Christmas Eve Traditions

Now that we have a family of our own we started a new tradition that we always spend Christmas Eve at our house with our family. We attend Christmas Eve service at church, eat Christmas Eve dinner, open presents, and watch our favorite Christmas movies – It’s a Wonderful Life and Love Actually while we eat the treats I make earlier in the day and drink homemade hot chocolate. Afterwards we prepare for our visit from Jolly Old St. Nick! We write a letter to Santa, set out a plate of milk and cookies, and say our goodbyes to "Nose" the Elf. We check the Santa Tracker and when we see he’s in Texas we put out the reindeer food and then hurry off to bed to read the Night Before Christmas. Afterwards it's lights out and time to close our eyes so that Santa will be sure to stop at our house and leave us lots of goodies for Christmas morning.

You Raise Me Up

One of my favorite pictures of my Dad with Meredith. She was so happy! This picture reminds me of all the times he carried me around on his shoulders when I was a little girl. The funny thing is, his hair is the same shade of white as it was back then.

Another cute picture I took of Meredith in my parent's yard.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Riley really gets into the holiday spirit. Can't you tell?

Off to Opa and Oma’s house he goes…

Jonah went and spent a couple of nights with his Opa and Oma. This was his first trip to a grandparent’s house without us! He was very excited especially since his cousin Kayla was also going. They played and even took a trip to the Zoo.

*Thanks Oma for the Zoo pics*

Monkeying Around

My sweet little Christmas monkeys.

Ice Ice Baby

We took Jonah to visit the Ice exhibit at the Gaylord Texan. It was amazing and very COLD! This year’s theme was How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Jonah really loved going down the ice slide. So did his dad and uncle!

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It’s Gettin’ Hot in Here

We took a tour of the fire station with our MOPS group. The highlight of the tour was the fireman demonstrating how they slide down the pole when the alarms go off! The boys loved it!

 

Why you should not let children dress themselves

Jonah’s Self Portrait

Jonah loves taking photos with my camera. Here is his self portrait.

It snows in Texas??

Yes, sometimes we get snow. It’s rare but it does happen occasionally. We had our first taste of true winter weather with a mild snow storm the other day. Jonah was so excited. I could barely get him dressed fast enough before he was running out the door!

Christmas Card Time

Just to give you an idea of what parents go through to get that “picture perfect” pose for the family Christmas Card.

Picture number 27

 

Picture number 53

Picture 89

 

and finally a picture with both of them smiling!

Picture 105

Exceptional Eight

Eight months old today.

Two front teeth. (just in time for Christmas)

Loves Puffs and Earth’s Best Organic Gourmet Meals.

Started sitting up on her own.

Falls asleep listening to Lifescapes Lullabies. (so does Mommy)

Cries when Jonah leaves the room.

Her favorite games are Peek-a-boo and “Super Merdi.”  Josh flies Meredith around chasing Jonah while yelling, “It’s Super Merdi to the rescue!”

Nose “Knows”

Our Elf showed up the day after Thanksgiving. After brief introductions Jonah decided to name him Nose and when I asked him why the name Nose he said, “Because he “knows'” if you’ve been bad or good!” I can’t argue with that.

Every night while they are asleep, Nose will leave our house and fly to the North Pole to tell Santa if Jonah and Meredith have been good or bad during  the day.  The next morning he will return and find a new spot to watch from.  And if Jonah has been good the day before there will be a small surprise in his old spot.

I’m wondering if I can talk Nose into staying all year.

Giving Thanks

We had a lot to be thankful for this year on Thanksgiving……

A precious daughter

 

Having fun with cousins

Our little family

The first Thanksgiving “kids” table

and an Uncle that knows how to roll around on the ground and have some fun!

Hoping you and your family had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Haven’t you Heard….

that the Heard Museum has been invaded by Dinosaurs? One of Jonah’s favorite museum exhibits is the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit at the Heard Museum in McKinney. A perfect place close to home to get outside and see life-size animatronic Dinosaurs. We went with a group of friends and had a great time learning more (this is our third trip to visit the exhibit) about different Dinosaurs.

