An Awesome Holiday Tradition Idea!

I hate to trump my Christmas post with a text only message, but I have to.

Why?

Because I just read about the most awesome idea for a holiday tradition.  And, if you know me, you know I'm a sucker for traditions of any kind.  I think it's the best forced reminder to do something special with your family during what's sure to be a crazy busy time.

So, tell us Nancy (you beg!) what's the awesome idea??

When you set up your Christmas tree, and pull out all your Christmas books, WRAP them up, and place them under the tree.  Then the kid(s) can pull one out each night, open a 'gift' and you can share a special holiday book together.

It's icing on the cake if you can pull out a blanket, lay under the tree and use the light of your decorations to read from.

AWWW!!!  We just got all our decorations packed away and I'm already ready to pull them out again!!!

What are your awesome holiday traditions????

Nancy

Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day!

I know this is a slacker way to share our Christmas, but if you're interested, check out the links below.  A pictures worth a thousand words, right?  Whew!  I just saved myself a lot of typing.

All our Christmas pictures, click HERE

And Christmas Eve in NYC, click HERE

Here's my favorite candid shot of Jillian Christmas morning.  We let her bring a present into our bed to open before breakfast.  It's a barbie Prince Charming (there's a matching Cinderella too).  Needless to say, she's THRILLED with them.

And here's Liv after she opened her 'Princess Baby Belle'.  A totally unprompted tongue kiss.  Now that's love.

Two more pictures for comparison sake...

Our family last Christmas Eve in front of the big Christmas tree in New York:

And then this year...

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season!!!!

Happy (almost) New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Here's our official holiday note:

Wishing you and yours all the best this holiday season!

We're in the midst of a huge project renovating and adding to a house we purchased about 30 minutes from where we are now.  We should have a new address to share with you by mid year!  Ryan stays very busy working for Wounded Warrior Project and is constantly traveling.  In his spare time, he likes to golf, hunt and have tea parties with the girls.  -wink-  Jillian is a sassy and smart 3 1/2 year old.  She loves to sing, dance, and is already learning to read!  Liv is a happy and content 1 year old.  She loves to snuggle and suck on her thumb (I know, I know...)  I am home with the girls, and finally launched a small photography website!  This next year should prove to be even busier than last as we are expecting our third little one in June!  Here we go again!  As you can see, 2010 has been very good to us!

Best,
The Kules Family

First Dec. Snow '10

Today was our first "real" snow!  It dusted the other day, but for our First Snow Day rules, it has to stick on the grass.  Jillian had ballet this morning and it was VERY cold on our way in to the studio (25 degrees!!!) and snowing 45 minutes later when we walked out.  Very exciting.

The other day my Grandma Mary sent us the most amazing gift in the mail.  It was perfect timing and obviously needed to be the first snow day gift.  So, below:  Jillian showing off our brand new LLBean awesome all wood sled.  It's beautiful and is sure to be a lot of fun!

We wimped out and didn't go outside after nap time to play in the snow (don't worry, there will be PLENTY of other opportunities) but made sure to get a photo with our new toy at least!

Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse dog open sleigh!

Date Night, just us two?

Awhile back, Ryan and I decided we needed to get serious and really try to make a date night happen.  We've got a lot going on with our individual commitments, and a lot going on with the kids so it's important that we really make an effort to carve out time for the relationship that started it all!

We try to go once a week, but sometimes things get in the way.  I'd say we're averaging 2-3 times per month which in my opinion is pretty darn awesome!  And, as a bonus, the girls LOVE being home with the awesome sitter we found, so it's a win win situation.

Anyway- here we are, awhile back out for an AWESOME meal.

It's so nice to have a moment out for just the two of us! (Although, you've likely heard (or suspected by now) that as hard as we try we just can't seem to get a kid free evening these days....)  hahah...

By that, I mean #3 is with me all the time.  We're looking forward to meeting him/her around June 18th!

NEW BABY BLOG: www.kulesfamily3.blogspot.com

What's the hold up??

I'd love to say it's been awhile since I posted because this is such a busy time of year, and I've just gotten behind.  And, I suppose that is partially the reason.  The other reason though, is because at the beginning of the week Liv had a seizure and scared the crap out of us.  It was the scariest parenting moment Ryan and I have had.  I'll spare you all the details, but assure you that in the end all is well.  It was a febrile seizure (which is caused by a rapid spike in fever) and she won't have any long term ill effects from it.  About an hour after, she was acting normally and seemed to be feeling pretty good.

