Merry Christmas 2014

We had a very fun-filled {and virus-filled} holidays. We did a lot of baking, traveling, partying and eating. It was nice to spend so much time with family. 

On Christmas Eve, we headed up to South Bend for Christmas with my family. We spent time with my mom, went to Christmas Eve mass and then headed over to my brother's for his annual Christmas Eve shindig. It was a busy day! Unfortunately, Georgia spiked a 103 degree fever so she was not really feeling in the holiday spirit. We made it safely back home with two tired, spoiled kiddos in time for Santa to pay them a visit.

Gigi and Georgia

Our little family

Pretty {but sick} girl :(

Spoiled little man!

Baking cookies with Mommy for Santa

Christmas morning, Georgia and I woke up first, but Oliver wasn't too far behind us. He was beyond excited to see if Santa had come! To his delight, there were presents under the tree and stockings full of candy and other treats! We spent the morning opening presents and the rest of the day playing with them. It was very low-key...I loved it!

Christmas morning

Oliver's new fire station!

Georgia's first trike!

An elephant to ride on!

The next day the kiddos played with their toys, but cabin fever was most certainly setting in for all of us! Fortunately {and oddly enough}, the weather was beautiful with temps in the 50s. We packed everyone up and headed to a nearby park to get some energy out. Oliver loved having the chance to run around and play after being cooped up inside for so long and Georgia got to give her new trike a spin!

Georgia and her new wheels

Taking a nice long walk and bike ride

Playing on the cool playground!

The next weekend we headed back to South Bend for Christmas with Don's family. We ate some delicious food, had a good visit with everyone and got spoiled yet again. Unfortunately, Georgia still wasn't feeling all that well and Oliver had somehow picked up a staph infection and was taking a turn for the worst so we called it a day pretty early and headed home.

My sick girl :(

Daddy and Georgia

Oliver opening {more} presents

Yum!

Don's parents

The rest of our winter break was spent resting and getting healthy again. We got to play a lot with all our new toys and spent some time outdoors before the really cold weather returned. How blessed we are to have such wonderful family around us to celebrate the holidays with! Merry Christmas!

Kicking Off Our Holiday Season

Oliver is at the perfect age for enjoying Christmastime. He knows about Santa and presents and is beyond excited for Christmas Eve and parties. Yes, I know...all the important things. It is so much fun to be around a 3 year old, though, at this time of year...the excitement and suspense is palpable. 

We kicked off our holiday season with a little family excursion to get a real, live Christmas tree...the first one either of us have ever owned. Oliver was pretty bleh about the whole real Christmas tree situation...he kept reminding us that we already owned a Christmas tree and it was in the basement...ha! Nevertheless, we drove out to a Christmas tree farm, crashed the van into a very large rock, almost got divorced and left without an evergreen strapped to the top of our {now damaged} van. Christmas tree farm-1, Kaczorowski's-0. Luckily, we both cooled off, stopped by a Christmas tree lot in the parking lot of a church along a busy road, picked out the perfect tree with the help of some very nice people, strapped it to the top of the {still damaged} van and were on our way. Finally, our first real Christmas tree...the day was not exactly what I had pictured, but we had a real tree nonetheless.

The first real Kaczorowski Christmas tree!

I love sitting by the tree at night...so cozy!

The weekend after the Christmas tree debacle, we bundled the kiddos up and headed downtown to see the big tree and mail Oliver's first letter to Santa. There's a cute, little mailbox to Santa set up on the Circle, and Oliver was so excited to take his letter! Afterwards, we headed over to the Chocolate Cafe (of course!) for a treat. It was such a good time!

These two monkeys were ready to go!

Oliver was very proud of his first letter to Santa!

They really do love each other!

Circle of Lights

Mailing his letter with Daddy

A giant chocolate-covered pretzel...yum!

