Dress up

Daddy and the girls with their John Deer hats!

This is what happens when Handy Manny's Tools meet with the bag of dress up stuff...

Look, it's Elton John! Can you tell that daddy thought this was hilarious!?

Ned

This is Ned. He moved in after Christmas. Everyone in the house likes Ned and he has silly icky crazy things in his head like a loose screw, a dirty Q-tip and even a poopy diaper!

More Christmas fun

Hunter helped keep Regan entertained all night long; thank you!

Logan had her hands full between playing with Sidney and chasing after Hudson! Pretty soon it won't take Sidney 90 minutes to warm up to her cousins and she'll be off and playing as soon as we walk in the door.

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had as wonderful of a Christmas as we did! Thank you to our wonderful families for the great food, presents and laughs this Christmas season! We love you :)

Sidney all decked out ready for the Christmas eve Children's Mass.

Regan enjoying what might be her favorite present of the year, a harmonica! Thankfully it's not a loud musical instrument and she plays a pretty good tune.
Thanks Grandma Jan and Papa!

Our annual tradition is to get a family photo in front of Grandma Sheri's tree :) It's getting harder to find room to stand with all those presents underneath!

Yea for Santa!

Santa did show up, and he ate the cookies and brought presents just like he promised! Regan couldn't believe that all he left were the crumbs on the plate....but she was quick to point out that there were no crumbs on the floor, just the plate (I'm teaching her well!). The girls had a lot of fun opening all their presents. Little did they know, it was just the start of a present filled weekend. After our own Christmas morning, we hurried off to New Ulm in hopes of missing the bad weather. Thankfully we did, because the snow never let up but we made it safe and sound!

Waiting.....

In hopes to make it to New Ulm tomorrow for all the festivities, Santa is coming tonight! The girls set out cookies for him, one from each of them. Regan nearly leaped into bed tonight saying "he's in the chimney, I have to get into bed!".

Como Holiday Display

I love Como, not just for the zoo and the amusement park, but for the Conservatory as well. I couldn't wait to get ready this morning, put the girls in their Christmas dresses and head over to see the holiday display. Regan was a little bummed that the flowers don't smell very much; but was more than excited to watch the fish!

In awe, wishing we could get a koi pond of our own.

Gingerbread house

'Tis the season to make Gingerbread Houses! We bought one of our own, built it and then said "now what?". As in, "now what are we supposed to do with this oversized sugar filled gingerbread cookie?". Regan has a plan....take a piece of candy, a sucker or a chunck of cookie everytime she passes it. Good thing we have watchful eyes or she would've eaten all the candies already!

Regan hard at work eating, I mean placing, all the candies into their own spot.

Our final product; not bad I must say!

Sledding!

I took the girls sledding today, and Regan realized that sledding is a lot of work! We opted to walk only 2 blocks and sled at our neighborhood park. This turned out to be a not so great idea since the girls wanted to go down the slides instead of the hill! Once they figured it out, we had some fun, until.....Sidney tipped and got a snow wash. Fun over. Regan couldn't help but laugh at Sidney's face covered in snow, despite Sidney's cries. Not to worry, I was quick with a dry scarf to wipe her down :) Next time, we'll bring dad to help.

Jingle Bells...Regan style!

This is Regan's version of Jingle Bells; cracks me up! Listen carefully ("oh mac fun easter ride" in place of "oh what fun it is to ride")!

The best school ever!

It's official, the girls go to the best school ever!! Today they got to give Santa's sleigh a test drive, powered with, of course, 2 reindeer! Regan was in complete awe when she saw the reindeer and couldn't take her eyes off them. Given the frigid temps, it was hard to smile, but she must have had the time of her life!

Our little peanut

Sidney had her 15 month well baby check up today; only she's not exactly a "well baby". She has yet another ear infection, and her doctor is now suggesting tubes. We knew it was only a matter of time. Poor baby. We're not willing to try tubes just yet, the idea of putting her under scares the daylights out of both of us. So any experiences people have about putting their little ones under anesthesia, we're all ears. Email or comment.

As for percentiles, well, she continues to be our peanut. She weighs 20 lbs 15 oz (20th percentile) and is 30 inches tall (30th percentile). Of course, she has lots of brains and her melon comes in at 65th percentile! That's our girl :)

We're doing a different course of antibiotics now, 3 days of injections and then 30 days of a low dose oral. She's not at all liking the injections...and neither are we.

In the grand scheme of things, she's healthy. But as for her ears, well, that's a different story. Guess it explains our lack of sleeping for the last 6 weeks.

