Merry Christmas (part 2)!

After a day of recovery, and assembly of gifts, we headed to Owatonna on Saturday to celebrate Christmas with the Fullerton's. It was an all day event, that included a stop in Medford to meet the newest member of the Renchin household, Brooklyn. Brooklyn is adorable, and Jenna kept insisting that she have either her bottle or pacifier, which ever she was able to reach. Then it was off to Owatonna....

We spent the afternoon hanging out, and began opening presents once the kids woke up from their naps. Andrew had a hard time waiting for his turn, but started to get the hang of it towards the end. Once he opened the scooter, he was pretty much pre-occupied with that :) Jenna was more interested in seeing what she could reach on the table (IE cookies), but did open a few of her presents.

Ready to go:

Why open new stuff, when I like the old stuff:

WOW - A SCOOTER!

Bruce has this week off of work, so he started to paint Jenna's room today.....so far it's been primed. We tapped everything tonight after the kids went to bed so he's hoping to finish painting tomorrow. Andrew insisted the Jenna sleeps in his room tonight, so let hope that they both sleep well! We hope that everyone had a great Christmas - we did :)

Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning the kids came down stairs to discover that Santa had visited. Andrew was ecstatic when he found the computer that Santa left, and Jenna loved the doll accessories (stroller, pack-n-play, etc.) that he left for her. Andrew wanted to open all his presents right away, while Jenna wanted to play with everything she opened.

Look I fit! (or from Sadie's standpoint - what are you doing!):

After a morning of opening presents at home, and after naps, we headed down to Faribault to celebrate Christmas with my family. Jenna enjoyed eating Uncle Nick's popcorn, and Andrew enjoyed testing out as many toys as we would let him open.

The boys playing their guitars:

Christmas Eve

This year we spent Christmas Eve in Hudson, which is something we hadn't done yet. It was the 1st time that we were able to attend the Christmas service at our church, which we enjoyed (although we were amazed at the # of people they could pack in!). After church we headed home and had lasagna for supper. We let the kids pick 1 present to open before heading to bed.

Andrew with his 'mote' control dump truck.

Why we don't let Jenna dress herself:

A visit with Santa

While eating out at Perkins on Saturday night we had a surprise....Santa showed up! He stopped by our table and said hi to the kids, and let us know he'd be in the backroom in case the kids would like to sit on his lap. Andrew was very, very excited and couldn't wait to go and talk to him. Jenna just kept staring at him, and was really unsure about him.


Here's the picture of Andrew with Santa:

It was VERY exciting for Andrew, and Santa gave him a matchbox car out of his Santa sack, which he shows everyone. Jenna wanted nothing to do with Santa so we didn't force her to sit on his lap. When Bruce went to take a step towards him I thought she was going to crawl up on the ceiling - definitely not ready for a Santa visit. She did wave to him, but that was it.

Friday night we decorated cookies with the neighbors. The kids had a blast, and amazingly it didn't appear to be too big of a mess. There were 18 kids that were decorating cookies, so we weren't sure how it was going to go. It was really nice of Kelley & Brian to host the decorating event for the 2nd year in a row.

Other than the Santa visit, Saturday was the 1st night that the kids had a babysitter that wasn't family. We had one of the big sisters of one of their daycare friends come and watch them so we could go to a Christmas party. It went really well (we were a little nervous), so I'm sure we'll be calling her again.

The kids and I made cookies on Sunday, while Bruce went to the Vikings game with our neighbor, Brian. Jenna figured out how to undo the cap of the sprinkles...she then proceeded to dump the entire bottle of sprinkles out on the table and shove them into her mouth by the handful. Andrew just stared at her and told her that she was being naughty and that if she kept it up Santa wasn't going to bring her presents.

That's it for now...We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

SNOW!

Bruce had the kids outside playing on Saturday since it was so nice out (40°F). So here's a picture of the snowman they built:

They also went sledding, which both kids loved. Apparently the faster the better for Andrew. He even wiped out pretty good, and still decided to go down the hill again. I missed out on the snowman building and sledding, but I'm sure I'll join them next time. I was out with friends on Grand Avenue. An evening of shopping, dinner, and dessert with the ladies was a lot of fun.

Sunday we went to the Bongers family Holiday Open house. It was nice to see everyone since we don't usually get together anymore. During the open house is when the cold front moved in, and wow - what a change! When we arrived it was warm (upper 30's), and when it left I think it was in the low 20's and dropping, and we were only there for a few hours!


The cold & snow has made for some long commutes this week, but at least Bruce and I are together so we can talk while we are sitting in traffic. It sounds like we're due for more snow tonight, and this weekend. That will make the kids happy...now if only it would be warm enough for them to go out and play in it :)


One of the vendors that Bruce works with handed out giant snowflakes this year...here are the kids with them:

Andrew kept taking his and throwing it up in the air saying "look it's snowing". I'm just glad that snowflakes don't actually get that big!

Guest for a night

We had a little furry friend stay with us last night.....an 11 week old kitten. One of the gals I work with is really active with animal rescues, and someone had contacted her concerning an 11 week old kitten they found in the Hudson area. So she asked if he could stay with us for the night, and then if I could bring him to work with me. Of course we said yes, I couldn't stand the thought of a little kitty out in the cold, so we had a little visitor last night.

Both kids fell in love with him instantly, and we had to explain more than once that kitty, or Weezer as Bruce called him, was only staying for a night, then he was going to work with mommy so Lulu could find him a new home. He was a very mellow little guy that seemed to take to the kids and Sadie right away. Sadie didn't seem to mind him, and even allowed him to cuddle up against her (it was pretty cute). Here are a few pics:

So if anyone wants a cute little cat, he's up for adoption. They'll help out with the vet bill to have him fixed, and get him vaccinated. Isn't he cute?

A busy week...

Last week was my 1st week at Medtronic. Everything went really well. The kids didn't seem to mind going to daycare earlier than they were used to, and Bruce and I even car pooled on Friday. I think I'm going to really like working there.
Friday (12/5) marked two very different anniversaries for us. The 1st being the anniversary of my Grandma Bongers passing. I wish she would have been able to meet the kids. I know she would have gotten a kick out of them, but I'm sure she's up in heaven watching and laughing.
The 2nd anniversary is that 3 years ago this past Friday (12/5) Andrew had his surgery. It is amazing at how much has changed since then. Lately he's turned into a little musician....he's constantly singing, playing his drums, xylophone, or pretending to play the guitar. This morning he was singing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas', only his last line went "We wish you a merry Christmas & a happy new EAR" - Bruce and I couldn't help but start laughing. He also sings Bingo a lot, but in his version it's "E-I-N-G-O". This past summer he'd claim it wasn't Bingo, but Mingo, so at least we're making progress! One last little Andrew saying....for those of you that read this that knew my Grandpa Bongers, you'll laugh at this....when Andrew wants the lights turned on he'll say "can you shut the lights on?"....yes, a little bit of Grandpa is alive and well in my little blond haired blue eyed boy.
Jenna's been having fun with the Christmas tree. The ornaments are constantly showing up in other parts of house since she loves to take them off the tree and carry them around. Her other favorite trick is to walk by the tree and take a swing at any ornaments that look like balls. So far we haven't lost any ornaments, but just to be safe we've moved all of the special/breakable ornaments higher up on the tree.
Now I'm off to wrap presents, before the kids wake up from their naps :)