MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Welcome to the McKneely Family Blog! I decided that I had already documented our year in blog form and so instead of the annual Christmas Letter I always write, I decided to refer all my friends and family to here to see what we're up to. If you're new, then here's our year in a nutshell. I encourage you to look further and see what excitement our 2008 has been, and we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

January: We enjoyed life with a relative newborn and 2 other little ones. Sam and Kaitlyn adjusted pretty well to baby sister, and loved her a lot--at times too much but we survived! Lindsey was a great sleeper and eater so Mom was hanging in there pretty well. Stephen went to Arizona for Leadership training for a week. February: Mom turned 30! I know you're shocked! Kaitlyn almost gave Sam a new hairdo (teaser for looking in February). Stephen did a funny lipsync with the Teachers Quorum. Mom performed in a Stake Production of the 10 Virgins. It was fun for her to be back on stage. March: Katilyn started Preschool which was a welcomed change for all of us. A wayward snowstorm suprised us on her first day of school so it's a day we'll remember. We had a crazy Easter weekend. Melissa had to have an unexpected surgery, Stephen was attending the Stake Young Mens' encampment AND we were trying to celebrate Easter with our family.

April: Our month of Birthdays. KP turned 4 on the 1st, Sam turned 2 on the 12th and Stephen turned 31 on the 16th. We found a great train exhibit on Sam's Birthday. Later in the month we had a family celebration for all 3 birthdays--what fun to have the McKneely's come and visit us. Another random thing worth noting is that our home was struck by lightening and we lost a bunch of electronics (DVD player, VCR, Sprinkler system timer, etc), but thankfully it wasn't worse!

May: Stephen went to anther Leadership training for a week to Rhode Island. Sam attended his very first Fathers and Sons outing. He was the youngest kid in there and totally had a blast. This year he developed this fettish for hats and insisted on wearing one often!! June: Brought a bit of a downer, Stephen has played on an indoor soccer team for years and really enjoyed it, playing injury free. Well his luck ran out and he badly sprained his ankle tearing ligaments and bruising bones. He was off it whenever he could but did decide he was well enough to attend the Young Men's High Adventure trip Mountain Biking in Arkansas. (I know brilliant right?) Well he had a great time, he wasn't in too much discomfort but the ankle still didn't heal quite right. Long story short just last week he had Orthoscopic Surgery to clean it up and is now in a boot for 3-4 weeks. Merry Christmas sweetheart!! In July Uncle Joey came to visit and we took a much anticipated family excursion to the Dallas Children's museum. We had a blast!! We also sadly suffered the loss of Stephen's grandmother Betty Day. She was a great lady and she'll be missed.

July also brought a big change to our family as Stephen was called to serve in the Bishopric of our ward. This was a shock and adjustment for sure. Sacrament meeting continues to be a challenge with this crew but we're thankful for a patient ward and good friends who help us every week. We love you: Hamblins, Fluckigers, Jacobsons and Hay's!! August took Dad to LA for busy week of leadership training. We had a celebrated day in the temple with friends Joe and Arhely Sanchez. We enjoyed a Hawaiian activity day and dancing in a rainstorm. In September Kaitlyn started school again and Mom welcomed the new routine and time to spend with just Sam. We got into Webkinz and we took our first trip to the ER with a child due to an injury. Sam got 3 stitches to the side of his right eye after getting hit with a rocking chair. He looked pretty beat up, but if you know Sam, it's pretty typical. We also finally made it to the Dallas Zoo as a family and had a wonderful day! We're going to go again next year for sure! With October came another Leadership training this time to Washington DC and Stephen got to spend an evening with friends Matt & Cassie Albrecht. Halloween was very exciting. Sam was Bob the Builder and Kaitlyn was a Princess. Sam told people for about 2 months he was going to be Bob, and even now, in December, still tells people as it's his most amazing piece of news. Lindsey reused Sam's old Giraffe costume--it's her Aunt Rachel's favorite. In November Mom took a turn getting away and went on a scrapbook retreat for 2 wonderful kid-free days! She's decided that it's an annual tradition. Lindsey took her first steps and has become quite mobile and independant. We got to spend Thanksgiving with both our parents (the Lewis' came to the McKneelys) and we had a feast! Now December is here and with it has come cold weather and looking forward to Dad having 3 weeks off from work. We're going to stay here for Christmas and let our family come to us. We're so grateful to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and everything good that comes out at this season. May your holiday be focused on Him and having Mas (more) Christ in everything you do! We love you!!

Uncle Joey got a new toy...

Uncle Joey is a cool uncle. His bachelor status gives him a bit of extra money to play with. In his spare time while living in Zurich he's started snowboarding. While here in Texas over the Thanksgiving holiday he purchased his own gear. He was VERY excited about it, but he wasn't the only one. Without being prompted Katilyn just stepped into his boots, and they come up to her knees.

