It's Been a Busy Month

Sorry for the lack of posts this month. I've had plenty of time, there is just so much to post about that I have been putting it off. But here goes.

Kate's 4th Birthday Party

Kate's birthday was a pretty exciting day here in Charlotte. We had a huge ice/snow storm which lead to all of the city roads being covered in a nice thick layer of ice.

As is tradition, we started the day with pancakes. The birthday girl/boy always get pancakes shaped in in the number of the birthday. Katelyn polished off two four-shaped pancakes.

After breakfast, Kate was dying to open her gifts.

We got her an art easel. She also opened her gift from Nana Freese, a new church bag! So fun.


Later in the day, a few friends and family braved the roads and made their way to our house for Kate's party. We made superhero capes for the boys and twirly skirts for the girls to decorate. Katelyn picked out a princess crown cake from Costco and we had Costco pizza for dinner. It was a great party, I think Kate felt loved and that was all that mattered.





Random Moments

Josh has gotten to the age where he and Kate can play together. They have their moments. He is such a silly little man, but he truly adores his sister. I think he's going to be a great big brother. Here are some random pictures of the kids over the last month.



"Valentine's Day"

Okay so these pictures really aren't from Valentine's Day. They are from the day before. We had another snowstorm, but this one left behind soft beautiful snow perfect for playing in! It was awesome. Before the kids went out to play in the snow we had Valentine's donuts. Yumm, yumm.

Josh doesn't really have any snow gear yet, so we bundled him up as best as we could and sent him and Kate out to play. They were fearless. Ben headed out with them to play with them and they built a HUGE snowman! It was the perfect snow day. By mid afternoon the roads were completely dry and Ben was able to head out for an awesome afternoon of paintball with some friends.Yes, I put Kate's tights on Josh. :)

Baby Boy Burgess

Well, I'm 37 weeks along today. Our C-Section is scheduled for Monday, March 15th at 7:30am. So unless he decides to make an early appearance, we only have two more weeks until we get to meet our new little man. Things are going great, there haven't been any complications so far and we are hoping for a quick and easy surgery. The question still remains... will he be blonde like Josh or have brown hair like Kate?? Stay tuned!

Katelyn Turns Four!

Can four years really have already gone by? I can't imagine where they went. But, it's true, Katelyn turned four years old today. She has grown up so much this year. She is a beautiful, smart, talented little girl. We love her so much.

Katelyn loves:

*watching movies
*playing "Polly Pockets"
*cooking with Mommy in the kitchen
*coloring, painting, drawing
*playing dress-up
*taking bubble baths
*playing video games with Daddy
*bossing Joshua around :)
*reading books
*singing and making up her own songs

Happy Birthday, Sweet Girl!

Christmas Eve

It's 6:30am Christmas Eve morning and I am the only person awake in house full of family. Santa Clause is merrily rocking away outside the window in the front yard and the sun is just beginning to come up over the hill. It's been a whirlwind week, but Christmas is nearly here!

Sunday morning, my Dad drove our family to the airport to catch our flight to Las Vegas. Our final destination being Tehachapi, CA, which is just four hours from Las Vegas, we opted to have one long flight and to drive the remainder of the way. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11:20 and we arrived at the airport around 9:45am. As soon as we pulled into the departures lane, our jaws just about dropped. There were lines on top of lines of people waiting to check their bags. We gathered the kids and all of our bags, hugged my dad goodbye and proceeded to figure out where were supossed to be. Five hours later, we made it to the check-in counter. Yes, five hours, two Lunchables, one box of Teddy Grahams, and many games of Eye Spy we made it to the check-in counter. Obviously, we had missed our flight, so we waited to see what flight they would put us on. We were put on stand-by for a 5:50pm flight and we also got seats on a 7:5opm flight. Relieved to finally have tickets in our hands, we headed for the security check point. With two kids, this is quite an ordeal, but we survived. After checking in at our gate, we had a quick lunch at Burger King and tried to make the the wait as fun as we could for the kids. They were troopers to be honest, they did a fabulous job, even though Katelyn was totally sick with a cold! Five more hours passed and we boarded our flight, hoping that our luggage was riding with us. The flight was 4 and half hours, so we watched movies, ate snacks and the kids slept on and off. Again, they really did a great job. We arrived in Las Vegas at 9:30pm, and discovered that our bags were on a different flight that would not be arriving until after midnight. Tim and Becky, Ben's younger brother and his wife, were picking us up from the airport to make the drive to Tehachapi, but plans quickly changed since we had no baggage. They picked us up and we drove to Ben's older brother Jonathan's house, which was only 30 minutes away, and they put us all up for the night. The next morning, we drove back to the airport, retrieved our bags and started the drive to Tehachapi. Are you tired yet? Mind you that we are used to Eastern Time and we are now traveling in Pacific Time. So, we are all a little out of whack. To make a long story short(er), we arrived in Tehachapi around 4:30pm, a little rumpled and worn out, but happy to finally be at our destination.