 

Ewww..that’s Gross

Sneezing, Coughing and Vomiting…no, I’m not talking about the Flu. I’m describing the Grossology exhibit at the Sci-Tech Discovery center in Frisco. It’s an exhibit that explores all the slimy, mushy, oozy, scaly, stinky and gross (yet scientific) things that occur everyday in the human body. Jonah loved checking out all the “gross” stuff. His favorite exhibit was shooting “boogers” in the giant nose! Welcome to the world of little boys!

 

 

Family Food and Dinosaurs

A weekend of family, food and taking Jonah to see Walking with Dinosaurs in Austin.

We had our first Thanksgiving feast with Josh’s family over the weekend. The three and half hour drive down was uneventful. Two potty break stops and one stop for dinner. Tired and ready for bed after we arrived, I took the two little ones upstairs. Jonah fell asleep fairly fast but Miss M had other plans. I tried for five hours to get her to go to sleep but she was persistent. I finally got up out of bed at 3am and headed downstairs only to find Josh and Jon having a debate on arbitration. I was hoping that conversation would lull Miss Meredith to sleep as fast as it did me but apparently she found the discussion quite intriguing so we went back upstairs for round two of bedtime. I finally gave up at 6am after I thought I might jump from their second story window. I put Meredith in the car and headed out for some early morning shopping and sight seeing. If only Target was open at 6am. I could have done a lot of damage considering I was running on zero hours of sleep. But unfortunately they were closed. So we settled for shopping at CVS and trip to Starbucks.

We came back home as the rest of the crew was starting to stir. Later that day we took Jonah and Kayla to see Walking with Dinosaurs.  One word. INCREDIBLE! I highly recommend it if your kids like Dinosaurs! Jonah loved it and Josh and I really enjoyed it too!

After the show we had our family Thanksgiving dinner with Opa, Oma, Jen and Uncle Bill! Ten adults, four children and seven dogs. Yes, you read that right! Seven dogs. We brought Riley. Jerod and Lauren brought Gizmo. Jon and Amy have Bo and Aspen and then Uncle Bill brought his three labs with him from Corpus!

That night, I went through Meredith’s normal bedtime routine and wouldn’t you know she fell asleep right away and slept all night and so did I! Thank. You. Jesus.

It was a little crazy but I was really thankful that we could all be together! And really what would Thanksgiving be without a little craziness?

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One tired Mommy

I would love to sit down tonight and write a lengthy post about some interesting topic or funny little story that has happened this week but the truth is I’m tired and my mind feels like a bowl full of noodles. I’ve got a to do list that needs some major attention but it’s been one of those weeks where I’ve felt like staying in my pjs all day, I’ve missed a couple of appointments because they were not written down in my planner, and I’ve really been procrastinating packing for our trip out of town this weekend.

I’m hoping I’m more organized and more energized next week! 

I will tell you one short story from tonight. As we were sitting down to eat dinner Jonah said “Oh my Gosh! Mommy, you are soooo crazy! Crazy, Crazy, Crazy!!” He wasn’t suppose to find that out until he was older! Heh! 

Enjoy a few photos that I did manage to take this week as I lounged around in my pjs.

 

Jonah recently found a set of Josh’s Super Man sheets from when he was Jonah’s age.  Just this week we have used one as a blanket for our indoor picnic, as a tent, and as his nap companion.

Jonah the Storm Trooper

This week she had another tooth come in, started sitting up on her own (I have a video but need some pictures) and starting getting up on all fours rocking back and fourth. My guess is in the next week or so she will be crawling!

Walked into Meredith’s room after hearing her wake up from her nap on the monitor and found Jonah had beat me to her room. This is not the first time I have found him in the crib with her. 

Circling the gifts that he wants to ask Santa for in the Toys R Us catalog. I was expecting to see every toy circled but to my surprise only two things were marked – An Imaginex dinosaur and a dragon fortress!

Daddy, I’m ready to go shopping!

Every girl should have a pink Visa right??