Holiday Fun

We sure have been busy since we got back from San Diego, doing all sorts of Christmas activities. I can't believe Christmas Eve is only two days away-I could sure use another week to wrap, cook, clean...and hubby could use some more time to finish up the playhouse. I'm not sure that it's going to be fully done by Christmas Day :( Oh well, thats what happens when you get busy! On to the pictures...


A little arts and crafts

Our nearest mall hosted a breakfast with Santa. You got to see him, Mrs Claus read a story, had breakfast and then decorated gingerbread cookies. Decorating the cookie was Nate's favorite part!


Longest line of cookie decorators that I've ever seen!




One Saturday Nate went to a holiday class-he sang songs, did crafts and got to meet Frosty! (his new favorite holiday character)



Still in love with his "jingle bell" necklace!




Ok, so Nate is having an off year with Frosty too...though he likes to watch him

A local shopping center had various days of Storytime with Mrs Claus. We did a craft, listened to a few stories/sang songs, had snack and left with a goodie bag. Fun!






Super intrigued by Mrs Claus' glittery,shimmery, bright red lipstick! Wowee!




One night Nate, Aaron, mommy, Nana and Pap-Pap visited a local farm for "Moo-ey Christmas". Animals wore hats, there was a hayride with Christmas lights, s'mores by the fire, hot chocolate...we had a great time.



Chilling on a tractor with Pap-Pap



Spirited animals









Cutie



Getting ready to ride!


Easily entertained




Waiting for the s'mores


This past week Nate, daddy, Grandmother, Granddad, Uncle Ben and cousin Autumn visited a railroad park in Scottsdale. They had a bunch of Christmas lights and both a train and carousel to ride.



Choo-choo!



Bunch of trains


On the train with cousin Autumn



And finally...we again went this year to our local Polar Express event-Santa reads the Polar Express story and then gives each child a bell. There's also snacks and crafts.


Outside the room




Cookie time!


Can't forget little brother




Crafts


Storytime



Always the same expression of wonder :)

Merry Christmas!

7 Months

Time just keeps passing...Aaron turned seven months old this week. Cuter by the day too! :) We were told this week that he should hopefully have six,possibly nine weeks tops left of him wearing his doc-band. Every visit he is improving.

At seven months, Aaron...

Still is unsure about baby food. I'm almost starting to think he's particular about the brand we use. I find that if we use Earths Best, he's been eating those vegetables...but when I used Gerber, he'd spit everything out. Hmmmm.

Still LOVES his oatmeal. Earths Best that is.

Finds lots of joy with his older brother and dog. Well, he giggles and puts his hands out to any dog...he enjoys their kisses! He thinks Nate is the greatest.

Not yet sitting up/fully crawling. For the moment he's doing a swimming in place sort of action on the floor. He's got his feet kicking and arms waving, but the torso remains in place for the most part :) I'm not worried-I'm thankful that I don't have to vaccum and mop everyday as I otherwise would!

Likes to play in his crib. We'll find him in different corners when we go in. I don't mind-as long as he has his paci and his super comfy monkey blanket, he soothes himself to sleep. Yay!

Continues to sleep well. Now that his stuffy nose is gone, he's back to sleeping through the night. We also eliminated his "dream feed" that he usually had at 9pm as we found he could sleep through without it. Now he goes a full 12 hrs without eating-bed by 7:30 and doesn't wake until 7-7:30. Woohoo!

For the most part takes good naps. It's ranging now though between 2-3 naps a day, depending on how long/well they each last. What I love even more about my little guy-he seems pretty happy regardless. You wouldn't know sometimes that he hasn't had good naps, but I still strive to be sure we're home for most of them.

Loves kisses on his cheeks. He smiles from ear to ear!

Does NOT like being left alone in a room. If he knows you're doing something/having fun in another room, he wants to be included!

For whatever reason, when we're eating salads, always tries to pick up the lettuce. Doesn't bother our food much otherwise but has something with the lettuce!

Loves to take off his socks and eat his toes.

Tries to talk in his own language :)


Happy 7 months little one!
Big bro wanting to help with oatmeal


Loves Lily!

