Santa's Sick!

So, as with most 4 year olds I assume, we are having some issues with listening and following directions lately. This morning while getting ready for daycare, I had to use the ol "Santa is watching really closely right now and if you don't listen to me and Daddy then he might have to move you onto the naughty list." Well McKenzie's response to this was, "No he's not Mom. He's sick so he can't watch me." I finally figured out that Santa was supposed to visit the daycare yesterday but Santa called in sick so the kids were told that Santa was sick and couldn't make it to visit them. McKenzie seems to think that this means she's off the hook for being good because if he's in bed sick, he can't be watching her. I mean really, can we ever get a break?! I had to break out the elves. When Santa is sick, he sends his elves out to keep an eye on the kids and then they go back and let Santa know who needs to be moved to the naughty list. Well she told me I'm a liar and Santa does not send out the elves and she's never even seen an elf. Needless to say, she was a good hour late to daycare this morning. UGH!

McKenzie has come a long way from last year's holiday dance program. This year she didn't cry about the tutu's being itchy until the very end of the program! Last year she refused to put it on at all. Wow, she's growing up. One thing that I have learned though is that Dance Mom's are crazy. I am going to have to be much more aggressive I guess. I was literally the first one there but the last one in the room once the door opened. I was pushed out the way by parents and grandparents! Once I got in, all the chairs were taken. Here I am carrying this baby carrier with Olivia in it and not one person offered to give up a chair to me (knowing I was the first one there). So I find an open spot on a bench on the side of the room and as I am about to sit down, the old lady sitting next to my spot decided to scoot down saying "I should save a spot for so and so." I was about an inch from sitting on her lap. I couldn't believe it! These dance mom's have not seen the last of me though!!! I can play their little game!! LOL McKenzie's next mission is the ice skating competition which is held on March 1st. She's very excited about it and about working with her coach on a routine. This is going to be another interesting event. I'm sure the costume will be too itchy or something. Who knows! It's definitely entertaining for us though! From what I've seen so far, ice skating mom's are much nicer!!

I got the privilege of taking McKenzie to her first concert. My sister Nicki also took her daughter, Alexa, so we all went together to see the Cheetah Girls. It actually wasn't too bad for a Disney concert. Not that I would want to have to sit through it again. I have to say though that some parents are insane. I saw a girl who couldn't be more than 6 years old wearing a tube top and mini skirt to this concert. She was with her mom who I guess wasn't dressed a whole lot better. Man, these kids are growing up too fast as it is.

Olivia is doing great. She is smiling and giggling a lot now. We think she is teething already. She is drooling a lot and crying much more. She has been getting ibuprofen a lot lately. Poor thing. She still only rolls over when she's mad. Although, she has figured out how to wiggle herself out of her bouncy seat. We have to keep a close eye on her now when she's in that thing. I was making dinner and came out of the kitchen to find her out of the bouncy seat and on the floor just laying on her stomach. She sure wasn't happy about it though!

Bobby and I get a special treat tomorrow night. I won an Extreme Christmas Experience package through Village Pointe Mall. I won dinner for 4 at The Melting Pot, a horse-drawn carriage ride, 4 tickets to the Omaha Symphony and a $200 gift card to Village Pointe mall. Unfortunately we have a Christmas gathering tomorrow night so we are going to go to dinner but have to skip out on the Symphony. If anyone wants to go to the symphony, just let us know. The tickets are up for grabs. I can't pass up The Melting Pot though!!

Santa Clause is Coming to Town!

We decided to take the girls out to see Santa on Saturday. I like to get that taken care of early on in the month to avoid the mile long line where you literally wait for an hour. Our wait was about 10 min on Saturday.



McKenzie told Santa that she would like a lightsaber (which she calls a light saver) so that she can play swords with Will and Ben. She also asked for a magic wand. She was planning to tell Santa what Olivia wanted but says she forgot once she was on his lap. Way to look out for your sister!! Oh well. I'm sure he'll figure it out.



Good luck to all of you who still have Christmas shopping to do and still need to meet with Santa. The mall was brutal on Saturday. We are pretty much done with our shopping luckily!!



Happy birthday to my mom!! It's her birthday today. She got to start it out with a 5:30am Jazzercise class with me. How fun is that? Then she gets to end the day watching McKenzie perform her Holiday Dance Recital!! I'm sure there was nothing else she would rather do on her birthday!! Happy birthday Mom!!