We tried to get Sam to put the helmet and goggles on, but he was a little aprehensive. A little peer pressure from Kaitlyn being willing to do it did the trick and he eagerly wanted a turn. So silly are my kids!

This afternoon we finally decorated our Christmas tree and put up the rest of the decorations. Uncle Joey helped while Stephen was finishing up church meetings. Then Joey (glutten for sure!) agreed to conduct another family photo shoot in an attempt to take our family Christmas picture, which one is your favorite? You'll have to wait in the mail to see which one we chose.....Please note, these three were the final three we took, all in this order. I love watching Lindsey. Hearing her was even better!

#1

#2

#3

Whew what an evening

Every year our church does a community event of displaying over 600 nativity statues. It is usually the first weekend in December and they do a fabulous job. Stephen and I had assignments to "ambassador" the event on Friday afternoon. I also accepted an assignment to sing some Christmas Songs during my shift as an ambassador. This went off without a hitch and it was a great experience. We had about 1/2 of the people come through that were just from the community and not members of our faith which was a great thing.

But after we accepted these assignments we realized that it was also the same evening as Stephen's work wide family Christmas party. Oops! But we can do both right?

Well, I don't know if we'll do that again, we hit traffic and got there in time to run through just a few things but our kids did very well considering the COLD and the LATE HOUR! Here were some of our favorite things:

Decorating sugar cookies

Taking a ride on a train, we caught the last ride so they went extra long---and it was so super cold but they didn't notice! They sat on the last bench and a costumed Frosty the Snowman rode behind them. Sam was so excited to tell me that a snowman sat behind them on the train and waved his hand to say hi to them. Just the other day they asked me if Frosty and Santa were always at Dad's work. Nope just there special for the party, I replied.
Taking a family photo with the Harley Motorcycles, KP looks a little too comfortable on the bike doesn't she?

We also took a photo with Santa, we haven't seen it ye though, we'll post it when we do. My kids are a little overwhlemed by the man in the red furry suit (even though the guy wearing the costume work's on Stephen's team). We also took home greeting cards to decorate, decorated paper tree ornaments and dog tags with stickers. We do it every year so here's to another family tradition--horray!!

Putting up the Tree

We had a great Family Home Evening the other week, we decided to put up the tree. I was way excited because I didn't think we were going to get to it until the weekend, but the kids wanted to get it out and so we figured we'd do what we could until we got too tired of it.

Kaitlyn was very excited about the whole thing. Stephen was really good about keeping her involved and giving her special jobs. She was the official cord holder as the tree went up so we knew how to connect the lights. She was very proud of her job.

And then poor Sam was very distracted by all the excitement. He needed to finish his milk from dinner but that assignment took him awhile. But he did finish finally and then he could help.

All in all I think it was pretty successful. We did get the tree up without decorations and about 1/3 of the other decorations up. We got out the little people manger scene and the other nativities. We'll finish this weekend. Sometime.....

Fun at the Grandma and Grandpa with the Sarah

I was so THANKFUL to be able to spend such a long visit at my in-laws. They are such wonderful people and I love them so much!! They have a beautiful home that is so accomodating for our family with small children. Here are some shots of having fun at grandmas!!

Kaitlyn really enjoyed playing all sorts of games and activities with her cousin Shelly who is just a few months older than her!
Sam found the sandbox on their property and spent quite a long time digging and playing in the dirt.

He's so happy!!

And of course there was the tradition of a Turkey bowl football game! Here are Stephen and Andy tossing a football! Yes suprisingly Stephen played in the game. He's having surgery on the 10th and he figured he couldn't do any more damage.....what he didn't realize until later was that due to his ankle he hasn't done much in the way of physical activity so the rest of his body was quite sore for a few days!!

Miniature Golf

When was the last time you went and played miniature golf? We found this cute little "glow in the dark" course while in College Station. I wasn't sure how my kids would do with this but they loved it!! I used to love Miniature Golf when I was younger, it hadn't even dawned on me to try it with my kids...now I'm totally on the hunt for a course near my house to go during the Christmas Holidays.

Kaitlyn was so cute, after dragging her pink ball with her pink club into the hole, her exclamation was, "I get to go again!!" as if it were a reward for her good getting it into the hole. She had her own grip on the club and she should as a amateaur! We had a blast!!

Joey especially!!

The Feast

What a gorgeous feast! And if it looks this pretty imagine how good it tasted! Here was our menu!!

Turkey (of course!), Stuffing, my special garlic mashed potatoes =), gravy, green beans, rolls (way to go Rach!), Christmas Cranberry Salad. And for dessert we made 6 pies!! 2 cherry, 2 humongous apple pies, one positively perfect pumpkin pie and one special caramel pecan pumpkin pie. I sampled all of them....more than once and was thouroughly impressed! I ate way too much and was really thankful for my happy tummy!

