Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas here. Owen's first Christmas and while Jacob got Christmas last year, he remembered it this year, so he was really into Christmas. We started Christmas Eve with church followed by dinner and friends at Grammy's house. It is always fun to hang out with the Morrows on Christmas Eve, but with both kids this year we didn't get to play our annual Christmas trivia game. Both boys fell asleep on the way home that night and stayed asleep when we got home (a rarity for both boys.)

Fortunately, they also both slept in on Christmas morning! What a wonderful Christmas present for me and Josh! Jacob was so excited when he woke up though! He came into our room and said Santa brought lots of presents then ran back to the living room. We had to make him come back to our room because he was trying to open his stocking before we got out there! There was so much stuff under the tree this year, and due to crappy toy packaging, lots of really big boxes. Jacob was excited to rip into everything. Owen was amused with the presents, but Jacob, Josh and I had to help him open. And then he liked eating the paper and playing with the boxes or playing with the toys Jacob had already opened.

We hung out and played for a while after opening presents while waiting for Grammy and grandma to get here for breakfast. Owen took a nap so when Grammy got here we ate breakfast and then started round 2 with presents from Grammy. Jacob was so tired and said he was too tired to open any more presents. We told him we will just tell Santa not to bring so many next year! After we finished with Grammy's presents grandma got here and we opened her presents. Now we have a house full of new toys and books and movies that we have to figure out what to do with! But the boys had a great Christmas and it was a great first Christmas for Owen. I can't wait for next year to do it again!

Owen ready for tamales

 

Owen opening his first present with Jacob's help

 

 

Jacob playing Santa

 

Opening his first present, Planes DVD

 

The boys with the girls

 

And this is why we have professional family pictures taken every year

 

I love this face

 

 

Pretty mantle

 

Round 1

 

Greatest picture ever

 

 

 

He wanted a globe for Christmas

 

Who needs toys, I've got a box!

 

He had been asking for this since October, he was so excited!

 

Josh was super excited for his tickets to the Heart of Dallas Bowl

 

Round 2, and Jacob did not want a picture

 

One of Owen's presents was bigger than him!

 

Loving his new suitcase from Grammy

 

The aftermath

 

Merry Christmas!

8 Months

Yep. 8 months already. I feel like time is  moving so much faster with Owen than it did with Jacob (and it felt fast with him!). This month has been a month full of accomplishments for Owen. He is now crawling on his hands and knees 90% of the time (sometimes he crawls on his belly on the hardwoods), which also means he is moving more quickly and into more things. He pulls to standing on everything, couch, tv stand, laundry basket, toy baskets, crib. In the past two weeks walking into his room to get him from his crib he has frequently greeted us by standing in his crib bouncing and yelling. We will be lowering the crib mattress over the Christmas break. He is also crusing along anything he pulls up on. He can go the entire length of the couch now. He also likes to walk pushing his dino. It is slow but he does go. He still doesn't have any teeth, but that has not stopped him from eating everything we are now. He loves fruit and there are usually not many leftovers for Cosmo to clean off the highchair now. He loves his blankie and grabs for it when he is tired. He is very attached to me and when I get home from work he wants me to hold him rightthissecond, do no pass go, do not collect $200. Josh has to follow me around holding Owen no less than 5 feet from me while I change. When he is tired he doesn't want me to put him down. He is very vocal about what he wants, if he is hungry or tired he crawls over to me and squeals to be picked up. When someone takes something from him or he wants something he can't get to he screams. Owen still wakes up 2-3 times a night most nights, but in the last week or so he has started getting on a normal day time napping schedule. It is so much harder to always ensure he gets his naps than it was with Jacob.

 

Trying to escape

 

 

 

Family Pictures

We had family pictures taken back before Thanksgiving with the lovely and talented Sara from Little Ones Rock again. She always does a great job. It is one thing that we splurge on every year because it is important to us that we have nice pictures of all of us for us and to document our family growing and growing up. Most people should have their Christmas cards from us so I can finally share some of the pictures. They turned out great (as always), even though Owen was getting over a cold and couldn't breathe through his nose and trying to get two kids looking and smiling at the camera at the same time is really difficult! (All of these pictures are copyrighted, please do not copy them)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Christmastime fun

Busy busy busy! With the short time between Christmas and Thanksgiving this year plus two crazy boys we have been going non stop. Christmas shopping has been difficult with Jacob more aware so I have done most of it online. But wrapping has also been difficult since the boys generally nap on opposite schedules. In between doing all of these things, Jacob and I have also been busy doing Christmas baking and we all went to go see Santa at the mall last week since the ice storm interfered with our first attempt. Plus, we have been doing our normal stuff like work, school, and playing. Owen has been busy learning new things that scare me, like standing in his crib, cruising along furniture, and chasing Jacob around the house. Whew. I am ready to be off of work for a week, one less thing to worry about while I try to finish getting ready for Christmas and Josh has 3 more days of work before a much needed break for him as well.

