OHHH Christmas tree....OWWW Christmas Tree,
thy leaves are so unchanging...

This year, since we have kiddos and they are starting to get older, I decided that Brian and I should start some Christmas traditions...so I asked Brian if he would like to start the tradition of cutting down our own tree. Now, please remember that I am married to a Chicago native...not much tree cutting or hunting or camping or hiking etc...goes on around there. I throughly explained to Brian what is involved in chopping down your own tree and he still said that we should do it. So the day before Thanksgiving we drove up past Kings Beach...paid $10 to get our tag and followed the map to one of the tree cutting areas toward Truckee.

Brian, Sean, Darby and I all piled out of the truck we borrowed from Grandpa and set out to find our tree...mistake number one...place your almost 2 year old boy in the kid backpack before starting your hike...we didn't so as we started the hike Brian had to help Sean on the rugged terrain (Darby was in a front pack on me). We then thought that we found our tree...mistake number two... it was slightly up hill so we had to hike up a little more and discovered that the tree was not regulation (too big) when we finally got to it. Huffing and Puffing from carrying two kids up a steepish hill we turned around and heading back down to the dirt road. We continued to walk further down the road from the truck...mistake number three...don't walk too far from the truck...the tree has to be carried that much further back to the truck after cutting it down. We then saw a nice bunch of trees down the hill so we heading down toward them...great idea since we were tired and didn't want to hike up another hill like we just had...that was mistake number four, we didn't figure that after cutting a tree that was down hill we would have to carry it back up that hill. We found a great tree we all liked and then started to cut it down. Like a pro Brian had the tree chopped down in seconds (I was surprised since the only tree he has ever cut was one in his parents front yard in a suburb of Chicago as a kid, which is a hilarious story in itself) as Sean, Darby and I sat and watched. As the tree fell I yelled TIMBER and clapped...Sean really loved that! Mistake number five...when cutting down your tree don't let it just drop to the ground...limbs break. After hearing the crunch of broken limbs I remembered that when I would go with my family A.J. or I would make sure that the tree didn't just go crashing to the ground. So we had our tree and we were ready to climb back up hill. Alrighty then...I was carrying Darby, Brian was carrying our 12 foot tree and saw and Sean was...uhhh?? umm?? Sean was not going to be able to make it up that hill and terrain. So, we decided that I would carry both kiddos up the hill (mind you I was shaking from exhaustion by the time I got to the top) not just because I am royally out of shape (cut me some slack, just had a baby 3 months ago) but also because Sean was crabby and hungry and did not want to be carried. WOW is it hard to carry a 21 month old who is 27 pounds when he really does not want to be carried as well as a 14 pound dead weight baby sleeping in a front pack. Finally I make it to the dirt road, unload the kiddos and sat to chug some water. I then turn around to see how far Brian has come with the tree and saw. Not to far since I only saw a tree flying around in the air and heard some echoing choice words that resounded off the mountain and canyon...just then a family hiking came walking by and asked if everyone was okay...Just fine I said...my husband is just trying to carry the tree up the hill.

About four breaks later, some comments about feeling like he was going to throw up, Brian was almost to the road while Sean and I cheered him on. Eventually, he made it to the road stating that carrying that tree that far and up that steep hill was the hardest thing he has ever done in his life. I gave him some water and told him that I would carry the front part of the tree and Brian could carry the back as we walk down the dirt road back to the truck. We picked up the tree and set off...about 20 steps later I was calling for a break. WOW, fresh cut trees are filled with tons of water and are exceptionally heavy!! I was shocked how Brian did it all by himself...What a stud I though to myself. But then, Sean kept getting closer and closer to the edge of the road where the steep hill went down and he would potentially fall. So to avoid him falling, Brian had to carry the tree to the truck by himself and I had to again carry both Sean, kicking and flailing, and Darby, sleeping. We finally get to the truck, load everyone up, and ate some lunch as we drove home listening to Christmas music. Later that night while decorating the tree, which is practically bald on one side where about 4 limbs were broken, I asked Brian if that was a tradition that we wanted to start every year...

surprisingly he said YES!

