Happy 94th Birthday Cookie Beek!!

Love this picture of Kenna and her Great Grandma Cookie Beek!!

Sunday birthday brunch with the fam! 

Bestie Christmas!!!

This year I got the BEST surprise EVER the day after Christmas!!!!  A surprise visit from RACHEL!!!!

 

 

I still can't believe she pulled it off but am SO glad she did.  I LOVE to be surprised but am usually too nosy and ask too many questions and ruin most surprises.  Thanfully, my husband is a VAULT and is really good at keeping secrets. 

 

I love that Makenna was SO excited to see her, too.  Her she is 5 minutes after Rachel showed up and she wanted Rachel to hold her and didnt' want to leave her side.  Love Love Love it!!!

 

 

Ha!!  She is so going to kill me for this one!!  She surprised me at Kopp's of all places - we used to go there ALL the time together - when we were sad we couldn't have babies to eat away our troubles, when we found out we were pregnant to feed our cravings and after the triplets came, I would surprise her at her house with Kopp's custard from time to time. 

 

So, I love that she picked here to surprise me.  Brad played it out perfectly and I didn't suspect a thing.  In fact, she called me right before we pulled in and I tried to silence my phone thinking I'd call her back later but I accidentally answered it and then I couldnt' get her off the phone.  I kept telling her I'd call her a little later but she just kept stalling.  Once we got inside, she jumped out in front of me and I just started sobbing and hugging her.  Best. Surprise. Ever!!! 

 

We spent the next few days just hanging out and catching up.  It was wonderful!!!  Makenna loved having her around, too - she couldn't get enough of "Auntie Rachel" and was pretty sad when she had to "leave on the airplane." 

 

Thanks for coming Rachel!!!

Christmas 2012

What a great Christmas week it has been!

 

We spent December 23rd with Brad's family opening presents and spending the day together.  We had a great time and it was nice having a day that was very low key and nowhere to rush off to.  Makenna was THRILLED to open presents and wanted to help everyone open their presents, too. 

 

Is that REALLY big one for me?

 

Thanks for the castle Uncle Derek!

 

Christmas Eve we went to the 11am service at Elmbrook, which was beautiful!!  Part of me REALLY wanted to bring Makenna into service with us so she could experience all of it (well, ok, so I could experience all of it with her on my lap), but she wanted to go to "her church" and so I dropped her off in the nursery and she had a blast.  I, of course, sobbed through much of the service.  I'm such a sap for all the Christmas music and the pomp & circumstance of it all.  Elmbrook does a great job celebrating Jesus' birth and so much of it struck me and all I could do was let the tears stream down my face in awe & thankfulness of God's plan to save the world.  I had just finished drying my tears when we all lit our candles and sang Silent Night.  And, back to the tears.....  Luckily it was dark so noone could see:)  I used to always say that my tears in church are really just "Holy Spirit juice" - it's like I get so filled with the holy spirit that it leaks out of me in tears.  Ha! 

 

Thankfully, we grabbed a sweet family picture before the service!

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve night we spent with Brad's side of the family.  Makenna got absolutely spoiled rotten by Auntie Sharon with this backpack stuffed with goodies. 

 

 

Her favorite was defintely the princess bandaids.  She insisted on opening half the box and putting bandaids on everyone at the party.  Cousin Craig even got one on his head! 

 

Christmas morning was wonderful.  We tried very hard this year not to over emphasize the presents on Christmas and to really make sure we celebrated Jesus' birthday above all else. 

 

Here she is telling us"Hapry Birfday Baby Jesus!" when she woke up Christmas morning!

 

Daddy loves to read the Christmas story to us first thing...

 

Makenna telling us that the angel told Mary "Mary, don't be afraid!"

 

Thank you, Lord for the Best Gift Ever!

 

Next, it was downstairs to see what was under the tree!  Makenna was very excited about the princess wrapping paper.  We tried not to go too nuts so she wouldn't get overly focused on the presents so we settled for just a few small gifts.

 

Ariel jammies - love how she grabbed them and hugged them as soon as she opened the box

 

Percy!

Veggie Tales puzzle!

And Noah's Ark, Veggie Tales style

Daddy got her a sweet sweet card and wrote the sweetest little note in it.  I love that he does stuff like that and I know she will really treasure this someday.  

 

What a great morning!!

 

Her favorite part of course, was unrolling the rest of the wrapping paper and playing with it before we left for Oma & Papa's house!

 

 

 

In the afternoon we headed up to Laura's parent's house to have our Christmas celebration with her side of the family. 

