Christmas Celebrations, Christmas Cookies, and the Aftermath...

WOW! Can you believe it's been over a month since we wrote anything on our blog? We've been very busy celebrating!! We have learned so much - Santa says "Ho, ho, ho", wears a hat, has a bell and wears pants! Reindeer have antlers - we can sing large portions of "Frosty the Snowman" (especially thumpty, thump, thump...) - all the lights are "pretty" (very distracting for us when we ride around town) - and we have Mommy "Christmas Tree On" every time we walk in the door from daycare.



We baked our first Christmas cookies with Mommy & Aunt Angie. Our first adventure was making stacked pretzels - round pretzels, Hershey kisses, and an M&M on top. Mommy peeled all the kisses - and Kylie concentrated very hard on getting them on top of the pretzels she lined up, until she saw Neela eating them more than placing them... At least Mommy put all the M&Ms on -- and ate every pretzel and kiss we licked!! Neela helped Mommy and Angie make People Puppy Chow - she did a great job of "check" to make sure the powdered sugar coated all the Crispix. We both helped Mommy and Aunt Angie make cutout Christmas cookies - we had fun cutting the cookies until we figured out the dough tasted good. Then, we spent the entire time the cookies baked licking the dough off the cookie cutters.



For the holidays, we made the "Great American Road Trip". We started our holiday adventures in Sioux City December 19-22, then to the farm December 24-28. But that's just the dates - we did so much more - Mommy, Daddy, Kylie, Neela and probably even Cy know EVERY song on EVERY Barney DVD by heart!! We also somehow managed to avoid driving during any snowfalls, and had plenty of blankets and junkfood in the car to cover any minor issue caused by the weather.


We got to Sioux City early on December 19, and never left the house until we drove home. It got cold very quickly, and it snowed, snowed, snowed... Cy had to dig his way through the drifts in the backyard just to go out. Friday night, Aunt Renee and Uncle David arrived from California - we knew who they were from Mommy's flashcards, but we were a bit intimidated by them. On Saturday morning, Uncle David fed us Cheerios and cheese while everyone else was gone - and we became friends. Kylie even let Uncle David put her down for TWO naps before he went home! Of course, the minute we walked in the door we were looking for Uncle Chuckie - Kylie was attached to him for most of the trip - and learned another new phrase "My Chuckie" when Aunt Renee was teasing Kylie into talking.


We had pizza on Friday night - our favorite! On Saturday, we had a blast opening presents!! We went downstairs and learned a lot about "presents". We helped pass out the presents, except we gave David and Renee's to Papa - and Papa passed them over. By the end of the presents, we helped Renee open her last "big" present. We got so many fun things - Steelers' monkeys, Elmo shirts, bath foam, a Roller Coaster, an Elmo chair, a Sesame Street restaurant, Elmo books, ... Every package of clothing Neela opened she had to try on - what kid tries on all their clothes when they open them? We also had fun watching Grandma, Papa and Daddy try to weigh the prime rib - using the Wii! We had prime rib for supper - once Great Grandma and Great Grandpa came over... Then we opened some blocks, more clothes and a really cool (and LOUD) guitar and keyboard!!


Sunday morning, we got up and got ready for some football! The Steelers were playing, and everybody was coming over to watch the game. We put on our Willie Parker jerseys, and the entire family was decked out in black and gold. Daddy made the circuit - he picked up Great-Grandma, Great-Grandma & Great-Papa. Uncle John, Dustin & Erika came over, too. We watched TV a little, but spent most of our time playing with our new baby doll sets - a stroller, swing, car seat, Moses basket, diaper bag, bottle, pacifier... Santa also stopped by - but we didn't want ANYTHING to do with him!

We drove back to our house on Monday - and Santa had left presents there for us! We really started to like this "present" thing! We opened blocks, XXL bowling pins (they are as tall as we are!), a Sit & Spin, some puzzle books, and Care Bears. Neela has become obsessed with pink - and she opened the green Oopsy Bear. Kylie opened the pink Cheer Bear. It didn't take long before Neela had Cheer Bear, and Kylie had Oopsy Bear -- it's a good thing Kylie likes Oopsy (for the stars and rainbow on his tummy -- we learned about rainbows from Aunt Renee!). Mommy & Daddy also exchanged their gifts, then they started laundry.

On Tuesday, we went to Sandy's house for our daycare Christmas party. Mommy & Daddy ran errands while we ate Christmas goodies - and we even got stockings with our names on from Sandy, Sydney, and everyone else.

Wednesday morning, we headed out to Grandma & Papa Guggisberg's farm. We got to watch MORE Barney! We stopped at Burger King (again) for lunch, then made a stop at "Grandma" Arleen's house in Ivanhoe. We played with all her toys - her grandkids showed them to us. She was so excited to see us! When we were done visiting, we headed out to the farm - and found Aunt Heidi, Uncle Cory, Papa, Grandma... Aunt Angie was close behind us. On Christmas Eve, we just played a lot and got familiar with Grandma & Papa's again. We also had another visit from Santa - this time, we said "no, no, no" and hid behind Grandma when Santa tried to give us candy...