A few days after the seizure, she broke out head to toe in little red bumps- at least I knew what this was since Jillian had Roseola back in May!  Ahh... it was actually a relief to have a diagnosis which explained her high fever.  Poor little thing! Boy oh boy, she gave both of us a few gray hairs!

On to happier things...  I may try to backtrack and post about some other stuff that has happened over the past weeks, I may not.  We will see how much time I get on the computer in the next few days.  :)

For now, I'll share this: Liv got her first haircut today!  Since Ryan had the honor of trimming Jillian the first time, we kept the tradition and did a little cut here at home before heading out to "Pigtails and Crewcuts" (same place we brought Jilli for her first cut).  Since Liv lost all the hair on the sides and back of her head as a baby, but kept the top it had grown out unevenly and was bugging me whenever it was in a ponytail.  All fixed now!  She was a trooper at the haircut place!

If you're reading this via email, you'll have to visit the blog directly (www.kulesfamily.blogspot.com) to see the video of her trim (I found a silly haircut song to add to this video so if you don't want it to be noisy, mute before you click):

Launching my Photography Site...

So, here we go! The holiday season is upon us and I thought this would be a good time to make some connections for people who still need family portraits in my area. Wish me luck!

I know many of you are not local or potential clients for me, but I wanted to post about this on here so you can help me out a little bit if you are interested...

There's a couple things you could do to help:

#1- Visit my new photography website (www.nancykulesphotography.com) and check out the latest sessions I've posted. COMMENT!! Give me your feedback!

#2- If you are a facebook user, click on the CONTACT ME tab on my website, and scroll down to the bottom. You should see an application from facebook which will allow you to "LIKE" my "professional service" page.

#3- And finally, if you happen to know anyone in Maryland who could use pictures, I'd love a referral!

Thanks guys!

Nancy

Oh, the things this kid says....

(photograph courtesy of Jillian, age 3)

I mean to write these down, but I forget. So, crumbs all over the counter, Liv grunting for my attention- I'm ignoring it and typing. Otherwise, I'll forget.

Some recent favorites:

Me: "Jillian- We've got a lot of cleaning to do today. Laundry, mopping the floors, bathrooms..."
Jillian: "Oh, bummer.- Well, we'll be three Cinderella's. And Giselle. It's a Cinderella and Giselle day."

----

Jillian: "Mommy? Can I have two pieces of toast?"

Me: "If you finish the first one, I'd be happy to make you another."

Jillian: "Oh, but I really wanted a CLOSED FACE."

Me: "What does that mean?"

Jillian: (Gesturing with her hands pressed together, and then wide open) "You know, not an OPEN FACED sandwich... CLOSED."

----

Me: "Liv, would you like cereal for breakfast?"

Liv: (Shakes her head) and says, "YEAH, YEAH, YEAH"

Jillian" "Mommy, did you hear her? She exclaimed, Yeah!"

----

Me: "Do you remember why we are shopping for snacks?"

Jillian: "We're helping to send treats to the military people who are deployed"

Me: "That's right, Jillian! Good remembering!"

Jillian: "When they come back home to their families, we don't want them to have to ask for snacks right away."

----

Jillian: (Serving me food from her play kitchen) "Here is your pizza with mushrooms and peppers and a donut if you eat all your food."

Me: (Pretend to gobble/drink everything) "Mmmm! Yum Jillian, thanks!"

Jillian: "You forgot to eat the donut!"

Me: "Oh, oops! (When I reach for it to eat it, it accidentally falls on the ground)

Jillian: "OH NO! Mommy! All the frosting almost fell off! But... don't worry, there is still a lot for you to eat" (and then in a stage whisper she adds) "it's really all still on there because it's not real food Mommy, don't worry"

----

Overhearing Jillian talking to Liv-

Jillian: "Liv, please! Stop making that horrible noise. Mommy is very busy right now and we don't have time for your nonsense."

----

Jillian: "Let's call Grandma Trisha on the phone so I can tell her the new word I learned.

Me: "What word Jillian?"

Jillian: "Remember- something really ridiculous? Ludicrous!"

