Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas, although we did miss our families it was nice to just be our little family and have no schedules or places to be.  Christmas Eve we just hung out and watched Christmas movies and baked cookies.  We had a big Christmas Eve dinner and I made a ham so we had our neighbor Aunt Krislyn over and she had dinner with us. We then got all ready and went to Christmas Eve service, it was beautiful and Aubrey made it for most of it.  She hung out in the nursery for a little bit and then we went and got her for the candlelight part at the end and she kept trying to blow out everybody's candles.  Kyle then suggested we get some hot chocolate and go look at Christmas lights so we did exactly that.  We went to this place called Hidden Holloway that my mom and I had tried going to before but when we went it looked like a scene straight out of Deliverence so we didn't get out and high tailed it out of there.  When we went on Christmas Eve thought it was the exact opposite, it was all lit up with lights and Santa was even there.  So we got out of the car and walked around for a little while and checked out the ducks in the lake, the petting zoo, and finally Santa who got nothing more than a scared glance from Aubrey.  Her face was priceless as he (yes Santa) took Our picture.  I need to download it from Kyle's phone because it's a really good picture and Aubrey's face is priceless.

We then came home and did one present and Aubrey got Minnie Mouse socks she wore to bed, I got new pjs, and Kyle got a running armband for his phone.  Christmas Eve was ended with some last minute wrapping and a phone call to South Africa to talk to my sister and her family as they were just waking up for their Christmas.  Christmas day was absolutely perfect. We woke up and just hung out in our pajamas most of the day.  Aubrey took her time playing with each present as she opened them.  She was so excited that HO ho ho had come and left presents and some pretty awesome goodies in our stocking.  She woke up and had popcorn, chocolate, and lifesaver gummies for breakfast (really healthy, huh).  We opened presents for a while and then made our traditional breakfast of ham and eggs and overnight cinnamon rolls.  It was a perfect day of playing and relaxing.  We are truly blessed to have such an amazing little girl in our lives, she's perfect in every way.  Here's a video with all of our pics and videos from this Christmas.  Warning it's about 9 min because it's all of our pictures and video from Christmas. 

Just Relaxing

It's soooo nice to be back in our own house. As much as we love visiting family, living out of suitcases for so long was starting to get old. We are enjoying just relaxing, playing, and enjoying not having to go anywhere, pack, or unpack. We will definitely miss being around family this weekend but we have a weekend full of family time, including cookies, going to look at lights, a big ham for a small family (lots of leftovers), opening presents, and so much more.

Here are some pictures from our weekend up at Kyle's sisters house.  We had a lot of fun playing with Baby Caden.

Uncle Jeff playing Elmo videos for Aubrey and Caden.  Youtube videos are the way to Aubrey's heart, haha.

 Aubrey loved playing with Daden (as she called him).

Uncle Jeff took her outside to play in her pjs and she had a blast.

 Bath time with Daden was fun too, even though she didn't need a bath I knew she'd be trying to get in so I just threw her in there with him.

 He was like her little baby doll, she loved feeding him.

 Aunt Shelby (or Aunt Shelbert- as Kyle calls her) came over to play.

We can't wait for Tata (Aubrey has been calling Kyle Tata instead of Dada recently) to do more fun things like making gingerbread houses.

 Of course with some eating while making.

 By both parties.

Christmas Week and a 18th Month Birthday

Well yesterday was Aubrey Lynne's 18 month birthday and off to the doctor we went just for a check up.  We took care of all the shots a couple months ago so we weren't doing shots right before Christmas.  I'm not good about keeping stats on the blog but I wish I would have been better so I could look back in one place and be able to see how she grew.  But here is Aubrey in a nut shell at 18 months.

Weighs 28 lbs (95%)
34 inches tall (99%) Holy moly is she going to be a tall girl
Favorite Foods: ba ba (chicken-she makes the sound of a chicken), little oranges, edamames, green beans, goldfish, and veggie chips
Cute words- Tata (dada she says it funny now for some reason), Ernie, Elmo and Abbey, Minnie, baby, Dadan (is Caden and Aidan's names), hair (and then will play with my hair, it's always been her comfort thing), puppy, Pe (is penguin), vava (is car her version of vroom),
Animals she knows: sheep, cow, fish, giraffe (she's made up her own sound), lion, elephant, snake, horse
Favorite shows- Sesame Street (mostly Elmo's world), Chuggington, Barney(she sings well kind of sings the I Love You song) and Mickey Mouse Playhouse (her hot dog dance is ridiculously cute), she's mostly out of the yo gabba phase and she gets really excited when Clifford comes on and starts yelling puppy puppy, but then quickly loses interest

She is so much fun and we love seeing her little personality shine. She makes us laugh alll the time and we're just loving our little toddler (definitely no longer a baby).

Yay blogger app

Life just got easier on the road! There is now a blogger for the I phone well not my phone but kyles you know its all the same. Kyle just got in from a day and a half at the hospital in Tennessee and now we're headed out again tomorrow for 2 interviews and Christmas in Columbia. Our visit back has been ummm how do we say it... Exciting to say the least. We had the present that kept on giving. Aubrey and I both got the flu and it's been the most sick I ever remember being. Thankfully my mom was around to help(and had already had gotten sick) so Kyle could focus and get some sleep for interviews. Let's just say me and the hotel in springfield, il bathroom floor and toilet and I saw a lot of each other. But everybody is back to normal again and ready for another road trip. Aubrey is definitely happy tata( her version of dada) is back! They love them some you tube videos, Elmo, chuggington, and Mickey mouse clubhouse are the favorites right now.

