St. Nicholas Came to Monticello

So after the long trek home from Fargo, guess who came to our home while we were gone for Christmas? That's right St. Nicholas! Now many readers out there might be asking why St. Nicholas and not Santa? Well A. Because Santa is derived by St. Nicholas and B. My husband and I would rather teach our children about saints instead of telling them somoene who is commercialized all too much in our society today. I think the amazing history of St. Nicholas is a tradition my husband and I would much rather pass down instead of a jolly red coated man. Plus why not thank a saint for his amazing gifts he passed on through our Catholic tradition?

Sidenote aside: he brought the best gift of all for Mommy and Daddy, a toy to glorious that it has kept my daughter occupied for hours on end every day since she saw it Sunday morning: a Grand Walk-In Kitchen! Thank you to the many individuals who helped generously so that Preston and I would be able to afford such a marvelous kitchen. The best part about opening it was being able to Skype video call my grandmother, Babu, so that she could see B's face light up for the remarkable gift! Here are some pics!!!

Look at how big it is!

B Loves using the coffee maker...

She kept making Babu more on her conference call with her! Thanks Babu for playing along and taking a sip of your tea each time B offered her drink

Everything is B size! It's perfect!!

B can even be like Daddy and make eggs

Love and God Bless, Kym

Extended Family Christmas

So after we opened our presents, P and I decided we'd take the risk traveling through a blizzard storm to be with our extended family over the holidays. We really wanted to present our gifts to our secret santas, Cameron and Makensie, as well as Skylar and Landon. So we prayed our rosary as we treked to Fargo, where we had a fun time with our extended family! We were very blest with being able to stay at our family's home and it was quite snuggly with 16 busy bodies at the Allex household. It was fun! Everyone is so great! Here are some pics of our adventure!
B's face: terrified for the snow "Why are we in the car Mommy?!?!"

T loves sitting with Great-Grandpa Ed

B with Auntie Skylar, B loved every minute of play time with her aunties and uncles

Great shot of Great-Grandma Ellie, T, and me

B loved her Baby from Great-Grandparents. Her name is Lucy!

I love this pic of P consoling B after we attempted to put to her bed. She is clinging to Lucy!

T with Grandpa Grant

B with her Lucy and the awesome stroller Uncle/Godfather Addison got her!

True miracle of Christmas: the sippy cup B actually uses! Thanks Auntie Kensie

Yes, car in the back is ours... and yes it is almost completely covered by the blizzarding snow

Great Grandparents with the great-grandbabies

The Large Allex family with the small Allex family and the small Miller family! Thanks Grandpa Ed for taking the picture!

Love and God bless, Kym

Our Family Christmas

Well we wanted to celebrate Christmas as a small-but-growing-family before we headed out for an adventure to Fargo to celebrate the holiday with the extended Allex family. So Christmas Eve morning we woke up and opened more of our gifts before heading out to Fargo. It was nice getting to celebrate as a small family that morning and we had fun with B and T as they got to play and wear their amazing gifts. It was a nice Christmas Eve morning, but I can't wait til next year's Christmas morning at our home to impliment some new traditions for our small family!
Here are some pics:

Love and God Bless, Kym
Two presents under the tree for me from my hubbie

Aww he got me the Catholic Trivia DVD!

Well, we

T loves his gifts from Great Aunt Sue!

B loves her Curious George Puzzle

Trimming a Tree

Well, it's been a while of blogs... so here's some pics of trimming the tree. Preston surprised me with this gorgeous 6 foot tree after I was sick in bed for about 4 days at the beginning of December. Bella LOVED putting up the shatterproof ornaments and Teigan loved staring at the dim lights.


All done!

T loving the tree

B even helped put on the ornaments

Preston explaining to B where the balls go.

Thankfully B understood not to touch the tree after we were done decorating it!