-The Byers

She's on the Move!!

Olivia has figured out how to roll from her back onto her tummy. It was figured out by luck I think. She is a very laid back baby until it comes to feeding. When she wants her food, she wants it now (she takes after her mom). She was so mad last night that we didn't get her a bottle right away that she worked herself up and rolled over. As horrible as it sounds, we wanted to see her do it again so we waited another minute to feed her so she'd do it again. Now she's rolling over in her crib too. What a milestone she has just hit. In no time she'll be crawling around the house. Mom - you said you needed an idea for Olivia for Christmas. Sounds like a baby gate will be needed soon!


We've had such a great week. Last week was fun seeing everyone for Thanksgiving. It is always fun to see family and of course, stuff our faces. We actually started our Thanksgiving a week or two before with Thanksgiving with my dad. Next it was Thanksgiving with the Byers on Thanksgiving day, Thanksgiving with my mom on black Friday and then Thanksgiving with the Zimmerman's on the next Saturday.


Something very cool happened on Thanksgiving day as well. My nephew (first nephew) was born. John Wyatt Hauptman was born at 8:54pm. He's so cute. I have to get all of the time in with him that I can because they will be moving shortly after Christmas. Finally a boy in the family and he leaves! Congrats guys!!


We also got our Christmas tree up last weekend. McKenzie seems to think that once a Christmas tree is up it's suddenly Christmas. Every day she asks if it's Christmas yet. Then once it starts snowing,s he is convinced Santa is coming. Next year we may not put up our Christmas tree until a week before. I have learned from last year though not to put presents under the tree until about a week out. Otherwise she will constantly ask to open her presents and carry them around the house. I'm sure some would end up disappearing. Although, anything we can't find seems to always be behind our living room t.v. That is McKenzie's hiding spot for everything. I had a package delivered while I was in Des Moines for class and she decided she'd hide it behind the t.v. until I came home. Unfortunately, she forgot about it once she hid it.


After Thanksgiving, we decided to take a small family vacation to Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City. We had a lot of fun. Surprisingly Olivia slept the entire way there and back. Lucky for us because she hates the car. She will cry nonstop once in the car. We had a lot of fun at the water park and arcade. McKenzie also got to go to the kid spa and get a chocolate manicure. She loved it of course. Olivia seemed to enjoy her first time swimming. She's always loved her baths so that wasn't too surprising.


Well its back to normal everyday life for us. We hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Now on to Christmas!!


The Byers

Happy Halloween

It's Halloween time! McKenzie is excited. I think Bobby is just excited because we are actually going to go out tonight! (after trick-or-treating of course) McKenzie has been Sharpay (from High School Musical) this week at her Halloween parties. Tonight she will be a snow princess. I had to talk her into this so that she would have a warmer costume for trick-or-treating outside. Olivia will be pink leopard. Bobby will be a pirate and I'll be a tavern lady.



We've had quite the month. It seems that we never have a second just to be home as a family. We are constantly on the go. That's just fine with us though. Bobby and I get restless if we sit for more than a few minutes. We seem to find ourselves going out of our minds if we don't have anything planned for the day. Those days are very few and far between so we must be doing something right.


McKenzie has had a few Halloween parties already. She had a party at dance and gymnastics this week. She has a party at school today and then we'll take her trick-or-treating tonight. She also has a fun night planned with her cousin Alexa.



We hope that everyone has a great night!!



Happy Halloween!! - Kari, Bobby, McKenzie & Olivia

Big Weekend

McKenzie hitting the pinata

Pumpkin carving

Olivia's baptism

Baby Ava and Olivia

McKenzie in the rain

Ali, Nicki and Kari at Ali's birthday party

Kari and Bobby

Last weekend was a long one for us. We decided to have Olivia baptized and McKenzie's birthday party on the same day. Both parties went very well.

The baptism was interesting. We went in front of the congregation and stood proud of our family while we waited for Olivia's turn to be baptized. From what I am told, McKenzie stood there looking out to the crowd as she picked her nose. Wonderful! Then, Olivia spit up on me. We had no burp cloth with us up front. Bobby was so nice as to use his hand to clean it up (it wasn't a lot). Then Olivia started crying. Of course I didn't have a binky with me either. Thank goodness for uncle Brian (Brian and Heather are Olivia's godparents). He rescued us by going through Olivia's diaper bag (looking through every single little pocket) until he could find one. The party afterward went fine.

