Burkle Christmas

Monroe and Kaiya eating cars.

Kaiya and Jensen with Grandpa                                               Karter and his cars

Opening Presents

Monroe loved the beads

Jensen's new hat

Kaiya loved her new baby

Jess and Karter looking at his new book.

The boys are trying to figure out how to get their gift cards out of the box mazes.

Opening presents was chaotic this year.  The kids were everywhere, and they wanted to play with their new toys.  I think next year we should open the adult presents after the kids go to bed.

The Aftermath

Grandma and Grandpa bought the kids matching pajamas.  This is our attempt at a picture.

Kaiya and Monroe

Megan made each of the kids a pillow bed.  They loved jumping, rolling, and wrestling on them.  Monroe even got in on the action.

It was so fun to watch the little ones play and interact with each other, but I think the adults had even more fun.  Once the kids were in bed, the party started.  We were brought to tears laughing many times.   I always look forward to time with my family, and this time was one of the best.  Thanks everyone! 

Merry Christmas from the Burkle kids.

Christmas Eve

First family Christmas

Ready for church

 Monroe and Dedrick

Changing into my pjs

I love these pictures!  Grandma was getting her to laugh so hard.

New cousins on the way

Monroe is going to have two new cousins.  Kaiya's dad and mom (my brother and sister-in-law) are expecting their second baby in February.  They don't know what they are having, so we can't wait to see  if it's a boy or girl.  It will be fun to watch Kaiya go from the baby to the big sister.
The other cousin will be the first on Zach's side of the family.  Dustin and Julie are expecting their first child in June.  We are so excited for them to experience parenthood.
The future is going to be fun watching all of these cousins grow up together.

Monroe's new friend

Our good friends, Grant and Becki, had their baby girl on December 15th.  We got to go visit them in the hospital.

 Braelyn Jessica Bachman

 Meeting for the first time

 Monroe had to be held back because she was repeatedly trying to "eat" Braelyn.

Monroe looked so big next to Braelyn.  It is amazing the difference eight months makes.

 All the ladies

Eight Months

We have an eight month old at our house.  I can't believe it!
Our favorite things this month:  Monroe continues to say Mama and Dada.  She says Dada much more often.
She understands 'no'.  Last night, when I would say, "No," she would stop what she was doing and crawl in the opposite direction.  Maybe she'll be the most obedient child ever :)
Monroe has also started singing.  While she's playing, she hums or sigh-sings.  It is so cute.
She pulls herself up on everything, and she crawls everywhere.  She can even walk around the couch while she's holding on.
We're having a lot of fun with our busy lady.

Monroe gets stuck under things like her bouncy seat.  As you can tell in the middle picture, she is not happy about it.

I love this picture!

Stuck again.  This time under the coffee table.

So big!

Musical

Zach's parents are the directors of a Christmas musical every year at their church.  This year, Zach's dad and brother Derek both had lead roles.  

Here are some pictures of our table before the show.

Sisters Picture

Derek performing on stage

Zach's dad and the rest of the cast

Derek and Emily after the show

The family (minus Monroe)

I love this picture

We were having a fun time, but Dustin and I were feeling a little awkward.

The musical was amazing, like it is every year.  We are so lucky to have such a talented family. 

What's even better than crawling?

Standing!

Monroe pulled herself up for the first time on Saturday--one week after she started crawling.  We thought we'd have a chance to get used to the crawling for awhile, but Monroe wants to do it all at once.  She has since been standing in her crib and pulling herself up on the chairs at Mikki's.  Now, we really need to baby-proof!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

 Monroe crawled over to the Christmas tree immediately.  The next month could be fun.

The first snow...

and we're ready for it.

We have a crawler!

I guess Monroe wanted to crawl for the first time in front of family, because she waited for Thanksgiving weekend to do it.  My family members were all sitting around watching the kids play when she started crawling to get to a toy.  We all cheered, and she stopped to see what was going on.  It was a fun moment.

Here is the first video we took.

Thanksgiving

We spent the first two days of our Thanksgiving vacation with Zach's family.  We had a nice day relaxing on Wednesday with his siblings and parents.  On Thursday, the whole family came over for dinner and stayed most of the day. 

Family picture

Great Grandma and Monroe played piano together

On a whim, Derek, Emily, Dustin, Julie, Zach, and I went to Walmart at 11:00 Thursday night.  We thought it would be fun to see what Black Friday shopping is like.  One foot inside the doors, we were reminded of why we don't do the Black Friday thing.  It was crazy!

On Friday morning we got to North Platte in time for the first annual Iowa Nebraska game.  My family is from Iowa, so we are all Hawkeye fans.  We cheer for the Hawkeyes anytime they're not playing Nebraska.

That night, we went to the park to feed the animals.  Kaiya loved it.

Kaiya kept asking Lorenzo the Llama to come closer.

On Saturday my sister's family got to North Platte.  (She had been sick the day before.) We had Thanksgiving dinner and hung out.

Karter, Jensen, and Monroe