 

Crazy cousins!

Ariel!!!  Thanks, Cookie Beek!

Helping Papa

"What's it gonna be?"

 

This child refuses to smile for the camera... or even look at it most times

 

Thanks for the BEAUTIFUL dress Auntie Kate!!

 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a .........

 

wait a minute, this looks familiar, doesn't it??

 

Christmas 2011

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas Eve!

"Look Mommy, I a Merdaid!"

Happy Birthday Jesus party - third annual!

Today we celebrated Jesus' birthday with Elizabeth and Annika.  We don't see them nearly enough though they are so very special to us. 

 

This is my one of my favorite annual traditions we do and I love seeing these 2 celebrate Jesus together...

First, there were hugs - Makenna LOVES her "Annakana".  She has been talking about her non-stop since I told her we would see her yesterday.  "Annakana can help you with this mommy.... Annankana can find this for us mommy..."  Too sweet!

There was an attempt at posing for a smiley picture

There was dancing and twirling while we waitied in line.

 

There was just pure joy at the time together.

And of course, there were sprinkle donuts!!

There was singing Happy Birthtday with lit candles and all (yes, in the middle of Dunkin Donuts)

 

Love these 2!!!  I was just thinking how awesome it was that we waited to open our presents for each other until after we were done celebrating and singing and neither girl complained that they wanted to do it right away when we got there.  But I did just notice that our donuts are half eaten here as we are singing....ha ha. 

 

Afterwards, we realized we hadn't done nearly enough catching up and wanted to spend more time togehter so we went with Elizabeth and Annika to the mall to go see Santa.  Annika wanted to ride in my car and the conversation between the 2 of them in the car made me smile the whole way.  What a couple of sweeties!!

Makenna insisted Annika hold her hand at all times

No, that isn't Santa she is so excited to see.....It's Butch - Annika's daddy!  Makenna loves him:)

Makenna's not so sure this was worth the wait.....ha ha! 

 

Thank you Annika for the Christmas present!!  We LOVE your hand me downs!!  Keep 'em coming!!  And yes, pants were apparently optional when we got home.

 

Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

 

 

 

What a great day!

 

Life has been a little crazy around here lately - before my surgery we were busy getting ready for me to be off a week and trying to get ahead at work and ready for Christmas.  The week after my surgery was busy with laying around and family over to help out.  Poor daddy has been crazy busy at work getting clients ready for year-end with tax planning and last minute phone calls. It has just been a very busy season in our lives.  So today, I stayed in my jammies most of the morning and the Makenna and I just hung out and played.  She rarely asks me to read her stories (unless it is naptime or bedtime) so I was thrilled when she asked me to snuggle up with her and read story after story with her.  It is so fun to watch her process everything and hear her reactions to each turn of the page.

 

Late this morning, we made a trip to Kohl's to purchase this fun treat for mommy:

 

 

 

I've been eyeing it up for awhile and had some Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket so I splurged (after my 30% coupon and Kohl's cash I did get quite a deal, however).

 

After naptime, it was time to start some new traditions with me and my Kenna girl....

 

She refused to smile for pictures - I usually have to do something funny to get her to even look at the camera these days....She was actually so very crabby in this picture and just wanted to watch Strawberry Shortcake...she wasn't having this "tradition thing"...

 

She was however willing to give me a sweet, sweet kiss:)

And with a little Veggie Tales fruit snack bribing, she forgot all about watching Strawberry Shortcake and it was on to making our first annual batch of Christmas cookies. 

The recipe is that from my Great Grandma and I must say my mom has perfected it over the years.  These are her specialty and I wanted to be able to share the same tradition we shared as kids with my baby girl. 

Mmmmm, someone discovered sprinkles!

And a little colored sugar

Delicious!!

 

They actually turned out pretty good.  I did only make 2 batches, unlike mom who has already made 15 batches this year (16 if you count the entire batch of cookie dough that my brother ate).  Here's to our new mommy/daughter annual Christmas cookie baking tradition!

 

 

 

Tonight Makenna and I went to the mall to return a few things and just take in Christmas.  I was a little disappointed to find they didn't even have Christmas music playing in much of the mall.  We had fun nonetheless and just walked through the mall hand in hand just my baby girl and me. 

 

I have to laugh at this one.... her new favorite thing is to carry the step stool around everywhere and use it as a little bench.  Tonight I caught her perusing her DVD's while sitting on the step stool - too funny!

 

Thank you for a great day, Makenna Lee.  I couldn't ask for a better Christmas present from you!!