Next time it won't be as hard, we think, if we bring along a couple more people..like A.J., Grandma and Grandpa to help with the tree cutting, carrying and the holding of kids. Plus, find a tree that is up hill, not down hill. Just some tips for those of you out there who are thinking of going Christmas tree cutting. I can't complain about the price and experience though because we have a fond and funny memory of our first time as well as a 9 foot tree (after cutting it to size), a wreath that I made from the extra limbs, decorations I used from the extra trunk and limbs as well as a wonderful smell in our house all for the low low price of $10 bucks!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

HERE ARE A COUPLE MORE PICTURES FROM HALLOWEEN!! SEAN WENT TRICK OR TREATING LAST NIGHT AND IT WAS SO CUTE! THERE WAS A GROUP OF ABOUT 8 KIDS FROM THE AGES OF 1-2 AND THEY WERE JUST ADORABLE! SEAN STARTING TO GET THE WHOLE CONCEPT BY THE 5TH HOUSE AND STARTED TO SAY "TIK OOO TEET" AND HE ALWAYS SAID "DEEE DOOO" (THANK YOU) AFTER GETTING HIS CANDY. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR WHEN HE REALLY KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON. I WOULD HAVE TO SAY AS OF RIGHT NOW HIS FAVORITE CANDY IS LICORICE.

SEAN ALSO HAD A THING FOR SNOW WHITE...ONE OF THE GIRLS THAT WENT TRICK OR TREATING WITH US WAS DRESSED AS SNOW WHITE AND HE WOULD NOT STOP KISSING AND FOLLOWING HER AROUND.

HERE ARE A COUPLE OF PICTURES...I TRIED TO DOWNLOAD SOME ON THE PREVIOUS BLOG BUT THEY DID NOT TURN OUT SO I AM TRYING ONCE MORE...I THINK THAT I TRIED TO PUT TOO MANY PICTURES UP SO I AM GOING TO JUST DO A COUPLE AT A TIME TO MAKE SURE IT WORKS...

LOVE,
THE KELLEHERS

Fall Back!!!

Fall has arrived and I am so excited because it is my favorite season of all...I have decided that since I have not blogged in like a century...to update everyone with current pictures and news.

Life is going well here in Nevada...Brian is currently working in Minden (big commute) as the finance manager for the Chevy dealership down there. It was suppose to be no longer than six months but we are going on 9 months now, I think. Oh well, we will see what is in store there for him...hopefully good things. With two kids I am seeing more and more how wonderful Brian really is!! He comes home from his hour commute around 8-9pm and usually takes over whatever dinner I have started, helps me clean the entire kitchen before bed (our pet peeve...waking up in the morning to a dirty kitchen). He catches a little bit of the news and weather report, then goes to bed. Since I am still up in the night feeding Darby, he wakes up for any issues with Sean. As of right now Sean is working on his incisors and they are the worst teeth he has ever cut. Lately he wakes up in the night crying because of the pain. It is awful. Then Brian will wake up in the morning with Sean, they eat breakfast together and that gives me an extra 30 min of sleep so that I can make it through the long day with the two kiddos. I am blessed to have him :)

Darby is now 2 months and Sean is 20 months...wow I can't believe how fast time goes by. They are truly wonderful kiddos...Sean is a busy boy with lots of friends. He usually does gymboree and swimming and a Friday playgroup with roughly 16 moms all with one or two kiddos in the same age range as Sean and Darby. As of right now though, due to having Darby, he is down to just doing an Art group on Mondays with four of us mom's that get together and then Friday he still has his playgroup. Darby is smiling up a storm these days and it attempting to goo and gaa a little more...it is fun to see her personality begin to evolve.

All is well with me...I dropped the whole school endeavor. It was adding more stress to our family life and I slowly discovered that when you are doing school it has to be your number one priority in order for you to be successful and it can't be my number one priority because my children and husband are...so I was finding myself saddened by the thought of not seeing my kids that much and putting their developmental needs on the back burner so I can challenge myself in the world of dental hygiene...plus there was no guarantee that after all my hard work that I would even get into the program. So, I decided that after the kids are older (high school or so) that if I still have the itch to go back to school and do something else, I have plenty of time to do so. It is so nice to have my only focus be on teaching and loving my two children and being the best wife I can be. Of course, some days are better than others.

Lots of Love,
Nikki

Hello Everybody! Here is Sean and Gramps enjoying some licorice. It was Sean's first and he loved it. Of course he decided to hug Gramps after this picture and get Gramps white shirt all pink and sticky. It was great! Brian, Sean and I just took Sean to Little People Portraits and had his one year pictures done as well as some family shots. They turned out really nice and I am glad! Wallats are on there way!

Well, Sean's birthday is right around the corner. It is amazing to me how quickly a year goes by. So much has happened....WOW!! Brian and I are beginning to look around for a new house. One with hopefully one more room because otherwise we will have to move all our office furniture to our bedroom, so that the office can become another baby room. I totally thought that we would be in this house longer than that but life changes so quickly. We will not be looking to put our house up for sale or anything like that until another year due to the way we structured our loan (like I said, we thought that we would be here a minimum of 3 years). But, the cool thing is that their is another development that we like that is literallly down the street from our current home. The model homes are not done yet to look at but I already know the community and have been in one of the homes because Laurie's sister in law lives in the home that we are hoping to get in about a year and a half. It is the same crazy deal where you have to wait on a list and such and then pick you lot and home etc.... So we did the whole pre-approval thing and are currently number 15 on the list. That is really great because if this is where we plan to eventually more we will have a lot more choice than we did with this particular home. In this community we started out as number 50-60.

