Why Parents Celebrate Christmas in the Morning

Because parents who celebrate Christmas at 7pm have children who are too wound up to go to bed and end up acting like this all night:

We had Christmas with our little family tonight since we will be traveling for the holidays. We got Isaac a toy car garage. We were pretty sure he would like it since it is his favorite toy in the nursery at church. He was so excited that he couldn't wait to open the box and then started playing with it even before Ryan had it all put together. Maddie scored with a musical table. The pictures don't do her emotions justice--this girl was even more hyped up than her brother. It was pretty cute to see her so excited. She isn't quite ready to "stand" yet by herself to play with this, but I'm sure the toy will help her get there. The reason I love this toy so much: It sings in English and Spanish. I won a gift card to a local Italian restaurant, so we ate this bad boy for dinner tonight, along with some pasta. If you ask me, free food always tastes better.

Home for the Holidays

"Home for the Holidays" was the theme of our church Christmas party last night. I was on the committee in charge of the food along with two other friends. I never knew how much work went into preparing dinner for 150 people at once until I had to help put it together. My mom is an amazing party planner and I kept wishing that she was there to help me. Luckily all the turkeys were cooked on time and we had plenty of food for everyone.

Here are a couple of pictures of Maddie from yesterday.

She is fascinated with glasses--check out the grip she has on Brother Newman's lenses.

Georgie and Maddie played together most of the afternoon while we got ready for the party, thanks to my friend, Erin, who watched both of them all afternoon (thank you, Erin!).

Maddie loves sucking her thumb so I guess she thought Georgie would love it, too.

Since it's too cold to take walks outside anymore, we usually head downtown on Sunday afternoon to the sky walk. Here is a picture from a walk we took last weekend .

Things are Heating up Around Here

It got up to a toasty 30 degrees the other day (which felt extremely warm compared to the teens we've been experiencing for the past couple of weeks), so we bundled the kids up and took them outside to play in the snow.

Anyone is the mood to watch "A Christmas Story"?

Ryan initially wanted to help Isaac make a snowman, but the snow was too crusty. Luckily someone made this beauty for us to enjoy.

We bought Isaac some snow boots and he has since forgotten how to walk whenever we put them on his feet.

After about 10 minutes of fun in the snow, we realized that 30 degrees wasn't that warm after all.

They grow up so Fast

I eluded in my last post to the fact that I am not ready for Maddie to grow up just yet, and I wasn't kidding. Is it too much to ask that just one of my babies stays a baby forever?

Maddie is six months old today, and I know I always say this but she is such a little angel. I have thought more than once that she will probably give us a run for our money as a teenager to make up for being such an easy-going baby now. She's definitely a keeper and I don't know what we ever did without her.

She loves to grab at the books while being read to. Isaac doesn't love her grabbing quite as much.

One of her favorite toys at the moment--it's in her mouth any time she's in her exersaucer.

Ryan's pushing this "toy" on her. I think she might be taking to it.

In the last week or so she has figured out how to get those chubby legs up on all fours, but she can usually only stay up for a couple of seconds, so I'm sure it will be awhile before she crawls. Isaac calls her "horsey" when she's up like this.

Don't even think about it, buddy.

Merry Christmas!

Stitches

If there was ever a time where I felt like a bad parent, they paled in comparison to tonight. Isaac was "helping" Ryan and I cook dinner. He was sitting on the counter in his bumbo (bad idea, very bad idea) while Ryan chopped up veggies and I stirred the soup at the stove. Isaac suddenly bent forward without warning and plummeted to the floor. The garlic press in his hand broke his fall, smack dab between his eyes. It was pretty messy. He was quite upset, but as we drove to the emergency room about 5 minutes after the accident, I gave him a sucker and he dried right up. No more tears were shed the entire night, even when they put him in a straight jacket and stitched him up six times.

Here is the battle wound:

I realize that I am developing a habit of posting pictures of Isaac being spoon fed things that aren't good for him, but ice cream was his reward for diving off of the counter. The boy loves that stuff.

I still think he's a cute little Frankenstein, even all beat up.

I finally caved and started feeding Maddie solids this week. Eating solids means she's getting bigger and I haven't been ready to face that.

She did quite well in the emergency room also, thanks to the Dora movie they put on in Isaac's room. For some reason she thought it was hilarious.