Celebrating the Season

Birthday Season is wrapping up for 2010. Three days after Eli's, we celebrated Daddy's birthday. Again, family came over to help us celebrate with chicken wings and....

DOUGHNUT CAKE! Eli (a.k.a. Spiderman) was a little excited and was sure to help Daddy blow out his candles.

Happy Birthday, Daddy! We love you!

And then it was on to Jesus' birthday and Christmas. We were at the Carson's this year, and it was a very fast and furious holiday this year.

It has been decided that this will be our last "traveling" Christmas as it is getting trickier for Santa to find us. Next year, it will be (as Eli says) easy peezy, lemon squeezy for Santa to find us since we plan to stay home and visit with family in the days after Christmas. I can't tell you how much I am already looking forward to next year. We love our families, but the relief of not having to travel with kids and Christmas...not to mention making it easy on Santa...is easing my mind already.

We didn't get to many of the projects I had for us to do in the final days before Christmas, but it was great to be a family of 4 this year and to be together. So what if we didn't bake as much or have time for our Christmas Eve traditions. There was so much more. When asked his favorite part of Christmas, without an ounce of hesitation or much thought, Eli's quickly told us, "That it is Jesus' birthday." So, though family time and presents are great and fun, even a just-turned-4-year-old knows what it is REALLY all about. (Cue Mommy and Daddy doing a happy dance and slapping high fives!)

Joy to the World & Merry Christmas!
(Our cards will be late this year...still getting my act together in that department.)

You Better Watch Out!

Back for a second day in a row. After a hassle-filled morning of errands and crabby boys, I have a moment of peace while the babes nap.

Last week we snuck on over to see Santa. Eli was timid at first, but was lured easily with a candy cane (remind me to remind him NOT to go with strangers who offer candy!!) over to Santa's lap.

While I gently wrestled a sleeping Jude out of his stroller, Eli quickly filled the "Big Man" in on his Christmas Wish List: a two wheeled bike, a voice changer megaphone, and a rocket clock. The list has morphed a bit since early December but has stayed strong with these three items once his letter to the North Pole was written. E had no problem cheesing it up for the camera, and Jude never even knew what happened.

As I have said before, we are trying to keep the real reason of Christmas alive in our house, but Santa is welcome too. This year Eli got a very personal message from Santa on the computer and in a letter. Much to our surprise (and dismay?) he was not impressed with either. Warnings of the naughty and nice list work for a few minutes, but then he is back to his old ways. Coal has crossed our minds, but we are chalking it up to all of the excitement around here the past month or so. Hopefully Santa will be understanding as well and still make a stop with some gifts from Eli's wish list. We'll have to wait and see....

My Birthday Boy!

Holy cow! We have a 4 year old. Yesterday, we celebrated Eli's 4th birthday, and boy oh boy was it a perfect day to turn 4.

* We also celebrated with some of E's friends on Saturday...but that blog post will have to wait as I am awaiting pictures from a friend's camera. My battery died moment after the party started *

The day began with a "pancake cake" as Eli dubbed it...complete with chocolate chips, sprinkles (of course!) and candles. And that was only the beginning.

Off we went to Zoinks to meet up with some buddies to bounce, play a few games, and spend earned tickets on a bubble gum lollipop.

From there, it was off to Chik-Fil-A to eat and play. We have been avoiding going in to eat ever since Jude joined the family, but it was a special day.

Then it was home for a good nap so that we could wake up for a movie, hot chocolate, and popcorn.

And finally, family joined us for a birthday dinner picked by the birthday boy himself: Kraft mac & cheese, hot dogs, carrots and broccoli. Mmmm!

Present time! He had so much fun opening the presents this year and really seems to love everything. The Superman shirt was a hit....

And his Mobigo. "I always wanted this!" He didn't even know what it was called....didn't even ask for it, but he knew he wanted it. Awesome! Homerun, Mom and Dad!

The evening was topped off with birthday cupcakes and ice cream. Delish!

As cliche as it sounds...it is true....time flies. How can our baby be 4?

Eli, you are smart, silly, and sometimes sassy. Mommy and Daddy are incredibly proud of you and can't imagine life without you. We are excited for more adventures that are in store for us this year. We love you, Eli! Happy happy birthday!

Sweet Smiles

Finally got some good ones.

When he's not refluxing, he's a happy boy: cooing, staring, and smiling. Sadly, he refluxes a lot and it makes him sad. Us too. We are talking 20-40 times on a bad day. Poor baby! All who hold sweet Jude are warned and armed with a burp cloth, but he has an art for missing the burp cloth completely. My perfume these days is "eau de barf." Don't get too close.

I hear that babies outgrow reflux, but we have debated taking him to the pediatrician for medical intervention advice. Any of you with info or experience with babies that barf, feel free to share your two cents with us. We are open to most all ideas at this point. Especially if it helps our sweet baby share his smile with us more often.

Friday Fun

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! My little baby is 4 weeks old today! Time is flying, and though some days seem very (very!) long, the weeks are blowing by quickly.

