"In the Books" - Christmas 2011

An observation on Christmas with a toddler: Two is too young for a consistant understanding of an Advent Calendar.

I am all too thankful for the "Chaney you only get one a day" daily fight to be over...

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Ha! Ha!

We got the girls a play kitchen for Christmas this year. Tonight Patrick thought he should open the boxes just to see what the assembly looked like. Below is the inventory list and the package of nails/screws needed. (note three or four of the things on the inventory list have more than 20 items...who wants to bet there will be some cussing involved in assembly?) MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Progress - Yippee!

Wow-Time Flies!

I know it has been a while since my last post, but the Werners have been a bit preoccupied!

I am happy to report we are soooo close to being move in ready at the new house. In fact, my awesome stove was delivered yesterday and granite gets set tomorrow morning-yeah! I will have to send pictures soon, but it has come a long way in a short time...thanks to a lot of work from the hubby!

Besides that, everyone is well. Chaney is talking non-stop; and I do mean non-stop. I sometimes think her throat has to be sore! She is also totally ready for potty training but I keep pushing it back. When you really start to think about it, diapers are very convenient and there just never seems to be a good time to start. (I guess once you start you need to be totally committed-no going back to diapers!) I can already tell this is going to be more about training Mom and Dad than it is about Chaney...I figure we will start once we get moved into the new house.

Keaton is as goofy as ever. She is almost as big as Chaney now and is beginning to talk quite a bit herself. It is funny to listen to her and Chaney "talk" to each other. Keaton has also turned into quite a good little eater. In fact this morning she had two adult sized bowls of cereal for breakfast. I have a feeling she is making up for 1 1/2 years of low intake!

So to recap; house is progressing, kids are good, Mom and Dad tired, but hanging in there.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

...and yes those are wrapped gifts under the tree; December 4th...I'm that good! (although not quite done yet)

The Before...

I wanted to share a "before" picture of the kitchen in the new house. Believe it or not it looks a lot better in this picture than it did when we took possession. Hopefully the "after" is coming soon...

The radiator will be moved, and we are only doing lower cabinets in this section...am I crazy?

Built-ins original to the house will reamin; both because they are awesome and because there is no easy way of getting them out of there! (well without totally tearing them apart!)

The Zoo!

We took advantage of what I deemed one of the last "warmer" nights of the season and went to the Zoo tonight! (it was about 45, but I hear it’s supposed to be in the teens next week - yikes!) They had the lights up for the Holidays and it was great. The penguins were a huge hit with the girls; although Chaney was a bit miffed she couldn't feed them. And of course you exited through the gift shop so both girls had to get stuffed penguins. What can I say, they already have Dad figured out...he's doomed.

Keaton

Keaton's been a real picture girl lately. I think she really enjoyed our family pictures we had taken a couple weeks ago and now everytime the camera comes out shes ready! Here are a couple cute ones from the last couple weeks.

Grammy and Keaton at Thanksgiving...

Keaton at Cousin Logan's Baptism...

and Keaton in her beloved monkey hat...