Dave and Kate's!

After we left my parent's house in NY, we drove to Columbus, OH, to see Dave and Kate! For some reason, we didn't take a lot of pictures of our time with them. It was a great visit and we really enjoyed spending time with them and their precious new little girl, Brianna. Our first day there, we drove to a nearby mall that had Chick-fil-A (my favorite!) and an indoor play area. The play area was insane with kids and it was interesting to look around and notice how many parents were actually NOT WATCHING their kids. Katie and I enjoyed ourselves anyway, drinking our Starbucks, while the guys chased the boys around and Brianna snoozed. I think this is supposed to be a bear that Kyle is sitting on.

Kyle sliding with Bryce.

Brianna was less than impressed with her first trip to the playground.

Dave is a great photographer and offered to take some pics for us while we were there. Thank you so much, Dave! We really appreciate it! Here is one of my favorites of Kyle.

Dave took some good ones of Bryce (even though he was an hour overdue for bed... that's a good photographer for ya!) This one is too cute though... I just love his little pout face. I'm sure it won't be long until I no longer enjoy this face. :)

Thanks so much for your hospitality, Dave, Kate and Brianna! We love you guys!

Christmas in NY!

We traveled to NY to spend Christmas with my family... and we got there by car! It was kind of funny, whenever we mentioned to anyone that we were driving to NY for Christmas we got one of two responses, either "Are you crazy?" or "You're insane!" Well, it wasn't that bad of a trip and we only ran into weather on our very first day driving. The Lord was very good to us (as was my Dad, who used his hotel points to put us up for two nights.... we love you, Dad). Here is Kyle on Day #2... for anyone taking a road trip with toddlers... bring a DVD player. When all else fails, it works! We didn't use it very often, but when we did it was a sanity-saver.

Bryce had a great time riding in the car. He actually spent a good amount of time sleeping.

The boys were so excited when we got to NY. They didn't have to be in the car AND they were at Ahme and Grampy's house!! Here is Grampy and Kyle watching the Grinch cartoon.

We had such a great time with my family. Jim and his girlfriend, Jess, came over as much as they could. They came over to help decorate the tree on Christmas Eve... a Kennedy family tradition. We always decorated for Christmas just after Thanksgiving, but the tree didn't go up until Christmas Eve. I loved it and hope that one day I can talk Jeremy into getting a real tree and putting it up Christmas Eve!

The boys on Christmas morning.

Christmas at the Kennedy house. If it looks a little crazy, that's because it was! It was also loads of fun!!

Daddy and Bryce are opening some of his gifts. He really liked ripping paper.

It was so awesome that we had SNOW the whole time we were there. I love snow! We took Kyle out to sled on the hill that I grew up sledding on. He had a blast!

Kyle was introduced to video games during this trip. He would ask to play "yegos." (Lego Star Wars) Bryce isn't one to be left out.

It was a great trip and it was totally worth the three-day drive that it took to get us there!! Thanks so much, Mom and Dad for everything you did for us! We love you and can't wait until our next visit... for which we will probably fly!

I missed a whole month!!!

So, I'm thinking maybe it's time for an update.... it hasn't quite been two months, but I think I definitely qualify as a "blog slacker." Sorry for all of you who have been on the edges of your seats, wondering what is going on with the Polsons as you attempt to fall asleep at night. I'm here to put all of your wondering and worrying to rest!

Let's see... where to begin. Well, just after my last blog, Jeremy and I headed to Estes Park for the weekend to attend Family Life's Weekend to Remember marriage conference. I would highly recommend it to everyone. It was so great for Jeremy and I to get away for a weekend and focus on just each other and a great reminder that our marriage should be reflecting Christ and his love to those around us.

I somehow manage to go through all of Thanksgiving without taking any pictures. John and Amy came to visit for the week and we had a great time hanging out with them!

Jeremy had his first (and probably only) snow day of the year and we took advantage of it to take the boys out and go sledding! They had a great time until the boys accidentally ran into the fence, after that, it wasn't as much fun.

Bryce wasn't too impressed with the snow.

After the unfortunate fence mishap. I'm glad the fence was there, otherwise they would have been in the road... not good.

Later on in the week, we took Kyle to the museum to see the dinosaur exhibit. He LOVED it. He really likes dinosaurs and has learned to recognize the big bone collections in the museum are supposed to be dinosaurs! They had a really neat hands-on area for kids to uncover fossils, put massive, magnetic wall puzzles together, and do a few other things and Kyle really got into it.

