love this little girl

first of all, sorry this is sideways. i guess i was holding the camera like that and didn't realize it. whoops.

second of all, i don't think i'll ever get sick of this reaction. ever. i love that katelyn will scream every single time tyler hides and runs into the room to chase her.

third of all, i love watching tyler play with katelyn when he gets home from school. she gets so happy when he's there. she just says, "it's daddy, it's daddy," over and over again.

fourth of all, i think katelyn is getting sick of me. we've spent way too much time inside lately. so i get so happy when tyler gets home too to take over for a bit too.

fifth of all, okay, there is no fifth of all. i guess i was on a role. i'll stop now. please enjoy.

check out this giveaway

if you go to this website, http://inevergrewup.net/giveaway-25-bumbleride-indie-stroller/ you can sign up to win this sleek looking stroller in this color. hurry though, contest ends january 30th.

adopting

bet that caught your attention, didn't it?

my sister and her husband, erin and thomas, have been working through the process of getting approved to be adoptive parents. they are currently working on a website to help birth parents get to know them a little better. they have already set up an adoptive profile sponsored through the lds family services.

now comes the part where they wait. if any of you know of any birthparents who may be looking to place their child with adoptive parents, please consider recommending this couple. they are truly some of the best people i know. they are so dedicated to each other, the gospel, bettering themselves, having fun. you name it.

feel free to take a look at their adoptive profile by clinking on the link below to get to know them better.

https://beta.itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/18573172/ourMessage.jsf

erin and thomas: far right

p.s. happy 30th erin!

what we've been up to since the weather turned cold

since the weather hasn't been very friendly this week, katelyn and i have spent the majority of our time locked up in our apartment. sub-zero temperatures really aren't my thing. neither are beanies for that matter, so we might as well just stay inside.

i did happen to venture out on one of the frigid days. i just couldn't go another day without stopping by the grocery store. let me tell you, it was freezing. i thought people were exaggerating when they said it gets cold here. but no, they weren't. -5 really is cold. i did put on a hat to go out that day and told myself i would take it off once i got inside the store. that didn't happen. it stayed on keeping my head all snuggly and warm. i didn't feel too out of place because apparantly when it's this cold, everyone shops for groceries with their beanies on.

and when we weren't grocery shopping, we just messed around and took pictures of ourselves messing around.

playing in mommy's coat. it really does look better on her.

in preparation for the cold weather, we went out and found a hat and gloves for katelyn. the only hat i could convince her to wear was the doggie hat. not the best looking hat, but she wears it and loves it.

her first reaction to the hat and gloves.

they're a hit. she wants to keep them on all of the time. even when we're playing inside.

i'm not sure what she's expecting to see. the t.v. isn't even on.

now we're looking forward to those warmer temperatures next week. 20's and 30' here we come!

back to real life again and sorry this is so long

after spending two and a half weeks in utah for the Christmas break, we have returned to wisconsin.

our vacation was the perfect amount of fun and relaxation. we loved spending so much time with the hedin family. we returned home feeling recharged and ready to head back to work.

katelyn and i left for utah almost a week earlier than tyler. he was busy slaving away preparing for finals. our departure from wisconsin was anything but boring. we started off our drive to the airport realizing we weren't exactly sure how to get there. but we did manage to get there just in time. good thing too because we sat on the plane for an hour before we finally took off. luckily katelyn is a champ on long days like that.

since we left so late we happened to miss our connecting flight. the next one wasn't leaving for another three hours, so we entertained ourselves with our handy point-and-shoot camera.

taking shoes on and off...what a fun game

staring off into space. bound to happen when lacking sleep.

climbing all over airport chairs. who knew they could be so fun?

were so happy to finally get to utah. it was fun to meet up with the in-laws again. we spent the next couple of days preparing for and attending tyler's sister's wedding. it was a beautiful sealing and, of course, the bride looked beautiful. i wish i could say i had pictures, but i left my charging battery plugged into the wall in the hedin home.

before christmas, i drove down to the provo/orem area to see all of my cute sisters and their husbands before they all headed to their in-laws. we watched it's a wonderful life, had a mock Christmas breakfast together and opened white elephant gifts. we were even instructed to wear our pajamas for the breakfast.

six days later tyler finally joined us in utah! he was so ready for a break, and we were so ready to have him back.

tyler kept the beard to show his family. i made him shave it off before i would kiss him.

we all had such a wonderful Christmas together. it was fun to watch katelyn this year to see how she would react to her presents. it didn't take long before she realized there were toys and clothes all for her in those boxes.
we spent Christmas day talking to tyler's brother who is on a mission, taking naps and playing with Christmas toys. tyler and i finished off the day by reading the Christmas story out of Luke.

