see Santa. I got my 20% off coupon for Gymboree (Black Friday here I come). Paige got to be confused for a bit. And Ryan got a lighter checkbook. :)

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's ... Riley Arthur!

Riley was Superman for Halloween this year ... it was either that or Darth Vader. I thought the Darth Vader costume was a bit too dark for a 3 year old so we settled with Superman. Here he is showing off his muscles. :)

I was able to go to a Halloween Party at his pre-school class. We had a good time ... played with all different crafts and games that they had set up ... including the sand box where they'd taken out all the normal toys and replaced them with spiders and snakes. Needless to say it wasn't mom's favorite thing to play with and Riley thought that was hilarious so he kept going back to it.

We also enjoyed an interesting snack while there. Everyone in the class was to bring a cup of their favorite snack ... and they mixed it all together. We had M & M's, fruit snacks, crackers, etc ... mom decided she didn't need any snack and let Riley eat it all. :) Here Riley is with the much talked about Isaac. He's the little boy that Riley goes to daycare with (they're three weeks apart and have been together since they were 3 months old) and we share rides to pre-school with his parents.

That night Ryan and I picked the kids up from daycare and headed into Grandma Karen's so she could see them dressed up. Paige was a Lady Bug.

After Grandma's we stopped by Auntie Deb's and Uncle Stacy's because we missed them at Grandma's ... Jack was also Superman and Katelyn was Dorothy.

After that stop we quick went home so we could meet up with Micah (neighbor friend) and head out to a few houses. Ryan and Paige came along with for about 5 houses and then went back home to pass out candy at our house. I think Riley hit about 19 or 20 houses and came home with a bag full of candy. We're trying to ration it out but it seems to be disappearing ... especially those darn Peanut Butter Cups ... those are all gone for some reason. :)

One last picture ... this is from the night that we carved pumpkins ...

Back from the Dead ... Part II

Since NUMEROUS people have commented on how I haven't been posting lately, I figured it was fine time for another "rambles ala Kristin". And what better excuse than ....

Miss Paige's 1st Birthday.

Yes, it's true. my little princess has turned one. It's so hard to believe. As I made food last night for the party today, I kept glancing at the clock and trying to remember where we were just a year ago ... Calling my mom after dinner at 6:30 to come be with Riley because this may just be it, being told at 9:00 that I had 45 minutes to walk the halls because I wasn't contracting enough (at which point I made Ryan climb like 15 flights of steps), and strangly enough, I woke up at about 3:00 in the morning last night and remembered how a year before I was SO relieved that labor had been so short. I'd been so unbelievably afraid that it'd all happen like Riley's birth did.

I find it amazing that a baby can change so much in one year. At one year, Paige is a joyful little girl who melts my heart in the mornings when she wraps her chubby little arms around my neck and snuggles in tight. I always said I wanted a boy and a girl ... "the best of both worlds" ... only, I never knew just how true that phrase was. I have such different, but equally important, bonds with each of them. I can't even fully put it into words how they're different ... but they are. I had the typical, "how will I ever love another child as much as I love Riley" thoughts that I think every mother has as she is pregnant with baby #2. Everyone told me, "you will" but I didn't know how that was possible. Now I feel like I can join that "club" ... and want to tell all those mothers who are pregnant with their second (boy there are a lot of you too!), you will.

With all the happiness that happened in our house today, I couldn't help but be a bit saddened by the thought that my dad never got to meet Paige. I hope that she'll somehow be able to know what an important part of our family he is. He loved his grandchildren so much, and at all these milestones his absence is especially missed!

We had a great party today. Grandma Karen, Auntie Krys, Uncle Jim, Auntie Deb, Great-Auntie Gayle, and Cousins Nate, Ben and Jack were all here. Tammy and Clint surprised us by coming down too! (We're celebrating both Weston's AND Paige's first birthdays in Warroad over Thanksgiving weekend!)

Well, on to the part most of you are probably waiting for ... PICTURES!

(As I'm typing this my daughter has tried to climb up the steps right next to my desk ... and when I tell her no she smiles at me and crawls even faster. Now she's mad at me because I've blocked her way with the rocking horse.)

Okay ... on with the pictures ...

I made cupcakes instead of having a cake. My mother, sister in law (Krys) and my sister were all suprised that I decorated these myself ... evidently they don't think I have any creative abilities :)

So of course Paige had her own cupcake ... she was much cleaner than Riley was when he did this on his first birthday ... but he also had a whole little cake.

Clint decided to put our wood floors to good use and was sliding the kids down the hall and across the living room on their butts. They thought it was hilarious! Then the kids (Riley and Cousin Jack) doubled up on Clint ... and pretty soon he had all four of the younger ones.

I LOVE Weston's face in this one ...

Mr. Weston ...

The Zahradnik Cousins minus Katelyn (poor Katelyn, she missed the party today because she was sick. Paige missed her only girl cousin!)

Tammy, Clint and Weston ...

OUR family picture ... Riley needs a family picture for school on Monday ... and sadly, we have VERY few family pictures ... I'm actually pretty happy with this ...

So there you have it ... Paige's first birthday. Unfortunally, I was so focused on getting pictures of the kids when something was happening ... I missed most of the adults. :( If I get any pictures sent to me I'll be sure to post them too!

Next time I'll do a long post about Riley since he's had a few things happening lately too. But for now, I think I'm going to relax a little bit! :)