----

Jillian: (In a very sweet voice) "Mommy, look outside... the rain is falling, like leaves from a tree."

Me: "Wow, Jillian! That was beautiful! It sounded like a poem, or a song. Do you want to say anything else about the rain?"

Jillian: "Not really."

----

And, to round out my child and document that while she's a very chatty vocabulary interested child, she will only be turning 3 1/2 years old this month:

Jillian-isms:

Hotel= HOTOWEL

Elevator= ELEGATOR

Napkin= NAPKIM

Scrabble= SCRIBBLE

Silver= SLIVLER

Oh Jilli, we love you!

P.S.- Wondering about the photo at the top? For a special treat, Jillian got to take my little point and shoot camera to nap time with her. I think we have a future photographer on our hands. -wink- To check out the world through Jillian's eyes, click HERE.

Is there a better season than this???

Liv has not been 100% lately (started with a fever, now maybe teeth?) so I'm trying SO HARD to focus on how much fun we are having when she is not being cling-a-rific. It's challenging at times to say the least. But, alas... here are some finer moments I've captured over the past few days.

Jillian swinging in our yard. If I could bottle that happy, we'd be millionaires:

We found the BIGGEST leaf when we were walking our neighborhood on a "leaf hunt"! So awesome:

I saw a photo similar to this on a blog and had to recreate. Hence, the above mentioned leaf hunt... we had to find the perfect red leaf:

Sweet girls... It's starting to really get chilly here all of a sudden! So I'm trying to snap some photos outside before their cute outfits are covered in jackets!

Happy Halloween!

This year, Jillian is a purple witch, and Liv is a black cat. Jillian wanted to pick her own costume this year, but I'm happy she is still little enough for me urge her towards the choice I would have made on my own in order to have the girls coordinate :) We borrowed the witch outfit from a friend (thanks, Tessa!), but I made the cat for Liv. It's SO snuggly and huggable! I love the way she feels in it!

Hope you have a Happy Halloween!!!! More photos of Trick-or-Treating soon!

To see all the photos of the girls in their costumes, click HERE!!!
And, to see photos from our pumpkin carving, click HERE!!!

Liv-a-licious

I know, I know... two photos of just Liv in a row. More Jillian soon... Thanks to Ashley for the awesome accessories ;)

Boo-tiful

Only a few more days until Halloween! Here's a pic from our latest pumpkin patch trip!

I must confess

There's plenty of things that I'm not good at... To name a few: math, having a sense of direction, and keeping up with our laundry.

The math I can't do much about, the sense of direction I believe I was born without, but the laundry? Can I blame that on genetics? Sadly, I think not.

But, if I could go to a hypnotist and have them convince me that I LOVE doing laundry (of course, it's not really the 'doing' I despise, mostly just the hanging of items) I would be thrilled.

So, here's our house on laundry day (in other words, someone is out of underwear). The girls love sorting everything with me, Peanut loves to nap in the sun on top of piles waiting to get in the washer, and I try to find the silver lining in spending a day at the house with the girls hanging out and washing/folding/hanging, washing/folding/hanging...... on and on.

Okay- so now you know three of my shortcomings. Care to share yours?!?

A couple random photos...

The other day we had "Classroom Day" for our MOMS Club, and were learning about a variety of things including the color silver. Of course I had to pull out these silver boots I found over the summer at Children's Place for $4. Awesome deal, and although they are a little big for Liv, she didn't seem to mind. One of the other Moms commented that she was ready for a KISS concert. Rock on!

I took this photo of Jillian at her request. Here's the conversation:

Jillian: "Mommy, take my picture outside with this sweet baby."

Me: "Sure babe, but go wash your face first- you're a mess."

Jillian: "Oh, that's okay Mommy. You'll still like the picture even if my face is messy. I'll look right at the camera and smile."

Me: "Okay silly face."

And, that's how you end up with a cute photo of Jillian, with a little extra on her chin...

Soaking in the moment...

I realize I should be posting this along side an adorable photo of our girls playing in the bathtub, or wrapped up in their towels but I don't have a super recent one. Tonight when I was thinking about it, I decided against running for my camera and opted instead to soak in the moment (and then document it here in my 'journal' so I hopefully don't forget about it anytime soon.