On Sunday, this strong fella will officially be 1 month old. I'm already in denial! And to think that my other boy will be 4 in a mere ten days...I'm going nuts trying not to bawl my eyes out. My babies are getting too big too fast.

As promised, I have been working on capturing Jude's precious smile. He hasn't quite mastered it, but it is still super cute to watch him muster up one....or three!

And finally, in my last post, I didn't mention another bit of Advent fun is our Lego Advent Calendar.

Each year (or so it seems) a new set comes out, and with a Lego-lover for a hubby, we have a few. E definitely enjoys putting them together. Sometimes he needs a little help figuring out from the picture.....

...but not today.

Happy Friday, folks. Enjoy the weekend!

Happy New Year

2011 may still be a few weeks away, but the new year has already begun. I'm only a little over a week late as we are now in the second week of Advent–the first season in the church calendar year.

With Eli being older this year and definitely into the stories of Christmas, we have decided that he is ready to start the preparation for the coming of Christ this Christmas...not just the coming of Santa. (Don't get me wrong, we are still making Christmas lists, ho-ho-ho-ing, and talking about being naughty and nice. A fave song this season has already become, Santa Claus is Coming to Town.) Hopefully we have started some new Advent traditions in our home this year that we can continue to years to come.

I managed to get my act together and get candles for our Advent wreath this year. Each night, with dinner, we light the candles and pray together about Jesus' coming.

Eli made an Advent chain that is hanging in his room that he is using to countdown to Christmas morning. He knows his colors of Advent very well now thanks to making the chain.

We are also doing a Jesse Tree without the tree or the ornaments. I know, I know....how can you have a tree without a tree? But we try to get into scripture each night before we sit down for dinner. Eli listens (asks about 437 questions) and colors while we read a Bible story about one of the ancestors of Jesus. He is very into it.

A friend shared a list of great books for Advent, and I went onto the library's handy dandy website and reserved the ones I could. Makes for an easy outing...swing into the parking lot, run in and grab the reserved books. Ta-da! Quality books without the hassle or searching the shelves or being bummed that they are at another library branch. Gotta love it. We have made our way through a few, and I hope to post about our faves another time this month.

Aaaand....We finally got our decorations out this weekend. I have been feeling a bit "Scrooge-like" this year. Not feeling the whole secular Christmas thing. Blame it on better things to think about (Did you know we had a baby last month??), too many other things to do and not a lot of time to do them (Did you know we had a baby last month?), not enough sleep (Did you know we had a baby last month?), or feeling too blessed to need or want any presents (Did you know we had a baby last month?). I'm also admitting to feeling a little Baby Blues and a bit down this month. When you are on the verge of tears it is hard to feel merry and bright. I am hoping that focusing on the birth of Jesus at our house instead of getting all uppity about Santa will help me remember why we celebrate and will help me want to celebrate.

Note the clumping or ornaments at the base of the tree as that is how far Eli could reach, and, yes, I did redistribute them after he went to bed.

Decorating with an almost 4 year old is fun, but challenging. He sees the ornaments as toys more than ever before. Feeling like a broken record telling him not to play with the ornaments and they've only been up for a couple of days! Aye-yi-yi! Patience, Mama!!!

Saturday night we ventured downtown for the Festival of Lights parade. Made me feel like a big, happy family. Lots of warm fuzzies. The parade was not impressive to us grown-ups, but Eli loved it.

Jude slept through every last bit of it. Sirens, bands, and all. Crazy kid, but a very content little kid. Love him!

In other fun and exciting news, Jude is nearing 4 weeks old and growing like a weed. Already up 2 pounds from birth (I'm estimating...) I tell him to "Stop it!" everyday. No more getting big. I just love the little-ness. They grow up too fast. Eli looks gi-normous next to Jude....and to think it wasn't that long ago that he was this tiny. I guess I'll just have to keep kissing all of Jude's itty bitty parts while I still can.

Still in "newborn land" filled with lots of nursing, cuddling, holding, rocking, sleeping, burping, spitting, changing, and so on and so forth. The big events for Jude this week are that his umbilical stump finally fell off (yay for belly buttons!! and again, like his big bro's, it is half innie and half outie....so far....), and he is beginning to smile. Still haven't captured a good sample of that elusive grin on camera just yet. They are still a bit sporadic, but intentional and super sweet just the same.

Happy Advent to you all! Hope you are finding time to celebrate Advent in your home this week. It is a joyful time of preparing our hearts for such a beautiful gift, our Savior.
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We've Been Elfed!

Looks like Jude has been blessed with the same "mad skills" as the rest of us.

Trying to get into the Christmas spirit a bit. I started listening to some holiday music yesterday, but we still haven't gotten around to decorating yet. Eli woke up from his nap today, and we got to work "elfing" ourselves. He had so much fun helping me pick the pictures and the movie. You should definitely try it out with your family....and then be sure to share it with me.