Christmas eve dinner. everyone picks one thing they want for the big dinner that night. none of the requests have to coordinate or make a complete meal. it's fun to see what everyone picks and to see what you will end up eating that night.

christmas pajamas.

waiting to open presents.

while in utah, we made sure to squeeze some extra fun things in that we don't get to do in wisconsin. we went out to eat a number of times, played in the snow and made a snowman, went to an actual movie theatre with katelyn, visited deseret book and cafe rio, visited the bodyworld exhibit and visited family and old friends from the provo/orem area.

drinking juice at the restaurant. i think it entertained her all night.

playing in the snow. i warned tyler this was going on the blog, but he kept making funny faces. the little snowman was the one we built for katelyn.

she really did have fun playing outside despite the blank look on her face.

katelyn was completely spoiled with attention the whole break and enjoyed every minute of it.

tyler had a free meal to cafe rio that he forgot to use before we moved to wisconsin. it was a great excuse to visit cafe rio.
the day before we left we visited with my grandma bastian, uncle curtis and aunt marlene. it was fun to see that spunky grandma again.

tyler and i flew out the same day but not on the same flights. he took katelyn with him on his flights because he was supposed to get there at 2:00 and i wasn't going to get in until 6:00. because of a number of delays on both flights, he didn't get to milwaukee until 6:00. they entertained each other and katelyn kept tyler busy. he ended up having some great daddy daughter time with her.

beard growing contest

yes, that's right. a beard growing contest. one of tyler's first year friends decided to start an annual beard growing contest. the contest began right after the thanksgiving break and continued until the end of finals (december 19th). i admit i was not that excited about this from the start. sure the contest part sounded like a lot of fun, but kissing a guy with a beard sounded gross. but tyler was excited to participate and actually kept up with the best of them. i was surprised how long his beard got by the end. i was also surprised that i secretly starting rooting for tyler and was excited that his beard was so long.

on december 19th all of the participants, the wives and the children met at Bigg's Roadhouse for some steak eating. there the wives voted for the longest beard. the winner would receive a free steak dinner, courtesy of jeff and sarah nance.

here are most of the men that participated. take a look at how hairy some of them are!

i posted this one so you could get a good look at who won. taylor, the one with the baby, won the contest.

and on a side note...look at all this snow. this is in wauwatosa where we live. i guess it got dumped on since i've been in utah. i guess the people from wisconsin weren't lying when they said the winters were bad.

p.s. thanks sarah and byrdie for letting me steal pictures off your blog.

lovin' family and lovin' vacations

this vacation definitely goes down as one of my favorites so far. why you ask? because i was with my family. my complete family. every single sister, brother, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, neice and nephew were all there. and we all get along and have fun together. sure it's a little crazy sometimes, or maybe very crazy all of the time, but that's the only way i would have it.

we started off the vacation with my youngest sister getting married. both of them were extremely happy and my sister looked beautiful.

the women spent the morning making thanksgiving dinner while all of the men played in a flag football tournament. then we ate our delicious dinner. this year we had three tables set up to accomodate everyone. this was the first year we had a designated "kid table." they loved it. of course they would...no adult supervision! i don't think they realize that the adults loved it better. then the women happily turned all of the cleaning duties over to the men.

spending quality time with each other.

spening some quality time with the kiddos.

spending some quality time with the adults.

spending some quality time feeding the ducks.

and not spending enough quality time spleeping.

this year we left with only 1 er visit, 6 people throwing up, 5 upset stomachs, a couple of colds and tons of great memories.

and for your viewing pleasure-mike joined our family this past august. he was obviously holding out on us because we never knew that he had this cool talent.