Manes New Year's 2008

We have finally made it home, and I am finally getting around to blogging about our trip to Indiana. We actually had a great trip out there and back in the car. Both kids did amazingly well (thanks, in part, to the portable DVD player!)

We still haven't quite recovered. The house is still quite a mess---something we will tackle this weekend. Kylah still has her icky cough, but I think it is starting to get a little better (her lungs sound nice and clear, though!) Joey has an ear infection. He woke up in the middle of the night crying last night saying "my ear hurts." We gave him some Tylenol, but he didn't sleep great the rest of the night. He seemed ok this morning, and didn't complain about his ear again until after lunch, and then he had a fever too. I took him to my office to look at his ear. After cleaning out his waxy ear, we were able to see the cause of his ouchy ear---quite a nice infection going on in there! It sure is nice when your child is old enough to tell you what exactly hurts!

So, I am a little too lazy right now to put these pictures in some sort of order...sorry! :) We had a great time at my brother's house with our entire family. We opened presents, rang in the new year with some fireworks, ate a ton of good food, watched the Huskers, played Guitar Hero, and played a rousing game of Cranium!

This was an attempt at a family picture. Unfortunately Joey isn't fond of getting his picture taken these days.

Kylah is now able to enjoy baths sitting up like a big girl. Of course I have to stop Joey from dumping water on her head every time!

Joey giving some lovin' to his Aunt Esther and Uncle Aaron.

Apparently Joey is a lovey little boy. He loved giving kisses to his Aunt Gina!

This was one of my favorite gifts that Joey got. My dad had a baseball glove made for him with his name embroidered on it. Yes, it is a lefty glove (He seems to be left-handed so far), and Joey seemed very comfortable with a glove on his right hand and throwing the ball with his left.

Gramma enjoying some cuddles with her two grandsons.

Maybe Joey is going to be a chef. He loves to help cook, and it seems like I have a lot of pictures of him helping people cook. Here he is helping Papa make blueberry pancakes. (Of course, Joey's meal was pancakes, eggs AND bacon)

New Year's Eve 2008.

With my three sister-in-laws...I think I'm pretty lucky to have such fun sisters!

Dad and Aaron.

Joey and Michael opening their Christmas jammies the night before "Christmas" (it was actually New Year's Eve) These were the first of a million gifts they opened the next day.

I think Papa and Gramma are in heaven having all three of their grandkids together! Have you noticed their nice tans courtesy of Jamaica?!

We had such a fun time together. By the way, the girls totally let the guys win Cranium!

6 years and counting!

6 years ago today Joe and I were beginning our married life together. Hard to believe we have been married for 6 years already! God has blessed us in so many ways, especially by giving us two precious kiddos! I can honestly say that I love Joe more today than I did on this day 6 years ago. He really is the love of my life and my best friend. Thanks, Joe, for being such a wonderful husband, even when I don't often deserve it. I love you!

It's Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We've had a fun-filled, toy-filled, food-filled day here in Kansas at the Manthe house. Presents were overflowing from the tree this morning. The kids had a great time opening presents and playing with new toys. This was the first time everyone in the Manthe family has been together for Christmas for a while. Two grandparents, six sons, four daughter-in-laws, four granddaughters and two grandsons. Crazy, loud and fun!

All six kids before opening presents. Joe was standing behind me jumping up and down and waving his arms, so Mackenzie and Joey thought they should do that too.


How cute are these two in their Bumbo seats! Kylah and Deacon look like they could be twins.


Kylah is looking sweet as ever in her little Christmas outfit that Grammy got for her. Notice the bow in her hair! I was pretty excited that I got a bow in her hair for the first time.

Joe's brother Josh got a Wii for Christmas, so we have all been enjoying that today. Here is Joey getting a turn at bowling. He bowled a strike...and he was so excited (but I don't think he had a clue why he was excited!)

It was so fun to watch Joey open his presents all by himself this year, and watch the look of awe on his face as he realized what each present was. Here he is opening a huge box of Cars loot from Grandpa and Nana.

Kylah got to open some of her presents too. We are realizing that the older the kids get the more expensive the toys get!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day. It was a little wierd not to be able to talk to my parents on Christmas Day (they are in Jamaica), but thankfully we could at least text them. Mom and Dad, if you can read this, we love you and miss you, and can't wait to see you next week.

I wanted everyone to see our stockings. Joe's mom has made a homemade stocking for everyone in the family. The mantle is quite the site to see with 18 stockings hanging on it. Here are our four stockings. Aren't they cute?

