The Tooth Fairy and Pride Day

Keegan had an exciting year to 2018.  He lost his very first tooth and got a visit from the Tooth Fairy.  She brought him two sparkly dollars, a new travel toothbrush, and a tooth fairy receipt.  He was so excited the next morning.  Keegan's tooth was wiggly for a long time and he was so excited when it came out that he face timed both sets of grandparents, and his aunts and uncles!! 

Right when his tooth fell out.  It is in his hand.  Sorry for the bloody mouth pic!

 All cleaned up

 Showing us what he got from the Tooth Fairy

 Look at that smile with a hole!

Keegan was also the pride day winner at school for the "Caring" category.  His teacher nominated him and had wonderful things to say about him.  Matt and I got to have a breakfast with him and his teacher, as well as all the other pride day winners for the month, one morning at school.

Mrs. Mudore (the principal) reading all the nice things that Keegan's teacher said about him.

 The pride day winners

 Proud parents

 Standing by his picture on the Pride Day Bulletin Board in the hallway

 Keegan with his teacher, Mrs. Fitch.

We are so proud of you, Keegan.  We can't believe how big you are getting, but keep up the great work!  We love you!

Castle Noel

We all had an extended Christmas break with cold and snow days after New Year's.  It actually ended up being a week longer than it was supposed to be.  So, one day we decided to drive to Medina (about 40 minutes) and go to a place called, "Castle Noel."  It is Christmas there year round, with costumes, movie sets, and movie props from famous Christmas movies.  It had old Christmas games, the Christmas window displays from Saks Fifth Avenue, and so much memorabilia.  There were tons of props from the movies, "Santa Clause" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" which are two of our family favorites.  We had a blast touring the museum and learning even more about our favorite Christmas movies.

This was the "Elf" room.  Here is a pic of the decorations Buddy made in the department store to make it look like the North Pole, just like in the movie.

 The boys in front of the costumes from the movie, "Elf".

 "Frosty", the gigantic snowman that they put on the roof in the movie, "Skipping Christmas".

 The boys in front of the Grinch's actual huge sack from the movie, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" with Jim Carrey

 The Globe from Santa's workshop in the Santa Clause movies

 The outfit that Scott Calvin wears on his blind date in "Santa Clause 2".

 Family selfie with a replica of The Grinch.  

 Keegan and I making our best Grinch faces.  Doesn't the Grinch look real?

 A toy soldier from "Santa Clause 3".

 Family selfie with Uncle Eddy's RV from "Christmas vacation".

 The RV

 Fun day...glad we went to Castle Noel and got to see all this.  Another great memory!

The Romano Family

Landon's very first friend at school in Avon was Vivian Romano.  They became instant friends in Kindergarten, and are still good friends today in 3rd grade.  Vivian and her family had just moved to Avon right before Kindergarten.  They moved from Chicago, so she and Landon had a lot in common cheering for the Cubs and visiting family in Illinois.  The Romano's also have two boys, Michael and Lucas that Landon and Keegan love to play with. Alice Romano became one of my really good friends, and Matt and Tony became good friends too.  

We found out right before Christmas that Tony got a new job in Chicago and that they were moving back home.  Although, we were so excited for them to move back home, we were so sad to see them go as well.  We definitely miss our friends.  However, we got to spend a few days with them over Christmas break before they left, so that was fun.  And, they ended up moving to Glen Ellyn, which is where our other great friends (Mike, Autumn, Aspen and Skylar) live.  We plan to visit both families more frequently on our trips back to Illinois.  Here are a couple pics of the boys with the Romano kids before the left.

Michael, Landon, Keegan, Vivian

 Michael, Landon, Keegan, Vivian and Lucas

Christmas in Illinois

We headed to Illinois around 4 am on December 26th.  We made it by mid morning and started our Christmas fun in Sherman.  We stayed with Matt's parents through the 28th and then stayed in Lincoln until the 31st.  Time always seems to go really fast when we are in Illinois, but we got to see almost all of our family and enjoyed the little time we had.  

Santa's Helpers...Landon, Kinsley, and Keegan

Landon opening some presents in Sherman

Keegan in his new Marshall pajamas

Cara with her new t-shirt quilt

Matt getting ready to dig into those present

Keegan opening his presents

Cute pic of Kinsley opening a present

Keegan and Landon helping grandma make some sugar cookies

Papa and Keegan

Sweet Kinsley with Aunt Marcia K

Kinsley and Keegan

Kinsley eating her first sugar cookie....she LOVED it

Kinsley, Landon and Papa

Lori and the boys met us for bowling one afternoon.  

Nathan, Keegan and Lori

Keegan getting his ball

Aunt Cara and Landon

Landon getting ready to throw a strike

Landon pointing to his score of 100

Since it was nap time during bowling for Kinsley, I lucked out and got to stay home and take care of her.  She slept on me the whole time and was a little angel.  So precious!

The boys had never been to the Lincoln museum before, so we decided to go one day.  Here we are with Lincoln's family

The museum also had a Cardinal and Cub exhibit, which was perfect for our family since we are split being Cardinal fans and Cub fans.  

Landon wrote a memory on the wall about going to the Cubs World Series Game.

Keegan wrote, "Boo Cubs Boo" on his note!  That's my boy :)

Keegan and Fred Bird

Giving the Cubbie bear a thumbs down

Thumbs up for his pic with the Cardinal team

Landon and the Cubs mascot, Clark

Keegan and I with a pic of the World Series Champs after the Cardinals won

After our fun time in Sherman, we headed to Lincoln.  

A family pic at Mom and Dad's

A picture of the 4 grand kids

Here is Landon opening some legos.

 The boys got new shark tail blankets.  Here is Keegan with his!

 We got Chloe flippers to wear in the pool.  She loved them so much that she wore them around the house all day!

 Selfie with Mom and Jeremy

 The Four Kids toasting with some sparkling grape juice.

 Jeremy, Cindy, Adelin and Chloe made us workout Jenga as one of our presents.  It's awesome, and the kids had fun playing a couple times.  

Keegan is concentrating hard not to make it fall

 Landon being extra careful with his Jenga piece

 On Saturday, we had Christmas with the Riggs family.  We were so very excited to meet the newest little addition to our family.  Tyler and Becky welcomed sweet Haseley a couple weeks before Christmas.  She was so little and so precious.  We are so glad we got to meet her!

Haseley asleep on my lap

 Landon loves babies....here he is getting his fix with Haseley.  He didn't want to give her up.

 Aunt Missy and Uncle Kevin gave the boys robes, which they love and wear every single night.  Here they are with their robes on.

 Another family pic

 Jeremy and I

 Our crazy boys

 Chloe and Keegan

 The kids playing the penny game

Art work by the 4 kids....love them!

 They even made legos that spelled out 4 kids

 We drove home on New Year's Eve.  We met a pit stop in Normal and watched Adelin play basketball at halftime of the Lady Redbirds basketball game.  She did great and we are glad we got to watch her.  Then, we hit some snow and our trip took longer than anticipated.  However, we were still back at our house by 8 pm.  We unloaded the car, unpacked everything and put most of our things away while we were trying to stay up until midnight.  I was the only one who didn't make it and Matt thought this picture was hilarious.

 I did wake up before midnight though and we rang in the New Year together.

Keegan slept that night with all of his new stuffed animals.

Thank you so much to our family for another wonderful Christmas.  We hope that the new year brings all of you health and happiness.  Here's to 2018!!!