December!

I’m getting so close to completing my catch-up marathon… I see the light at the end of the tunnel!

We really did a lot, starting with our church’s Christmas party.  I’m pretty darn sure that I was more excited about Santa than the children were.  I heard some rumor that a guy from church was going to get dressed up as Santa (don’t' get  me wrong – I wanted to see that) but when the real Santa came through the door I think a little-girl shout escaped my lips and probably a little-girl “Santa is here!”  I was sooo bummed when I got home and searched through my pictures only to salvage these:

Jack was more happy with the candy cane than with anything else.  He wouldn’t even look at the camera for a smile because he was too busy digging through Santa’s present to find more.

I’ll probably get over my disappointment by next Christmas.  I have a new motivation to track Santa down again and get better pictures.

 

Anyway, Jack has become a good little photographer! Here’s some of his best ones so far…

Jack’s Photography VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

He would take a bunch of pictures and then run to me, “Mom, please help - I wanna see my pictures!” He was having such a blast with it! For Christmas, he received a camera and a video recorder from his grandparents, which makes me so relieved.  I don’t have to worry about him breaking mine!

 

Another thing we did was visit my sister in Portland.  Jack LOVES his cousins and I thought it would be a good time to go because they were moving to a new house.  So while I helped pack, he played non-stop:

 

Tommy has been growing and growing and growing.  He is definitely a heavy weight! And he is starting to sit up, laugh and grab for things.  But sleeping is still his favorite pass time.

Spending time with Grandmom and PopPop was another favorite pass time for the boys and we got fun Christmas shots at their house:

 

A discovery that I’ve made is I need to eat every few hours to keep my sugar levels up and a smile on my face.  But I didn’t realize that Pete discovered that same thing until one night when trying to decide what snack I wanted before crashing for the night.  He offered to get something from the kitchen for me and after a while I started to wonder if he had forgotten or had fallen asleep… but he finally appeared with this:

Gorgeous! Yummy! But way too late to eat such a meal.  I laughed and thanked him but was feeling pretty guilty about mentioning that I really can’t eat so much before going to bed.  I promised to be more clear about what “hungry” meant and then enjoyed it together.  So sweet, Pete!!

 

Jack made his first appearance on stage with his classmates performing in a Christmas recital and I… I really don’t know how to describe it.  They dressed Jack in an angel’s costume – which is like dressing a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  I love, love, love my Jack-Jack but he is definitely all boy.  The halo didn’t stand a chance.  The belt made of tinsel lasted maybe 5 minutes before being torn up and then thrown into the audience.  the glow stick just went straight into the audience.  The jingle bells stick was used as a tool to explore the holes in the stage and then thrown into the audience.  And the microphone apparently needed tweaking throughout his time on stage.  Sigh.  Afterwards, I apologized to his teacher but she was very kind, saying, “Oh, it went better than I thought it would!” Sigh again.  Jack.  You are too cute, my son.

		Jack’s Christmas Recital VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

And it took us two months to meet up with our next door neighbors and introduce to two newest additions to the family: Tommy and Melina.  They are only 3 weeks apart, but Tommy looks like a giant next to petite little Melina!

 

Then we were off to Utah for Christmas! That needs it’s own blog post so -

 

To Be Continued…

November’s Goings-On

Catch-up continued…

November was when Jack started school and they invited the local fire department out to show the kids their gear and play in the fire truck.  Jack was ecstatic and darling, but for some reason I didn’t bring my camera! I tried taking pictures on my phone but only this one came out okay.  So sad! Anyway, he was locked onto what the fireman was saying and doing – so much so that he completely ignored my calls to look at me and smile. 

 

Some other fun things that happened are… Jack picked out his own clothes and dressed himself for the first time! Brown was the color of the day.

 

Tommy started smiling and giving up the most adorable gooing sounds!

 

Pete and Jack helped PopPop mow the lawn:

 

We took some family photos:

 

And enjoyed some great snow days!

(There’s not much of Tommy and me since we were inside staying warm and fighting off the nasty pneumonia!)

 

Thanksgiving was the big event in November – we got to enjoy two delicious dinners!

It was so fun having the Goldings up and having a big feast with Ricky and family and Billy and DD and family. (Not sure why I didn’t get any pictures of the other families… hmmm… I’ll blame it on being sick.)

 

After the mid day feast with my side of the family, we headed over to Art and Connie’s house for another feast with Pete’s side of the family and some great friends! Again, I didn’t take any pictures and I think Jack had had enough of my forgetfulness so he took up the camera himself! Here are some of his better shots:

Good job, kiddo!