Christmas Fun in Rochester! (WARNING... blog entry is long!)

Matt and I were not able to go home for Christmas this year since I am due in 22 days!  We didn't want to risk having the baby on the road or on the plane! :)  Although it would have be great to be with our families we enjoyed being at home with just our family and watching Brooklyn enjoy all the gifts she received. I am doing a lot better than I thought I would not being with my family but then again I have surprised myself the last few months adjusting well here! Normally I don't adjust to change well and when I have adjusted, I am doing just fine and don't want to change again haha.

We have been able to enjoy many Christmas parties, Brooklyn's preschool Christmas pageant, dinner outings with friends, visiting Christmas displays around the town, making gingerbread houses and Christmas treats, and shopping! We are so blessed this year to have Matt home with us for the holidays for 3 whole weeks! Since he is a student and a swim coach the school was closed for the holidays which meant we got Matt all to ourselves and still have him to ourselves until New Year's Day, he will be gone for a whole week. He will be flying out to SUNNY Florida for swim training with the team he coaches... lucky you Matt... all warm and getting some tan while I am all cold and big with child! haha I am glad he gets to go becuase he is just loving the coaching job and misses all his swimmers! Let's just hope the baby doesn't decide to come early!

During our break we have also been transferring all our "junk" that I thought I had de-junked before we moved here into storage bins we got on sale!  We are tired of cardboard boxes breaking and not finding where our stuff is at if we need it. Going through this process we are de-junking again! Its amazing how some things are hard to part with.. hint hint Matt..... I could say that a good number of the boxes are my sweet husband's and he has a hard time parting with them... Silly guy!

Brooklyn is such a sweetie! She is growing so fast and maturing into a cute young kid! She is so excited for baby Taylor to arrive and always wants to buy stuff for her. The other morning out of the blue while we were all laying in our bed Brooklyn told daddy, "Dad when Taylor is born, I am going to share with her all of my toys!" She really has such a sweet spirit and Taylor is going to be so lucky to have such a great big sister!  Brooklyn often times comes and gives my belly a big kiss and often ask me if Taylor has been talking to me. I tell her that Taylor is so excited to be with her big sister and Brooklyns smile grins from ear to ear and she radiates... We love you Brooklyn!

Enjoy the pictures! There are so many!

Our sweet angel!

Getting ready to go sledding on Christmas day! Brooklyn got a new sled along with all the snow gear!

Getting ready to go sledding! Surprisingly there is not a lot of snow here in Rochester so we had to search for a big hill that had enough snow to down a few times. U of Rochester's big hills came through for us! You can't really tell but its raining....

The trek up the big hill!

This isn't a good picture but its the best I got! Dang it I need to brush up on my camera skills... Matt got me a new camera for Christmas along with Photoshop... I got some learning to do!

We visited a Christmas display that had 7 large trains running in a big village. I would love to have lived in that village... If only I could be like Mary Poppins and jump into it!

Isn't this so neat!

I love the drive in set up! The movie is the The Polar Express!

More displays!

During one of our Christmas shopping rounds we realized the kitchen we bought her was too big for the trunk! Hence the blindfolding!

All excited on Christmas morning! She didn't even notice all her presents to the left hahaha... We had to point it out to her. She came running down the stairs and ran right to the Christmas tree  and knelt down! It was so cute and funny!

Brooklyn's gifts she totally didn't see... how could she not I am not sure!

Our Christmas! Notice the bass amp on the far right. Matt LOVES this thing and is teaching himself to play the electric bass! He is doing so well and loves learning!

Brooklyn got a Baby Alive doll which actually goes #1 and #2... We won't actually be feeding her all the baby food the doll came with... don't want any accidents now do we! She is wearing her cute flower clip her cousin Kade sent her along with her silver bracelet (can't see). Matt and I also got her a pretty silver necklace with her name on it. She wore it all day!

Opening gifts!

Grandma and Grandpa Kelsch and Bailey both bought a Disney digital camera for Brooklyn. The above picture is a product of it! I love this picture!

Thought you might like to see my basketball belly! (Don't mind the not so matching clothes... We had just gotten back from a Christmas Eve party and I need to get out of my jeans and get comfy!)

Brooklyn just loved Santa Claus! She asked for a Dora doll which Santa brought her! She was so excited!

Making gingerbread houses at our friends house!

Brooklyn loves her preschool! She was one of the 3 wise men in the Christmas Pageant. She did so well on her part singing, "We three Kings". I am so grateful for a fun preschool that allows the teachings of Jesus and God. Not many schools can make reference to even Christ... What a blessing it is to have her in this preschool.

After the pageant the preschool kids and their families celebrated Jesus' birthday with yummy cake and a gift exchange between the children.

