Congratulations!

Today we attended a beautiful wedding, where we watched Grandma Keri marry Steve.  The girls love any excuse to put on a dress and were also super excited about the possibility of cake! :)  It was a lovely day, and we had a great time.  Congratulations to Grandma and Steve!

Also, happy New Year wishes from our two sweet ladies!  We hope to start 2016 off with a HUGE Hawkeye win tomorrow!  GO HAWKS!

These are also the only pictures of the tree I got this year!  

Kate was sporting some good frosting lipstick.  

Christmas

Once again, we had a wonderful few days of Christmas celebrations!  We love being surrounded by family, eating delicious food, and catching a few moments of relaxation here and there.  Even though Jeremy had to work on Christmas Eve, we still made it to all family celebrations.  Thank you to all for their generosity to our family.  Audrey and Kate had a fabulous snow day playing with new toys and games.  We even had some time to organize things around here, which I appreciated! :)  Here are a few pictures of the girls.

These pictures are from the morning of the Christmas party at daycare.  The girls were SO excited to pass out their gifts to friends and play fun games all day.  Dana does the best job making holidays extra fun for the kids!

Audrey wore these high heels for all holiday celebrations.  What a grown-up little lady!

Santa's big gift for the girls was a scooter.  They will be fun to use in the basement until the weather warms up!

Santa also got Audrey a doll with curly blond hair and blue eyes.  The total fluke of the whole gift is that the doll's actual name is Audrey Ann.  How weird is that?  Jeremy and I were floored when we saw that!

Baking

On Saturday, we traveled back to Elkader to bake some Christmas goodies!  We thank Uncle Justin and Aunt Courtney for opening up their kitchen to us.  We had a wonderful time, and we even roped Uncle Justin into helping for quite awhile.  We needed his muscles with the rock-hard cookie dough! :)  We have enjoyed eating our yummy treats this week, and Audrey shared some with her friends at daycare.  It's fun to see which cookies ended up with a million sprinkles on them!!

Princess Kate didn't get into the baking as much and napped through most of the decorating.  I'm sure she will participate more next year!

At first, Uncle Justin would only let Audrey use the star cookie cutter because it was the only one that would cut through the rock dough.

Audrey didn't know what she thought of that!

Soon they were able to venture to other cookie shapes.

Audrey even helped Grandma do the dishes.  What a helper!

Our House

Here is the final post about our vacation!  The home we stayed in was beautiful (minus the initial flea infestation), and we enjoyed making memories in such a beautiful setting.  As you can see from the pictures below, we really enjoyed our time together!

A game of library turned into an impromptu library dance party when Uncle Justin came into the library.  

Our dock that led to the beach.

One of the many beautiful sunsets we had.

Happy Birthday, Kate!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our darling Kate, one day late!  As we were rehashing Kate's birth story with Audrey, Jeremy and I both commented on how quickly these two years have gone.  Kate has grown into such a little sweetheart.  For the most part, she is a smiley, happy, content little girl, who works as hard as she can to keep up with her big sister.  As of late, her vocabulary has been expanding incredibly, and it's so fun to hold conversations with her.  Kate has begun to ask "Why?" each time something is said to her, but luckily this time, I have Audrey to help me out with the answers! :)  We do see toddler-like moments off and on, but as a whole, Kate is a loving, kind, and polite little lady.  We love you so much, Kate Evelyn!  Thanks for all the joy you bring us daily.

Dolphin Tour

Another highlight of the trip was the chance to see dolphins when we took a dolphin tour.  This was such an enjoyable experience for our whole family!  We were incredibly lucky to see so many dolphins, and again, the weather was just gorgeous.  Audrey loved her time on the boat, and Kate just got a little more nervous when we would rock on waves.  I'll take any chance I can get to cuddle with this busy toddler, though.

Audrey took it very seriously when she was told to hang onto her glasses.

Savannah's Children's Museum

On Black Friday, a.k.a. The Day Iowa Played Nebraska, we traveled to the Children's Museum in Savannah for a couple hours.  Once again, the weather was gorgeous, and the girls had a lot of fun trying out the different exhibits.  The best memory Jeremy and I will take away from our time spent there was how Kate became obsessed with the giant Connect Four game.  She spent about a half hour loading up the circles, releasing them, and then starting all over again.  Other children would come and go as her playing partner, but she stayed.  She probably would have continued to play all afternoon, if we hadn't taken her away, while crying!  We may have to buy that game for her sometime!

Here is the Connect Four game.  Notice Audrey has already visited the dress-up area.  With all the lice talk that continues to swirl around our school, I wouldn't let her try on any hats! :)

Audrey loved to dance in front of the mirror when she would try something new on.

Forsyth Park

Another day of our trip we visited Forsyth Park, which was an absolutely gorgeous park and historic area.  Plus, the weather was gorgeous, too.  Our little family did not take in any of the history around the area; however, we did check out the play area thoroughly.  Audrey and Kate were enthralled with all the play equipment, as it was a little different than anything we have around here.  It was so fun to be at a park at the end of November without coats on!

It seems fitting that Kate would somehow find a yucky old fruit snack on the ground while the rest of us were admiring the gorgeous fountain!

You may be shocked by this, but Jeremy continually scanned the playground area for people who looked "shady".  He thought for sure we needed to watch out for this man who was completely alone, and seconds later, we saw him with his kid and wife.