The Kilian's: January 14

These first few pictures are out of order/context...I accidentally deleted them when reformatting and wanted to re-add them and they end up at the beginning of the post. Didn't know how to "move" them where they belong...bear with me!!!

This is how I found Casey's room after she went to bed last night...we cleaned it up right before bedtime. She is a piece of work!!

Kendall starting to play with her toys!!

Dyllan, Payton, and Casey at Heather and Craig's!!!

Putting Casey to work!!

Hi Everyone,

So sorry it's taken me such a long time to update since Christmas. We are finally all settled from our big trip up North!

We had a fantastic first Christmas together as a family. It was the first time Kyle and I got to wake up in our own home on Christmas morning. Very exciting! And since this was the first Christmas that Casey actually "got it"...it was all the more special for us! We had a nice dinner at home on Christmas Eve, went to church, came home and had a birthday cake for Jesus, got our cookies ready for Santa, sprinkled reindeer food on the lawn, and FINALLY read the Night Before Christmas and went to bed. With all that preparation and excitement on Christmas Eve, we thought for sure that Casey would be up at the crack of dawn to open gifts. Not the case. Kyle and I both woke up around 7:30 and couldn't believe that both girls were still sleeping! We sent Jimmy in to wake up Casey and she still forgot! She was pretty happy when we reminded her. The pictures below will tell more of that story!

We were slated to leave SC on Sunday evening, but the weather had other plans. We ended up packing all day on Christmas Day and leaving THAT night! Kyle's family was here to celebrate Christmas with us and after we shared gifts with one another, they watched the girls for us while we went into packing mode. We had a fabulous dinner together around 5pm and by 7pm we were on the road. We drove all night long, girls were great--and arrived in PA by 730 or so. We hit some snow in North Carolina and VA, but beat it to PA. It began snowing around 9AM.

We had a wonderful, albeit too quick, of a trip to PA. We got to see all of our friends and most of the family. It seemed that during our stay in PA, we dodged illness after illness. I ended up in bed all day on Wednesday of that week, but luckily never truly got "sick". Therefore, we missed seeing a few relatives, friends, etc...BOO! 'Tis the season I suppose! The girls were great travelers and Casey slept great on her air mattress.

Our trip to SC was a little more painful. Casey barely slept and complained, cried, whined more than we thought she would. We again drove overnight. We made a pitstop in Myrtle Beach to return Aunt Dit and Uncle Fred's minivan that they so graciously allowed us to borrow for more comfortable travels. We got to visit with everyone again, got to see the house they are building in Murrells Inlet (looks fantastic) and then finally headed home. It felt great to be home, but we had a lot of work ahead of us with all the new gifts to find homes for, cleaning to be done and getting our sassy toddler back into a routine. I'll let you speculate on which one was the most difficult! Ha!

Anyway, things are going smoothly now. Kendall has truly started sleeping through the night. She's been going down by 9 and sleeping until 630ish. It's been great! She also has tried cereal now two times, second time was much more successful.

Hope all is well with you all and I promise to update more frequently now that we are settled back in!!

All the best in 2011!!!

Love,
Katie, Kyle, Casey, Kendall and Jim