Every night after bath time, my heart practically bursts I'm so in love with our kids. I'm not sure if it's because they smell like this:

(it certainly can't hurt!) ;)

or if it's because of the way their eyelashes stick together when they're wet, and their perfect sweet little bodies glisten with water, or the belly laughs either girl will give me when I smoosh her face/belly with a towel, or how little I always think they look in pajamas... I guess a combo of all those things, and many more.

In short, I love kids fresh out of the bath. So. So. Much.

Anyone else share this feeling???

Craft Time

Given the chance, Jillian would do "craft time" for all her free time. Particularly, she loves scissors. Cutting anything. We have a scrap bag of paper with a pair of little scissors in it, and I give her a cookie sheet for her to snip tiny pieces off onto. When it's time to clean up, she decides which ones are big enough to "still be cutting pieces" (those go in the bag) and "little enough to be trash" (those go on the cookie sheet). This can consume hours of her time, and I've gotta say, is pretty darn easy for me! It's awesome. I used to set her up with other paper, glue, & markers along with the scissors until I realized they were just contributing to the mess, and not the end result. So, just scissors and paper. Cut cut cut cut.....

Here we are at a MOMS Club event. We have such a great group of ladies to spend our free time with. We're exploring different crafts at our 'Fall Festival' and my friend Karen was nice enough to get a candid shot of me with the girls. As much as I like posed photos, it's so nice to have a few pics of me interacting with the girls too!

Thanks, Karen!

I LOVE this season!

To see all the photos from this series, click HERE!

I made these little pillowcase dresses (tunic length this time) for the girls the other day during nap time with the help of my friend Ashley... they are super easy! If you have a little girl, and you'd like info on how to make one, let me know! It only takes about 30 minutes!!!

Happy Fall! I was texting with my friend Tiffany earlier in Chicago, and there, the leaves are all changed. Here however, we've still got about 2 weeks before the colors go crazy. So, for now we had to use silk flowers for props. :)

Enjoy your day!

Nancy

P.S.- Two posts in two days- oh la la!

Have you missed us?!?

It's been nearly a month since I posted. I can't believe it. I toyed with the idea of breaking these posts up into a bunch of different ones but in the end I decided- if reading this blog post is overwhelming to you, imagine living through our last month! We are exhausted and SOOOooo happy we did all this fun stuff. We're so lucky!

Before I share a few photos and stories, I'll add that I'm in the process of putting the rest of the photos from these events up on our Shutterfly share site so if you want to check more photos that are not on the blog, click HERE.

Anyway, here we go:

We started our trip to the west coast by flying into San Diego. Ryan's parents have a place there so we thought it would be fun to see it, and visit with them a little. It took a little extra planning to make it work, but we did! The only downside was the rental car company charging us $$ for picking up the car in San Diego and returning it at LAX. What a racket! lol, oh well!

Anyway- here's Ryan and his Dad Jay with Liv. We had a bit of a drive ahead of us when we left here, and it was already late on the East coast so Canice helped out by giving the girls a bath and getting them in their PJ's.

Canice and a fresh clean Jillian:

The drive I mentioned was from San Diego to Anaheim. We stayed in a hotel near Disneyland, and brought the girls for their first taste of the happiest place on earth the next morning!

This is one of two photos I got of the girls together. Liv was all about posing for the camera, Jillian. was. not.

What a ham! (Her shirt says, "Liv loves Mickey Mouse")

For Liv's birthday, my parents got her breakfast with the Disney Characters. It was a blast. Liv ate nearly her weight in grapes, and both girls really liked all the visitors we had at the table.

After breakfast, we went on a few rides:

I'll take one cream, one sugar, and one sweet baby please!

Jillian on Dumbo:

This is how we managed two tired kids in one single stroller:

And the highlight of the Disney trip? Meeting the princesses. You wait about an hour in a line of anxious little girls to meet three princesses one on one. They won't tell you which princesses are back there until you are at the front of the line because they change every few hours. Let me tell you how much I was hoping Cinderella was on when it was our turn.

When we got to the front of the line, I almost felt nervous to ask. When I did the girl said, "Um... Mulan, Tiana, and.... Cinderella." Jillian and I felt the same way at that moment. She was thrilled to be meeting her favorite princess, I was thrilled not to be launching our "search for Cinderella" across the acres of Dinsneyland. haha!

