Not so sure about Santa

On Christmas Eve morning, Grandma and Grandpa Hoefs took them to the mall to see Santa. They weren't so sure about him and cried, even while sitting on grandma and grandpa's laps. But, they made up for it by giving them candy canes and a muffin afterwards. Maybe next year they won't cry.....

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We had a good time here in the Niebuhr house, it was very busy and I don't think we're quite recovered yet. Unfortunately, the sick bug hit the kids again on Christmas Eve. Grace threw up twice and Xander ran a 102.4 fever both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We loaded them up with tylenol and albuterol (for Will) and they were OK. They survived the chaos and crowds and even had some fun. Boy, was Santa good to them (and grandparents, aunts and uncles, too). They got a ton of toys, too many to list. But, suffice it to say, they are set for the next long while and they're not getting any birthday presents until summer! Their favorites all the toys they got are the Fisher Price Little People things (a garage, house and grocery store) and the duplos (especially Xander, he loves to build towers). The busy week doesn't stop just because Christmas is over, though. We have a family dinner in Arapahoe on Friday, and they are spending Saturday with the Niebuhr grandparents.

The pictures are:

Top: Christmas Eve in their adorable outfits.

Middle: In their Elmo slippers that Santa brought. You see that Xander couldn't let the legos go long enough to take a picture. Will has the cell phone that came in Grace's purse that Santa gave her.

Next 4: From Christmas at the Niebuhrs. They really did enjoy all their presents, despite the looks on their faces. They were pretty tired and overstimulated at this point!

Bottom: Christmas at the Hoefs. Xander is wearing grandpa's hat and they are playing with the red, white and blue golf balls from their stockings.

So, now we look forward to their second birthday, coming up in just a week and a half. We will probably do a small celebration, but are considering celebrating their half birthday in July to spread out the presents and celebrations. Happy New Year everyone!

All is well!

We are all well here this week, I am very happy to report. Now if we could just stay that way! We had a good week, even though we stayed in most of the week to escape the ice, snow and cold. They did venture out into the snow a couple of times, but on Saturday, Grace didn't want to go out, and Xander stayed only about 10 minutes. Will stayed for almost an hour and loved every minute of it. The top picture is one Brian took of Will in the snowbank. He was really enjoying himself that day! He liked digging, stepping in the snow and standing in it. The other pictures are of the kids with their towers. They are becoming expert tower builders. They have learned how to be very careful while stacking, steadying the towers with their other hands as they put the blocks on. Grace and Xander had ones as tall as them the other day. If the towers fall, they sometimes cry, but sometimes just say "Oh no!" or "oh my!" and start again.

The funniest thing they've all started doing is answering questions and using exclamations. If we ask Xander a question, he will usually say "no" (like yesterday when daddy asked him if his diaper was poopy he said "no" even though it was.) Or the other day, we were reading a muppet babies book and one of the lines was miss piggy saying "Isn't this a pretty dress?" Xander promptly replied "No." We died laughing. Other times, you can say "put the doll on the table and come eat dinner." and they'll say "OK!". They are repeating EVERYTHING and it cracks us up. They had meatballs for dinner last night and they all walked around saying "meatball" all night. A nickname for baby Carter maybe? (just kidding Lisa). They are still doing great finding shapes and colors. Grace decides that every letter she sees is a "B" and will hand out letter blocks and say "B" for every one of them. Will has developed this hilarious deep, throaty laugh (a take on the evil genius laugh they all used to have.) He does it all the time, especially while running around the house or being silly. He's silly a lot lately. It's actually quite funny, he for sure is Mr. Personality. Grace has been little miss helper lately. She's quick to get something we need, or pick up if we need to. She definitely likes to please. Xander has been pretty quiet lately, and playing a lot on his own. Dale and Ellen see a lot of Brian in Xander's actions. He's also quite shy lately, and hasn't been enjoying going to the nursery at church. The others are OK there, Will even cried when we made him leave, because he wanted to keep playing.

I will wait to post again until after Christmas next week. I'm sure they'll be lots of stories and pictures to share. Maybe I'll even get around to figuring out how to post video. Happy Holidays everyone!

Snow!!!!

I have no sickness news to report this week, thank the Lord! The kids have been healthy, and we're finally back to "normal" (whatever our normal is). The big news is getting to play in the snow for the first time! They all got new boots, coats, snowpants and all the works just in time for the first big snowfall (see top picture). It happened to snow most the day that they spent at Grandma Ellen's while mommy did Christmas shopping. So, grandma and Curt bundled them up and took them sledding around the circle (see bottom 2 pictures). I heard it was a big hit. They also went out the next two days, once with grandma and grandpa Hoefs (see middle picture) and once with daddy, Uncle Wes, Aunt Kara and mommy. They actually got to go down a hill out on Kara and Wes' acreage, and they loved that! Although, Will has a hard time sitting in all his clothing, so he falls backward and crushes whoever is behind him. He ended up sitting in the back of the sled or on his tummy. I think that accounts for the funny look he gave me when I put him in all his garb (see 2nd picture).

They're continuing to amaze us with everything they can say and do. They are starting to get good at colors. Grace gets yellow and purple right almost 100% of the time. She will also point to the correct color almost all the time if you say "show me yellow" or "point to the red square". Everything is still blue to Will. Xander tries to count, and he repeats all the numbers after I say them. They are enjoying coloring, books and puzzles a lot lately. I can't wait for them to get their Christmas presents. Plenty of drawing and crafty opportunities there! Xander is such a character lately. He has been answering everything we say with "OK". It's so funny to hear his little voice say that. I don't think we're doing much or going anywhere big this week, just trying to stay inside and stay warm. Hope you are all doing the same! More later!

A rough week

I don't have any pictures to share this week, that is because they have been really sick and there has been nothing funny to capture or smile about. This week has been the roughest one I can remember in a long time, possibly since they were really small. They did not sleep, eat or play nicely all week. They have have fevers for 10 days, been tired, achy, whiny and naughty since last Saturday. The boys both visited the doctor, one on Wednesday, one on Thursday and came home with steroids to help get over their horrible cough. We did albuterol treatments round the clock for the first half of the week. They are off the steroids, but still doing nebulizers, because the coughs are hanging on. Their sleeping hasn't improved any, half hour naps each day and late nights/early mornings. It's been really rough on Brian and I. As I said before, I haven't been this stressed out since they were little. They've broken me more than once this last week, and are trying their hardest to do it again this afternoon! (Will is up after napping less than 40 minutes and is trying very hard to keep the others awake. We didn't go anywhere or do anything this week (except visit the doctor and host a playgroup on Tuesday, which was probably a mistake). I hope very much that I have happy news and stories to tell you next week and I hope that I am in a better demeanor, too. If all goes well, we are going to try to visit Santa at the end of the week, we'll see. We wish you all a better week than we had!