Here is our spread! Grandma McKneely made these table runners especially for the event and the glasses were new--weren't they the nice touch?

Here are Sam and KP sitting down to eat their portions of the feast.

We had a crew celebrating this holiday with us. The McKneely original 7--Joey came in from Zurich, Andy's family (add 3), Stephen's family (add 4), My parents (add 2) had an empty nest and so they drove up that morning to eat with us, then went on to visit my sister in Austin. Our friend Ilya (add 1) from Russia was also celebrating with us. He's working in the states right now and came to be with us. So for those of you who are counting....that's 17 wonderful people to be thankful for!!

We have to get DRESSED UP?!?!?

At the McKneely home, Thanksgiving preparations begin about 1 1/2 days before the feast. Nothing is storebought, everything is made from scratch and I look forward to the home made pies, rolls, and a special family tradition of Christmas Cranberry Salad!!

We'll talk about the feast in another post, but something I really appreciate about the meal is that it's something special, an event. Therefore dressing up is standard, there are cloth tablecloths and cloth napkins, the fine china and serving dishes saved for special occasions get put to good use. It used to be that Sunday dinner was such an event in this country and that tradition has fallen by the wayside. So it gets resurrected in the McKneely home and it's a tradition that we continue in our home (Sorry Aaron!).

So all that being said, someone should have given my kids the memo!! It probably wasn't a great idea to give them a snack at 10:30 and expect them to wait until 3:00 to eat again, but that's just how it went down, so blood sugar was low and it was nap time, and...you get the picture. But when we attempted to get Sam dressed into his church clothes just to eat, he blew a fuse! He was so mad and sad and just a mess!! Go figure, he wanted to continue to wear his prized yellow soccer ball shirt and short pants that he'd been wearing all morning.

Here he is right after getting dressed. I was trying to get our family together to take the opportunity to shoot our Christmas photo since we're all dressed up and have plenty of hands to snap a photo. What a joke! Sam just would not calm down. This was about the best we could do....needless to say we'll be having another photo shoot soon!

He continued to cry all through the impromptu photo session as well as through the dinner. He was so hungry but tired too and after eating some, we took this tired, cranky boy up to bed and I enjoyed a more peaceful feast!

A funny moment through all this was his inability to calm down, Stephen threatened that if he couldn't pull himself together, we'd just send him to bed--it was getting pretty ridiculous! So through his wailing and tears was his exclamation, "I'm gonna beeeee ha-peeeee!" ( sniff sniff), it made many smile, and me as well now that it's not in the moment.

Making Turkeys

My kids are way into crafting and usually are all over an activity. This Thanksgiving holiday we spent almost a full week with Stephen's parents in College Station. On Monday Grandma McKneely wanted to make a goodie for her seminary class and we found these adorable edible turkey's online and dove into the project of making about 12 of them.

Kaitlyn was especially helpful counting out the right number of candy corn candies (7, 6 for the feathers and one broken off for the beak), a whopper (the head), a reeses peanut butter cup slightly sliced (the body), and the 2 oreo cookies each one required. And let's be honest, she suffered through the task of eating any rejects. It was her favorite part!!

Here they are working on their project.

And here are Sam & KP enjoying the spoils!! Happy Turkeys!!

I'm still here

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I promise! November was a busy month for our family, all 3 of the kids and mom were sick at least once and so that's my excuse, but we're going to catch us up.

Lindsey took her first steps this month and now is toddling along quite efficiently. Her new thing is to pick something up to carry it while walking--geesh! It's not enough just to walk!! So that's an exciting piece of news. So she's mobile and my life just got busier! She's also into cabinets and the pantry constantly. She also has mastered climbing up stairs--thank goodness we don't have any!!

Lindsey Turns one!

Honestly I didn't think I would be this together, this at peace, this happy when Lindsey turned one. Back when we were suprised with my pregnancy with her I was PETRIFIED of what life would be like with 3 so little, so close in age. But I have SURVIVED--and what's better, I've THRIVED! Heavenly Father loves me so much, he knew exactly what I could handle and what would force me to seek his hand in ALL things. So here's to being blessed and for letting the MASTER PLANNER bless me with an amazingly sweet and snuggly and precious little spirit. I am SO very glad she's here!!

Have you ever been sick on your birthday? This little one was, on her VERY FIRST ONE! Poor little guy had raging fevers off and on all day the day before and now the day after they're still raging a bit. She was pretty miserable. Good thing we had lots of willing hands and arms to hold her.

