Valentines Dinner/Dance and 14 Months

This past Saturday Chad and I were invited to the Rotary Valentines Dinner/Dance Fundraiser.  There were 5 couples from church at a table, and it was a lot of fun!  It's not too often we get really dressed up, so it's fun to do once in awhile.  :)  It was a great night with just the two of us.  Kassidy had a fun time with the baby-sitter too!

 On February 3rd, Kassidy turned 14 months old.  Sorry for the delay in writing a post about it... No good excuse except that time just keeps flying by!

We are amazed daily at how quickly Kassidy is growing up.  One day we went to Storytime at the library and Babysitting at the gym and people in both places said, "Wow, she grew up overnight!"  It seriously is crazy!  Here's what she's up to at 14 months:

 

- Walking and Running EVERYWHERE!

- LOVING her little tykes slide that we have inside... She can climb up and slide down without any help!

- Getting into all sorts of things she's not supposed to (and looking at us to see if we're watching as she does it... She definitely has a mischievous side!)

- Wearing 18-24 month tops and 12-18 month pants

- Regularly sporting the "Pig Tails" look since her hair is now in her eyes

- Her favorite things to do include playing with her kitchen, pushing her shopping cart around, getting up and down off her little chairs, sliding down her slide, climbing onto her rocking chair, playing her instruments, being chased by mom/dad, and most of all reading books!

- She isn't talking much.  Her words include: mommy, daddy, hi, no, and once in awhile "bye" and "nigh night"

- She signs "more" and "please" almost constantly and uses her head to indicate "yes"/"no".  We are amazed at all that she understands and uses a lot of non-verbal communication to let us know what she wants.  :)

- She loves playing outside and going for walks with Lucy

- She's a bit of a picky eater and we're working on finding new meal ideas.  She'd eat dairy all day every day if we let her!

- She gives hugs (regularly) and kisses (only when she wants)... Melts our hearts EVERY time!

Kassidy is a constant joy to our lives, and we cannot imagine life without her!  The past 14 months have flown by, and we are so blessed to have her as our daughter.  :)

January

Life just keeps on keeping on over here at the De Jager house.  Here's a few pictures from the last couple weeks.

 The bathroom has become one of Kassidy's favorite places to play!  Needless to say, we try to keep the door closed most of the time.  :)

 January 21st we finally got snow!  It hadn't snowed since the freak snowstorm over Halloween weekend.  We got 4-5 inches, and it was beautiful.  Kassidy just kept looking outside all morning.  :)

 We decided it would be fun to bundle her up and head outside.  She looks like a giant marshmallow!

 As much as she loved staring at it from the window, she wanted NOTHING to do with actually being out in it.  We tried putting her on the ground and she started screaming.  Maybe next year, right?!

 Kassidy's latest hair style has been in two pigtails on top of her head.  It's very cute while it's in, but it's hilarious when we take it out!

 Kassidy's "latest" is reading books.  She LOVES to read!  I love this about her, but even I get a little tired of reading book after book after book.  It is quite cute though when she hands you a book and then insists on snuggling on your lap to read it.  I am definitely trying to soak up all these moments!

 She'll read whatever she can get her hands on.  She found my "Parenting" magazine.

 All bundled up to head out for a walk.

 I brought her car seat inside to wash it before putting it forward-facing in the van.  She couldn't get enough of climbing in to play.

 So the weekend of the 21st we had 4-5 inches of snow.  This past weekend was blue sky, sunshine, and 40's.  So we took advantage and went to our favorite place to hike.  It felt great to get out!

Life These Days...

It's been far too long since I've posted anything on the blog.  So here is a random assortment of happenings over the past month.

 The week before Christmas, one of my very dear friends, Kate VanderKolk, came to visit.  We had a wonderful time when she was here!

 We were able to pay off the rest of Chad's student loans, so we are officially DEBT FREE!!!

 Kassidy has learned to climb.  I put on her hat and went to pick up her shoes.  In the 30 seconds I left her she climbed on top of the table.

 I finished another little outfit for Kassidy in my sewing endeavors; this cute little jumper.  My mom helped me with the project and it turned out so cute!