Schugel Family Christmas

We spent the weekend in New Ulm for the Schugel Family Christmas Party on Saturday evening. Sidney was her typical self, shy for the first 2 hours and then busting out her true personality and even letting some of her cousins hold her :) Regan on the other hand, let loose from us right away and enjoyed playing with her cousins, exploring a new house with new toys.

Sidney even let me put a bow in her hair!

Regan and Aaliyah (took a lot of convincing to get them to stop playing for 2 seconds and pose for this picture).

Disney On Ice!

Regan and I went on a date today-Disney on Ice Princess Classic! She loved every minute of it :) I cried for the first 15 min of the show as I watched Regan in awe. It was so sweet.

Regan with her outrageously expensive popcorn; we were essentially rink side which is the only way to go with little ones.

Goofy (and Mickey and Minnie too) made an appearance!

All of the prince/princesses during the finale

15 months old

Sidney is 15 months old. She is such a wonderful little girl! She weighs just over 21 lbs (official stats coming Monday), is loving, sweet, playful and has a bit of a temper! Let's just say she knows what she wants and wants it now-such a female!

She's quick on her feet, running all over the house. Her favorite activites include eating, splashing in the tub (as of today she finally is starting to SIT instead of stand during baths), playing in her kitchen, watching and mimiking Regan, and coloring.

From a health standpoint, she continues to struggle a bit. Technically she's on her 7th treatment for ear infections in just 9 months. It seems that whenever a tooth comes in, she gets a cold and then an infection. Poor girl. Along with those colds and infections, comes a lack of sleep. Which means we are all losing sleep. Poor mom and dad.

Snow Part II

I wore snow boots to work today.


I've never worn snow boots to work.


We had a snow drift at least 3 feet high out our back door preventing me from even opening the door. The joys of working in a hospital....I had to come to work today. Dedicated. Or nuts?


7+ inches of snow. Blowing, drifting cold wet stuff. It's a mess and I'm freezing.

I don't like snow.

Snow

Most everyone knows how I feel about snow, it might be the most negative feeling I have. It's cold, it's wet, the amount of clothes needed to stay warm is ridiculous, it creates a mess on the roadways and causes me a lot of frustration. My body starts to freeze every November and it isn't until April that I start to thaw out. Ick.

Well, these two cuties are trying to change my mind about snow. After seeing how excited they were to be playing in the snow, giggling, laughing and having such a wonderful time, I might not dislike it so much anymore. But no one said I'm starting to love it.

Sidney resembled "Randy Parker" from A Christmas Story! And yes, she fell down and couldn't get back up :) So stinkin cute!

That face is absolutely precious! It's a real smile, with a real laugh behind it. She was in her glory.

Happy St. Nick's day!

As a family of German heritage, we continue to celebrate this tradition, which pretty much is just another excuse to give the girls presents :)

"In Germany, Nikolas is ususually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot outside the front door on the night of December 5 to December 6. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets and at the same time, checks up on the children to see if they have been good, polite and helpful last year".

Here are the girls opening their presents this morning!

Pardon Sidney's eyes (and her nuk still in place), we headed to the doctor after presents and turns out she still has an ear infection and maybe pink eye. Poor thing. She was a good sport this morning though.

Regan paitently waiting to open her presents: books, sticker books and a nativity scene!

St. Nick brought the girls a nativity scene; thank goodness because then I got a chance to set mine out too! Theirs is more exciting, it lights up and plays music!

http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/bb430416c2ab2cea57b622c477e21103

Can't forget about Sidney!
http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/bb430416c2ab2cea57b622c477e21103

http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/1085eef2709962638d9f4c6618f9f649

click or copy paste the link above, it's Regan's special message from Santa!

you might actually have to write it down and manually type it in a new window
http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/1085eef2709962638d9f4c6618f9f649

Flowers!

After the whole Santa run-in, the girls were much happier. A photo shoot at the greenhouse is wonderful this time of year!

We went to visit Santa today....

and this is how it went:

I don't think Sidney likes Santa.

Dancing queen!

Regan performed in her very first dance recital tonight! She did a wonderful job and of course, there were tears from my eyes. We feared she would get a little stage fright, but that wasn't the case. She did great!

I took these pics/videos at dress rehersal earlier this week, good thing too because between the cheering, tears and nerves, my video from tonight looks terrible. **for whatever reason, the video isn't loading, check back later for that**

A big THANK YOU! to all of the grandparents as well as Hunter for making the trek up here to watch Regan's 90 seconds of stage time. We really appreciate having you attend and Regan was so proud to have such a cheering section :) I'm pretty sure she's still dreaming about her "big day".