Here she is with Aunt Ray-ray. She wasn't able to be here the night before for all the festivities so we appropriately got our kids back in their costumes to show them off. How fun!! (PS: Kaitlyn was talking in every shot, so this was the best one--she can be quite the motormouth!!)We had a casual family lunch and cake celebration. My parents and Stephen's sister Rachel came to celebrate with us. I remember Kaitlyns 1st birthday and what a fiasco I tried to make it, this was so much better, so much more relaxed and fun. Frankly I'm quite proud that my 3rd even got a 1st party. But hey it's a celebration for me and her right? Here is the obligatory eating birthday cake shot. So sweet!!

Happy Birthday Lindsey!!

Happy Halloween

Here is our wonderful crew on Halloween night. What a hoot! We were excited! Kaitlyn had been counting down the days and laid out her costume appropriately about 4 days early and gave strict instructions not to let anyone touch any aspect of it. Sheesh!

Lindsey thankfully fit into this old costume that Sam wore on his first Halloween. She was so snuggly and adorable. Too bad she'd woke up that morning with a fever and had a rather yucky day. Thank goodness her fevers cleared up for a bit in the evening to go trick or treating with the family.

For WEEKS Sam was telling everyone he was going to be "Just like Bob for Christmas". Man did that get some puzzling looks. But here he is, "just like Bob", for Halloween! He was a PERFECT Bob the builder, he even looks like him with round head and face! His shirt was this perfect 2nd hand clothing store find for $4! I totally scored!!

And finally our Kaitlyn, who was a PINK princess last year, informed me that she wanted to again be a princess, but not a pink one, a PURPLE one. She loved the crown, the wand, and of course, wearing make-up!

Okay, and can we just talk about the HAUL our kids made?!?! We just went one little loop around our immediate neighborhood. Lots of people had just left out bowls on their doorsteps and we were good only to take one piece, unless of course they had signs begging us to take "at least 3" (good grief--what are they--a dentist?). But even with many homes not even giving out candy, this is what our community family candy bowl looks like now:

And because we're mean parents our children have a limit of ONE piece of candy a day. We figure this bowl will last us until at least 5 years or something ridiculous like that.

Owens Farm-Pumpkin Patch

I LOVE family outings! I think I'm wierd but I love exposing my children to new experiences and expanding their point of view. This coupled with my love for creating family traditions and memories makes me quite the sucker for an annual excursion to the Pumpkin Patch.

Convieniently Kaitlyn's preschool class was planning an outing and so we tagged along. (We were going to go last week as a family but Linz and Sambo were sick with fevers and the weather wasn't great). I was also so glad that Stephen, who has accrued so much extra PTO, was able to take the morning off to spend with us.

First we were a little overwhelmed when we arrived at the farm. Kaitlyn's school class is all of 12 kids and 2 teachers. Throw 3 more parents into the mix (minus our family) that was our group. Imagine our reaction when arriving at the farm there were like 8 LARGE school buses full of elementary school kids. There were HUNDREDS of parents and kids at the farm. We thought this whole outing would be a disaster for the crowds but it really wasn't a big deal. We all stayed together, there were lots of different things to do (feeding the animals, looking at horses, pigs, donkeys, cows, etc.)

The first thing we did was go on a hay ride. Sam couldn't get up onto the trailer fast enough, he was so excited!! He has a silly face in this photo--he's such a funny kid!! Kaitlyn, who normally would have been totally overwhelmed by this whole thing was for the most part uninhibited I think because we've gone here a handful of times already so she really could enjoy herself. Here she is with one of her best friends from school, Molly.

We've gone to a pumpkin patch EVERY year as a family, this year is Lindsey's first pumpkin patch experience because her birthday is the day after Halloween. Here she is with Dad. She has a pacifier in her mouth in nearly every photo because this whole activity was during her normal nap time and while she wasn't fussy and did perfectly fine, the pacifier helped I think!

Sam really wanted to see a horse. It was his only request all morning as we got ready to go, we saw a few miniature horses feeding along with some geese and ducks while on the hay ride. Sam was all over the fact a REALLY BIG TRACTOR was pulling the trailer. As soon as we got off the hay ride, he wanted to climb onto the other trailer and go again!

Then Kaitlyn's class sat down for a snack. Kaitlyn and Molly are silly snackers!! They got to the farm before us so they'd already seen all the animals in the pens but Sam hadn't so Dad took him around to see all the horses eating and pigs sleeping.

When snack time was over and we'd let the kids run around and we'd taken a photo op with the kids and thier teachers:

It was time to search for our pumpkins. Lindsey didn't get to choose one but she took good care of Sammy's cute pumpkin. Don't you think?

We had such a fun time! The weather was crisp and cool, the sun shone brightly, everyone was happy and had a good time. I love successful family outings! Tomorrow night we'll carve the pumpkins (Dad has mutual and bishopric tonight). I can't wait until next year, Happy Pumpkining Everybody!!

Here are some other great shots:

And finally a family shot. I had hoped for one worthy of our Christmas card but no dice, ah well there's always next time!!!