Let the Christmas Season Begin!!

Well, it's officially here...My favorite time of year! I just love Christmas. The meaning, the family, the music, the Christmas cards, the food. You name it, I love it! We are definitely in the Christmas spirit around here and have the countdown going strong. Hadley made a countdown chain at school, they each have their chocolate advent calendars and we have an ornament that counts the days down. There is no forgetting how close Christmas is when you live in our house :) The Christmas season started on Thanksgiving day for us. We had a super busy few days and had three very exhausted girls to prove it. On Thanksgiving, we went to Bill and Patti's for lunch and stayed through the day. Brian (and help) fried and smoked two turkeys. Fried turkey is my favorite but the smoked turkey wasn't bad either. Friday morning we picked out our Christmas tree. Friday afternoon we headed to Monticello for the Polar Express Train Ride (and a quick trip to Champaign to see the Rochester Rockets win the state title). Saturday morning we headed to north St. Charles to see my side of the family. Like I said, we were busy, busy, busy. Here are the pictures to prove it.

Hadley and Brooke dancing right along with the Rockettes during the Macy's

Thanksgiving Day Parade.


Ok, so these next few are from the Festival of Trees which we did the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Technically not included in our busy weekend, but oh well. This picture was taken just seconds before Brooke decided she did not want to ride the train after all. Hadley rode by herself and I rode the second time with both of them.

Brooke posing next to her favorite tree.

Hadley and Santa!!!!! I was pretty surprised when she walked right up without hesitation. Brooke wanted NOTHING to do with the jolly old man.

Brooke has started this whole hand thing when she is getting her picture taken. What a pose!

Hadley with her favorite tree -- Hello Kitty

Kami getting some love from her sister...

I think she's hiding from her sister in this one!

Sometime in September I had seen a facebook post from someone asking about extra tickets for the Polar Express train ride. I had never heard of it so I googled it and found out that they do a train ride in Monticello. We found the website and the only date they had available was the Friday after Thanksgiving. We went ahead and ordered tickets and didn't think much about it. Rewind a few weeks to August... The Rochester Rockets football team was starting their first season as a member of the CS8 conference. Little did we know they would have an undefeated season but go on to win the State Championship -- On the Friday after Thanksgiving!!! The train ride started at 7:30 and the game started at 7:00. Monticello is about 30 minutes from Champaign. Brian's mom, Patti works at the high school so she was really torn. We enjoyed our train ride (pictures below) then hopped in the car to go to the game. We had gotten a hotel room in Rantoul because we would be going to my Aunt and Uncles, so my mom and dad took the girls back to the hotel while we went to the game. We ended up catching the 4th quarter and the celebration after they won. It was really neat to see so many people there to support Rochester and to know that I was at the first game and Brian was on the first varsity football team ever at Rochester in 1996.

Here are the pictures from the Polar Express. It really was a good time. The younger girls were a little young to really enjoy it. Hadley was the perfect age and had a lot of fun! Once you boarded your train car, you got your souvenir ticket, hot cocoa, cookies, a jingle bell from Santa (if you believe) and lots of entertainment. They had girls dancing and we were even able to join in to the singing of The 12 Days of Christmas. If you are looking to maybe try this next year, tickets go on sale in June. I really don't know how we got tickets for this year because I hear it's a pretty big deal.

Brooke and Ellie

Daddy and Brooke

Brooke NOT smiling --that's another new thing she does. If you ask her to smile for a picture she does this. What a goof ball.

Brooke and Mommy

Looking out the window at the North Pole

Hadley after eating Oreo cookies

The hot cocoa man

The girls dancing

Brooke and Hadley

Brooke and Papa Clark before we left.

Brooke was practically trying to jump out of my arms to get away from Santa.

This blog is so out of order... Sorry. I said earlier that we picked out our tree on Friday morning. It was cold but I wanted to go ahead and get it because I knew we wouldn't be able to get it the next week and I didn't want to wait until the weekend.

Here's our tree at the tree farm...

And, here it is decorated at our house.

Our niece Ellie is going to be a big sister to a little boy! Brad and Devin found out last month that they are having a boy. Guess I'm off the hook trying for a boy to carry on the Tweryon name :) Devin's brother Dustin and his wife Missy are also having a boy due just a couple weeks before Brad and Devin.

I still have a few more pictures that didn't make it on here. I will post those later, but for now, STAY WARM! I can say that for just about everyone I know that is reading this blog, because even Florida is having some pretty cold weather right now! Do you hear that Brody!?!? Stay warm. Maybe this weather is just preparing you for your trip home in TEN days!!! Have a great rest of the week everybody!

And, The Fashion Award Goes To ...

As I was looking through pictures for our regular blog update, I realized I have some real doozies that couldn't be forgotten. So, here are a few very fashion forward cuties...

**captions are under each picture **

Hadley ready for a "Fashion Flurry"

This is how I found her one morning...

