Christmas in Iowa

Merry Christmas from the spuds in Iowa. We had a wonderful Christmas together playing and having fun. It was little Cam's first Christmas and like all good babies, we was more interested in the boxes than any of the actual gifts. Merry Christmas to all our friends and family. Since you weren't here, we wanted to include a few pics on how things went.


Here is the family with their new Chrismas PJs.


Proof that Santa visited our home.


Abigail's big surprise, a new dollhouse. She loves it.


The kids and their gifts from the wonderful Aunt L!


New stools for the kids to line up to for breakfast.

What, Huh, What'd you say?

Whom of you parents out there haven't ever heard those words from your kids, multiple times during the cours of a day? It happens often enough that it almost becomes second nature to repeat things multiple times. We received a letter from the school that our kindergardener had failed a hearing test. We scheduled a time with an audiologist to determine if it was an anomaly or a real hearing issue. The doctor confirmed what the school found and we were sincerely surprised. Obviously this isn't something that happens everyday, but when you look back on things there were some small clues. He has some speech issues (very minor), which we attributed to learing to speak. He often says the "What, Huh, What'd you say?", at home in the car, and elsewhere. So his hearing loss is mild to moderate at high frequencies, and certain sounds like "s", "f", and others are little more difficult to hear. This week we visit the audiologist to find out the next options, which are likely some type of hearing aids. With all of this, the news was not a concern or major worry since we have some incredible neighbors and friends who have dealt with this for two of their children, and have let us know the next steps, questions to ask and worries to be aware of. If they read this, THANKS, little do you know the comfort that has been! So next time you see our K-man he may be sporting some new supersonic ears! We'll let you all know...

Princess Party Details

Our little party was pretty fun, and I apologize for not including the details. First of all, the boys were at their friends house, because what boy would really want to participate in a princess party. Although Cole did help plan some of the games, Thanks ColE. When planning something, include as much pink as possible. Sherrie did a great job with that. When the princesses arrived we had them decorate their own crowns (foam crowns are so cool). Then they played pin the crown on the princess, colored princess pictures, and played a game to identify the princess 'accessories' (basically a match type game with princess things). Then we did a 'treasure' hunt and all the little girls got a gift bad of princess goodies. They had fun and my wife did a great job of pulling it together.

Princesses

What is more fun for a little girl to have a Princess party with 4 of her princess friends!

Complete with a Barbie princess cake... What more can I say? (Isn't my wife awesome?)

Where were you a few years ago?

Seems like gas prices here in the Midwest have been off a few years. Four hours after taking this shot they dropped another 5 cents, and were down another 2 when we drove by the same place this morning. Funny when they started dropping we were excited to see them fall to $3 a gallon, but now they are just dropping like crazy. Why you may ask for the precipitous drop? Well my theory is that somehow energy moguls have tapped into the hot air spewing from the blowhards all over the country during the campaign season, and have found a way to power the country (or at least central Iowa). I'm sure prices will go up as that source as that has all but dried up, but it is a nice temporary reprieve!

Ghosts and ghouls or rather Jedis and princesses

Thought you might like to see some pics of our not so scary halloween alter-egos. A baseball player, a jedi, a princess/Fancy Nancy (yeah maybe not an alter ego), and our tiger/pumpkin. Not really a tiger-pumpkin, but a tiger one night and a little pumpkin the other night. We went to a outdoor museum place one night and then our neiborhood the next night, so Abigail and Campbell had a couple different costumes. Now we are all on a refined sugar high with candy wrappers everywhere.

Like a weed

So I have been reminded (again) of the need to update the blog of pics from Campbell. A couple people, I won't embarass them, but their names start with 'L' and end with 'isa' and starts with 'M' and ends with 'other-in-Law' have let me know that it would be important to post news more than once a month. Who knew, blogs should be updated frequently. Here are some pics of the little weed. Sherrie and I commented to each other this weekend about how much he has grown.

By the way, Abigail has given the little guy his first nickname, so for those who don't already know, here is Campbellicious!