Thiel Family Christmas

We hosted Andy's side of the family for Christmas this past weekend and had a great time!  It was a short stay for everyone, but we had a lot of fun and the kids played hard all weekend.  Weekends like this make me wish we all lived closer and were able to see each other more often!

Ryan got some bonding time with his cousins.

Ryan giving Macie a kiss

Noah, Ryan and Macie

JD and Ryan

We celebrated JD's 5th birthday with Spiderman cupcakes.

Noah, Kayley, JD, Macie and Drew

Noah, Kayley, Brandon, JD, Madison, Ryan, Macie and Drew

The kids took pictures with Grandpa and sang us Christmas songs.  Really, Macie sang us Christmas songs and the rest of the kids joined in on the chorus every now and then!  My kids couldn't even remember the songs they sang this year at school!  They cleary take after me.

  

And we opened presents!

Kayley opening an easy bake oven from Matt & Kim

Noah helping Ryan open a hippo ball popper



JD opening a present from Grandpa

Noah's suitcase from Grandpa

Macie opening a present

Kayley's ATV from Matt & Kim

Drew's basketball hoop from Mitch

Kayley getting ready to bake some chocolate chip cookies

Macie and Kayley about to enjoy the cookies they made!

Pre-K Christmas Party

Kayley's Christmas party at preschool was this past Friday.  She was excited all week for it.  It was so cute.  She is definitely loving the holidays!  I picked Ryan up from his room and we went to Kayley's room for the party.  Andy met us there and Kayley was just beaming.  She ran over to us and told us Santa was coming!  The class ate snacks, sang us three songs and then Santa came.  Last year, Kayley was a little hesitant about approaching Santa for her gift, but not this year.  :-)

Waiting patiently for snacks at the party

Ryan enjoying the party

Santa brought her a Doc McStuffins book!

Going back for a picture with Santa

Drew and Kayley have been busy working on their Christmas lists.  Drew wrote a letter to Santa and mailed it on Saturday. 

It says:  "Dear Santa, I have been good this year.  Please tell Mrs. Claus hi and tell Rudolph that he is my favorite reindeer.  Here is what I am wishing for Christmas."  He has a big machines book and wants everything he read about! 

A Fever, Polar Express and Disney on Ice!

Things haven't slowed down around here.  Drew is still busy with basketball three days per week.  He usually has two games and one practice each week.  It is a lot of fun to watch them play.  Mainly because anything goes at this age!  He loves it and is really hoping for a basketball hoop for Christmas! 

Kayley has gymnastics one night every week and is really enjoying it.  She has learned a lot and loves to watch the older girls practice before her class begins.  Kayley has also started taking a much more active role when it comes to picking out her clothes.  She used to let me "guide" her or only insist on certain shoes, but now she wants a lot more say in most everything and I am learning to pick my battles.

Saturday's outfit

 

Sunday's outfit

I got the dreaded call from daycare on Thursday.  My phone started vibrating and I looked over at it and saw it was the daycare and my heart sank.  I hate when my kids are sick.  It was Ryan.  He had a fever of 102.2.  When I walked in his room, he looked miserable, but gave me a smile when he saw me.  I felt like a new mom because he is the first sick baby I have had.  Having Grandma watch Drew and Kayley prevented either of them from having a fever until they were older than Ryan.  But, it looks like we both survived his first illness!  Of course, now I am waiting for the other kids to get it.  Part of me hopes they get it right now and at the same time so we can be done with it (this round anyway) and part of me has the unlikely hope they won't get it at all!

Feeling good enough to play on Saturday

Saturday night, we took the kids on The Polar Express.  They rode the train, saw reindonkeys (yep), sat on Santa's lap, decorated cookies with Mrs. Claus and visited some animals at the wildlife park.  It made me sad for Arizona though.  I was really looking forward to taking the kids on The Polar Express they have up north on The Grand Canyon Railway, but we moved before we got the chance to take the kids.  However, the kids don't know what they are missing and thought this was the best thing ever so it worked out just fine!

 

Posing with the reindonkeys!

Polar Express!

Waiting to see Santa

 

First picture with Santa

 

Second (and last) picture with Santa

Decorating cookies

Our favorite - the bald eagle

Another picture of the bald eagle

One last picture on our way out of the park

A friend of mine and I took our kids to see Disney on Ice today.  Kayley was beyond excited to go.  Drew wasn't thrilled about going because he thought it was going to be all about princesses (a lot of it was!), but he ended up having fun even though he may not want to admit it.  :-)

 

Waiting for the show to start

Enjoying $12 popcorn!!