I like the warmer weather we have been having lately. I hope that it gets better and that we can start seeing spring. Sean is now at the age that going to the park is a lot more fun. He love the swings. The other day the baby swings were taken so I sat on a big one with him in my lap and swag a couple of times. I was immediately sick. Mom doesn't like the swings too much! I had my fist sonogram appointment about a week ago. The new little one is officailly a gummy bear right now. He/She literally looks like a gummy bear with this beautiful heart beat! So cool! For any of you who live wives tales...the heart rate was high...166. Well, Sean is taking a nap right now so now is the time for me to get any cleaning done. Talk to you all later!

School is creeping up. I am taking a Intro to Ethics course this spring...unfortuantely all my business courses which covered ethics as well does not fulfill this requirement and transfer to TMCC. What a joke. Anyway. I went to the Dental Hygiene application meeting last night which was quite informative. The competition is pretty steep. Pretty much everyone in the room currently work in the dental field and many were young girls, most likily in their early 20's fresh out of high school with better grades in things like math and science since it wasn't a decade ago that they last took those types of courses. It was slightly discouraging but at the same time lit a little bit more fire under me. I walked away from the meeting thinking to myself. "Hey...I haven't worked this hard this far to get down on myself." So I was good. I am getting familur with the application process this go round. And next year in January I should have all my ducks in a row so I should get in. (cross your fingers). Sean is growing up so fast. He loves to say the word Hot and DA-DA. Ma-ma comes up but usually when he is whining. He is starting to get better at standing and balancing in one place, so I'm sure that walking is to too far ahead. Just wanted to keep current with my blog. I need to hop in the shower and get ready since Sean is taking his morning nap right now and that is pretty much the only time that I have to shower in peace. Bye Bye!!

Hello everyone and Happy new year! On New years eve Brian, Sean and myself all spent the night at my parents house to celebrate our belated Christmas the next morning. It was a lot of fun!! We woke up on New years day and pretended like it was Christmas with the stockings and all and then hung around the house eating and being merry. We enjoyed it soooo much. Also, Brian and I shared some exciting news with my parents that night. Sean will be having a little brother or sister to play with come September. Thats right!! I am going to have another baby!! We are soo excited to see what Gods blesses us with! I have not gone to see the doctor yet, my appointment is towards the end of January, but I am pretty sure that my due date will be eiather the 3rd or 7th of September. Anyway, I just wanted to share the news to the family! We'll keep you posted on any other updates.

Lots of Love, The Kellehers

Well, I know that I have royally sucked at keeping up with the blogging...I am not even sure if many of you will even read this page since I have not kept up. But anyway, school, and Sean and our new puppy has been keeping me rather busy. I just finished my last final for this semester. I hit a couple of road bumps though that I thought would not be too bad and not it seems as if they are accumulating. The first issue was that sometime in the middle of this year they changed the requirements for the dental hygiene program...thus they registration department said that I needed 5 more classes. As you can imagine I went banannas. I petitioned all 5 classes that they said I needed and tried to have more of my classes from Elmhust College transfer. They only allowed 3 out of the five. So, things started to look up for a brief week. I am still applying for the dental hygiene program this January but I know that I will not get it because I am missing those 2 classes, which are worth points, so I do not have enough points to get in. Needless to say the second road bump came along. As I went to register for one of the two classes I needed they said that I had to have a prerequisite to take that class. Now my needing only 2 classes in the next year has turned into needing 4. Three math classes and a intro to ethics course. Completely frustrated I am having to reevaluate this endeavor of mine. Who knows what will happen next...I'll keep you posted.
This Christmas we will be in Chicago after all. We just bought the most expensive tickets ever to go out to Chicago for 3 nights and 2 days. Good Grief, as Charlie Brown would say. Sean has cut his two bottom teeth, but just barely so they are still bugging him and he tends to be a little more fussy. Shiloh, our yellow lab, is getting bigger!! She still wants to sleep on my pillow at night and I am having a hard time trying to break that habit (my own fault I know). Well, I will try and do better as I allways say but life just flies by and I loose track of time. Hope eveyone have a Happy and very Merry Christmas!! ( the above picture is the most recent that I have downloaded on my computer...this was probably in aug/sept so he is 6 mo in the picture. he is now 10 mo so I will download another one in the next couple of days)