Since we have been here, we have woken up to a surprise snow fall (Kate was so happy!), driven to Bakersfield for a little Christmas shopping, watched plenty of movies, and had lots of fun just spending time with family. Stay tuned for "Christmas with the Burgesses". Merry Christmas Eve!

Thanksgiving Tradtitions

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The day before Thanksgiving it is our tradition to go to our church's Thanksgiving dinner. It's huge and delicious, and I don't have to cook. Well, usually I don't. This year I volunteered to cook one of the turkeys. After reading a fabulous sounding recipe at My Kitchen Cafe I really wanted to try my hand at a Thanksgiving turkey. I have a made a few turkeys in my lifetime, but none of them were something to write home about. With Katelyn as my assistant in the kitchen, we prepared the turkey according to the recipe. The most unique part of the recipe we used was the final step. We coated a brown paper bag in butter and tented the turkey in it. After two and half hours in the oven, out came the moistest, juiciest, most flavorful turkey I can ever remember having. Success!!

"Painting" the paper bag with butter

The Turkey Tent

One Delicious Turkey!

On Thanksgiving, we usually go to my dad's house for dinner and in return we cook breakfast Thanksgiving morning. It has to be cinnamon rolls and breakfast casserole. Yumm. It really just isn't Thanksgiving morning (or Christmas morning) without them. We spent the rest of the morning laying around on the couch watching the Macey's Parade and flipping through Black Friday ads. It was perfect.

Last year, after Christmas, Ben and I bought new LED lights for the outside of the house and he was really excited to the try them out. So, we bundled headed outside and spent the afternoon putting up Christmas mights. Ben did a great job, and we love how cheery our house looks when we drive up!

Kate and Ben hard at work

Ben and the ginormous ladder

After Josh's afternoon nap, we loaded our share of the Thanksgiving feast into the car, grabbed this kiddos and headed to my dad's house. Dinner was delicious, and we were all too exhausted to even make it to dessert. It was a great Thanksgiving!


It also tradition to go shopping on Black Friday. I was up an ready to head out the door to Walmart at 4:30. While Ben and the kids slept, I was armed with my shopping cart and a list of great deals to find a store that was complete chaos. I ran into fellow Black Friday shoppers, Jessica and Anita and we compared lists. After Walmart, I took on Target and AC Moore. It was worth it, I scored some good stuff at great prices.

Our last Thanksgiving tradition is to decorate our house for Christmas the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. We like to enjoy the decorations as long as we can. What can I say... I love Christmas!

Our sweet girl by the Christmas tree

We are getting hungry for Turkey!!

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we are excited! For our family, Thanksgiving sitting around in our jammies watching the parade on tv, eating lots of delicious food and, of course, preparing for Black Friday shopping. Lots of Black Friday ads have already been posted on www.bfads.net.

We've started reading our favorite Thanksgiving book to the kids and Kate has already watched Charlie Brown and Mayflower Voyage at least three or four times. Need a cute Thanksgiving story for your kids? Try this one:


It's a cute story, done to the same rhyme as The Night Before Christmas.

Halloween Day 2009

Halloween was so much fun this year being on a Saturday. We had the whole day to do fun things together as a family. We started off the morning with homemade maple donuts. Yum... they were really, really good. After breakfast, the kids watched Halloween on Ice on the Hallmark Channel. It was pretty neat, Katelyn liked all of the scary costumes. For lunch, we headed to McDonald's and ending up eating in the car while we waited to get an oil change for the car. The kids ate more in the car than they ever do when we go inside to eat. Noted.

Later on, while Josh was napping, Katelyn, Ben and I carved pumpkins while we watched "Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure" on the laptop and the Florida Gators football game on tv. The kids used a kit we found at Walmart to decorate their pumpkins like animals.




For dinner we had mummy dogs (crescent roll wrapped hot dogs) and zombie fingers dipped in blood (sweet potato fries and ketchup).




Grandpa and Nana Bellinghausen stopped by to see the kiddos all dressed up in their costumes. Cinderella and Tigger, respectively. They were so cute.


We went outside for some pictures and then... it started to sprinkle. But did that stop us? No way! We put out a bowl of candy on the porch and headed out to start trick or treating with our umbrella in hand. Katelyn was really good at saying "trick or treat" this year and Josh managed to hold his own bucket long enough for our neighbors to fill it with candy. He was darn cute and his candy bucket proves it. :) We met up with the Wilde family and spent nearly two hours trick or treating... basically until the kids were begging to go home. We were damp, but it was a lot of fun. When we got home, we sat the kids on the floor in the living room and poured their loot into their laps and let them gorge for a little while. Why not.. it was a great Hallowen!

The Pumpkin Patch

A week or so before Halloween, the kids and I headed to the Pumpkin Patch for playgroup. There was a mini hay bale maze, animals to pet and feed, a tractor ride, and a huge "pumpkin patch" full of mini pumpkins for the kids to pick a pumpkin. Katelyn loved feeding the animals! She was very brave. Josh was giddy and pointed at almost everything and shrieked. Very cute. As you can tell, we had fun.