The first princess we met was Tiana. Jillian was NERVOUS. She would not hug her, or talk to her. She kept saying, "Mommy, you do it!" to me. Poor little thing. In the end, she would stand for this family photo and she did ask Tiana if she, "saw Louie play the trumpet" so that was nice. The best part of our princess meet and greet was the special attention our family got from the people who worked there. I don't know if it was Ryan, or Jillian (or a combination of the two) but the hostess girl stopped letting other people in, and let Jillian have all three princesses to herself. She even took my camera and took photos for us. It was awesome. And, perfect since Jillian was feeling shy and really needed that extra time to warm up to this whole idea.

It started off slow, but Jillian had TONS to say to Cinderella. I think the sweet girl caught about 1/4 of what she was saying but my favorite part of the conversation was: "I have glass slippers that I wear to dress up when I get married!" "You do?" "Yup. They are just like yours and they have a picture on them!" "Oh, what's the picture?" Then Jillian looks at her like she must have just fallen off the moon or something and says with disbelief and a small degree of sassy disgust: "YOU." It was so funny. I teased the girl that she really needed to up her game when it came to recognizing Cinderella merchandise. -smile-

Deep in conversation:

Discussing the prince:

Finally comfortable enough to let Cinderella touch her:

She was a pro by the time we got over to Mulan. Ryan and I felt a little bad when Mulan asked, "Who is your favorite princess?" and Jillian said, "Oh, Cinderella is the best." lol, oh well.

After Disney, we drove to the Long Beach area. This was the original purpose of our trip- My sister Marilyn and Neal invited both families to get together at a beach house there for the weekend. It was such a treat because I had never met Neal's little sister Kiana, or his Dad Carl. We had a great time with everyone!

Here's a pretty good photo we got of my family while we were there-

Ryan, Me, Jillian, Marilyn, Neal, Liv (not looking), my Mom, Trisha and Dad, Randall

I took a few photos of Marilyn and Neal, livin' the life:

Marilyn and I down by the water:

While we were all in the beach house, we did a fair amount of cooking. My Mom always cooked great meals while we were growing up, and my Dad really started to enjoy whipping up a fabulous meal when we were in college so it was nice to find out that Kiana and Carl are great cooks as well! We had a sushi night one evening, and it was delicious!

Kiana, me and Carl cooking:

Kiana and my Mom making a cake:

It was such a great beach get away, but it does not stop there- Ryan and I decided since we never went on a honeymoon, we were already on the west coast, AND my parents were more than willing to take the girls from California back to Nevada with them and babysit that we may as well take advantage of the situation and go to.....

HAWAII! (Kauai to be specific)

We had an amazing time- just the two of us. Very relaxing, fun and we felt spoiled rotten. After our visit we flew back to LAX together, and then Ryan headed home back to work while I went to Vegas for a couple days and then returned home with the girls.

The girls enjoyed their chance to visit with my parents in Vegas while Ryan and I were away. They had a wonderful time and, "ate ice cream every day". It's true. They really did. -smile- I'm sure my parents have more photos from this visit, but I snapped just a couple while I was there....

And, that brings us back home! Here's few more little things, and then I'll be (almost) all caught up...

The other day Jillian went outside (fully clothed) to play in the yard. She asked if she could fill her water table with the hose, and upon hearing yes, stripped (down to her underwear) and went at it. After playing for a little while, she decided to use the hose to fill a small bucket, and then transfer that water across the yard into the table. I placed the hose in the big red bucket so it would not be running all over the patio while she went back and forth. When the bucket started to fill, Jillian came inside to talk to me again (now naked) and said, "OH MOMMY! Thank you for my new swimming pool! Can I get in?!" Of course.

Here's the debut use of the little pumpkin dresses I made. We took a trip to the pumpkin patch with our friends Sarah, Natalie, Ashley and Joe. There are lots of cute photos from this trip... Check Shutterfly to see them all.

Go RAVENS! We could not help but buy this little cheer outfit for Jillian. She LOVES to watch football with Ryan and has anxiously been awaiting the start of the season.

And finally- a photo of Liv from this morning. I could eat her. She's such a sweet girl.

That's it!!! Now you're all caught up on the happenings in the Kules house!

More to come soon, I'm sure!!!

Nancy