Everything in our house now plays music or lights up.

Seriously... everything we touch now jingles, rings, beeps or blinks. Sorry this update has been so long in the making, but since we've just been to see a lot of you, hopefully you don't mind too much. We will give a few glimpses at what we've been up to the last week and a half or so.

First, before we left to go home for Christmas, Carly helped Kim make candies and cookies. Here she is helping dip Buckeyes.



We were planning to head for Dixon on the Saturday before Christmas, meet up with some friends, and spend a couple days with each set of Grandparents for the holiday. The weather however had different plans. Kim and I both worked full days on Friday trying to wrap up things so we could be gone for a week. We'd already had some crummy weather the last couple days, and Thursday night and Friday morning we had a few inches of snow. We heard reports of more bad weather coming and debated what to do. We had a Christmas party for the kids at Carly's daycare after work, and on the way home from that, we made the decision to book it for Illinois and get ahead of the storm. So... at 9:00 Friday night we headed out, and got to Dixon just before 3 am. Carly traveled very well, for which we were grateful. We had a great drive. Light traffic and decent roads made it nice. Good thing we did it too, because for the next five days it was either snowing, freezing rain or 50 mph winds causing white outs in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois or any combination of the three. We probably wouldn't have made the trip if we'd waited until Saturday.

While we were in Dixon, Kim and Carly had a chance to meet up with Kim's Augustana college friends. All of whom had babies this past year. Here's a couple pictures from their get together.





The day we were supposed to head down to Grampa and Grammy J's was one of the bad Illinois weather days. They had bad ice down around Lincoln and it snowed a few inches in Dixon. As hard as it was, the decision was made that we should stay put and not risk the three hour drive south into the ice. Bakka and Gram Kitson were happy to have us stick around a few extra days. On Christmas Eve we made it out to the Christmas tree farm to the cabin and hung out watching the birds for a little while. Carly found a little red tractor that was just her size.



Carly's first Christmas morning was good for her. This was of course the start of what I can only assume will be years of blinking, jingling and ringing toys. We opened gifts at Gram and Bakka's and later in the day the weather was good enough to head south. Grampa and Grammy J were very excited and happy that we could make it down there. Aunt Laura didn't pass up a photo op either! Here's a few pics from Christmas day.



Oh... so you rip the paper?



Yummmm... box.



I just like the bow I think.



Carly and Bakka had to take a few minutes to make sure they weren't missing any good stuff on ebay!



Photo Op!



Yessss! This one plays music AND blinks!!



Friday we made the long drive back to Minnesota. For some strange reason central Illinois after having days of ice suddenly had a 50+ degree day and was placed under a Flash Flood warning from all the melting! We drove all the way home, slept in our own beds and even slept in just a little bit. When we got up, we headed over to Wisconsin to see some of Kim's extended family. We stayed in a hotel with a pool... so guess what.... Swimming time! Carly loved the pool. We totally forgot to get any pictures in the pool, but I know Aunt Megan took some so when we get copies, we'll share.

Here's Carly in her little two piece.



And her little robe so she wasn't cold getting to the pool.



And then after swimming for probably close to an hour, she got in jammies and sat poolside with Aunt Jenni.



Watching the other people in the pool.



Sunday morning Aunt Megan and Carly hung out a little bit before they headed back to Illinois and we headed back home.



Home safe and sound, and surrounded by blinking, beeping, boinging, ringing, jingling objects of generocity from our loving family and friends.



Thank you so much to everyone for a great Christmas, and we are so happy we got to see so many of you. For those of you that we didn't get to because of the stupid weather... there will be more chances soon enough. Apparently we're going to have a lot of trips home this coming fall. It appears that there are a couple weddings, which will also mean a couple showers, along with another Thanksgiving and Christmas. I know... four days ago, and the next one will be here before you know it! Take care everybody!!