Star Wars Invades Palmer Lake

Halloween was a complete blast and total success this year.  Kevin and I had enough foresight to start working on costumes well before the 31st and consequently completed all 3 of ours!  Mind you, this was no easy task, either.  North was adamant about dressing up as R2D2 this year, and we had no choice but to oblige.  Naturally, Kevin and I had to follow suit with the Star Wars theme so we decided OB1 and Princess Leia had to be put together as well. Kevin went so far as to make a completely homemade replica of Leia's blaster gun!

We started the festivities with Kevin and I running the Creepy Crawl 5K in Palmer Lake.  Costumes were a must but the weather was a bit frigid so we left the boys at the house.  It so happened that we ran into some storm troopers at the race, one of which happened to be none other than my midwife!  She said star wars would be at Boo At The Zoo later in the evening.  We hadn't planned on going down there, but we simply couldn't deny North the chance to meet Darth Vader, another R2D2 and various other Star Wars characters.

North had a blast, other than being freezing cold and (initially) scared of Darth Vader.  He even got to see one of the 'Sand People' and pose for a picture with a storm trooper!  Noah was dressed up as an ewok (it was really just a Saint Bernard costume but everyone else thought he was an ewok so we went with it.)  After hanging with his imposter robot R2D2 he informed me that he was 'the no noise R2D2.'  I beg to differ....

It was an eventful day and I was pretty tired considering Halloween hadn't even arrived yet!  Nonetheless, we made some structural improvements to North's costume over the next few days and we were able to successfully trick-or-treat twice on Halloween day!  Now, I'm trying to convince North he wants to trade in pieces of candy for money to buy a toy.  He seems to prefer being revved up on absolute junk food (a topic of which I'll save my ranting for another day.)  Speaking of, I best be off to play with the cute little man!

Cheers.

Baby Noah and other things...

It came to my attention, with the help of Kevin, that I haven't updated this in a LONG time!  We've been working on Halloween costumes (which are awesome) and he wanted to publish them on our blog.  I thought "Oh yeah, we do have a blog!  I don't know if I even remember the web address."  At long last, though, I found it, recovered my password, and tah-dah!

Since I last posted nearly two years ago we've had another major change in our family.  Baby Noah arrived March 25th, 2012!  As I type he's lying on the floor next to me on his belly fussing at me to pick him up.  However, I'm trying to get him to start working those little baby muscles required for creeping around and eventually crawling around.  He is an amazing baby with a temperament rivaling North's...I might go so far as so say he's an even easier baby than Mr. North was.  His personality is blossoming and he's a complete ham.  His smiles are so big his entire face crinkles.  And...his two front teeth on the bottom have broken through!  Below are newborn pictures of Noah taken by my friend Krystle Fildes.  These were taken on my birthday, March 31st.

North is amazing!  Not only is he the kindest kid I have ever been around, he is also an incredibly compassionate and loving older brother.  Seeing him become such a wonderful person has been so fulfilling to us...our hard work and loving family dynamics have definitely paid off.  He has been completely on board with the addition of Noah and spends hours every day playing with him and teaching him things.

North is also a Lego master and can build just about anything you give him.  His imagination is endless and he is always making up goofy stories.  I've started a list of some of the adorable 4 year old 'reasoning' skills he's developing.  Priceless.  I will sprinkle them in throughout my posts.  At bedtime tonight he told me: "My heart is not breaking 'cause we're together."

Kevin is doing well, just living the dream working Monday-Friday :)  He's finding a few spare moments to continue to work on his car projects, although not many moments these days.  He's enjoying all the fun projects and Lego building adventures that North always wants to do.  He's a hairy beast right now, too, as his Vikings rally beard is getting quite puffy.

I'm spending lots of time with the kiddos and taking them on fun adventures as often as possible.  I've been busy working at both my personal massage office in Castle Rock, as well as another office in Colorado Springs.  However, I'm leaving my Springs office in 5 days-yeah!!!!  I can't wait as I feel as though I've worked too much and missed some precious baby time.

From feast to famine and back again- I'll be posting again in a few short days with pictures of our costumes!!

Love to all!

Thanksgiving!

It was great seeing everybody for Thanksgiving! We had a really great time and a VERY tuckered kiddo. Next stop...Christmas!

Love to all,
Jen, Kevin and North

October Fun

North and his 2nd cousin Addison at the Pumpkin Patch

North and Addison...the pics are a little smudged from
little North fingers all over the camera...

Feeding Sammy after our tough ride!

Taking mom for a ride on Sammy

Faster Grandpa, faster! Whoa, not that fast!

Malcolm chillin'

Oops, missed the ball again!

North playing ball with Malcolm. The video is a little long but we can never get enough, right?!

North's 2nd Birthday and Beyond!