Hadley at her friend's bowling party

Little cheerleaders getting ready to go on a date with their daddy.

She's gonna kill me for this one someday :) Who can resist a little tushie though? Speaking of tushies (am I spelling that right?), Hadley told somebody that "my mommy says we have cute tushies!" Oh boy! What else does the girl say when I'm not around???

Brooke would wear these socks everyday if I let her.

Poor Kam fell over and couldn't get up. She just kind of lays there waiting for someone to pick her up. Poor kid!

Brooke came to me the other day with my cell phone, keys and sunglasses on her head. She was ready to go!

Brooke dancing in front of the window. Those driving by got quite a show :)

Kami during one of our many "Fashion Flurries"

Hadley picked out Kami's outfit one night after baths. I have no idea who brushed her hair, but it surely wasn't me!

We've got three little beauties in this particular picture, if you count Barbie!

Brooke in her dress up shoes. She even had the head turn going on...

Quite the little diva

What's My Password Again???

You know you are long overdue for a blog post when you can't remember your password to sign in. Luckily, I did eventually remember, so here goes. We've had a busy month and I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving. Where has this year gone? Brian and I were talking the other day about Brooke and her vent wean. It was almost a year ago that we began unplugging her. As I am typing this, she is asleep for her afternoon nap --UNPLUGGED! That's right...I am finally ready to start this whole sleeping vent wean. It took a swift kick in the rear, but I'm ready. She will nap everyday unplugged (if she decides to nap) and we will allow her to fall asleep at night, unplugged. We will plug her in after an hour at first and go from there. She was pretty wiped last night so it didn't take much for her to fall asleep. I am still going to go slow, but I have to at least, go. We will never know how she will do until I try. Brian reminded me that she had to work up to her daytime wean and we expect the same with her night time wean.

We have decided to give the big girls our room, and we are moving back to Kami's room. Kami will move to what is now Hadley's room. Our room now is the biggest room and we can get more bang for our buck by putting the big girls in there. They will have much more room to play, which they have been doing beautifully lately by the way. They are so fun to watch (most of the time. Don't get me wrong, they have their moments) as they interact together. Doctor, babysitter, kitchen, you name it. The girls are getting bunk beds for Christmas--and let's just say they are super excited. They decided long ago who would sleep where and they are not shy to share their excitement with others! We are also going to put a t.v. and our old computer in there so it will also double as a play room. We hope to make the switch by February, but it all depends on how well Brooke does.

Hadley's Hoorays: We have been buying gifts to donate to other children this Christmas and although we started with some hesitation, (crying in the toy aisle at Wal-Mart because she wanted something) Hadley has really started to understand the meaning of giving to others and that Christmas is not just about getting gifts. This is definitely something we are trying to teach our girls, but to see her begin to understand and want to give is a good feeling. It's hard for a four year old to understand that some children don't have Christmases like she does. Have you seen the Toys for Tots commercial where the brother and sister wake up to nothing under the tree and then the Marine delivers presents? It breaks my heart to see that and know that it's not just a commercial. There are children right here in our community that deserve a good Christmas too.

Brooke's Blessings: Brooke is officially potty-trained! We started a week ago and she has done extremely well. We've had two accidents, both of which were my fault. The first one, we were at FunShop last Tuesday and I completely forgot she didn't have a diaper on. Oops! She's even going #2 (sorry) without any problems. Yay Brookie! Two out of diapers, one to go. They will all be driving before I know it!

Kami's Kudos: Kami is a walking fool! We are always asked how old she is because she looks so small, people just assume she is younger than she really is. We are waiting for two huge molars to pop through and that's not been any fun. Other than that, Kami Lu is just as happy and cute as ever. A cute Kami story... even though she is only 14 months old, she tries to get her big sisters in trouble! She will deliberatley take something from one of them and when they get mad at her and try to take it back, she will look at me and start crying. If I hadn't seen the whole thing I would probably be on her side, but I see right through her little act :) It really is pretty cute to watch. It's like she's saying "Mom, help me out here." You gotta watch out for this one!

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Take time to truly be thankful and don't forget to make sure the special people in your life know you are thankful. I am thankful for my three beautiful daughters, my husband and our families.

Go Rockets!!!

Fall Pictures

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately, and it's becoming quite a hobby for me. I got a new camera for Christmas and I'm really starting to learn more about it. I'm pretty sure my kids are getting tired of being my subjects :) These next pictures we took to give to our parents for Grandparent's day.

I took these in Bill and Patti's backyard. Patti wanted some new pictures. The last family one we had taken, didn't have Kami in it and Brooke was only 6 months old! They are all super out of order but it takes forever to try to change the order of them. The ones with Brody and just our girls are mixed in with them. Oops!

Here are our girls with Brody. I haven't had a chance to edit and crop etc... but you get the idea.

The Tweryon Girls

Kami just wants to get her hands on Brody...

Brad, Devin and Ellie