Keeping Up With The Keims: Thankmas in KC

We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with Kris' family this year at Thanksgiving. We left Tuesday night and drove to Branson which is about half way. We decided to try to break up the 6+ hour trip this year. We spent the night in a hotel in Branson. It was an interesting night. I'm not sure if it was really worth it though. I call it "my night of musical beds".

We had 2 double beds in our room. I didn't take a pack-n-play for Layton because Grandma has one at her house and there wasn't any room in our car to pack one just for one night in a hotel. So, Layton and I shared one bed. He was pretty quickly out on one half of our bed shortly after we got there after 10:30 or so. Kris was in the other bed with Hannah and Lincoln. As you can imagine, Lincoln was WIDE AWAKE and had quite a bit of energy after being in the car for several hours. He was really having a hard time settling down. At some point, he scratched Hannah in the face. She had just about been asleep. She walked over to my bed and told me what happened and was upset about it. I let her get in bed with me to keep her quiet.

In the meantime, Lincoln was still wide awake over in bed with Kris. I knew he would never settle down without some help, so I told Hannah to trade places with him. He got in bed with me and I kind started rubbing his back to help him relax. It worked and he calmed down. So, I decided to turn over so that my back was facing him and I was facing Layton so I could attempt to go to sleep. The next thing I know, Lincoln was crying because he had fallen out of bed. Poor guy. This was just not working for me. So, I told Hannah and Lincoln to trade places again.

Now Lincoln is finally going to sleep in bed with Kris. Hannah and I are on one half of the other bed with Layton on the other. I knew I would never be able to go to sleep like this because I was so smushed. After 1 in the morning I finally figured out what to do. So, I moved a sleeping Layton down to the foot of the bed and then put Hannah above him since her feet didn't go all the way to the edge of the bed. It worked. Then, I had the other side to myself. We were finally all able to go to sleep. Wow.

What was Kris doing this whole time you may wonder? Snoozing, of course. At one point I remember waking him up (so I thought) and telling him, in a very frustrating voice, "This is just NOT working!" He responsed with something I don't remember (probably because I was so frustrated). However, he didn't remember any of this the next morning. Yeah, don't know if we will be doing the stop-over half-way again.

ANYWAY, we had a fun time at Grandma and Grandad's house! We were there from Wednesday to Sunday. I took a ton of pictures! Here they are:

Grandma let Hannah play with her doll house stuff. Apparently, she wouldn't even let her own sister or her own daughter play with it! I guess Hannah is special!! :-)

Lincoln was showing Grandad some of the pictures that he colored at home and brought in his little tractor box. He was so proud of them.

Hannah enjoyed helping Grandma set the table. Grandma always has the neatest table center pieces. This one was cow/fall themed. We ate taco soup in the cutest little cow bowls. While we were there we also had the coolest thing to eat--Walking Tacos. I wish I would have taken a picture. A walking taco is where you eat taco filling out of a bag of crushed up chips. Interesting!

The boys snuggling with Grandma.

We celebrated Lincoln's 4th birthday while we were there since we won't see Grandma and Grandad in January. I think it kind of confused Lincoln though. Someone asked him how old he was going to be and he said 3.

Such a cutie.

Grandma made him this cute train cake. It was cake with ice cream rolled up in it. The wheels were made out of fruit roll-ups.

Blowing out the candle.

He enjoyed eating parts of the train.

New boots!!!

Thank you Grandma and Grandad!!

Love these pictures of Grandad getting Layton to laugh. It was the cutest thing.

We had Thanksgiving lunch with the rest of the family.

Aunt Alexis with Layton who actually sat up for a bit.

The kids had a blast wrestling with their big cousins, Logan and Austin. Oh how they giggled.

Austin weight lifting Lincoln.

Uncle Kurt, 'the kite master', brought this kite. They took it outiside for the kids to play with.

He is the kite master because he got that kite so stinkin high! I couldn't believe it. They just kept adding more string to it.

Hannah and Harley

They have so much fun together! Wish we lived closer to them.

Silly boy.

Seriously, look how high that kite was!

I was fascinated! Ha!

Love this picture of Lincoln!

Layton got lots of attention. He was such a good, smiley boy!!

Kris' brother, Les. You can definitely tell they are brothers. They can both fall asleep at the drop of a hat! Ha!!

Time for Christmas!!! Layton was actually interested in opening his present. He was really trying to get into it.

The men worked over on Les' land trying to clean it up a lot while we were there. This is fun for them. Kris got attacked by a branch, though, and received a big scratch on his face. Of course, he said it would have killed any ordinary man.

Aunt Mona got all the kids Kansas City Chiefs clothes!

Thanks Aunt Mona!

Hannah got an angel necklace from Uncle Kurt and Aunt Alexis. Harley has a matching one.

Layton got the cutest little hand puppets. He is sitting with his oldest cousin, Aaron, who just turned 22. There is about a 21 year age difference between them. Kind of crazy.