Thanks to all that celebrated North's 2nd birthday with us! We are so proud of our little kiddo and he is such an important person to us. It means so much to us to have everyone's support and involvement in his life!

We've been super busy this year so I've been a little (okay, a lot) behind on posts. We took a trip out to Seattle to see cousin Malcolm in June, went camping in September up to Tiger Run... a little brisk at night but nothing us Nynas' couldn't take, and cousin Gabby visited for the weekend a few weeks ago. School is taking up just about every other nook and cranny of available time I have, but I graduate in December so I'm ALMOST there! We also had a few wonderful weddings we attended, including Corey & Christ-Lyn's in August and Lindsey and Scott's this past weekend.

Kevin is planning on going hunting in a few weeks and bringing home a big elk for the family! When he gets home we'll be taking North trick or treating for the first time...exciting! We'll be sure to post pics of him dressed up...the votes still out for costume ideas so shoot me an email if you have a good one...

Oh, and for those of you with a sick sense of humor I'm sure you'll find a good chuckle in hearing that Sadie got sprayed by a skunk last night at 3:30 in the morning. She's feeling pretty sorry for herself today but I'm pretty sure no one else is very empathetic.

Love to all,
Jen, Kev, and North

Walking!

Some of you have had the great pleasure of witnessing our little athlete in action, but for those of you who haven't, or for anybody that just wants to watch how adorable North is over and over, here is a video of his newest skill! He's been walking for a week now, and getting faster every day! He's even getting so good now he can eat and walk at the same time...an invaluable skill if he wants to hang on to all those precious rolls!

Enjoy!

Learning To Drive

Feel Better Soon!

We were supposed to go visit Grandma Jean, Uncle Kyle and Taylor this morning but it turns out that Uncle and Taylor are both feeling under the weather...so...we are sending them a video to say hi instead! We're sorry we couldn't visit, but we hope you feel better soon.

Love Ya,
Baby North, Jen & Kev

Camping in Breckenridge last weekend

Taking a Stroll...

Summer Fun!

North is fast approaching his first birthday! These past few days have been a little rough for the family as we've been trying to help North Star learn to 'self sooth'...that's the gentle way of saying we've been letting him cry it out! He's figuring it out though, and I finally believe there might be light at the end of the tunnel.

He is growing so fast, he's already nearly 20 lbs and is a very active dude, although his cousins Malcolm & Gabby put him to shame in the 'active' department! He LOVES swimming, swinging, bike rides and the dogs. It won't be long before he's running around with them in the yard!

In June we traveled to Seattle to congratulate Aunt Traci for completing her ND program at Bastyr University. WooHoo Aunt Traci!!!! Malcolm showed both North and Gabby all his newest and coolest toys and they all played together...that is to say they all played together in the same area, sometimes agreeing and who got certain toys, and sometimes not... It's safe to say that Christmas this year is going to be complete chaos!

In July we were able to visit all the family in Minnesota. He met his Great Grandpa Larry, his second cousin Lillian Keuttel whose three months old, and everyone in between! He even had his first boat ride at Island Lake and smiled ear to ear.

Hope everyone is having a fun summer!

8 months!

North and Malcolm Bathing Together
An AWESOME hair day!

North has been with us for 8 months now! We can't believe how fast he is growing and changing. He has so much personality and loves to smile and laugh! He has not started crawling yet (thank goodness!) but does cruise around in circles on the floor. Just this past week he has started on solid foods and so far he's not terribly impressed, I guess we just need to get more creative. He's weighing in somewhere around 18lbs and is now down to 2 1/2 fat rolls on his cute legs! He is also working on a few top teeth, which haven't quite broken through yet but are close. These will be aligning quite well with his bottom 2 that are already in!

I think that covers most of the major North changes....

Kevin and I are doing really well. We are having fun as new parents and we are working well together. We wouldn't want to be anywhere else in our lives right now and are so happy that we have a beautiful home and family!

North talking...sorry the picture is a little dark

Well, we've managed to survive our first 5 weeks of parenthood so we are feeling quite confident now...right! Here are pictures of all of North's visitors!

North Matthew Nynas

North Matthew Nynas was born on September 20th, 2008 at 4:00p.m. He weighed in at 6lbs even and was 19 3/4 inches long! North was born in our home and was delivered in the water/birthing tub we set up in our bedroom. My parents and my sister Leslie had the privilege of witnessing his first breaths and shortly after Kevin's entire family was here to celebrate his arrival as well. He is a healthy and happy baby and Kevin and I are so proud of our accomplishment.

My labor was relatively uneventful, with the exception of the umbilical cord being wrapped around North's neck. Luckily, we had a very skilled midwife working with us who took care of things with great skill and confidence. North was able to nurse shortly after his arrival and then slept for many hours, no doubt he was exhausted from all the hard work he did and stress of entering the world. Unfortunately, Kevin and I didn't sleep nearly so well our first night as we were pumped!