On the road again

I feel like we should always be singing that song.  We head out tomorrow for a 10 day tour of interviews, we'll be all over the place and we'll get to see my family and then Kyle's sisters and nephew in Missouri for a weekend.  Aubrey has seen a lot of this in the past couple of months...

but thankfully we have a great traveler.  I think she has be trained well since we travel a ridiculous amount.  We have a great time whenever we go, staying in hotels, swimming in pools, hanging with the cousins.  It's definitely more exciting when we're taking road trips.  We'll even get to do Christmas with our families while we're there.

But it does feel good to just be home and relax like this. 

So little to say I probably won't be posting anything for a while so although I said I'm going to get back on it, I'll take a small break while we're all over the place again. 

Oh Life Got Busy

Well when we weren't traveling from Dallas, to Indianapolis, to St.Louis, back to Indy for all sorts of stuff mostly interviews and visiting with family we were basically just living life. I realized I missed out on Halloween and trust me I'll get a few pics and really cute videos so I can always remember Aubrey's first Halloween that she understood, hey if I knock on this door and say something that remotely sounds like trick or treat they will give me FREE CANDY! We are almost done with the interview season for Kyle to find a residency that fits him and that he fits with as well. He's planning on doing family medicine residency and I couldn't be happier, he's going to make a great family med doc and in only 6 more months he will be a "REAL DOCTOR"!!! Well after residency and all but still he will be a DR! So for now I'll just post a couple pics of the cute kid because she is getting bigger by the second and oh soooo much a toddler. With the cute antics, always making us smiling, and always giving us a run for a money when it comes to the whole parenting thing. Glad to be back to the blog so I can remember all these great memories that we make!

 

Dallas State Fair

Last weekend we spent Saturday hanging out at Cecilia's soccer game and then we hopped into the car and headed to the Dallas State Fair. I didn't know what to expect but when we got there I was definitely not thinking it would be as huge as it was. I'm used to small town carnivals and fairs and this was HUUUUGE!!! They had a football game going on at the Cotton Bowl stadium which was on the fairgrounds too. I'm kind of a dork and thought it was the actual cotton bowl huge game and was texting everybody saying where I was, little to find out that's not until January. Ooops. Here are some pictures from our great, awesome, exciting Saturday with the Toti fam. Oh and our day didn't end until 10:30, the little girl was exhausted!

Swinging at the soccer park.

 This girl and a ball is just too natural, (oh wow, I sound like one of this bragging moms, Oh wait, I am).  She had so much fun running around after the ball, ball, ball.

 Hanging out on the bench with CeeCee (what Aubrey calls Cecilia).

 Walking into the fair!  They had some pretty crazy fried foods there and I didn't take a picture, ooops.  We tried the fried lemonade (delicious!), fried pizza, fried bubblegum (yuck!), fried pie.  They also had fried beer, fried margaritas, fried chicken pancake things, you name it and they fried it.

 We had fun with these cut out things.

 Riding on the ferris wheel, such an amazing view.

 Seriously awesome ferris wheel.

 Riding the carousel with Grandma TT, she loved the horses.

Ok, so gross story I added just because we couldn't stop laughing in the car.  So if you don't want to hear something gross stop here.  So we were driving downtown and Aubrey started making a face like she was well umm adding something to her diaper. All of a sudden the girls and Cole started yelling saying, grooooosssss you can see it.  Yep, as we were driving Aubrey was literally pooping her pants.  So while stuck in traffic Kyle and I held her legs apart so the mess didn't get any worse.  It was quite funny, disgusting but funny.

Oklahoma Visit

So 2 days after we got into Dallas we packed up the car again to head 3 hrs. to Oklahoma City for a residency interview Kyle had. Kyle's mom came with us and played babysitter while we went to dinner with residents and stayed at a paid for bed and breakfast, yep free the best kind :)

So I got home and edited pictures and realized I didn't take any of Kyle and I during time there but I did get a bunch of pictures with Aubrey and Grandma TT during our great day while Kyle was interviewing.  We hung around downtown Oklahoma City, bricktown and had a great day feeding ducks, wine tasting with a sleeping baby in a stroller (yep you read it right), and eating some great mexican food. 

Water Day

Our second day here (last Wednesday) we had a water day.  We went up to this awesome outdoor shopping mall that we always go to when we're here and I can not tell you how awesome this place is, seriously.  It has some great shops (Old Navy, Children's Place ok my two fave kids clothes places besides garage sales, haha), they also have the most amazing gelato and popcorn.  All kinds of popcorn like melt in your mouth good popcorn.  They have the cutest shoe store and really cheap cute jewerly store.  Now to add to it we got to play in the fountains today and we also enjoyed a wetzel pretzel, it was a great day!  Aubrey loved running through the water she thought it was the best thing ever.  Little to say we've already have been back and she's in a ridiculous cute tutu swimsuit this time, picture at the bottom.  This mall also has free strollers, free towels, free umbrellas, and if it's raining they give you a $10 gift card to come back.  I would so be hitting it up every day rain was in the forecast for that.  Here are some pictures and video from our fun water day.

 Aubrey loved going down the slide with Kyle.  I didn't know how she would do at first but after the first time she went down she immediately pointed to the slide and said...pease, pease, pease (her version of please) and pointed to the slide.  She's definitely a water baby or I guess toddler now.

 Playing with a ball, ball, ball with Cecilia.  Aubrey never says the word ball once she has to repeat it and repeat it, it's kinda cute.