Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas!

After our Santa experience I was curious to see how Nola would react on Christmas Day.  We told her several times that Santa was coming, but she didn't seem to understand it.  She opened up a present on Christmas Eve and started crying because the wrapping paper scared her.  Great.  

I did not have high hopes for Christmas Day but when I woke her up at 10 (yeah, TEN!) she looked at me with sleepy eyes and said, "Santa?"  We got her out of bed and she ran straight to the tree.

We opened our presents then headed down to Lincoln to spend the afternoon with Robert's family.  

Aunt Jennie and Grandma

Giving Ruthie a kiss

Tired from a very fun day

One of her favorite gifts was an Umizoomi doll that sings and dances. She likes to dance with it.

It was a great day.  Today I've been opening new toys and putting stuff away.  Nola wanted to test out her new bean bag toss game.  She hasn't quite mastered it yet.

Lots of videos this time.  I can't help it, she's just so much fun! 

Family Portrait

Santa

Nola met Santa.  And she remembered that she hated him!

Let's compare:

Last year on the left, this year on the right.

You can practically hear her Christmas cheer.

Honestly, I was disappointed that she freaked out again this year.  I've seen a lot of 2-year-olds on facebook sitting sweetly with santa and was hopeful that she would do the same.  I guess I should be happy that her first reaction is to scream when put on a strange man's lap.  Maybe next year?  

We did get a few good pictures in front of the big tree.

She wanted to wear her fancy shoes.  She loves those shoes right now.

 Ten more days until Christmas!  

Even better- 5 more days until Christmas break!!

Thirty!!

Rob turned 30 on Saturday!!  We stayed in a hotel in Lincoln, which was great because we got to go swimming in the indoor pool. Nola loved it!  I'm excited to take her swimming this summer!!

Back to Robert, he wanted to do something different and thought it would be fun to shoot a hand gun.  So, we shot some guns.  

I had one of Robert's friends meet us and surprise him.  It was the first time any of us had shot hand guns.  I was pretty nervous.  I broke a few range rules- screaming, setting down a loaded gun- nothing too serious.

After the gun range we headed to Valentio's for Robert's surprise birthday dinner.  He was very surprised.  I think he enjoyed it!  The theme was "Robert" so we wore glasses and I made smiles from a picture of his face.  

Now Robert has 6 month to figure out what to do for my 30th ;)

Thanksgiving 2013

Happy Thanksgiving!  

Those are the two things I'm most thankful for :)

I'm also thankful that I got to spend time with family over my Thanksgiving break! My younger sister flew home a few days earlier than we did so we met my parents half way and let them take Nola for the week. That meant we were baby free for three days before driving down to Kansas! I had a chair to work on and got talked into going out for margaritas (it didn't take a lot of convincing) so I didn't get much of anything done. 

We drove down to my parents house Wednesday night and celebrated Thanksgiving with my Grandparents. Then my mom and sister and I decided to take part in the grey Thursday festivities and hit up a sporting goods store.  The line was crazy long. Luckily, my purse doubles as a shopping cart.

My mom and I went shopping again on Friday, which is always a good time, then Friday night Rob and I went on a date. We headed back to Nebraska on Saturday and spent the afternoon on Sunday in Lincoln with Robert's family. 

It was a great weekend and got me really excited for all of the holiday events coming up! 

November Photo Dump

I have a lot of cute pictures from November that I need to share!

Disclaimer: If you don't like looking at pictures of an adorable toddler, stop reading now.

Everybody LOVES a dinosaur!

Nola wore the same dinosaur costume I wore when I was 18 months old!  My mom made them, the purple one was mine and my sister wore the pink one.  I love that she held on to one so her grandkids could wear it because it's just so cute!  Do you see any similarities?

We had a fun Halloween night.  Nola caught on to trick-or-treating pretty quickly and would yell "more house" after she got candy.  It was so neat to watch her figure out Halloween.  Sometimes I wonder why we get to be the people to exprience all of these "firsts" with her, especially because there are so many people who would love to be apart of them.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

10 years

It's been 10 years since I've graduated high school.  It's hard to believe, manly because I'm still in high school, but it's true.  And we had an amazing reunion to celebrate!

After our sophomore year our town opened a new high school so half of us went to the new school- GO JAGUARS! Our reunion was for both schools, which was fun because we got to see everyone!  A friend that I hadn't seen in 6 years flew in from Chicago and spent the weekend with us. The reunion started with a casual get-together at a bar.  It was a little overwhelming to walk into a room of people you haven't seen in 10 years.  At first we were worried that we wouldn't remember anyone, but then there was a moment when we wondered if anyone would remember us!  It turns out we were worried for no reason.

AHS/ACHS friends!

Sara entertained us all night!

And then this happened:

Seriously, if you are ever in Wichita you have to check out Club Rodeo.  It's a country dance bar.  And a hip-hop dance bar.  And has LIVE BULL RIDING.  Every hour, on the hour.  It's crazy.  And fun!

Our formal reunion was the next night and was held at Exploration Place, which is where we got married!  It was so fun to be back there!  There was drinks, dinner, a few games, dancing and lots of catching up with old friends.  

Sara and I accidentally matched.  It's a twin thing.

The "0" didn't last all night.  We may have had something to do with that.

I wish I would have taken more pictures with all of the wonderful people I got to see again.  It really was a great weekend, and so full of love.  There is something so special about seeing people you've known for years after a long absence.  It's the same feeling I had after my fun weekend in Colorado this summer.  It's so comfortable and easy.  And FUN!  Seriously, my checks still hurt from laughing!