Christmas Pictures!!!

Here are a few Christmas pictures!!  I just looked at all of the pictures that my mom sent and I don't have 1 picture of Kelly, Tyler, or my parents!!  Maybe next holiday we will be able to get one of all of us!  I will say that uploading pictures on our blog is much easier with my new Mac!!  LOVE it!!

It is a blizzard here today!  We just got back from using our new sled that Santa (or Baba) got us!!  It was so much fun!!  She loved it!!

Here are Devyn and Drew! Drew LOVES Devyn and is really great with her!!  This is on Christmas Eve.  When we went to Iowa City for Thanksgiving Kelly went to Des Moines to see Tyler's parents.  I talked to Drew before we left and we made a deal _ if I got him stickers in Iowa City he would get me gum from Des Moines...you know because I have never had gum from Des Moines before!  So here he is on Christmas Eve sharing the Iowa City stickers with Devyn!

Brock and Reid are both using these walkers! They are moving around like crazy!!  But when they aren't in them Devyn and Drew like to use them!  They are both way too big but I guess this is fun when you are 19 months and 4 years old!

Devyn is really into dips!  She loves them!  She must have had about 15 chips with salsa on them.  She was really just dipping the chip in and licking the salsa off!

Drew and Brant were BFF's this week.  Here they are putting a toy together and playing it together.  Drew got this awesome nerf gun that shoots so far!  So Brant and Drew got to play with that too!  Oh and Drew is AWESOME at wii bowling!!

This is Christmas morning!!  Of course I had to put D in her Santa dress!  We are opening up presents!

Devyn got a fun new car!  There is a door but she chooses to climb in the other side and not use the door!

Devyn got a stroller with a baby too!!  I really wanted this because at the park she always plays with the other kids so now she has her own!!  Here she is putting the pacifier in the baby's mouth!

And walking the baby _ Devyn was pretty spoiled this year!  All Brant and I got for her was a laptop...a toy laptop because she is always pounding the keyboard of ours...so Santa must have thought Devyn was a good girl this year!  I forgot what it was like to believe in Santa!  But with Drew around you have to be careful to not say anything that will give it away!  I almost slipped a few times.  Brant was awesome though!  He was checking the google map of Santa and telling Drew where he was and when he was going to be in Libertyville!

And our new sled!  That has already come in handy!

Helping mom opening up presents!

This is the best toy!!  I wish I had thought of this!  The top changes into so many different things.  There is a kitchen, baby room, tool set, school room, doctors office, and vet office.  It's awesome.

I'm tired _ can we go to bed now?!  She was up until 9:30 on Christmas Eve.  She didn't get up until 8!  Good thing cuz mom and dad had a headache!

This is on Christmas Eve.  We are always allowed to open up 1 gift on Christmas Eve... here she is opening up a gift from Aunt Kelly!!  It's building blocks and she has been building stuff all morning.

Happy Holidays!!

We had an AMAZING Christmas!! Our house looks like a toy store! Devyn got lots of fun things - kitchen set, building blocks, this awesome stand that changes rooms so she can play doctor and other things, clothes, and more... Brant and I got a new laptop so I am super excited about that! Pictures to come _ I need to wait for my mom to download hers because I forgot my camera!

Devyn & Jacob - BFF's

Natalie is definitely one of my favorite people _ I hope I tell her that enough!! She is so amazing with the kids and we are so lucky to have her in our life!! One of my favorite things she does is sends pictures throughout the day! Here are a few of Big D and the J-Man.



Jacob got an AWESOME new table for Christmas! I am totally jealous and I really want one for Devyn! I am going to have to talk Brant into it!

Natalie got the kids a ton of art supplies so that they could play on the new table! She is much braver than me becuase they were finger painting today and doing all kinds of other fun stuff!!

And they even ate their snack at the table!! I love this picture because they kind of look like an old married couple! Or maybe they are on their first date _ not sure which.

Merry Christmas! We are heading to Libertyville in the morning and I am so excited! I haven't seen my family in a while_we live so close but we only see each other for about an hour at a time so I am excited to spend more than an hour together!

