Monday, December 9, 2013

Christmas Letter 2013

Last year we didn't get around to writing a Christmas card...It was a pretty busy time...

December 2012: Steve finished grad school at the University of Michigan.  We moved out of the condo we were renting in Ann Arbor and were "homeless" for Christmas.  Thankfully we have awesome family who took us in!  The day after Christmas Steve and his dad drove to Colorado so Steve could start work at the AFA on December 28.  I flew with Abby.



January 2013: We arrived in Colorado and settled into living at the Bolton house.  We are so blessed by that family.  They opened up their house to us and let us stay for a month!  Abby loved having a "sister" to play with everyday.  She even got used to having a dog! At the end of January we closed on our house in COS and moved out of the Bolton casa.




February 2013: I haven't mentioned this yet, but I was pregnant during this whole time.  So February was spent unpacking (Steve took care of ALL the unpacking because I got super sick and couldn't get out of bed).  I spent Fridays at the hospital getting IVIG treatments so that LG would stay healthy.  Abby got to hang out with Melissa and Alice.  Abby turned two!  Here are some pictures of her party.  Daddy made an awesome box fort from all our moving boxes.  








March 2013: Lucy was born!  She was born via scheduled c-section at 35 weeks.  She was perfect, all the IVIG treatments worked and her platelet count was high at the very beginning and she only had one day in the NICU!  Praise the Lord for medicine to keep us healthy! We had lots of family in town visiting our new little one and helping us get settled into life with two kiddos.  We are so thankful for grandparents who come into town to help us!

(and thankful for an awesome dad-o who took care of LG for the first 24 hours in the NICU until the doctors let Carey come be with her for more than 15 minutes. He did EVERYTHING - even had to teach mama how to feed the baby!)







April 2013: Can't remember much from this month...I was probably tired.









May 2013: The Klenke family came out and stayed with us for a few days.  It was fun to introduce Andy and Brittany to LG.

(andy enjoyed dressing LG up)





June 2013: Steve was busy at work teaching cadets how to build a steel bridge. We got to go up and visit him at work because his hours were long....Steve hiked a 14er (Gray's Peak).

(fun? doesn't look like it to me...)




July 2013: We got to go to Michigan!  We spent a lot of time up north and really enjoyed hanging out with family on the lake.  It was so nice to have aunties who help watch the little one so we could swim and play outside with Abs.  Steve got to go to Alaska with Russ and Jim.  They caught halibut (and other ancient fish creatures) for four days straight!  








August 2013: Momma turned 30!  We went on a family camping trip with K group.  



(Alice, I love that kid)


September 2013: Midge and Paul came out for Labor Day (Parent's weekend!!).
(those giraffes are crazy!)


October 2013: Abby celebrated her first "real" Halloween and LOVED going to houses and getting candy.  It was super cute to see her with all her friends going from house to house.



November 2013: We had our first family vacation with all four of us to Estes park and we got to celebrate Thanksgiving with our K group friends.  Melissa had Baby Clementine, that was an awesome night.

(we attended a "not so awesome" class where we learned about animal footprints...this is how Abby felt about the class)






Here are some photo updates from December 2013:
Making sugar cookies.

Christmas Jams!


Decorating the Christmas Tree



Lucy loved the teddy bear ornament.



And, just to see what it is really like at our house....



(this is how photo sessions usually end....
Abby saying "What is happeting?" (yes, happeting) and Lucy crying.... Or, Abby saying, "Mom, Lucy's cryin!"  Yeah, no joke Abby, you just grabbed her face!)

Merry Christmas from the Klenke Clan!!!


Sunday, December 8, 2013

Section 16 hike

We wanted to go on a family hike and traveled down south to realize that a ton of hikes were closed due to the floods.

Caleb gave us this hike as a suggestion and we were thrilled to find one that was fun for all of us!


Abby loved "hikin"




November at the Klenke House

Just a few pictures of our sweet girls.....




I got a new haircut!  Finally found someone I like!  Going back to the natural color.

Abby's favorite thing EVER.... cooking....

Lucy can't wait to cook with us.



We went for a family run and had to bundle LG up....We have used blankets before but we had a "blanket causalty" when running with Christine, so we decided to move to the snow pants.

Daddy had a sleepover with Abby in the basement!  She loved sleeping in the tent!

She was so excited to bring her pillow, book and water into the tent.

Life has been great here!

Family photo shoot

"What would we do without Melissa?" This is often said around our house.  She took some amazing family pictures for us.  I love that woman.









Estes Park

We went on a little family vacation to Estes Park a few days.  Steve had the whole week of Thanksgiving off so we decided to head up to Estes Monday-Wednesday. We went to the YMCA family camp and I highly recommend it!  There were lots of family activities which kept us busy.
It was gorgeous!  Lots of snow but the sun was out so it was warm.

Abby tried out roller skating for the first time...she wasn't thrilled about it.

We painted a soap dish for the girl's bathroom.



Daddy was amazing and found the biggest icicle!  He threw a snowball up, knocked it down and caught it without breaking the icicle!  We were all impressed!

Here is the horse we saw...Abby named her "katie"

All sleeping in one hotel room was rough on night one, but got better on night two.  We would go here again in a heartbeat!

First Day of Preschool!!!

We signed Abby up for preschool!  It is just one morning a week, but she absolutely LOVES Ms. Katie.  She names all of her dolls, the horses we see on the side of the road, and everything else "Katie"

Abby is quite the crack up!  Getting her to take these pictures was super fun.