Kyle the Camel

What to expect from a group of 3, 4, and 5 year old kids? One of Travis's friends who has a son that goes to the same pre-school said that the program from the previous year was so funny that he laughed through most of it. I think the thing that set him off was a little boy who fell over when he got too close to the edge of the step he was standing on. You'd have to know Brandon to understand.

I had no idea that the kids were going to have costumes, and even though it is hard to tell from the pictures, Kyle got to be a camel. Yup, a proud, happy camel came marching down the aisle, stayed nicely in line and sang like his daddy does ~ missing about half the words, but singing his little heart out none-the-less.

There must be something about pre-school Christmas programs that just invites moments that make you want to laugh, but leave you feeling like you will be forever damned if you do since you are in a church when they happen. You may have noticed that "Mary" is missing from the last picture. That is because she also had an accident, just not the kind that the little boy had that Brandon laughed at last year. That's all I will say about that.... poor thing. 

Dunker Tookies

Last year we celebrated Christmas in the Mandan House. Grannie came over to make the traditional pfefferneuse cookies that I love, and the triple batch of cappuccino crinkles that papa and Uncle Mark enjoy. 

When a 2 year old scoops cookie dough, regular sized cookies morph into dunker tookies, a.k.a. monster cookies.

This year found us repeating the tradition, with slightly different results. Instead of putting Ky in charge of scooping the cookie dough, we let him roll the pfefferneuse in the powdered sugar. We'll just say it is going to be a very long time until all the traces of his handy work are cleaned up. 

Last year my itty bitties were, well, still so itty bitty

 

 This year my itty bitties are not so itty bitty.

Great grandma's buns make me happy too, Emmie!

As hard as it is to believe, we had the first decent snow fall of the year this weekend. While Grannie and I finished baking and tackled the clean up, Travis took the kids out for some winter fun.

There were many exclamations of sadness as the afternoon wore on and the snowman slowly lost his face as he melted back into ordinary piles of snow. It is amazing how quickly sad itty bitties bounce back when offered freshly baked cookies!

60 Day Recap

Ever the spend thrift, hubby decided that we would forgo internet and cable for the 3 months that we lived in Mandan. Personally I think the stress of selling our first home caused him to go temporarily insane, because seriously, who goes without the internet these days. Little did he realize the impact this would have on my blogging life.  With only 2 of the previous million faithful followers left (shout out Shannon and Kara!) I have a brief recap of some of the main events in the lives of the Livesay family from August through December.

