Happy Birthday Riley!!

Riley turned 8 years old yesterday!! He picked Steak 'n Shake for his birthday dinner then we headed to The Incredible Pizza to play laser tag, ride go carts and play arcade games. Riley was finally tall enough to drive the go carts by himself and he was so excited! I raced with him and he beat me! :) He liked that part too. :)

What Riley is up to these days.... Riley is a lover of video games on the Wii and his DS, Legos, Bionicles, and reading about any and all kinds of animals. Bionicles have kind of been on the back burner lately....he's been loving the Lego sets since Christmas and asked for more for his birthday. He's doing great in school and is the star reader in his class. He was at the highest level of reading in his class this past semester was the only one at that level. He flies through chapter books and really enjoys reading them. He loves to spend time with his sister and they usually play together very well. The definitely each have their moments of trying to annoy each other....but he's a great big brother!!

Pledge of Allegiance...well sort of....

Wrapping up Christmas

This past weekend we celebrated Christmas with the Steinkamp side. It was fun to get the kids together and see everybody. We decided to get a hotel at the last minute and I'm so glad we did. The kids had a great time swimming Sunday morning before we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's. It was nice to do something a little different during these cold winter days. :)

Kinley and Edee in their new hats from Grandma and Grandpa.

Jude was quite the little drummer boy. He loved carrying his drum around beating away. He is such a cute little man. :)

Uncle Nick and Matt ventured out and took the boys down to the river. They wanted to try out their new binoculars. Not sure if they saw anything cool....but they were pretty excited about throwing rocks in the river and breaking the ice.

Riley had to leave on Monday after being with us since Christmas Day. Kinley was not ready for him to leave at all...there were plenty of tears when he left. They played together really well over the break. Matt walked in to check on them one night and this is what he found. Kinley looked up at Matt and said, "we're friends." Too cute.

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve we celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa Nafziger. Kinley loved opening presents and helping everyone else with theirs. She was a big helper putting all of the paper in the trash too! This morning we came downstairs and Santa hadn't missed our house! Kinley got a play kitchen and Riley got a Wii game. Tonight we headed across the street to Great Grandma Chambers house for soup. So far we had a great Christmas!!

Ornaments

I'm a little late with this post, but I wanted to still get the kids ornaments for 2010 documented. :) Riley chose an ornament from the movie Despicable Me and Kinley chose a cute dancing Snoopy. It is so fun getting to see the kids pick out their ornaments each year. My parents did this for my brother and I, we have an ornament for every year since we were born. I now still get myself an ornament each year (Matt joins in on the fun some years too)! I love looking back at all my old ornaments....I hope the kids do too someday. :)

Friday Night

We had a nice, relaxing Friday night. We made S'mores and watched Christmas shows. I love this time of year! :)

Snow & Santa :-)

Kinley had her first official chance to play in the snow this weekend and she loved it! Daddy and Kinley built a snowman on the back deck and she didn't want to stop. She looked so cute all bundled up in her snow suit. I didn't know how long she would stay out there considering she couldn't really move much. It didn't seem to bother her though. :) Saturday afternoon we went to the Minier Christmas Parade to get some candy and see Santa. Kinley liked seeing Santa and running after all the candy. It was such a pretty parade..it was snowing the whole time and it was a fairly warm day. So nice to have snow for the Christmas parade! :)