First crush

So some cute little stories, so last night after youth group, P and I had a CHRP meeting with a few other adults from our parish. We are really gearing up for this great retreat for adults this upcoming year for women and one for men too! Now here's the thing, one of the other couples have two children. I find them to be absolutely adorable and they seem pretty good when they have their Leapfrog game systems...anyways, it's kinda known that when we have these meetings we bring our young children with us so we don't have to worry about babysitters and whatnot...so at the parish library last night, B was feeling very social. Too social to be held, so we let her out of our arms to walk around the library and eat her bottle. Well, she noticed a very "cute" 4 year-old named Zach, who also noticed B... before long, my daughter went in for the "kill". Her first attempt to lure him away from his video game was by showing him her new toy, a pink flamingo pen that Mommy was given. Poor Zack, he didn't have a chance. He took the bait and was soon enjoying and playing tickle with my 16 month-old! After she got him hooked on playing with her, she swooped in for the real deal: a HUG!!! That's right my daughter, at all of 16 months-old, has "game" (this is not in a prideful statement, more like a low moan accompanied by an OH NO!). For about an hour these two played, read a book, and hugged every so often. When the meeting was over, my daughter gave Zack about four hugs before letting him go. I think he can be her first official crush.... or at least a baby crush.
Now for T... this little man has had game since birth. Many of my youth have stated more than once that he is handsome and a charmer. I believe he got these traits from my husband. Well, today my friend Mel came over to help me with the kids since I was wiped out from working for thirteen hours yesterday... Well my son LOVES this young woman! Everytime he saw her, he would try to stand up, smiling and babbling towards her. It was very amusing and super great that she was able to keep him occupied as B would go back and forth to her toys and her brother.

God Bless

Thanksgiving 2009

This Thanksgiving was full of surprises! We traveled to Fargo (two times in one month!!! Go us!) to visit with Greatgrandparents and grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, and even a cousin! Poor grandma Patti was sick, so we all chipped in to help Great Grandma Ellie prepare the foods!
P carving the turkey; his favorite activity other than eating it!
We realized we needed to spend some quality time with the kids, so we took the younger siblings and Bella to go to the movies: Planet 51... not the best movie, but it was cute seeing Bella fall asleep in her Daddy's lap!

The morning after Turkey Day, I woke up to P and the kids making a fort! It was amazing and very tall!

GreatGrandma with two out of three great grandchildren. Check out Aurielle on the left and Teigan on the right! He keeps getting BIGGER!

The festive table!

A wonderful Thanksgiving as a whole!

National Catholic Youth Conference 2009

WOW! +21,000 Catholic high school youth gathered for three days in Kansas City Missouri... breathless! It was very exciting, so much energy, so much love, so much faith...it was absolutely breathtaking to see all those youth on their knees for the Blessed Eucharist, for mass, for speakers on faith in action, in prayer, and in chastity. It was ridiculous! I was so impressed with my youth who were prayerful and considerate of others during mass, the sacrament of reconciliation, adoration and penance...it was amazing!!!! It only reaffirmed my place in ministry with youth. A youth and I bought a few of the same books, so we are having a social experiment where we willing be book clubbing different books and discussing the central messages on our blog. Feel free to join us, our first book is called "Wake Up to God's Word" by Mary H Reaman. I have to say I'm only a chapter in and it's fantastic!!! Please feel free to follow and join us reading this book... the first update will be posted by the end of this week I believe by Ashley, here, she's a great youth so please feel free to check out her blog. Alright well onto the next blog post!

I LOVED IT! God bless

Fargo's Newest State Championship Team

There are so many updates and posts I need to write...so I guess the next thing would be the trip to Fargo for Add's state championship football game. It was lots of fun to go, watch, and cheer them on for the nail-biting game! It was the first recorded ND state championship game that went into overtime. We were so excited to spend time with the family, and Preston even surprised me with a beautiful 2 bedroom suite to stay in while we visited. We utilized every space of it, including the continential breakfast with Add, Cam, and Miranda the first morning, and then with the guys the second morning. We also loved spending time with the younger siblings who loved the indoor pool! It was a nice trip and here are some pics!!

B with Great Grandpa Ed

Add's Team is the white ones!

B giving Great Grandma her second picture ever!

Add is the one who nailed the guy into the ground!

B with her cousin!