Baby Brother Poll

Alicia wants to take a poll to ask when her baby brother is arriving. Place your best guess with date, time, weight, and length :)


p.s. In other news Alicia picked out these glasses and they will be ready in a few weeks

christmastime

Mid-December, as we were thinking of solidifying our Christmas holiday travel plans, my doctors made that decision for us! Due to various pregnancy concerns/conditions, my OB doctors decided to keep us near home in Chicagoland for Christmas. So with no Iowa/far northwestern Illinois travel plans, we had to make the best of our little Christmas at our place.

mommy, daddy, Alicia, and Tanner in front of our tree Christmas eve

We attended a nice Christmas eve mass early in the afternoon, and came home to make our own yummy grill out meal. We enjoyed a non-traditional Christmas meal of steak and salmon on the grill, yes, Drew braved the chilly weather, but it was totally worth it, I think! :) After our meal, we logged into the computer and got on a webcast and partook in the Kluesner-side Christmas eve festivities from Iowa. It worked out pretty cool, Alicia was super excited to see everyone on the computer and the tv screen and she sang lots of songs for them for entertainment. To make it even more fun for Grandma Karen and Grandpa Mike, their elves, aka Uncle Dan and Aunt Ann (Auntie Up) made a trip into Chicagoland a few days before Christmas to drop off some holiday cheer. So Alicia loved opening up the grandparent's gifts while they all watched via webcast!

Alicia participating in the holiday webcast with Kluesner family at Grandpa Mike and Grandma Karen's house

Later that night, we made our special Santa gingerbread cookies and prepared our letter for Santa. Here's some pictures from our Christmas morning at home where Alicia opened up her presents and special delivery from Santa. She got some princess toys, a castle, a SuperWhy computer game, along with some other goodies.

Also, a special gift from mommy and daddy was a doll house that used to be Grandma Karen's and Auntie Up's when they were little girls. It is a pretty special gift for Alicia to play with and keep in our family. However, it is a big undertaking for mommy and daddy, as we have had to do some refinishing to it and make it a bit more modern, like any old house renovation project ;-) We will have to post progress pictures specifically another day for how the house is coming along. For now, Alicia is able to play with the house in its current state, but it definitely needs some finishing.

Christmas cutie

A few days after Christmas, Grandma Kloss came in to visit with Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Billy. We had a nice little Christmas at home here, with some good food and family time. Of course, a favorite for Alicia was a cool little Leapfrog Scribble and Write learning game from Aunt Mary and Uncle Billy for Christmas. She really knows her alphabet, but this game helps her write them the right way, so she had a ton of fun showing her skills off to them :)

Look, it's one of Santa's elves.. oh wait, it's Tanner trying to sneak open the gifts and pull off his favorite ribbon bows.

Game time

This one's for mommy! Go Packers!

Cookies for Santa

With mommy being a little more up off her feet this holiday season, daddy and Alicia picked up a gingerbread mix at the store to make cookies for Santa! So on Christmas eve, Alicia got to open her new Christmas Pj's and put them on to make some cookies to leave out for Santa. We might have been cutting it short on the time frame for making cookies for Santa, but atleast he got some really fresh and yummy cookies! Plus, Alicia was super excited to be able to wear her new Mickey Mouse Christmas Pj's and make cookies with daddy. Daddy did a great job stirring and helping roll out the cookies with Alicia, while mommy helped supervise and worked with Alicia's frosting skills. Alicia liked to decorate the cookies with "pretty and yummy stuff" :) aka frosting, sugar, and of course M&Ms.

Dear Santa...

This year was pretty exciting for Alicia as she got much more interested in Santa Claus. In previous years, she really didn't get the whole concept really or expressed too much interest in the festivities. This year, since we were at our home for Christmas eve, it worked well for Alicia to leave her letter under the Christmas tree for Santa to read. Earlier that week, Alicia wanted to send Santa an email, instead of a letter, I guess she thought we were a bit behind schedule and thought Santa needed it quicker than the regular mail. haha..
Here's her letter... (click on the letters below to see the bigger image to read her letter.)

Cookies and a letter for Santa

Incase you can't decipher her handwriting just yet... if you look closely, this is what it said...

"Dear Santa I Would Like" then a note to "Turn Over" you know gotta keep Santa in suspense in what she wants. lol.
She really doesn't know how to write small yet.. lol.. its all big lettering or nothing.. :)

"Castle" and then she proceeded to draw a picture of her castle, before she signed her name "Alicia" just in case Santa wasn't sure.

Thanksgiving 2010

So, was about to do a post about Christmas, and realized, I didn't post our pictures from Thanksgiving weekend, yet! So let's do those first. We had a nice long Thanksgiving weekend this year back home, and we are glad we got to spend all that time with the family, since we were in homebound in Chicagoland for Christmas this year. We got some really good card games in at Aunt Vera and Uncle Eric's house this Thanksgiving, plus they even found their old accordion, which Alicia loved when Grandma Kloss and the others were showing it to her! She sure has a musical bug in her. :)

Also, over the holiday weekend, we had a nice visit at Aunt Ann (Auntie Ups) and Uncle Dan's house. Alicia got to play with some of her other cousins that we don't get to see a lot of, so that was a special treat.

Cali's baptism

Our niece, Cali, was baptized this last November. I think all of Ann and Todd's immediate family were present for Cali's special day. Uncle Drew and Aunt Melissa were Cali's godparents. I think Cali slept the entire time and was a little angel in church and didn't even really cry! Alicia was very excited and did a great job being very quiet in church too, plus she really wanted her pictures taken with Cali too, just like daddy and everyone else.

Having fun at monkey joes

All Aboard the Santa Train!

On a chilly, snowy Saturday, perfect Santa Claus meeting weather, I guess.. lol.. we traveled to Naperville to catch the Jaycees Santa Train at the Metra Station. We met up with the Suttmann and Ford families too and went on a train ride with Santa! Lots of singing, watching the snow flying around outside, and the excitement of what Santa was to bring them for Christmas seemed to be the hot topics! We love doing this type of Santa atmosphere for Alicia, as she is less scared of the big guy in red and doesn't "have to" actually sit on his lap, instead he just sits down next to them. Also, a train ride to the "north pole" to visit Santa is pretty fun too, especially with all the Elves around to sing Christmas carols along the way, not to mention the goody bags they pick up along the way! Alicia did awesome with Santa this year, super excited and ready for him to sit next to her on the train. Alicia's friend's, Kaylee, Lucas, and Megan also came along to give Santa their wish list too! Alicia was all about letting Santa sit next to her this year and I think even gave him a high five on the way out of the train, while Lucas and Megan were still a little intimidated by Santa I think, and were just fine sitting next to their mom while Santa sat across from them. Kaylee did a great job giving Santa her list too and we managed to get a super cute picture of the two of them too! Needless to say, the trip was a success, and Santa remembered Alicia's Christmas wish, as she said she got what exactly what she wanted on Christmas morning. :-)