Daddy was having fun, too. Bryce was content to be a spectator, but I doubt that will last much longer. His balance is getting better all the time and he loves to be involved in all the action, so we'll see how long it takes for him to start walking.

Kyle did great playing with the other kids. He would notice someone new come along and hand them one of the brushes so they could get involved in the action. He had the most fun grabbing handfuls of the rubber and tossing it in the air... such a boy!

The big, magnetic wall puzzle. I think Kyle was a little too short to really see the bigger picture and get what was going on, but he had fun playing anyway.

I love my boys!!

The same day we went and looked at a townhouse that we had found and were interested in. It was perfect for our family and we put an offer on it, but the bank went with another offer. We're continuing to look and we're trusting that Lord has something out there for us, somewhere.

Unfortunately, this is all for now. Both boys have had a stomach bug the last few days, so I haven't had a chance to get our pictures on the computer. I want to send a shout out to Margaret... tried the charcoal, so far.... so good! Hopefully, it won't be another two months before I post about Christmas!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I know, you're thinking, "Thanksgiving isn't for another two weeks, what is this crazy girl talking about?" Well, every year that we've been married we've done a big family dinner on Thanksgiving with Jeremy's family. It's always a great time with tons of food, family, football and black Friday ads. Each year, in an effort to create our own family traditions, we have also had our own Thanksgiving meal. I'm not sure how successful we are in making our own traditions so far, because each year is different in some ways, but it's great fun (for the most part) for us. This year, our Thanksgiving meal was this past Sunday. It was all very last minute. We had originally planned on doing it the Sunday before Thanksgiving, but we found out John and Amy will be coming into town that day and Jeremy made plans to get together with another family that day as well. So last Friday, we realized the only day that we could do our family dinner was on Sunday and we mad a mad dash to Walmart to get what we needed. Here are some pics from our first "family-of-four" Thanksgiving!

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the finished turkey. I love how they look when they come out of the oven. Plus, we had a 14lb. turkey for the 2 and 1/2 of us to eat! It was the smallest one we could find!

It is not often that we are able to capture a picture of all of us. This one didn't come out well, I had to adjust the lighting... so if we look a little green, it's not because of my cooking.

This wreath is my absolute favorite fall decoration!! I made it the first year Jer and I were married. I've only used it as a wreath once, it can usually be found right where it is in this picture, laying on my table with a candle in the middle.

Kyle enjoying his meal.

Bryce even got in on the action. He ate some potatoes and played with some corn.

I wanted to thank all of you that have been praying for Bryce this week. For those of you that hadn't heard, he has been sick with a high fever (at least 103 or 104 if it goes unchecked) since just after our meal on Sunday. We spent a fair amount of time at the Dr. office the last two days trying to make sure there isn't something serious that is behind it all. Praise the Lord that today he woke up without a fever and seems to be on the mend.

Some lost pictures... and potty training progress!!

I took some pictures with our smaller camera today and when I downloaded the photos, I realized that there were pictures from the last two and half months that I had forgotten! So here are some of our lost pictures...

When Kyle and Bryce first started sharing a room I moved most of the toys into that room. It was too much for Kyle to handle at times. Here is a picture of what his room looked like one night after he fell asleep... (his room had been clean and his bed made when he went down for the night....)

Kyle went through a really strange smiling stage. Does he look like anyone else in the Polson family??

Kyle in his fun conductor outfit.

I did his hair for him after a bath. Jeremy said he looks like the "bird-man" that plays for the Nuggets. I think he looks like a rock star!

Before John and Amy moved out to Cali, we went to one of our favorite restaurants, The Melting Pot. It is a fabulous fondue restaurant, here we are about to enjoy our last and favorite course... dessert!

The excitement at Jeremy's birthday dinner was too much for Bryce to handle. He crashed on Aunt Amy.

Bryce playing with his "Jamaican" monkey, man. Thanks, Ahmie and Grampy!!

Bryce in his winter outfit from Ahmie. He reminded me of the little kid from A Christmas Story. (In a little kid, whiny voice, "I can't put my arms down!")

His smile just melts my heart.