Christmas morning, we woke up early to go to church. We put on our party dresses - and it was VERY cold! We had to cover our legs with blankets to get into church. Then, Neela wet all the way through everything - so Mommy took her to the bathroom - and it was FREEZING under an air vent. (Grandma and Papa are getting that fixed so no other little kids get so cold!) We did "pretty well" in church - even though Fr. Paul had "presents" on the altar for his sermon - and we REALLY wanted to open them! We finally got to meet Sr. Ellen - she is so nice! She has been bugging Papa to meet us for a long time!

We got home from church and had a big brunch, then - guess what time it was? PRESENTS! First, we opened our stockings! We got slippers from Grandma & Papa, a Cyclone football from Heidi and Cory, and sheep from Tony & Laura. We tried to hang up Grandma's new window clings, but we ended up shreding them into tiny pieces -- the snowflakes didn't last too long. Papa also got our favorite thing to talk about - poop - specifically, snowman poop (powdered sugar covered, chocolate covered, peanuts!). After the stockings, we got into the "good" stuff. We got sock monkeys, mini Cabbage Patch dolls, barn purses with noisy animals, an Elmo couch with a sleeping bag (and probably a lot more things Mommy forgot right now!)... We also provided everyone with great assistance opening their presents - we modeled all of Grandma and Mommy's clothes:-) Neela also got her first experience with "the lizard" - Uncle Cory brought it home from Iraq, and Grandma got it for Christmas (again!). She thought it would stay in Iraq... For Christmas supper, we had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, grilled veggies... lots of good stuff!

The day after Christmas, we went to Brookings to take family pictures. Everyone got dressed in brown, pink, or green - and we got in the car for a short trip. We took pictures with everyone, then we got to take pictures with Mommy, Daddy & Cy. We even took a few on our own. Grandma & Papa took us back into the studio so they could take pictures with "just us". Everything turned out very cute - and it took too long for Mommy, Grandma and my Aunts to make up their mind. Papa, Uncle Tony, Laura, Aunt Heidi, Uncle Cory, and Aunt Angie took us to the BAR before Mommy & Grandma were done. (Uncle Chuckie would like the bar - Cubby's!) Papa ordered us French fries and orange juice, and he let us have as much ketchup as we wanted. He also ordered grilled cheese - we didn't have much room left for it, but :-) After we left Cubby's, we had to stop by Grandma's "office" at the bike shop to try out the little bikes. We found some we really liked, and we left screaming for "bike, bike, bike!"

On Saturday, all the Guggisbergs (Papa's family) drove out to the farm to celebrate Christmas. We got to meet a lot of other two year olds (or almost!) - cousin McKenna, cousin Mallory and cousin Aftyn. There were lots of other little kids too - we had to practice sharing our dolls, blocks and other toys - and we all had lots of fun together. Daddy learned to play a new card game from Mommy's uncles, too.

Sunday, we headed back to our house again - we'd had a long few days - and it was nice to get home and sleep in our beds again. Of course, we had a lot of fun at home, too. We went to Chuck-E-Cheese with the Sawyers. Their twins, Katie and Anna, helped us climb around in the "tall" tunnels - and we tried all the toys. It's so cheap when we don't care about the tickets or the tokens! Their sister, Vicky, also helped us play a few games. Neela really liked skee ball - she picked up the balls, and walked them up the ramp to toss them in. Kylie liked the "toddler" wack-a-mole, and talking to Chuck-E on the phone. We both liked watching Mickey Mouse dance (Chuck-E - but we didn't know that).

On New Year's Eve, we went to Happy Noon Year at Como Zoo with the Thiets. Aunt Angie came over to say Hi, too. We made Gorilla noise blowers (for the year of the Gorilla), then went to walk in the tropical forest - we loved all the fish! Then, we went to the Conservatory - and we played in the fountain in the sunken garden for a long time. Kylie even let a fish nibble her fingers! Then, it was back to the visitor center for the ball drop (at noon). We got tiaras, hats, blowers, and caught animal beach balls (OK, Julie, Abby and Erin caught them for us - but we got to bring them home). We headed to Key's Cafe and had fun coloring, opening more presents (from Erin & Abby), and eating lunch (mostly the French fries)! Sydney and Michelle came to babysit, and Mommy & Daddy went to the Wild game. Things got interesting that night - Mommy got really sick, and Kylie threw-up in her bed. We spent New Year's Day (and most of the weekend) recovering from the latest bug. Aunt Angie also moved out on New Year's Day - we miss her, but she left her chapstick and turtle puppet (and other puppets) for us to play with - and she comes back to get her mail all the time :-)

As if that's not enough - what else did we do? Well, we both got VERY good at saying "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" and clinging to Mommy all the time. We also tried out our new potties - Neela pooped and peed in the potty several times, and Kylie was successful last night for the first time! We get high 5s, and we say "Yay Mommy" and "Yay Daddy" when ever the toilet flushes.

We're pretty sure Mommy left out somethings we did in the last month - but this should be close enough to catch you up! If you want to see the pictures from all our happenings, check out http://estochen.shutterfly.com.

Mommy promises to help us update this a little more in the next week - if anything exciting happens. We'll be watching the Steelers this weekend, and going to Little Gym :-)

Love,
Kylie & Neela


Mommy, Mommy
Potty Training