Next on the agenda was McKenzie's birthday party. Like usual I had way too many pumpkins for carving. It was a great time though. The best part was the pinata. Each kid got a chance to hit the pinata. McKenzie ended up breaking it open for the candy to fall out. It was very entertaining to watch them.

Thank you to everyone that joined us for the parties. We had a great time!

Happy birthday to Ali and Brian! We had a great time at Ali's party last weekend as well at the Piano bar. That's always a fun place to go.

Congratulations to my cousin Shaina and her husband Trevor (and also to big sister Ava and big brother Carter). They just welcomed thier third child on October 9th. They had a baby girl named Brooklyn. Congrats guys!!

Fall Fun

Well, my time home with Olivia is sadly coming to an end. Next week will be my last week home with our new daughter. I'm sure I'll have just as hard of a time with it as I did when I had to take McKenzie to daycare. I remember calling Bobby crying every day for two weeks as I dropped McKenzie off at daycare on my way to work. I hope he's ready for those phone calls again! In the end though, McKenzie just loves daycare. She loves being around the other kids and learning the alphabet and numbers. I would never have been able to teach her everything she knows now. I just have to remind myself of that.

On a happier note, we went on one of a few trips to Vala's Pumpkin Patch last night. We live so close that this ends up being a frequent trip for us each fall. I'll be going again next week with McKenzie's class as a volunteer. I'm sure that won't be the last time for this fall either. It's also my dad's favorite place to get a chili bowl so he drives from Lincoln at least once a week just to go in to eat!

I was able to continue on with my annual Husker game trip this year. I went this year with Bobby, my cousin Josh and our friend Kelsey. I had fun but realized once again why I only go once a year. I'm sorry but some of the people that go to Husker games should just stay home. Bobby was almost arrested for standing up during the game at our seats. It was ridiculous. It made for an interesting game. I had an old women try to pick a fight with me because my husband was standing. She actually dug her knees into my back and pushed her elbows into my neck. Ugh! The tailgating was fun though! Thanks for the food guys!!


McKenzie is growing up so fast. She will be turning 4 this year! Where does the time go? Her newest thing is that she has taken up gambling! This past weekend she won a game of dice at the Byers annual golf tournament luncheon. Ahhh, Bobby and I are so proud! We can now send her to college!!

We have successfully made it through the first 3 weeks at home with Olivia. We were finally just starting to get the hang of dividing our attention between the two girls and we have just been faced with our first hurdle. McKenzie came down with the flu this weekend. Saturday I stayed home with both the girls while Bobby happily made the journey down to Lincoln for the Husker game. Not sure how that happened. Let me tell you, it was tough having them both during those 6 hours. McKenzie was getting sick about every 15 minutes and Olivia was crying nonstop for a good hour and a half at at ime. I think that I was being tested!! Well, I got through it. Everyone is still in one piece. McKenzie is still sick but Olivia has been sleeping on Bobby's chest pretty much all day today. Apparently Olivia is just as big of a football fan as Bobby. He finally found someone in our house to sit and watch football for hours straight.

At Olivia's last doctor's appointment, we learned that she has grown 2 inches and gained some weight. She is up to 8.3 lbs now. She's starting to acknowledge us. We can get her to stick her tongue out at us and follow us with her eyes. She's doing great with McKenzie but but they seem to scare each other at times. McKenzie gets scared sometimes when Olivia cries, thinking she did something wrong. Olivia gets scared when McKenzie yells or jumps around her or whatever crazy thing McKenzie is doing at that time.

McKenzie is doing soccer still. We had a game yesterday morning but she refused to play. Come to find out she was sick. She did participate in the warm up games though and I've posted some photos of that.

Other than that, we don't have a lot of exciting news right now. We are just hanging in there getting used to having two kids now and balancing the activities we have to run to.

Update

We just got back from the doctor. Kari is doing fine. No flu which is what she was most worried about. That would mean she couldn't touch her new baby girl which had her in tears. No infection of the incision either. Looks like it's just one of those weird post-pregnancy things that women have to deal with the week after a c-section/delivery. They basically said that for the next few days she could get fevers and chills while she is healing and that it will be more of an annoyance than anything. Fun stuff!