Santa is coming!!

I can not believe that Christmas is only 4 days away!! CRAZY!! This year has flown by! I hope it snows so Devyn can use her new sled that Santa is bringing! Well really that Baba got :-)

Brant got a new phone and I love to play around with it. I found this picture and thought I should post it! It's Devyn during our Christmas photo shoot!


When it is cold out its kind of hard to entertain a child with as much energy as little miss Devyn McVay. But we try! On Saturday we went to the play McDonald's which was a complete failure. She hated it and there were about 9,000 kids there playing tag and it was rowdy. So we left and went to Target. And the picture below pretty much explains what we did for 45 mins. Devyn would find a bike and put a helmet on and sit on the bike. Then decide she wants a different bike grab that from the shelf with a different helmet and sit on that one. It was pretty funny. How easily entertained she is!

Yesterday after gymnastics we went to the Children's Museum at Navy Pier. This was our second trip to the there! The first time she was too young but this time I think she actually had fun. Here she is playing in the water room. She was soaking wet when we left this room. We had better pictures but I was in them and decided not to torture any of you!

And we fell asleep in the car on the way home! She was tired!

And this is our new slide that is in the middle of our living room. Again - it's tough to entertain a 1 year old when you can barely walk outside! She LOVES it!! She climbs up on the top and just smiles.

Jane - If you are reading this how do I make my old layout go away? I stole your shabby blog layout and it is laying on top of my old one! But I can't get rid of the old one!!

Little D!!

Nina just sent me the cutest picture! I have never seen this _ and I started to tear up the minute I opened it!! Thanks Neen!!!

I can't believe how little Devyn is! My hand looks enormous next to her little body!!

It's FREEZING here!

I feel like December is flying by!! Christmas is only 9 days away!! CRAZY! I have finished with all of my Christmas shopping too so that makes me very happy!!

Devyn has been such a character lately. I picked her up from Jacob's house yesterday and she completely freaked out. TEMPER TANTRUM!!!!!!!!! I don't know if it was because I said hi to Jacob first or if it was becuase I left and went to work but for close to 20 minutes she was throwing Jacob's toys around. Then she went into his room and was throwing his clothes all over the floor! It was a nightmare! And bless Jacob's heart _ he went in to check on Devie and then when Melissa and I were laughing Jacob was laughing at her too! Sorry D _ but you were being so out of control that it was a little funny.

So this is our new thing. We love to climb on the kitchen chairs and then on to the table. She knows she isn't supposed to do it BUT she does! And when I catch her in the act she gives me a look and laughs!


I put D in a new Iowa Cheerleading outfit! Adorable. A friend of mine saw a picture of Devyn in a Bears cheerlearding outfit and asked me if that was her Halloween costume. NOPE _ I just like to dress her up as a cheerleader sometimes.

Bath time! When we first moved Devyn was terrified of the new bathtub. She would freak out and bath time was no longer fun. But now she is used to it and we are back to normal. This is the only picture I could seem to take of her in the bath. We got these new crayon things that let you write all over the tub! Pretty fun stuff!

I have become completely obsessed with the Twilight serious (Thanks Kara) I have finished 2 500 + page books in about a week and I am about 100 pages into the 3rd book. If you haven't read them you really should _ I did NOT want to jump on this bandwagon but it is sort of destroying my life right now because ALL I want to do is read!!

So when I saw Devyn doing this I about died! She climbed up on the chair and was going through my New Moon book. Hysterical!!



We have a waffle maker and I am terrible at using it! Brant has mastered it but me it takes about 4 tries before I get 1 waffle made! Anyway I decided to make Devyn a waffle. This is what she looked like after eating her waffle! She smelled like a big pile of syrup. It was pretty funny!!

I PASSED MY TEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas Card Photo Shoot!

I have been trying to capture the perfect photo for our Christmas card!! We have a TON of adorable pictures... of course Brant and I can't agree on the one to use!