San Diego

Wow, is it over already?! It's really too bad that vacations go way too fast. We had a great time away. We're lucky in that the boys make for pretty good road trippers. For being a baby, Aaron did really well. I remember Nate's first trip to San Diego when he was eight months old...and I remember him screaming some of the way, on the way home in particular! We visited the beach, Legoland, an aquarium and did Sea World for a few days. While we had a blast with the kids, I'm relieved to be home in the area of rest and sleep :) The kids woke each other up so I'm happy for all of us to be home in our own rooms and beds! On that note, there was a few things I was thankful for and things I learned...

1. Hefty ZooPals plastic cups rock! They come in a box like bathroom cups would. There were cups, lids and straws included. MUCH better than worrying about bringing our own cups and having to clean those. Granted, we did have to bring Aaron's bottles and wash those, but the less we have to do the better! Super convenient.

2. On that note, thank goodness to the people who have come up with the idea of disposable bibs, spoons and forks. Disposable anything was greatly appreciated!

3. If anyone ever goes to Sea World San Diego and need to know where all the potty facilities are, ask me! At closing time of course Nate needed to use the restroom. He apparently needed to go so bad that he asked me to carry him, run, and hurry! However...he can be picky about the potty he uses. I ran around the park as fast as I could to different facilities...looking for "the" potty. Nate doesn't like the ones that flush automatically for you. Nope, must have a handle. Well, some family and handicapped stalls have those. But again, it had to be "the right" potty as well. Finally, we discovered that if the right potty isn't found, the floor will do just fine. Luckily this event didn't occur in the middle of the park in front of all the guests!

4. Aaron is the womanizer and charmer of the family. Young or old, he'd stare at a woman of his desire until they returned his glance back. I think hubby's next project after the playhouse will be to put boards on his windows! Yep, he's going to be the one we'll need to worry about in that respect.

5. When driving in CA (and on the freeway in particular!) if you "think" a distance will take X amt of minutes, don't forget to multiply that amount by five! Coming back from Sea World to our hotel, it was 5:30pm, and it took us around an hour to go ~15 miles. It was good the kids were tired that evening and both fell asleep on our way back. Taking the roads the next night was MUCH better.

6. The first week of December is a great time to travel, during the week probably even better. Both Legoland and Sea World were dead. It was awesome!

It's neat now that Nate is older that he has been able to appreciate this trip more so than others. He still hasn't stopped talking about the ocean, whales and "the big elevator" (see photo album :) ). Great time, now we need to catch up on some zzz's!

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A little bit of everything...

In the last few weeks, Aaron has started baby food and gotten his first little cold :( He's been congested and hasn't slept well for almost the last week. However, I think he's beginning to turn the corner (good timing since hubby just left for the week out of town for work and we have one more week left until it's San Diego time!)
I'm keeping my fingers crossed we can all stay well through our vacation, we've been looking forward to it since it was 100 degrees this summer!

Anywoo...Aaron has had peas (actually yummy), sweet potatoes (no thank you) and carrots (ok) and apples (eh,could do without so far).





Aaron can now pretty much sit up on his own, at least for a little bit before he topples over. Crawling only about an inch (thats ok, I'm not ready for him to take off yet!)

Nate just finished his "camp". I think he's ready for a break-he won't be starting school back up until the second week of January now. December is such a busy month anyway that time will fly.

We just took the kids to Zoolights Thanksgiving week. They had a blast! Aaron loved the bright lights.



We love the trees that dance to music!

We're getting into high Christmas gear. Our decorations are up and our newest Christmas addition has arrived for the holidays-Eddie the Elf! (based on The Elf on The Shelf). Basically, we tell the kids that Santa has sent an elf to keep watch for him and report back to him each night to let him know if they (the kids) have been naughty or nice :) Hopefully the elves help reinforce good behavior, in other words! So far Nate hasn't really understood the whole concept (and hasn't noticed that Eddie hasn't moved from the spot we put him when he first came in).

