Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day yesterday.  I had a great day!  Much like every Sunday I got to sleep in and Aaron made me breakfast – biscuits and gravy (yum!!).  Jenna was napping when I got up and when she got up we exchanged cards and gave her a gift.  After Christmas I found a great deal on small stocking stuffer like toys at Target and thought that one of them would be a fun gift to give her for Valentine’s day.  It was a whistle that you blew bubbles from.  I didn’t plan on letting her blow the bubbles herself until she’s older, but thought she’d enjoy seeing them and blowing the whistle even without the bubbles.  Aaron opened it for her and filled it with the bubbles then went to blow it.  The soapy mixture blew right back at his face and a few small bubbles floated through the air. He tried a few times to make it work and it ended up disturbing Jenna. She made a funny face and sat on my lap as far from him and the whistle as possible.  So FAIL on the Valentine’s day gift! Her card does have stickers though and although she doesn’t quite get the concept, she still loves stickers, so all is good!

Portia and Jenna checking out the malfunctioning bubble whistle.

Reading the card from Mom and Dad.

You get the picture

Jenna had a fun time playing with some older kids at our Superbowl party.  Jocie is our friend that has given Jenna hand-me-downs since before she was born.  She’s 8 months older than Jenna, but Jenna’s so big that she’s now the same size as Jocie!  Jenna loved to follow Jocie around at our party and she wanted to do everything Jocie did.  We put up our retractable gate to keep Portia on the stairs and of course the girls wanted to play with her, so they kept going by the gate. Once they both sat down on the bottom step, side-by-side. It was so cute. I had to get a picture!

Let me tell you, it is not easy to take a picture of a toddler, but it is nearly impossible to get a good picture of two of them!  Keep in mind that I deleted the “bad” pictures!

Here’s how it went down.  Jocie and Jenna look super cute on the steps. Julie grabs the camera.  The girls look cute.  The camera turns on. Julie tries to quickly take a picture without them noticing.  Jenna and Jocie notice. Jocie makes her “scary” cheese face (it’s her thing right now). Jenna looks at Jocie.  Julie tries to get Jenna to look at the camera.  Jenna looks at the camera.  Jocie looks at Jenna.  Julie tries to get Jocie to look at the camera, Jenna stands up.  Jocie stands up and no one looks at the camera (except Portia, who you can see through the gate if you look closely). Jocie sits back down and looks at the camera. Jenna wanders off. Jenna comes back. Jocie wanders off.  Julie gives up and decides a collage depicting the fun of taking pictures of toddlers will be almost as cute as two adorable girls sitting by each other on the bottom step. The girls sit back down on the steps and grin at each other….

For Uncle Brad

Fun with Friends

Jenna loved pushing Thomas in her car.  She pushed him all over the living room.  Usually she just gets to push Baby Jenna around (the doll she got for Christmas named Jenna), so a real live person to push around was awesome!

The Weather Outside is Frightful

A family of ducks is known to visit the stream behind our house.  We see them feeding a few times a day and I like to point them out to Jenna as we go downstairs (we have a large window in the stairway landing that overlooks the stream).  Today, I noticed a huge brown mass on the north bank of the stream.  It was the ducks, huddled together, trying to stay warm.  You know it must be cold if the ducks have to huddle for warmth!  I didn’t catch a picture when all of the ducks were huddled, but you can still see the mass. Also, we have recently had a crane living in the creek as well. You can see it in the picture. It is the taller brown lump (for lack of better words) on the right, about 3/4 up.

Here’s Jenna as we were heading downstairs and I was trying to point out the ducks. This picture reminds me, we trimmed her bangs last week.  What a fun task.  I got them as straight as I could…

Back to the ducks - there we go, now she sees them!

We watched the ducks for a few minutes, then headed downstairs for a drink. Thirsty?

Pretty Toes

Our friends Chris and Debbie got Jenna scented, glittery nail polish for Christmas.  What a fun gift for a mom to a one year old!!! We had fun painting nails a few days ago.  Not so easy to take pictures of baby feet (they constantly move, move, move!), but here’s our best attempt. 

Merry Christmas!

We have had a great Christmas.  We enjoyed one of the whitest Christmases in recent history for Eastern Kansas.  We think we got around 10” overnight Christmas Eve.  We left early Christmas morning and were gone until late the next day.  When we got home the driveway was full of snow again, so it snowed quite a bit more after the large fall on Xmas eve.  Aaron was quite happy with the snow blower purchase from 18 months ago and the more recent decision to get an SUV with 4WD. 

 

We celebrated our Christmas on Christmas Eve morning before heading to exchange gifts at Aaron’s dad’s and then grandma’s.  Jenna got a new chair that is just for her (Portia may think otherwise and will probably get to catch a few naps on it if Jenna lets her).  Aaron brought it into the living room when we were ready to open gifts and Jenna got really excited about it and climbed right in!  She isn’t tall enough to climb into our furniture, so it is the first time we’d ever seen her do it. It made us quite happy with our choice of gift! 

 

At Aaron’s parents’ she got a few fun gifts, like a new baby doll and a fishing pole. The fishing pole came in a backpack with a small tackle box and a pair of sunglasses. We put them on her and she had fun walking around their living room with them on. I thought she’d throw them off immediately, but she wore them for a few minutes.

 

At Aaron’s grandma’s she got an awesome Little Tykes car from Great Aunt Vicki and Uncle Chris. She loves to climb in and out of it.  Since we brought it home, she loves to take rides on our hardwood floor.  She also got a few toys, clothes, and books from her other Great aunts and uncles and her Nanny Cain. 

 

I apparently didn’t take pictures at the rest of the Christmases, so sorry.  There are a few more pics at the end.

Jenna got a fun doll from Grammie and a neat homemade blanket, pillow, and bulletin board from Aunt Pam and Uncle Stan.  Grammie has lots of Santas decorating her house (I don’t remember the exact number, but she has counted them and there are a lot!) – Jenna loved to look at all of them and kept finding new ones all day.  We stayed the night and had a great time with my parents and aunt and uncle playing games all evening (ok, Aaron did NOT have fun with playing Trivial Pursuit, but we otherwise had fun playing games).

The next day we headed to my grandparents’ for the big Long Family celebration.  Even though I thought that Jenna’s name went into the family drawing (and would therefore just get one gift), she ended up making a killing and getting gifts from all of her Great Aunts and Uncles and Great Grandma and Great Papa.  Between all the gifts, Portia’s kennel, a Pack ‘n Play and high chair, we are lucky we were able to bring everything home!

We celebrated a few days later at my parents.  Jenna got some cute clothes, toys, a sled, and Pa Pa made her a beautiful step stool.  She loves to stand on it and can just barely see over the counter into the mirror. Adorable!!!

Helping Dad open gifts

All the loot Jenna got from Aaron and I

Gifts from Santa