I didn't put any of the top pictures here just in case we want to use them! It needs to be a surprise :-) Anyway here is a sneak peak of what our xmas card may look like.

A few that made me smile...

I have been really really bad with the camera lately. I just haven't had time! But don't worry _ our tree is up and I bought a santa outfit AND Aunt Kara bought Devyn some adorable new dresses so I have a feeling some cute pictures our on the way!! Warning: During Christmas I think I am pretty creative and artsy with the camera_ anyone who knows me knows I am not creative or artsy!!

I was looking through my girlfriends wedding photos today and I came across a couple that made me smile so I thought I would post them! I promise pictures of the new place will be up soon!

ALL MOVED IN!

I wish I could say that this has been an easy transition_BUT it has been far from it. Devyn refuses to sleep in our new place which means Brant and I don't get to sleep! I don't think we have had a full night sleep in over a week. And to make matters even worse I am sick. Hopefully soon we will all be sleeping and all be healthy!

My parents came down this weekend and my mom worked her butt off! She cleaned our entire place!! Thank you Mom!! My dad kept saying "Katie why don't you follow your mom and learn how to clean" and my mom would say "Katie why don't you go downstairs" I think I was in the way!! Cleaning really isn't my thing :-)

Here are a few pictures of Devyn in her usual position. The pacifier has come back into our life _ since the move it is really the only thing that keeps her happy. She will honestly throw a temper tantrum at ANYTHING these days. Brant put up a gate so she couldn't go upstairs and literally in an instant she went from happy to tantrum _ on the ground kicking her legs and slamming her forehead on the ground. And this happens about every 10 mins.

I think for Thanksgiving we may have to accidently leave all of the pacifiers in Iowa City :-)

I had a complete meltdown when I dropped Devyn off at Jacob's the other morning! Poor Melissa and Natalie had to listen to me bitch and cry about how tired I am and blah blah blah. Sorry guys _ but thank you _ I guess I needed to cry!! Later that day Natalie sent me this picture of Devyn!! Natalie definitely knows how to make my day!

Devyn & Jacob

I absolutely LOVE watching Devyn and Jacob together! They are the best of friends and get so excited to see each other!! It is absolutely adorable!!! Here are some pictures from my mom's camera _ she came down to help me with Devyn yesterday!! Thanks Mom :-)

Here is Jacob posing for the camera! I LOVE his hair! When I was little my hair stood straight up too!


Out of order picture _ but Devyn loves having all of these huge white boxes around the house. She is drawing all over them! She actually started drawing on our wall with blue crayon...hope the new owners like blue crayon.



Now we are back at gymnastics! We were throwing scarves yesterday...I guess it's good for tracking. But I am not sure we tracked anything.

Devyn and Jacob on the beam together! Of course Dave and I were playing with the rest of the kids and their parents in the group circle! But Jacob and Devyn were off on their own.

I LOVE this picture of Jacob! How cute is he!!

Devyn LOVES LOVES LOVES to do pullovers on the bar! When we do 1 and I let her down she says please please please until we do another one.

This was hysterical! Devyn and Jacob were just kicking their legs on this mat and hysterically laughing.

Jacob on the rings!! He is always smiling _ happiest kid EVER!

Just doing another pullover _ just on a different bar this time.

Walking on the beam - Look at that concentration.

Devyn was running around and climbing on everything _ next thing I looked and her pants fell down! No idea how long her diaper was showing but it was definitely showing.

This was after gymnastics _ I am tired Mom!! Can I go to bed!?! I had to leave for a baby shower so my mom stayed with Devyn but Devyn actually walked herself up the stairs, put her pacifier in her mouth, and waited for my mom to put her in the crib. She was a tired little girl.

Just popping the bubbles in gymnastics!! This is the BEST bubble blower ever!!

My parents got us a Wii for Halloween (well really for Christmas but I just couldn't wait until then). Brant and I have been playing Wii bowling and Devyn tries to do it now too!! She actually holds the controller and then walks up to the tv screen and puts her arm in the air. It is pretty funny to watch.