Celebrating Daddy's Birthday at Santaland

We went downtown tonight to have dinner out for Kyle's birthday and hit Santaland on the 8th floor of Macy's. Or as Isaac was calling it "Candyland". 

The kids enjoyed seeing all the elves and animals moving. 

Isaac is getting better at smiling for me when I take a picture. 

Mary hasn't been feeling to good today. She actually had a temperature when we got home :( gave her some Motrin so hopefully she gets some good rest. 

We weren't planning to see Santa this year, not really my thing. But Isaac had asked about it last weekend so I told him we'd see. There wasn't much of a line so we figured tonight was as good of time as any. We haven't seen Santa since Isaac's second Christmas. He remembered the photo of him crying on Santa's lap and the first thing he told Santa when he sat on his lap tonight was that when he was a baby he was crying and that he is four now. Then when Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas he said "the movie that we saw at Costco". Luckily 'Santa' already delivered "that movie" to our house before even knowing Isaac was interested in it. ;-) 

The girls got to see Santa but stayed in their stroller while Isaac visited with him. Not sure how they would have done if they sat on his lap, but they were waving at him from afar. 

We left through the gift shop where Isaac learned about build-a-bears and was very interested in their stuffing. Maybe we'll do that someday.  

Kitchen update

Last May we had work done on our back room. At the same time they laid new kitchen floor and opened up a wall between the kitchen and the dining room. Shortly after that we got a new DOUBLE OVEN, which I love!


I then installed a new stainless steel hood in July. Somehow by myself, I think the kids were napping or maybe just being really good:





And just this week we finished it off with getting a new stainless steel french door fridge! We love it!


Here was the before:


The dishwasher is fairly new since we installed it when we bought the house. When the time comes to sell this house we will probably put in a stainless to match the other appliances but until then we will just use what works. We are so excited to finally have an ice maker! Although we don't really use much ice, now we have an excuse to.

I almost forgot. We also replaced the sink and faucet in July. The faucet was leaking and needed to be replaced so we figured we might as well do the whole thing while we were at it.
Before:


After:


Nothing is as easy as it seems, we had to cut the sink opening a little larger to fit the new sink

Isaac is 4!

When Isaac woke up this morning and put on the same outfit he was wearing on his birthday I thought it was the perfect time to get that block age photo we hadn't taken yet!

We have his 4 year check up this Friday; ETA this info:

Height- 43.5" (97%)

Weight- 42.2 lbs (90%)

Everything checked out great. He had his vision and hearing checked. He also got two shots and was so brave sat there by himself with a little fear in his eyes after the first but he held back tears and recovered quickly. Proud Child Life mama. 

Here are some fun Isaac facts.

He is reading and still loves books. His current favorite book is "the berenstain bear books"
His favorite color is "green!"
His favorite food is "chicken nuggets" (he always says that but I don't really think it is... he did eat Korean BBQ last night really good!
His favorite game is "I like to play the new old maid and the new gold fish"
His favorite toy is "I like a lion"... that is more like his favorite animal but that was the answer I got.
His favorite cartoon is "I have two favorite cartoons, one is on the TV that is Daniel Tiger and one is on the iPad and that is Paw Patrol" (he has been watching a lot of Curious George lately too.)
Lately he has been enjoying getting a toy from McDonald's and scanning it in on the McPlay app on the iPad. He likes being able to unlock new games. We collected a lot of the Peanuts Characters from McD's but they don't have those anymore.

He writes his name & is left handed. 

He counts to 20

Knows colors & shapes

And he has good manners, especially at school. 

Arboretum Sunday

Sunday we made a trip out to the Arboretum with Grandma Judy. We were disappointed to discover the 3 mile drive is already closed to cars for the winter. But we were still able to enjoy all the fun Christmas decorations inside and we walked around a little outside as well.


They had some really need Gingerbread Houses












And of course we had to get some photos in front of the big poinsettia tree

Merry Christmas Charlie Brown

Saturday morning we all went to the Stages Theater in Hopkins to see our very first play as a family! We weren't sure how the girls would do but it was only 45 minutes so we were willing to take our chances. They did great and loved it!! 

Emma clapped and danced in my lap, Mary pointed in amazement from grandmas lap, and Isaac watched intently the whole time. Isaac's favorite part was seeing Linus carry his "bwank-wet" in the snow. He also liked Schroder playing the piano and Lucy saying "No! Jingle Bells!" He laughed at snoopy and Woodstock being silly as well.