Christmas Eve

We were able to go to the Olsen's house for Christmas Eve dinner and nativity. Their little boy Nathan was Joseph and Craig and Jaclyn's baby girl played the part of Jesus. Don't let the happy pre-party pic of Kenzie fool you. She was supposed to play the part of Mary but she was being just a little temperamental that night- sorry for the tantrums everyone. I believe Keith was a shepard/wise man. He really rocked that bathrobe. It was a great night!

Christmas in Kentucky

We were so excited to have a white Christmas. We really weren't expecting one but mother nature pulled through for us and we enjoyed this peaceful view all day.

Keith and I woke up about 8 AM and opened our stockings. Mackenzie normally wakes up at 8 but she was worn out from the night before. We got antsy and ended up waking her up at 8:30- check out that sweet morning hair:

It was such a fun morning watching her open her gifts. Keith and I had a lot of fun opening gifts also. Our families were so generous to send packages and so we had a lot of fun surprises.

That was it for the pictures of the day. We went to a friends house for a yummy breakfast and then came home and prepped dinner. We had our old neighbors Justin and Neha over along with our good friends Amber and Bryan. We cooked a ham and I finally made a successful batch of homemade rolls. It wasn't nearly as good as dinner at our parents but it was a fun night and we were so happy to have good friends to spend it with.

Pre-Christmas

I have a lot of catching up to do! Keith had almost 3 weeks off for Christmas and we spent most of that time playing the wii and hanging out with different friends in the ward. We were sad we couldn't go home for Christmas but did have a lot of fun starting our own traditions.

Our friends Kameron and Jodie put together a little ugly sweater party with some other 2nd years. We ate some yummy food, played Guesstures and Ashley put together really fun crafts for the kids to do.

Derek proudly took home the trophy for ugliest sweater...fur's in though right?:

This was just a cute shot

Our ward had a Christmas party with Santa Clause and dinner. As you can see, Kenzie sat on Santa's lap for about 1 second. She wouldn't talk to him but she did give him a high five.

I also helped with our Stake Creche. My friend Brandi is on Stake Activities and she was desperate for help so she asked ME to help paint-ha! I really didn't do much but I thought this scenery turned out pretty cute. This was the stable backdrop for the children's nativity. We set up a room for the children to color and make little baby Jesus in his manger and then had this set for them to put on costumes and act out the nativity scene.

Now we'll see if I can get Christmas posted sometime soon!

November/December

I feel like such a slacker with my blogging lately. Mostly our lives have been so full of the busy day-to- day things but it's 11 PM and I'm forcing myself stop procrastinating...ready?

This poor guy is pooped! We came home from YW/Scouts/Tithing Settlement at 9:20 tonight and this is where he ended up after putting Mackenzie to bed. Finals started beginning of December and end the 14th. This semester has definitely been the worst. Not only are his classes a lot more demanding but I've been a bit of a crazy person lately. He's so good to put up with me and study as hard as he does.

On the 3rd, we went to Red Robin to celebrate my birthday. Did you know you get a free burger on your b-day if you sign up for their e-mail? It's kind of becoming our tradition. It was fun to get out and the waiter was nice enough to snap a picture because I seem to never take them on Birthdays. Keith got me a Kitchen-Aid for my b-day/anniversary/part of Christmas. I've wanted one for a long time and finally found a deal on Kohl's for $100 for the classic. I busted it out today and made homemade pizza dough and breadsticks, yum!!
This picture makes her look so sweet and innocent. She is most of the day. She's my best bud and her evolving speech makes me laugh. My favorite phrase is "We're home!" every time we pull into the complex. Today her diaper leaked (again!!) while she was supposed to be napping. When I walked in there she told me "Mamma, poo, stinky, bath!" For once Keith and I are actually considering potty training sometime soon.
I laughed when I saw this picture as I uploaded them. I HATE this dog. Unfortunately, he lives directly above us. I took a picture trying to catch it in the act of leaving his gigantic pile of poo right by my porch that his owners did NOT pick up. This happened twice during Thanksgiving break and I was more than happy to report it to management. I figured the dozen newsletters addressing the issue were warning enough. He also barked for 2+ hours a day sometimes waking me up in the morning, other times just driving me crazy in the afternoon. I used my mom yell on him several times and I was surprised how well it shut him up.
We bought our tree at Lowe's again this year. You can't beat $15 for a 6' tree and it's beautiful! Kenzie loved directing where the ornaments should go:All of my pictures of the tree lit up are blurry so these are the shots you get instead (she's about to attack me in these pictures hence the crazy faces) :

She's so fun
And finally a little Christmas craftiness. I made this with Carlie and I'm so glad I did because it was cheap, easy and I love seeing it every time I pass the front door. Mackenzie however throws a bit of a tantrum every time we leave because she wants a "sucky"
So I cut out scrapbook paper and put it behind each cubby on this shelf from my friend Amber. Do I like how it turned out? Yes. Worth 2-3 hours of my time? Maybe. Worth cutting my finger (including under my nail) with a rotary cutter and having it bleed for a couple days? Definitely not.
And to end this long post, I have to say that nothing makes me happier than sitting by the Christmas tree at night when all of the lights in the house are off except the ones on the tree. It's such a beautiful, peaceful sight. I'm so grateful for this Christmas season. I'm grateful for a wonderful little family here in Kentucky and our extended families back West. We miss everyone dearly but maybe staying here for Christmas will help us focus on the blessings we have and the celebration of the birth of the most important baby this world has seen. How lucky we are to have the Gospel of peace and love in our lives!

Kenzie's 2nd Year

Better late than never.
It's cut off on here so click the little YouTube link on the
bottom right to go to YouTube if you want to watch it full screen.

Kenzie Turns 2!

It's a big day- the only day you double your age and I have to say I'm feeling a little bittersweet about it all. I cried on her first birthday and I cried again on her second. We had a fun morning taking some pictures found here and then we walked around the mall while everyone oohed and awed over the tutu Keith's mom got for her this summer. I wanted to take her to the zoo but it was a gloomy day. We stopped at BF Rose's house to play for a few minutes then came home to nap. Then she watched TV while I made dinner. When daddy got home it was crazy- dinner and presents and neighbors visiting then book club at our apartment for a few hours.

After all was said and done I felt like I hardly held my baby on her birthday so I sneaked into her room and found her awake. I picked her up and rocked her and marveled that she was ever small enough to curl up in my belly. And then I cried. I cried because I felt like I had just delivered her and time was slipping away, because I loved her so much I didn't want to think about anything hurting her, but mostly I cried because over the past couple of weeks I have watched her slip away from being a baby and instead, turning into a little girl.

We are so very lucky to have you! Happy Birthday Mackenzie Shaw!

Corn Maze

On Friday, we made our way back to Deere Farms to go through the corn maze. Unfortunately, we had a bad storm on Tuesday with some high winds and a couple of tornadoes that destroyed a lot of the corn maze as you can see below:

But it was still a beautiful day and we had fun trying to hit the different checkpoints. Keith mostly had fun watching me try to navigate us through the maze with the help of a map.

It was a little challenging to enjoy it with this girl. We've both had colds so she was tired and she wanted only to eat the dried corn on the ground and sit to say "cheese" for the camera

We thought this view of the church was so beautiful. The bells rang out hymns for about 10 minutes at 6 o'clock, it was so peaceful.