Primping for the Holiday

Last weekend we went to a small nearby town that does a lights display in a park that you ride a train through. It was really neat. Here I am with Dad waiting our turn for the train.
This was the train. Kids and adults got to ride on it.

Mom and I have been baking up a storm. Here we are working on Nana's logs. Mom's favorite.
And then we worked on the birthday cake for Baby Jesus. We are finally done with all of our baking and food preparations.
Today Mom and I went to get our haircut and ready for our Christmas festivities. Mom's hairdresser even curled my hair. Aren't I stylish?
And here I am with Peg, the hairdresser. I look very grown up in this picture.
And then we went home for some lunch before nap time. Almost time to start our Christmas traveling.

No excuses...picture update

Tons of pictures and a quick update while we prepare for Christmas!The second weekend of November we visited the Schahls and had a great time. Aunt Kim read to all of us.
Carly, Molly and I had a sleepover in their room. We had so much fun together, even if we did get to bed a little bit late each night.
We danced, and played sleepover even in the middle of the day.

We went to House of Bounce and had a great time jumping and going down slides. Aunt Kim was so smart and made peanut butter sandwiches for the trip home, because she knew we'd be tired after all of our playing.
It's only about a 20 minute drive back to their house, but as you can see we were tuckered out.
We spent Thanksgiving in Dixon. Gram and Bakka went to Hawaii and they brought me and all my cousins back a hulu outfit, too cute.
Good dental hygiene is important, even at a sleepover.
Gramma taught me how to make a turkey, it was my first one ever. We did the stuffing, then sewed it up and later basted it.
Here we are with our turkey ready to go in the oven.
Wow we did great work, it looks picture perfect.
I learned to do the basting, until Gramma said ok let's get the legs. She meant the turkeys legs, but I thought she meant mine and I jumped backwards at least a foot. I was done helping after that. Mom and Gramma laughed pretty hard about it.One night we went to the Strocks to celebrate Ellies' birthday. Here's the young girl cousins watching dinner get done.
That night I had a sleepover with Carly and Emily. It was Emily's first sleepover without her parents, and she did pretty good. Carly and I took care of her.The next day Uncle Andrew played Barbies with the girls. He such a good uncle, we love him.

I don't always love to brush my teeth, so mom came up with a solution one morning. I love to brush hers, so before work we brush each others. It's a lot of fun and we're practicing good dental hygiene, it's important to us.
And now onto our Holiday preparations. Mom and I did cut-out cookies.

Then the next day we took the cookies to our friends the Hellman's so Kayleigh and I could decorate them. We went there to visit Kayleigh's new brother, Sam.

We had a lot of fun. Our moms want to plan more playdates because they said we play so well together.

At our house we celebrate St. Nick Day and he put something in my stocking on his feast day. So cool.
Here I am working on my decorating skills for spritz cookies. Mom turned her back on me for one minute and look what happened.
Whoever gets this cookies is luck, I think. It's like a prize.
Mom's friend Becky brought us an advent calendar from her Disney cruise trip. Dad and I every day find the right number, open it, read what it says and share the piece of chocolate inside. Thanks Becky, we love it!
See here's our chocolate, yum.
One of dad's co-workers bought this for him and I. We put it together right away. Dad has already taught me to love Star Wars. I even have a Star Wars poster on the back of my bedroom door, much to mom's dislike.

Well that's it for now, time to get back to baking. I am having a great time this year baking. In fact every night when mom picks me up from day care I ask her if we can go home and bake. It's a lot of fun. Once the holidays are over maybe she can start teaching me to cook. Have a great holiday everyone!

Me and my friend Kayleigh

This past weekend we decided to get together with the Hellman's. They are expecting a new baby in a week or two so we wanted to get a visit in before the new baby comes. We went to their house after my nap and we played and had dinner with them. They have a daughter, Kayleigh, who is 5 months older than me.Kayleigh and I took about 5 minutes to warm up to each other and then we were off. We were so adorable that mom took lots of pictures of the two of us. We tried our hand at candyland.

We ate our homemade pita pizzas and I fed Kayleigh my carrots, what are friends for :)
We shut the door on Kayleigh's bedroom and once the adults got done playing their game they came to check us out and this is what they found. We were playing my favorite game, "night, night" Our mom's said we were quite old enough for a sleepover yet, but I imagine there will be some in our future.

Did I mention how much I like to play "night, night" Luckily so does Kayleigh.Kayleigh has this cool easel and when it was time to go neither of us wanted to say good-bye so we hid, and of course it was so cute that our parents then made us pose for a cute picture.Can you tell we sort of like each other just a little bit. We had a hard time saying good-bye and both kept talking about each other once we went home. I can't wait until the new baby comes, because then we get to go visit them again and take dinner.


That's it for now, but this weekend we're headed to Minnesota to see my cousins, so I'm certain there will be some more cute pictures soon.

You're welcome

Well this past week/weekend we had Pumpkin Fest and Halloween and here are the pictures to prove it. Read until the end to understand the title of this post.

Mom and Dad ran in the Pumpkin Fest 10K. Grandma and Grandpa Gerken came to visit so they could watch me while Mom and Dad ran. This is the three of us pre-race, it was a chilly day.I wore my costume to cheer the runners along. When dad ran by he gave me high five, mom just threw her mittens at me. I was a tiger if you couldn't tell.Mom and Dad post-race. They were tired. Dad looks a little more rested, because he finished before mom. She had just finished when this picture was taken. Dad's time was 51 minutes and 22 seconds and Mom's time was 1 hour and 6 seconds. They both did great, and are excited to get even faster next year. My favorite job is to help mom and dad stretch post-race. Whether it's after a race or after their morning runs I help them stretch.
After the race we headed over to see the pumpkin displays in front of the courthouse. If you don't know about this a highlight of Pumpkin Fest is the pumpkin contest. There are different categories and age groups. The above picture is angry birds, we all thought that was clever.
No wonder this pumpkin got 1st place, WOW.

Grandpa took a picture of us enjoying the pumpkin displays.

Here I am all ready for my first trick-or-treating. I was actually yelling at mom during this picture, because I didn't want my picture taken.Dad and I knocking on the first door, our neighbors Liz and Joe. I was a little nervous at first, but then got the hang of it. I said trick or treat really quietly, but always said thank you loudly. After awhile I was running up and down the streets.

Once we got done trick or treating, I had to examine all my great treats.
Still examining all my treats and begging Mom to let me eat them all while dad makes dinner. Oops I should have begged Dad he's the pushover and mom's no fun. (we like to call her a fuddy duddy)
Dad won and I got to have a couple things of candy, notice the M & M slobber all over my face and shirt. I would have eaten all the treats if they let me.
Once I got my costume off it was time to help hand out candy. I think this part was actually more fun than trick-or-treating. Every time the doorbell rang or there was a knock I would scream "Trick-or-treaters" then run to the candy bucket, grab it and greet the trick-or-treaters. I was very good at saying your welcome (after Mom taught me I should say that instead of thank you). There were even some kids who didn't say thank you at first, but once I said you're welcome they did. I did a good job of teaching manners on Halloween. Mom and Dad were really proud of me. The older girls that came by thought I was just the cutest thing ever...coincidentally they are right.

In other news I have to report that I am not potty training and I do not care too either. Mom and Dad have been asked recently so I thought I should clear it up. Just because I know what the potty is for, I cover my nose when my own diaper stinks, and I potty train every doll I have does not mean I, myself am ready to be potty trained.