 My parents came for a short visit the weekend of January 7th.  Kassidy LOVES having Grandpa and Grandma around, and Chad and I love it too!  We get a nice break when they are here, which is a blessing.

 They bought Kassidy a super-cute shopping cart to go with her kitchen and play food.  She was really excited to pull it out of the box.

 She LOVES her little truck from Grandpa and Grandma De Jager.  She can get on and off it by herself now and scoots all over!

 Kassidy very quickly learned how to push her shopping cart around.

 The bummer end of the last few weeks is that Kassidy came down with a nasty cold.  It turned into a double ear infection and a need for breathing treatments 3x per day.  Kassidy was a pretty good trooper through it all!

 She did NOT want to take her antibiotic when we started and we had to force it down her throat.  After a couple days she was taking it willingly by spoon.  This picture was just so ironic as she was willingly playing with the medicine and dropper when only a couple days before she was screaming about it!  We're definitely glad she changed her tune and took it willingly for us.

 She feels MUCH better now and is back to her normal busy self.  I could hardly get pictures of her because she never stops moving!  This rocker is mine from when I was a kid, and Kassidy definitely loves it!

 All smiles!

 Loving her kitchen!

Christmas 2011

Christmas this year was definitely different in many ways. The most obvious is that this is our first Christmas in New Jersey. This is Chad's first Christmas as a pastor with lots of responsibilities during the Christmas season. Our church has 3 Christmas Eve services and then also a Christmas Day service this year because Christmas fell on a Sunday. Chad had to preach at one of the services but was present and had roles to play in the other services. So it was definitely a very BUSY couple days for him!

Christmas was also different because we did not see any of our family over Christmas this year.  We needed to be in NJ for the Christmas weekend, and traveling around the holidays is just plain expensive.  So we opted to stay put for Christmas.  It was strange not to see any family.  We spent Christmas evening with a family from church and enjoyed being a part of their family for a few hours.  We really appreciate the way people have taken us in and welcomed us into their lives!  

This year was also the first year we have gone present-free (almost).  Presents have never been a big deal with Chad's family, so that stayed the same.  His parents actually got Kassidy a little kitchen set and gave us money toward buying meat for our family since we are no longer close enough for them to give us meat from the farm.  My family has always exchanged presents but this year decided to do no gifts at Christmas as a way to alleviate stress and focus our time and energy on Jesus and what that means.  We are now just planning to celebrate everyone's birthdays with gifts instead of giving on Christmas.  Chad and I decided not to give gifts within our own family either.  We are trying hard to figure out ways to raise Kassidy in a way that puts the meaning on Jesus and what that means instead of on the consumerism that constantly bombards us at this time of year.  We did give her a stocking, which was fun, but no other gifts.  We have no problems with gift-giving traditions but felt for us that it would help keep the meaning of Christmas on Jesus if we eliminated gifts altogether.  Our church joins with Advent Conspiracy to promote less gifting and more giving in an attempt to change the world.  We jumped on board with that and helped raise money to provide meals to hungry people both in New Jersey and Haiti.  So we'll see where these traditions lead.  But for this year, we really enjoyed a gift-free (almost) Christmas.

 My mom helped me make Kassidy's stocking last year, but this is the first year we've put anything in it.  I got it ready on Christmas Eve.

 Grandpa and Grandma De Jager got Kassidy this adorable kitchen set.  I set this up on Christmas Eve so it was ready for her on Christmas morning.  She loved it from the moment she saw it.  Thanks Mom and Dad DJ!

 After Chad got up we had Kassidy empty her stocking.  She wasn't sure about it at first but once she realized there was stuff inside, she loved it!

 We filled it with play food to go with her kitchen set.  :)

Though Christmas 2011 was a different sort of Christmas for a variety of reasons, we had a wonderful Christmas celebrating Jesus' birth as a family.  We have SO much to be thankful for and to celebrate.  MERRY CHRISTMAS from the De Jagers!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Modern Christmas Christmas

Shop Shutterfly for beautiful photo Christmas cards.

View the entire collection of cards.