Christmas Week

Christmas has come and gone again, and I sorta feel like saying "we survived!" Partly because we were not deathly ill this year like we have been the last few(I had a cold but nothing major). And partly because of all the running around to the many festivities. Christmas eve we were at Mom & Dad B's for the traditional dinner, music, and Santa letter. This year we added a nativity to the program that was unintentionally hilarious. At least it was unintentional on the kids part, but I think Thad and Jacob(who played the innkeeper, two shepherds, and the donkey) hammed it up on purpose. Of course I did not take pictures, but I do have some of Christmas morning at our house.
We drug Andi out of bed at 6 (luckily Sammy had already eaten and gone back to sleep). She did not want to get up. Even after I carried her down the hall to the tree she just laid on the floor stretching and whining. After a few minutes though she saw the chest of dress up clothes and got excited about presents and being awake.



She had to try on all the jewelry before she could move onto another gift, but her favorite of the morning was the Nerf gun that she could actually load and shoot herself. She flipped out when she opened that one. I do't have pictures yet of her playing with her gun, but here is one of her playing with Daddy's new long range Nerf sniper rifle, complete with scope and those tri-pod leg thingy's.
We were at my parents house by 7 am and did the present thing with them. Then had a great breakfast and raided our stockings, or as Andi called it, Candy sock. Then we headed to Thad's parents for present at 11, and from there to my granparents for dinner, and finally home around 6 in the evening. In all the running around I missed Bobby's phone call!
Sammy was very cooperative the whole day and mostly slept through the present opening parts, which I loved because we were able to open gifts with Andi and not have to try to do it all one-handed ;)
Friday things slowed down a little but we did go to Rosemary's with the Bulkeley gang and to the park. Then dinner at my parents because my mom's family was getting into town for the Crowley Christmas which happened on Saturday. And all of these events are why I feel like saying "we survived!"
Sam had his 2 month check up today and his first round of shots. He did really well for the shots and only cried untill I picked him up. He is 23 inches long and 13 lbs which puts him in about the 85%.

5 years and counting

Saturday Thad and I celebrated our 5 yr anniversary. Nothing super exciting, just dinner and a movie, but it was soooo nice to go out just the two of us. Thad also surprised me this year with REAL jewelry. He gave it to me early because Andi spoiled the surprise. He came home from work monday and said he had some Christmas shopping to finish and took Andi with him. I guess he wanted a girls perspective because he let her make the final decision between two things. Of course the first thing she says when she came home was "Hey momma, we got you heart necklace." Completely disregarding the whole secret and surprise conversation she and Thad had on the way home ;) I remember when 5 years seemed like forever and even waiting the whole year for Christmas to roll around again took so so long. But the last 5 years have flown by so quickly I can hardly believe it. For those who complain that i never post pics of myself here are a couple comparison shots.

5 years ago in the good ol King Henry courtyard

Yesterday in the good ol living room

Ugh! And now we see why I don't post pictures. I still have baby weight to loose, I need a tan, and I need my long hair back I think.
Anyway, other events of the week. We went Christmas caroling with my family and some friends for FHE and Andi thought it was the greatest thing ever. We had our ward Christmas party on friday night which was nice. And we are officially 100% done with christmas prep. Everything is wrapped and ready to go.
Sammy gets a new cast Wednesday morning, so we'll get to see how he is progressing. Last time the Dr seemed impressed so we hope he continues that way. Here are a couple of cute shots from the week. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas to everyone!

Thad thinks he's going for the cookie. . . I think pacifier

This was his cute Sunday before Christmas church outfit. Of course he wore pants, but this was after his nap at home. I made a big deal of coordinating outfits for church and then failed to get a picture of it. Don't worry we were stinkin cute in our red and black.


He broke out into a big smile and we almost caught it. This is it fading away, but we should get some good smile pics soon, he does it a lot now.

Picture Fiasco

So I decided this year we would get a good picture of the kids and send it out as our Christmas Card. So last week we dressed them in coordinating outfits, curled And's hair and attempted a little photo shoot. It was dumb! Andi would not quit squirming and Sammy did the usual peaceful sweet face until we'd snap a picture. Here's a sampling and the fiasco.



This is the only one I think turned out semi-decently. . . but it's not edited yet.


After this disaster I decided there would be no Christmas card this year. I didn't want one of all 4 of us because that would mean finding coordinating outfits in our closets for all of us, and lets face it, I still have quite a bit of baby-weight to get rid of, so I really didn't want to do a picture. But Thad talked me into trying a whole family one because then we'd be able to hold the kids and make them look nice. So here are the results of that attempt.

Only one of these has been edited yet, can you tell which one ?


Sunday was Sammy's Blessing day and we were lucky enough to have both our parents, two sets of grandparents and a couple of siblings there to share in the day. Of course I did not remember to bring my camera, but don't worry Mom B is always prepared and took pictures, I just don't have copies yet. Here is the one we managed to take before we went to church of Sammy on his big day.Same outfit as the Christmas pictures I know, but it's stinkin cute!

Other than that I can't believe that Sammy will be 6 weeks old tomorrow. It really seems like we just brought him home. Thankfully though he decided that 5 weeks old was a great time to start sleeping through the night. I didn't want to mention it before and jinx it, but he's done it for a week straight now. We put him down between 9 and 9:30 and he wakes up at 6. Babywise is magic! Plus he's just a very good peaceful baby and he'd probably sleep all day too if I let him.
The shopping part of Christmas is totally done. Now we are just finishing up a couple of projects and we will be completely done with 2 weeks to spare! The cards are one of those projects but if you don't get one do not assume we snubbed you, I probably just didn't get them out ;)

Christmas is Coming!

It has been very very foggy the last week, which for me means it's Christmas! I know most people think of a white Christmas as snow, but growing up in Bakersfield where it snows maybe an inch every 10 years, a white Christmas for me means fog. So I've had the itch to get decorations out since the fog set in last week but I held out till Dec 1. Being a Monday night I thought it was a perfect FHE activity to set up our tree. The tree process was a little different this year as Andi is old/big enough to help. So we let her decorate it (which ended up being 20 balls crammed in a 1 ft square of the tree) and then when she went to bed we re-decorated.

This is how Thad decorated Andi while I was "fluffing" the branches.

I was really surprised by how high she could reach on the tree.


Her "Butidul" Section. (that's beautiful for those who do not speak toddler)

This is how Sammy participated in the activity.