Christmas with the Slaters

This weekend, all the Slater family drove to our house to celebrate Christmas. I was so thankful that everyone was able to be together this year - and thankful that everyone was willing to drive to celebrate with us. Even though it was a little crowded it was beautiful chaos. There aren't very many opportunities for everyone to be in the same place at the same time. All the cousins had a great time but especially Kobe and Preston. They don't get to see each other that much and they wrestled and played football the whole time. Kellen really enjoyed playing trains with Bennett and Kaylee. Here are some action shots of the weekend.

Preston and Kobe wrestling

Kaylee and Bennett playing choo choo trains with Kellen's new train table.

Kobe showing off his new football ornament and Kendra (probably laughing at something Toni did)

I laughed at Preston forever when he posed like this in his new Steelers football uniform. I think he wore the helmet the whole time except when he had to eat.

Kevin and Toni opening their gag gifts.

All the adults exchanged gag gifts - it was quite hilarious. Toni received some gangster gear so she could be more like her kids at school :-)

Here is Toni trying to be cool. If you look closely she has a tatoo sleeve, false silver and gold teeth and of course some bling.


Butch painfully wearing his Tennessee hat.

Kellen cuddling with Nana.

Butch, Doyle, and Kevin hanging out

Dale slaving over the stove

I think we all had a great time even though most of us didn't sleep well and our house was quite crowded. But it was all worth it. I am thankful we all were able to spend some quality time together.

Christmas Morning

Christmas gets better every year now that Kellen is older. I love to see his reaction to the gifts and surprises. This year, he received a train table and tracks from Santa. He didn't see it at first (how could you miss it?) but once we pointed it out, he made a beeline for the choo choo trains and it took every bribe imaginable for him to open the rest of his gifts and eat breakfast. He didn't even ask for a glass of milk which is usually the first words out of his mouth in the morning.





Inside his stocking were M&Ms and the lifesaver story candy book - even those didn't stop him for long. He had eyes only for his new trains and tracks.

I'm not quite sure why we bothered buying him any gifts other than the train table. He did enjoy the Christmas Story from his bible and wanted to hold baby Jesus. That was precious. After all, that is what Christmas is all about.

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope everyone has had a blessed Christmas Day so far. We finally dragged Kellen away from his new train table to take a nap so I thought I would blog the last few eventful days.

Tuesday evening Aunt Morgan and Uncle Luke came bearing gifts and spent the night with us. It was so nice of them to come as it would have been the only chance to see them during Christmas.

Morgan and Luke got Kellen a Thomas the Train rhyming book and Gordon.

Kellen showing off his "horns" - I think they hurt is head.

Christmas Eve Karsten, Kellen, and I made cookies for Santa. Kellen was very excited to "help."

He loved measuring out the "powder"

mmmm Good!

As tradition, we watched Polar Express and drank hot cocoa after dinner.

Daddy and Kellen reading The Night Before Christmas before bedtime.

Kellen setting out the cookies for santa and the carrots for his "big deer"

I'll post a Christmas Morning blog later. Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

Christmas with Nana and Pa

Nana and Pa came to our house friday afternoon and spent the weekend with us. We celebrated Christmas and on saturday my mom helped me fix a bunch of meals to freeze for after the baby is born. A big THANKS to mom for doing all that work. It will really help us out a lot. I think in all we fixed about 8 different meals but it will last much longer than that!

Anyway, Friday evening we had prime rib on the grill - YUM. Even though we ran out of propane halfway through (Karsten had to make a mad dash to the gas station) they still turned out well. Then we opened gifts that evening.

Nana made Kellen his very own John Deere sleeping bag. I think he really likes it. Now when it's bed time he has to be covered up with it (along with his million other blankets!!)

Kellen loved peeking inside the big gift bags. In here was his big fire engine. After he opened this he wouldn't open any other gifts until he got bored playing fireman.

Soggy Sugar Cookies

Yesterday the Oldham's ventured over to our house to make and decorate sugar cookies. I think Hallie Kate and Kellen had a lot of fun decorating them but most of all eating the icing by the spoonfuls or should I say knife fulls. They weren't interested in cutting the cookies out of the dough. Let's just say we put their "cookies" aside for later since they were covered with saliva soaked icing. Here are a few pics:

Kellen feeding Hallie Kate more icing. I think they had stomach aches - neither one of them wanted to eat much lunch when we were done.

Later, Hallie Kate opened her Christmas present from Kellen. It was a tinkerbell dress-up costume. I think she liked it.