Such concentration while decorating cookies

 

Playing in the refrigerator

 

Excited to see Santa

 

 

 

 

Cookies with Santa

We have been cooped up in the house since Thursday afternoon because of the cold and ice. Josh got an extra day off this week on Friday because of the ice and I cancelled my clients on Saturday morning because the roads were still icy. The boys and I went out early Thursday to get our grocery shopping done and there were a ton of people at the grocery store at a time that is normally pretty quiet. Friday Josh, Jake and I went outside for a bit and played and Josh and Jake went out later to walk around on the ice. Jake and I also started making some Christmas cookies. He loves helping me cook and bake. Saturday afternoon we had our HOA Christmas event which was at the fire station that is 4-5 blocks away. We had talked to Jake about it and he knew Santa was going to be there, so we didn't want to not go. In the morning Josh headed out to put some de-icer on our drive way and attempt to scrape away some ice so we could get out. So in the afternoon we warmed up the car, bundled up, and drove the half a mile to the fire station. The roads were still crappy and what is normally a 2 minute drive took us almost 10 minutes, but we made it safely. We spent about 2 hours visiting with Santa, doing some crafts, seeing the fire trucks, and visiting with friends and neighbors. Jake had a blast seeing Santa and having him just walk around and hang out. Owen was not so sure about him. I am hoping that was mostly because he was tired and just didn't want to be away from me. We are still planning on going to see Santa at the mall next week (we were supposed to go on Friday) so hopefully Owen can get a good nap in that day and will be ok then. Today we are planning on making more cookies and working on Christmas cards. We aren't sure if Josh is going to have work tomorrow or not, so we will be waiting to here something on that tonight or tomorrow morning. Hopefully some of this stuff will melt soon!

Before the ice storm...it was 80*

 

 

 

 

 

 

Such a sweet boy, giving a cookie to Santa

 

Funny Santa...

 

Help me momma!

 

I love this picture of them in their matching Christmas pajamas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving plus

We have had quite a busy weekend around here. We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year so we had a lot of getting ready to do. Grammy and the Morrow's came over to celebrate with us. I am sad I didn't get many pictures since I was busy running around getting things ready. Jacob helped with the turkey this year. He was amused by it so he got to help me rub the butter all over it. We watched the parade in the morning off and on, Jacob was really into some parts of it, but the commercials usually ruined his focus. A few days before Jacob and I worked on making turkey place card holders. They turned out so cute! Owen devoured his first Thanksgiving meal. He was particularly fond of the turkey and sweet potatoes. After dinner we watched the Cowboys game and said goodbye to the Morrow's. We just hung out the rest of the evening recovering from a busy day! Grammy spent the night that night and Friday morning we started our decorating. Josh and I did some black Friday shopping for a few hours then we finished decorating the house. Jacob loved helping this year. He hung a bunch of ornaments on the trees and has loved turning on all the lights since then. We had been promising Jacob we could have a movie night one night where he could stay up and watch a movie and have some popcorn. We decided to do it on Friday so we could watch a Christmas movie. Grammy ended up spending the night again that night so she joined in on movie night. Saturday afternoon we headed to Grammy's house to put up her decorations. Everyone was exhausted by Saturday night and we all slept well that night. Sunday we head back out in the morning to the mall. Grammy and I needed to do some shopping and Josh took Jake to do all of the fun stuff at the mall. They went to the train exhibit, went to story time with Santa, saw a puppet show, and stopped by the pet adoption area. Then Jacob got to stuff a Rudolph. We tried to do this last year but they were all out of them when we went. So he has a Rudolph with a light up nose. Whew. This was not a relaxing break at all for Josh! Christmas break should be much more relaxing for everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas pj's night one.

 

The boys having their nightly crawling race