This was my project today. This unit was on sale at Target and was probably still too much to pay, but I love organization and my husband likes to see me happy, so we got it. I'm also thinking I can turn the tubs around to face the wall when other kids are around so there are only so many toys available. I will admit that I'm OCD and don't like toys to be without their parts, so I'm hoping this will help keep everything together.

Jeremy is great at finding deals and here is his most recent one. He found a Thomas the Train set on Ebay for one-third of the price!! I'm not sure which of the boys was more excited. Jeremy took advantage of the room I had cleaned up to set up both of Kyle's train tracks. When I came home I could hear Kyle saying, "OK, my turn!?" They were having a ton of fun together.

Kyle is doing well potty training... as long as he isn't wearing anything!! He hasn't had an accident in a while and will even run to the potty on his own to do his business (including one poo!!), but as soon as I try to put big-boy underwear on... it is wet within 30 mins. I just keep reminding myself... we're making some progress.

Here's a video of Kyle saying hi to Ahmie and Grampy!!

So Busy!

We've been pretty busy these past few weeks. I've been so good at taking pictures lately (I downloaded over 1GB of pictures from just the last two weeks) but not as good at updating the blog... so get ready!! I'm making up for lost time...

Collin has been coming over about once a week to play with Kyle while Kristina goes to her prenatal appointments. Kyle just loves these times! There was one morning where I had told Kyle that Collin was coming, but he didn't actually come. When I broke the news that Collin wasn't coming, Kyle broke down and cried, he was so bummed!! (Notice he is looking a toy catalogue, it came with his Thomas the Train set and it is his new favorite "book." He asks me to read it at least four times a day!)

I've been working on potty training Kyle. I've actually been working on it for about six months now! He really enjoyed it when the potty was new, but eventually would cry if we asked him if he needed to go or sit on his potty. My latest trick is this potty chart I made for him. When he fills up a whole row with stickers, he gets a toy. Our original prize toy was a matchbox car, but the excitement for that lasted about a day. Then I found a "cheap" Thomas the Train piece at TJ Maxx that we started bribing him with. Boy, did that work!! He's doing better, but we still have a long road ahead....

Just after we went to the pumpkin patch I decided to take some fall pictures with the boys and our new pumpkins. Here's one of the better ones. I thought it was hard to get a picture of one mobile child, it was much easier than trying to get a picture of two mobile children!

Belleview (the school Jeremy works at) did a school-wide fundraiser a couple weeks ago. It was a walk-a-thon where the goal was 500 miles. They had each secondary class set up some kind of refreshment to sell and a different activity for the younger kids to have fun with. Apparently all the riding in the stroller made Bryce thirsty, here he is trying to get his brother's juice cup. (Notice his little LL Bean shoes that I got on clearance... they are so adorable!)

Jeremy's class was selling pizza, so of course he bought a piece for his boy. Kyle ate most of it before running off to play. (While he was gone, Bryce crawled over and tried to eat what was left.)

One of our new favorite outings is the bookstore. At our local Barnes & Noble, they have a great Thomas the Train set that Kyle loves to play with. It's nice because Kyle gets to play with other kids and learn to share. Plus, as long as I have a Starbucks gift card and I don't buy any books, it's a free outing!

It has now been two weeks since John and Amy packed up their house and moved to Visalia, CA. We miss them and will continue to, but we know the people they are serving in Visalia will be blessed by them. We love you guys!

Kyle waving goodbye to the truck as they start out.

This is the last bunch of pictures that I took this morning. Our maple tree out front dropped almost all of it's leaves this past week and the wind hasn't blown them away yet. So the boys and I went out for some fall fun!

I raked up three big piles of leaves for Kyle to jump in. He wasn't too sure what to do at first and actually just went and sat in the piles. Soon he got the idea and was running around, jumping in all of the piles. Jer said that when he took his diaper off later, it was full of leaf bits!

Kyle likes to push his brother over and even announces it just before he does it. I actually got a picture of him in action today. I heard, "I push Bryce over" and turned around in time to capture this incriminating photo. Bryce usually doesn't mind too much and just crawls off to his next adventure. Kyle also doesn't seem to mind the discipline he gets after each time he does it, because he obviously keeps doing it.

Here is one of the first pictures I captured this morning and it is one of my favorites. I'm so blessed with these two adorable boys who just love to play with one another. Kyle was throwing leaves all over himself and his brother and they were both cracking up with laughter. It just makes my heart melt to see them interact like this and I'm so thankful to the Lord for such great kids.