1. For Sale! Sold? Gulp…. In August Travis decided that we should put our house on the market to “see what happens”. With housing interest rates at the lowest point in history we would try to sell the house and if it didn’t sell by the end of October we would just try again next summer. We had a market analysis completed, agreed on a selling price, signed our names on the dotted line and sat back to see what happened. Our house was listed for sale on a Wednesday in early September and we got our first offer Friday morning. We signed on the dotted line the next day. Our first family home was only to be ours for about 45 more days.
2. To split or not to split.With our first family home sold and winter fast approaching the race was on to decide on a house plan and break ground on our next house. We chose a split entry layout that was slightly larger than our first home, with 3 bedrooms on the main level, and we lived happily ever after. HA! We should be so lucky as to have nothing go amiss on our decision. Long story short: even though our lot was designed for a walk out ranch style house, we chose a split level to save some money. Unfortunately we found out that our lot may not be stable enough to support that style of house and were faced with some choices. We chose to be safe and change our house plan, which led to a whirl wind couple of weeks in which we had to re-analyze our budget, choose a ranch style house, wait for plans to be re-drawn, have the ground re-staked and get the tractors digging in order to get foundation poured before the ground froze. It may be a miracle, but despite all the changes and delays we were able to get back on track for a February 1, 2011 closing date. 
3.  Tick or Tee. Kyle’s first trick-or-treating foray was a huge success. Despite scattered snow piles here and there, the weather was beautiful and we didn’t need to cover up his super cute giraffe costume with a winter coat, bonus! Grannie, Auntie Jess and Brina all joined us and we walked around Nana and Poppa’s neighborhood. Brina taught Kyle the ropes, and even though Kyle was timid at first, he soon found his groove once he realized that people would give him candy……just for being cute and saying “tick or tee”. After we had knocked on the 150,000^th house, Ky got a little distracted and our progressed slowed to a crawl as he decided that walking through every little pile of snow he could find.
4. No Mandan, GO HOME! The first couple of weeks in the Mandan House were tough on Kyle. Almost every night ended with him in tears, crying to “go home”. Eventually bedtime got easier, but he never called the house in Mandan “home”. Since we were going to be moving into our new house so quickly we decided to call this the Mandan House. One evening as we were heading to Mandan on the interstate Kyle asked “Mama, wheh ah we?” in his sweet little boy voice. “We’re going to the Mandan House, Ky” I told him. “No Mandan, GO HOME!” he roared in a voice that I would describe as decidedly monster-like.  
5. A million miles in 3 months. Shortly before we moved to Mandan I had accepted a temporary position providing OT services to a couple of school in South Dakota. Twice a week I left the house shortly after 6 a.m. in order to make the 2 ½ - 3 ½ hour drive to a couple of small town schools. By small towns I mean the type of little communities where people watched my unfamiliar suspiciously as I drove through town on roads that have no street signs. I passed herds of buffalo and decided that the universal sign for “no hunting” was for farmers and ranchers to hang old tires on their fence posts. 
6.  You expect ME to eat THAT?  Emily’s first experience with solid food came on Thanksgiving. While the rest of the family enjoyed their big plates of delicious food, I sat Emmie in the bumbo chair, fastened a cute bib around her neck and presented the spoonful of very festive apple, squash and cranberry puree. While the first taste seemed to be a hit, I soon realized that this may not be any easier than it had been with Kyle. Pure disdain was the look I received from that point on whenever I attempted to feed Miss Em any baby food. We took a baby food hiatus for about 2 ½ months.
7. Inch Worm Style. Kyle never really crawled, he did a funky version of a commando crawl that made him look like one of those freaky characters from the remakes of Chinese horror movies. You know the ones, the ghostly looking woman who drags her body across the floor with jerky, spider like movements of her arms? Oh yeah. Emily’s style of choice? The inch worm. It begins with her planting her hands on the floor. Slowly she gets her butt up in the air until her hands slide out in front of her and ends with a face plant. So far no rug burn.
8. 8.      Family Pictures. I’ve never been a huge fan of the studio portrait where everyone is posed with the fake Christmas tree back drop. I had wanted to find an amateur photographer to take some candid family shots, however, procrastination brought me to the point of desperation as I felt the need to get a photo Christmas card sent out again this year. We were the first appointment of the day, and arrived before the photographer at one of the department stores in the mall. She eventually got us in the studio and arranged us. She was so enamoured with Kyle and Emily that she really didn’t pay much attention to old mom and dad. Needless to say the first round of pictures didn’t impress me. What impressed me even less was her reaction when I asked her to take some more shots. By this time both kids were over stimulated and in tears, but we tried one more time. She asked another photographer to come help get the kids to smile. Since this second photographer was well over 6 feet tall and standing behind the first photographer as she shot pictures we had ton of pictures with the kids looking up at the ceiling. In the end we were able to get a couple of suitable pictures taken. We are now taking recommendations for amateur photographers!
   9.       More Tissmiss, mama! As we pulled out all of the strings of Christmas lights and ornaments in preparation of putting up our Christmas tree I remembered this time last year, when Kyle was about 18 months old. His car seat sat in the middle of the back seat so he had a good view out the front window. Whenever we drove past Christmas lights he would point and grunt “oo, oo,ooo,ooooo”.  This year when he sees the lights he says “wow!” and “oh my doodness, poody”, and “more Tissmiss, Mama!” 
   10. The Year of Thomas. Our house has been over run by Thomas the Train ~ pajamas, play tent, books, movies, games, train sets ~ you name it, we now own it. Ky would live in his Thomas pj’s if I let him.
   
   
   So there you have it. These were the days of our lives before I decided to keep a journal that I could post onto my blog once Travis’s sanity our internet was restored. I back dated these entries, so if you care to you can go back to January 3^rd and catch up!