The kids got to see Santa for the first time this year at Zoolights-Aaron was ok and curious (just as I remember Nate being his first year) however this year Nate doesn't seem to be all too interested. Funny, Nate seems to go in every other year spurts with St Nick.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving-we enjoyed time with both our families. The morning of I had my first run post Aaron-a 10k (6.2 miles)! Guess I was feeling brave, I haven't run that far in....a long time. The day after we get back from vacation I'm suppose to do a 12k run. All of this is building up to my half marathon in January,which is only six weeks away! I think I'm in a bit of a panic mode :)

Graduations--of sorts!

November 9, 2011-is going down in my book for the year as one of the best days. To start the day off-Nate graduated from his preschool class that morning. He's done with school for the rest of 2011, but will start up a school related "camp" on Monday until Thanksgiving-then he'll officially be done with classes the rest of the year.

His graduation was cute-there were tables set up with food and drinks and places to sit-then a bunch of chairs for parents to sit and watch their kids on stage. The kids came in and sang all the songs they've learned over the last few months. So cute! I wish I had more of an idea what was going on so I could have brought the proper recording camera with me :( The video on my digital camera doesn't record very well. The kids received a certificate and a little goodie bag. Short and sweet little ceremony with a picture slideshow-then we ate goodies at our leisure and left. I'll be better prepared the next time! I think even the grandparents want to be in on the action too.


Could we have the graduation treats BEFORE the ceremony mom?




Singing on stage


Nate and Braedan


He just wanted the donuts




Nate's certificate and goodie bag

The other graduation that happened that day was...Nate used the big potty! On his own,no bribing or bugging...we came home from the graduation, he said he needed to use the potty and that he was going to use "the big potty". Sure enough-I walked in afterwards and his stool was beside and his Elmo seat we bought was on top of the big potty. Go figure. Thank goodness, such perfect timing! Just days ago I had asked hubby what we were going to do when we go on vacation in a few weeks-I wasn't looking forward to having to carry around his small potty (especially in theme parks,if we were even allowed). I don't mind carrying around a toilet seat-that's a much better improvement than what we're used to! Nate hasn't used the big potty in public yet-but I'm hoping it won't be a problem as long as we have his seat since he's been using different ones at home (at least he's not potty particular!)

In time for Thanksgiving soon-I can say that I am ever so thankful that potty training is on the verge of completion,yay!

Half a Year Old

Happy six month birthday to our little Aaron! I can't believe in six more we'll be having a birthday party. Seriously, summer wooshed by us and now all of a sudden we're surrounded by Christmas decorations and commercials on TV. How did this happen?!

Aaron doesn't have his six month appt with the pediatrician until next week so we're holding off on starting the baby food. I just can't believe I'm even already talking about that. Before I know it-life will be simpler and he'll be eating the same food as Nate!

In the last month we have had two new developments: he can completely roll over (both stomach and back now) and he's beginning the process of crawling. When he's on his stomach, he's trying to inch himself up to something slowly. He doesn't use his arms and isn't on his knees yet-it's probably closer to an army sort of crawl, like Nate did for quite a while at first :) I'm trying to provide the motivation to get him to try and move around. Big brother is helping out a lot in that regard-little brother already is interested in whatever Nate is doing! (did I also mention that Aaron finds anything about his brother hilarious?)

We love you little man!

Halloween

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Halloween Parties

Whew! Last week flew by with all the different parties we had. Each were fun in their own way!



Church Fall Festival


Nate was so patient getting a baseball painted on his cheek (hint: he's a baseball player for Halloween this year :) )




Decorating a pumpkin cookie with Nana



Cotton candy


Nighttime bouncing

Pirate and Princess Party



The kids played a cute,musical "pass the wrapped package" game-whoever had the gift when the music stopped got to open it to reveal a prize that they got to keep.


Then the kids went outside to look for "bounty" :)





Even Aaron was in the pirate spirit!

Great Play Halloween Party


Kids played and had pizza for lunch







We ran into our Moms Club friend, Vedant, there too!


Moms Club Halloween Party



Mommy's cute friends!



Nate and his friend Braedan-who is also in his preschool class







Trick or Treating with friends




Candy relay-the object of the game was to pick up candy and run across to put it in a pumpkin bucket and run back to get more until all the candy was gone


Run, Nate, run!



Looking at clues to find hidden goodie bags



Happy Aaron


Nate and Lauren



We love our friends!