My Little Picasso

Finger painting 101

I finally brought out the finger paints and easel today. Since it is pretty nasty outside, Kellen and I (mostly me) have been thinking of things we can do indoors. I have been saving finger painting as a winter project so I finally surprised him with all of it. He would be content to watch movies all day but I really don't want him doing that -SO this occupied him for 30 min. or so. Here's his final work:

He was very proud of his work. But as you know, he doesn't really like things between his toes or fingers - so needless to say he was ready to be cleaned up. He did a pretty good job of keeping it on the paper. However, he wanted to keep giving me high fives. I refrained from doing so :-) Now I just need to go buy some paint brushes.

A Name For Baby

With only appox. 5 weeks left until my due date, I have been nagging at Karsten to finally decide on a name for our baby. He feels the need to scour the baby name book to look at all his options. I'm glad that he puts so much thought into it, but I was getting a little anxious about not having a name. Plus I was tired of calling him Cleatus the Fetus. So - without furthur ado.... his name is

Keagan Gabriel Slater

A NEW PUPPY

Aren't baby puppies one of the most wonderful things? I certainly think so. Lauren and Chris just got a new miniature yorkie-poo during Thanksgiving and came over the other night to show off their baby. His name is Maddox. I think he weighs about 3 lbs and isn't suppose to get much over 4 lbs. SOOO CUTE!!!

Kellen was really excited about the puppy - I hope he is this excited about the new baby!!! He was very gentle and loved holding him.

Even though he peed on my carpet twice, I still think he's too cute for words. Might as well wait to get my carpets cleaned since I'll be having everyone over for Christmas with their Fidos and then potty training Kellen!!!

Here are some more pictures as of late:

I have been having Karsten take pictures of my baby bump like we did with Kellen. I guess I'll show you all how big I'm getting.

I'm 34 weeks (8 months) pregnant.

Last night, Hallie Kate came over to play with Kellen for a couple hours. They both have been asking about each other for a couple of weeks now.

They played great together and had a lot of fun dancing and being silly in their Christmas pajamas.

That's all for now - keep checking back - I'm working on the nursery and will hopefully be posting new pics soon!!!

Thanksgiving Festivities

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I know this is a little belated, but I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I haven't been able to blog because we just got back from Springfield last night.

SO first of all for those of you who don't know, the Oldham's had their baby boy on wednesday. I got to see him last night and he's precious. All are doing well. It makes me anxious to meet our little one. We are so thankful for the wonderful friends and family we have in our lives.

This blog will be a little long -- so hang in there. Here are some recaps of our week:

Karsten and I drove to Sprinfield late last wednesday night (lets just say things did not go as planned) and we arrived in Springfield at 11:30 pm. Kellen didn't fall asleep until 11:00. I was thankful Karsten had Thanksgiving day and Friday off. But he went back early on friday afternoon and Kellen and I stayed through until the middle of the week and met halfway last night. On Thanksgiving, Kellen was able to play with his cousins that he had not seen in a while. I think he had a great time.

Kellen and Gracie haven't spent all that much time together but they soon became fast friends (as you can tell !!)

Kellen and cousing Gracie enjoying some cake.

Daddy and Kellen having some popcorn. We weren't hungry after all the food that day, but we needed a little snack so we fixed us up some movie style theater popcorn. Mom has one of those vending machine style popcorn makers and I think we made popcorn almost everynight. It's Kellen's new obsession. Here he is feeding Daddy.

It is tradition that the women on the Gardner side of the family meet either Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving and bake up some Christmas cookies. It is so much fun for all of us girls to get together every year. It will always be something I look forward to. We each bring a different recipe or two and bake the whole day.

All the aunts and cousins showing off our spread

Grandma and her girls (they call themselves the butt sisters)

Kellen concentrating very hard on his sugar cookie. He only wanted to decorate with green icing and red sprinkles

Showing off his masterpiece

Aunt Shannon and Kellen

Cousin Lesley and Kellen

Great Grandma Gardner snuggling with Kellen and Gracie

Saturday evening we all helped mom get the Christmas tree decorated.

Shannon and me - thanks for the side shot Mom!! I'm 32 weeks pregnant and feel enormous.

Tuesday afternoon both Nanas and Kellen and I headed to the mall. Kellen finally got up the nerve to ride the choo choo train and ended up loving it. For someone who LOVES trains so much, you would think he would hop right on!

We are so blessed to have such a great little boy and are thankful for the one on the way. We can only hope to raise our boys the way we have been raised. We are so thankful for the friends and family who love and support us. Thank you all!!