Moving on...to a bigger car

We got a new car (well, new to us anyway)!! A 2007 Honda Pilot. Finally something we can all fit in comfortably (my knees don't have to hug the dashboard, and Joe can actually ride in the passenger seat!) We absolutely love it! We got a great deal on it, so we couldn't pass it up.

These aren't the actual pictures of our car, but they are of a Pilot in the same color. Joe can't understand why I don't wait and take pictures of our actual car and put those on here...I say that since it is snowing and about zero degrees outside, I would rather put pictures of a car that looks just like ours!

We'll get lots of time to get to know our car. We drove it to Kansas tonight, and we'll be here through Sunday. And then next Tuesday we'll be driving to Indiana. Needless to say, we are very thankful for our portable DVD player!

I'll post some pictures of the Christmas festivities as soon as I have some. Good thing we had a bigger car to bring our five bags of presents here!

Just so the rest of you can be as jealous as I am...my parents are enjoying 80 degree weather right now in Jamaica!

toys, toys, toys

Josh, Val, Mackenzie, Bella and Deacon came to visit us again for a few days. We always have a great time with them. Joey just loves his cousins, and the adults like going out to dinner sans kids!

Joey and Bella shootin' some hoops. (Notice the gazillion toys scattered on the floor...)

Joey and Mackenzie playing with the toys in the toy box.

An update on the sizes of Kylah and Deacon. They're about the same length, and we think Deacon is starting to surpass Kylah on the weight. Kylah is 6.5 months old, and Deacon is 3 months old.

Look who's sitting up all by herself now!! She loves the new freedom.

Like I said, we love going out the four of us without the kids (even though we do love our kids...) We had a great time out. We ate dinner at Famous Dave's, who informed us as we were ordering that they were out of brisket. Seriously?! How can you be out of your signature dish? It seemed like they were out of everything. We were just waiting for the waitress to tell us they were out of barbeque sauce!! Thanks again to Chris and Brynn for watching all the kids.

It was actually fun saying goodbye, because we could say, "see you next week!" Always nice to be able to say that. We will be spending Christmas in Kansas with Joe's family. Should be crazy, loud and fun (which doesn't sound much different than the Manes family get-together's!) :)

Speaking of Christmas...we still have quite a bit of shopping to do...when will I have the time?? Hopefully early next week after we are all done with the musical at church.

Christmas cookies!

Joey and I (and Kylah too!) made some Christmas cookies yesterday. I told Joey that we would make them after he woke up from his nap, so he was pretty excited all day to make them. He got to crack an egg into the batter all by himself, stir, and then help me roll out the dough and cut out shapes. There were definitely a few times that I had to stop him before he destroyed the shape that he had just made (I think he thought it was play-dough at first.) We had a fun time. Kylah sat in her bumbo chair watching and desprately trying to grab anything she could reach.

After making the cookies, I decided Joey's attention span wasn't long enough to decorate them last night too, so we decorated them today with a group of his little friends. Every one of them ate more of the frosting than they actually put on their cookies, but, hey, I wanted to do the same thing!

Joey especially likes the sprinkles and sugars. As you can see, I didn't realize this one didn't have a shaker cap on it until after he had dumped all the contents out onto the table. (which he is about to do...)

Here's a sweet one of Kylah to make up for the disgusting picture in the last post. :)

A foreshadowing of things to come???? "Out of my way, Joey; mommy's trying to take a picture of me!"

I think I just ate one too many of the Christmas cookies we decorated... :)

a little of this and that

Joe sang a song in church this morning. The song was a duet originally done by David Phelps (which those of you close to Joe know that he is Joe's idol.) It was a song that he's been wanting to sing for over a year, but had to wait until now because it is a Christmas song. It was fun because he got to sing it with our good friend Amy. They did a great job.

Just because we all need a smile today...

This next one is not for those with weak stomachs...well, it's really not that bad, so go ahead and look. Yep, I caught Kylah in the middle of spitting up! A fraction of a second later, this white stuff was all over the front of her. :)

Tonight we had rehearsal for our Christmas musical. It was actually a dress rehearsal, so when we got home tonight, I was still in my dress that I wear in the musical. When I walked in the door, Joey came up to me and said, "Mommy, you're a princess!" How sweet is that?! My first thought was, oh, he thinks I look beautiful like a princess. But after a second I realized that I hardly ever wear dresses, especially one that twirls out at the bottom, so he thought I must be a princess if I was wearing a dress! Either way, I thought it was pretty sweet. And he kept saying it over and over.