My girl and me

Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving was a little different this year because the gang at Pokagon was quite a bit smaller. Despite this, we kept very busy and had a great time catching up with family and relaxing with the kiddos. This is my absolute favorite holiday of the year, and it's even more fun to share this tradition with Oliver and Georgia. I hope that they grow up loving Thanksgiving at Pokagon as much as I do!

Once we arrived back home, my dad, Penny and the boys came into town for a visit. We had a great time hanging out with them around town for a couple of days.

We are so thankful to have so many wonderful family members around. We are so blessed and grateful!

Getting ready for a dip in the pool

Painting an airplane in the craft room

Oliver doesn't quite have the hang of air hockey yet.

Boccerball with Uncle Dave and Andrew

Enjoying Thanksgiving dinner

(Not quite) the whole family :-)

I love this place!

Don's parents

We arrived home to more visitors which Oliver was clearly thrilled about!

Halloween 2014

This past Halloween was interesting. We were so excited to take both the kids trick or treating in their cute costumes, but Mother Nature decided not to cooperate! Halloween night was absolutely frigid with off and on rain and extremely gusty winds. Georgia and I lasted for approximately 3 houses before we headed home, but Oliver and Don were committed to the candy. The upside to the weather was that Oliver made out on the candy front because all the neighbors just wanted to get rid of all their candy since there were virtually no trick or treaters!

A couple of weeks before Halloween, we carved our first pumpkin with Oliver. He wasn't really into it, but he liked the finished product.

Every fireman needs a cute little Dalmatian sidekick!

My little fireman

Aww...these two love each other.

Checking out his candy stash.

Why eat just one...you have two hands!

Georgia Kate is 10 Months Old!

Look who's 10 months old!!!

Such a big girl!

Her favorite dolly

Pulling herself up on everything!

Ready to get her monthly scans done

These two LOVE each other to pieces!

Mama's sweet girl

My little troublemaker

Weight: somewhere around 18 pounds...by some miracle, we haven't been to the pediatrician in quite some time!

Height: 29ish inches...still crazy tall!

What she's wearing: Size 3 diaper, 9-12 month clothes

Eating: Well, a miracle happened this month. Georgia finally decided she needed teeth...4 at once, to be exact! Yikes! Her two top and two bottom front teeth are all coming in at the same time. Despite making her cranky, she is finally able to bite off pieces of food. She basically eats everything we eat. She loves any breakfast food, applesauce, spaghetti, chicken and grapes, among many other things. She is no longer on bottles and takes all her milk from a sippy cup...such a big girl! She seems to be tolerating all the dairy we've tried well at this point. The only thing she's never had is straight cow's milk. Hopefully, her milk intolerance is a thing of the past!

Sleeping: She goes down around 7:00-7:30 pm and sleeps until 6:00ish am or whenever she wakes up. No more waking her up to nurse...yay!!!

Special Tricks: Georgia is a mover and a shaker! She crawls (really fast) and pulls herself up on everything. She can stand on her own for an incredibly long time, but so far, hasn't shown much interest in cruising around. She is happiest just buzzing around the house, looking for things to check out. The big news this month is that Georgia was discharged from physical therapy!! She is doing so well...you would never guess she ever had a muscular issue. She has no limitations in the movement of her neck at all anymore. Despite this good news, she did not make any progress on her scans this month. She is still right at 6.6 mm. This means we are not saying goodbye to the helmet just yet. Hopefully, she will hit a big growth spurt this month, and we will see a significant change in the measurements at her next appointment. Fortunately, the helmet has become second nature for us at this point so it's not too big a deal.

Activities: Georgia's favorite activity these days to just crawl around and explore. She's happy as can be going from room to room and seeing what there is to get into. She is still enamored with her big brother so she likes hanging out wherever he is. She also loves to look out the big windows in our living room and check out what's going on out in the world...or on our street, at least! Oddly enough, she is completely uninterested in the Christmas tree and decorations and pays absolutely no attention to them whatsoever. Whew!

Georgia has begun saying mama and dada this month, and it completely melts my heart. It's stinking adorable. Love her and her toothy grin to pieces!