Christmas 2013 in review

We had such a great Christmas break this year filled with just the right amount of family time, relaxation, and fun. I'll caption the following string of photos to review some of the festivities and highlights.

Dameon spent a lot of time (and froze his fingers off) trying to transform our home into "our Christmas house" as Henry calls it. He did a GREAT job! (I'll just gloss over the 8 foot blow-up Santa that was a late addition to the yard and just say, "WHY???") We also have a couple Christmas traditions in our little town. The first is driving through City Park any night during the month of December where we have our own mini version of Jolly Holiday Lights. Henry loves it and I'm sure Warren will next year. We made it through twice this year. Also, the day after Thanksgiving the shops on the square host a festival of lights. It culminates with a lighted parade and Santa Claus sprinkling his magic dust and lighting all the buildings/courthouse/trees. This was our first time attending that event and I'm sure we'll be back!

Henry and I all ready for Christmas Eve church service. This year we attended Lutheran Church of Hope with the Place crew. GREAT message. If there's anyway to visit their website and watch that service, I highly recommend it.

Our little cuties all dressed up. Is that tie not the cutest?!

Henry's fourth Christmas:                                                          Baby's first Christmas:

Our little family:

Ready!

Yippee!!!!!!!!

the cousins:

Santa stopped by to check on the boys:

Warren was a fan:

Cute little buddy trying out the shaving kit Santa brought him:

henry turns 3

 The day before his birthday, he helped me bake and decorate cupcakes. He was a big fan of the frosting and, of course, we had to sample our work. (Notice how the only part of the cupcake he ate was the top.)

On December 19, Dameon took the day off work so we could do "Henry stuff" all day. Right away when he woke up in the morning we gave him his gift which was a train table with all the good Thomas stuff. We've been planning this gift since the second Dameon said, "It's a boy!" so there was a great deal of anticipation going on. We were pleased with his reaction and have enjoyed watching his imagination grow over the past few weeks. 

We ate a breakfast consisting of Casey's donuts (with sprinkles) and then hit the road to Des Moines. First stop: Build A Bear Workshop. Henry had never been! He chose a little dog and named him Sammy.

 We also saw Santa at the mall and made the dumb decision to pay the $500 it costs to have someone else take the picture. Live and Learn. Our second stop was to what Henry calls "the marble store." Also known as The Learning Post. I can't remember why I didn't take any pictures there but Henry and Dameon had lots of fun playing with the marble ramp and other toys they have out for display. Third stop: Lunch at our favorite pizza place, Sam and Louie's! (Again, no pictures. Sheesh! Fail.) Fourth stop: Monkey Joe's. Henry loves that place and Dameon only had to use his teacher voice once with some rowdy kid, so it was a total success! I did a little bouncing, but mostly kept Warren content in the Ergo carrier.

 Henry hugged Sammy the whole way home, even after falling asleep about 2 minutes outside Monkey Joe's parking lot.

When we got back to our house, we had a birthday dinner of meatloaf and potatoes with cupcakes for dessert.

On December 28, we celebrated with our families. It was a Thomas the Tank Engine party!

 (Kudos to my mom for cutting out and gluing wheels on all 13 of our train cars!)

Decorating the cake turned out to be a bit of an intense process.

Happy 3rd Birthday to our sweetie pie!!!

nine (and a half) months

Teething. Oh, teething. That pretty much sums up Warren at this age. Well, I guess that's not totally true but teething seems to be at the forefront. He's having a bit of a tough time but I did discover these great little things called Hyland's Teething Tablets. WELL WORTH THE $10. Actually, it's kinda good that this is a belated post because in the past few days it seems like he has changed a lot. All the sudden he is really taking off on some new skills. He waves bye-bye (always with his right hand), is starting to handle finger food, gets up on hands and knees/rocks back and forth, sometimes does "So Big", and pretty consistently puts himself to sleep for naps without any crying. I missed the well-check this time because I didn't want to take the boys into the doctor's office right before Christmas, so I don't have any percentiles. Here's what I do know:

• size 4 diapers
• size 12-18 month clothes
• no teeth yet but getting very close. The top two and bottom two are right there!
• no crawling or forward scooting yet
• says Ma-Ma and Da-Da often
• plays peek-a-boo with a blankie
• spends less time in his baby swing than ever before
• still likes his binky
• loves to spend time in Henry's room
• started eating three meals a day in addition to nursing
• still loves his bath
• lets Daddy put him to bed almost every night (sweet freedom!)
• waves bye-bye
• blows the best raspberries I've ever seen