What's wrong with this picture?  Ummm... yeah Brooklyn's face says it all! We locked ourselves out by roping off the doors!

Jumping in like Dukes of Hazard!

At 7 months pregnant and able to fit myself through.... I did have help though... Matt had to pick me up so I could at least get my feet through! We laughed and laughed it was soooo funny!

During this holiday break Matt was able to take some tennis lessons from the head coach at U of R. He is just loving it!

Being Silly and things Brooklyn enjoys doing!

When I downloaded some pictures from my camera I came across these three pictures of Brooklyn! This was back in October. She is such a camera nut! She loves to take pictures of anything, including herself!

Here are three pictures she took of herself! I love you Brooklyn!

When its too cold to go outside Brooklyn loves to paint! Among other things, she loves to play with puzzles and wants to do a 500 piece one I keep putting off doing cause it would take FOREVER! She also loves to read books, play chutes and ladders, dominoes, rummikub and scrabble (she is still working on figuring out how the games work (dominoes, rummikub, scrabble) often we just line them up and make train tracks or even number them out. She is very creative!

Loves to eat ice cream... especially when its a late night snack!

She enjoys putting on her scarf and gloves that Aunt Amie sent to her! She also loves her lady bug boots! I know these things don't match but sometimes I don't want to put up a fight about it. We are at the library which is another thing Brooklyn loves to do when we are stuck inside.

More things we have done, I know I have so many pictures to post... we have done alot!

More pictures that need to be posted! We really did a lot for the first couple of months that we were here since Matt had alot time off before school and swimming got busy.

The Genese River. We took a stroll at one of the biggest parks I have ever seen and its so beautiful and such a fun place for the whole family!

We took Brooklyn to the "Lollypop Farm". Its an animal adoption facility but they allow families to come and see all the animals. Brooklyn had a great time and just loved to see all the dogs! She got so excited and wanted to visit every room where the dogs were!

Taking a few poses outside in the nice weather. We saw all the outside animals, horses, cows, sheep, goat, ducks, etc.

Showing my little bump.... that was then...

Love Brooklyns face! I think she was tired of us getting pictures of her!

What can I say? Such a sweet angelic face....

Checking out the goats!

Matt and the cow having a staring contest.... Matt DOES NOT like cows! He has had bad experiences with them while dirt biking and even to the point where he drove over one on the freeway and took a dive in the car! Luckily he was alright and luckily the cow was already dead when he ran over the cow (this happened at 1:30 am in morning after Matt had dropped me off from a date before we got married).

Horses!

A painted statue of a horse. Pretty artistic! They seem to have lots of different horses created in different ways, hence the mitt horse in the below post.

More random things we have done since we have moved to NY

I have not been doing a good job posting the pictures of things we have done since we have moved here like I said I would.... Time just gets away from me! I guess thats a good thing to say because it shows I am busy here and not wallowing in depression or anything that I am not in Utah with my family, although I do miss them. But I am enjoying it here with new friends and a new adventure. I also love the dependency Matt and I have for each other since we don't have other family around. Its been really good for us and I love spending time with my little girl! So here are some random pictures from a couple months ago!

One of my absolute all time favorite picture of Matt and Brooklyn. We were at the Red Wings baseball game. It was deaf night and we got to meet some great people, eat free food and just mess around (see below).... I love Brooklyn's smile.... so darling...

Not sure what I was doing, but I think I remember Brooklyn asked me to make a funny face since she was playing with the camera and wanted to take pictures. Its not so much a funny face as it looks like a scary face! For those who know the Kelsch family, we can make some pretty wierd faces! I guess we are just so animated!

At the game!

We have a neighborhood pool and Brooklyn was just dying to get a swim in! It was the first of Sept when the weather was still warm! We pass by the pool everyday and she just can't wait to back in! Unfortunately we only got to go one time since the pool closed for the season on Sept. 7th.

Strutting her stuff!

Back in Sept Matt wanted to swim on this 2 mile course he heard about at Candandaigua Lake. When we arrived we were amazed at how they blocked off sections for a "swimming pool" it was really neat and we definitely know we are going to go back in the summer several times!

Into the freezing water he goes on his two mile swim out!

Brooklyn and I waited on the grass for dad and she had the camera again. She is pretty good at taking pictures don't you think? If I had known we could swim I would have brought her swim suit so she could swim too! Darn it!

After the swim! He felt good about it and just loves to swim! You are so Hot cutie!

On the way back home from the Lake, Matt spotted this "smooth long boarding hill" and he just had to get out and take a stroll down it. He loooves to long board and will stop any chance he gets to take a fun ride! We keep the long board in the trunk for that reason!