 

Busy, busy, busy!

Its that time of year!  I feel like we don't have any time to relax because we are always on the go. 

Drew started basketball a couple of weeks ago.  He loves it!  It is funny to watch 5 year olds try to play basketball though.  Not a lot of passing, but there is a lot of shooting!  Drew is the tallest on his team too.  Yeah, you read that right.  Shocking for anyone that knows Andy's family!  Drew gets all of his height from my side!  :-)

Warming up

Drew is #13

Throwing the ball in

 

Ryan loves going to Drew's games!

Kayley was only happy if she was watching
Disney Junior on my phone

 

We drove to Davenport last weekend for Amelia's 5th birthday party!  The kids had the best time and of course their favorite part was swimming!  I didn't take many other pictures because I was trying to entertain Ryan too.  Three kids by yourself at a swimming birthday party is a lot of work! 

 

We hosted my family for Thanksgiving this year.  Mom went out to Phoenix before Dad this year so she flew in on Monday afternoon.  I picked Ryan and Kayley up early from daycare and they surprised her at the airport.  My dad drove here on Tuesday and Matt arrived on Wednesday.  The kids have been playing nonstop with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Matt.  They are going to be exhausted (and possibly very bored) when everyone leaves later today.  But, just a few weeks until Christmas! 

The kids on Thanksgiving morning

Andy and I went to the Iowa/Nebraska game on Friday.  We got up at 4am and drove to Iowa City to meet his brothers for the game.  The Hawks lost.  While not unexpected, it is still disappointing and especially hard to lose to Nebraska! 

March of Dimes

Awhile ago, we were asked to be the ambassador family for the March of Dimes' Signature Chef's Auction.  We were truly honored to be asked, but I was definitely nervous about sharing our story in front of so many people.  I am used to speaking in front of large groups of people at work, but I was afraid I would get emotional and forget everything I wanted to say.  Thankfully, I kept my composure and it went fine. 

Thank you to our friends who came out and supported us!  We had a great time and enjoyed the entire night.  The event raised $50,000 for the March of Dimes!  The March of Dimes is an amazing organization that is doing wonderful things to help prevent premature births.  As I said in my closing, advances made by research funded by the March of Dimes helped give Kayley the best possible outcome for a 27 weeker and helped me stay pregnant for 37 weeks with Ryan.  While our story has a happy ending, we know more work needs to be done. 

My perinatalogist said it best when he said doctors and nurses do amazing things in the NICU, but we need to do everything we can to avoid a stay there!  No baby should have to start out their life this way:

Happy Halloween!

We had a football player, a princess and a giraffe for Halloween and I didn't spend any money on costumes this year!  My brother gave Drew a Chicago Bears (his favorite team, not ours!) uniform last year for his birthday so Drew wanted to wear that.  I talked Kayley into being a princess again.  It didn't take much convincing because I think she forgot she wore it last year and acted like it was the best costume ever when I pulled it out of her closet!  And, poor Ryan, wasn't going to be anything.  We didn't have a costume small enough for him so I was just going to forget it (we didn't even have a Halloween onesie for him).  My co-worker heard me say he wasn't going to be anything and she brought in a baby giraffe costume that her daughter used when she was a baby so Ryan got to dress up too! 

Andy went to Drew's Halloween party while I went to Kayley's at the daycare.  I picked up Ryan from his room and we went to Kayley's room and watched her class sing some Halloween songs and have their party.  Kayley enjoyed some yummy food at her party while I got soaked by Ryan's spit up.  Nothing says professional quite like spit up stained clothes!

Halloween was a little chilly so I was more than willing to stay home with Ryan and hand out candy while Andy and Sox took Drew and Kayley trick or treating.  They weren't gone long though.  Kayley still tires out pretty quickly and they wanted to come back to help hand out candy.  When Drew answered the door, I would hear him say, "You can take two pieces."  When Kayley answered the door, I would hear, "You can take a handful."  :-) 

Ryan trying on his costume the night before.

Kayley at her parade

Getting ready to go trick or treating!

Ryan isn't so sure about his costume

Excited to hand out candy!

Waiting for trick or treaters

All done!