Christmas 2013

For some reason, I'm kind of a Grinch about decorating for Christmas. I think its because I would really like to do an excellent job decorating, but I really hate spending money on things that only get displayed for a twelfth of the year. So I was especially proud that I actually decorated a bit more this year.



That picture is a little out of focus, you say? Sorry about that. I got a little zealous with my Silhouette and cut out those nifty gold prints and slapped them in some old frames. And I commisioned a certain four year old to make me a water color Christmas tree. Voila.



Sol and I went to Target on the 26th and got a ton of fun Christmas stuff--so my house will be a little more merry next year. Finley had strong feelings about decorating and expected much more than we did--hopefully we won't disappoint him next year.



And for posterity, here's our Christmas card. Happy 2013, everyone. I hope you celebrate with people you love tonight--I'll be hunched over my computer trying to finish my blog book from 2012 before it's 2014. Yes, 2012. Whoops.

Christmas at Longwood Gardens

Sol's family was here for Christmas--and while I failed at getting pictures of pretty much everything, I did take a few pictures at Longwood Gardens because it was too pretty not to. I visited this summer with Vicki and Victoria--and it was a huge change. Instead of sweating to death, we nearly froze. Both times, it was worth it.



This apple mosiac-y type thing was amazing--and it would have made for a fairly easy apple bobbing contest. There were so many lovely decorations--really, amazing is the word I have to use for it. It was just pretty and amazing.

We left Braden at home and just took Finley and Keaton--Finley had a blast looking at the decorations and getting a little more attention than he normally does. I told him to let me know if he wanted pictures with any of the flowers and he kept posing with them and doing his weird forced smile. It was pretty funny.

As you can tell from these pictures, he was making a valiant effort at making a nice smile. His face just doesn't know how.  I'm glad we got a picture with Maya and Tom since I massively failed at pictures every other hour of the holiday.  It started snowing as we left and we all got very cold--except Keaton who was bundled up in the Moby and was toasty warm when he got in the car. It's nice to be a baby.

Keaton at Five Months

Five months! It seems like forever and also nothing. That's how babies are.

It's been another month--I can't even pick an adjective to describe it. A good month? Crazy month? Sleepless month? Some of all those things. Keaton is continuing to struggle with sleeping--he takes a few very short naps during the day and is just starting to sleep better at night (knock on wood). The ear infections were waking him up a lot--we were averaging 6 to 8 times a night for a few weeks. The last few nights have been closer to two. Hallelujah.



I also think he might be in the beginning of teething--he furiously rubs his ears sometimes and I'm pretty sure the antibiotics have taken care of the infection.  He also is really into chewing on our hands or his hands--which made these pictures a bit challenging. All he wanted to do was much on his chubby fingers. He also started noticing that the chair has exciting flowers on it--the top right picture above is what a lot of them looked like--it took a lot of squeaking Sophie the Giraffe to get him to look at me!



He's getting to be a little scoot-y... he can sometimes roll from his belly on to his back and manages to wiggle himself in a circle and forwards a little sometime. This is mainly a problem at night when he wiggles into the corner of the crib and gets mad. Reverse, Keaton.



He's enjoying being in his bouncer more and more, probably because it has lots of things that are easy to gnaw on. Little stinker.



We're looking forward to spending this week with all the boys (and Sol's family!) in our house--enjoying our growing boys and celebrating Christmas. It's so special to have a baby at Christmas time--I love how tangible it makes our Savior's birth. The creator of the universe in a tiny baby. Amazing.



It always cracks me up when he kicks like crazy, so a few seconds of Keaton doing his thing. With music!

Superheroes

At some point, I think all little boys eventually get obsessed with superheroes, right? And if it happens around Halloween, then you accidentally end up with just about every superhero costume Target has because they were on super clearance. Whoops.

I think they wore a total of eight costumes on this particular day. It's a lot of taking off and putting on costumes--especially for Braden who has a rather short attention span.



Braden being the Hulk is my favorite. We love to say "DON'T MAKE THE HULK ANGRY" regarding Braden--since he's such a "passionate" fellow. Currently he is very "passionate" about a yellow paintbrush and little tool used to crack nuts. We're going on day three of him needing them all.the.time. Finley wants to be Batman every time--Captain America was a welcome change.

Please let us know if you ever need saving. We're ready.

Preschool Christmas Concert

Another preschool rite of passage--the Christmas concert. After Braden's "performance" at his Thanksgiving feast, I was a little nervous how it would go. He started off by telling us that he didn't want to go to the concert and refused to get dressed--until I told him that his clothes were just like Daddy. Then he was super excited. He walked around saying, "I'm handsome like Daddy!" for a LONG time.  Are you ready for this video of him singing? Are you???



HE DID IT!!! I have no idea why his teacher left him standing way by himself on the side of the stage, but I'm glad she did because we had a great view.  Such a proud mama. He did some of the actions and didn't run around or scream or cry. SUCCESS. And adorable.



Finley's was hilarious too--I was so impressed at the long bible verse he memorized! You'll have to forgive the shaky camera-ing... Braden was sitting next to me and kept pulling on the camera strap and being wiggly. You can also hear him asking us if he can go to Chick fil a and telling us he's dressed like Daddy.



Also, look how cute. They were so excited about wearing belts. Such simple Christmas joys.

A Train Ride with Santa

I think I've fallen victim to the "taking less pictures of the third kid" trap... and as a result blogging has kind of fallen to the wayside. Which is a bit liberating--our days are full and it's hard to pick up a camera when your arms are normally full of children. We had a legit photo op this weekend--we took a train ride with Santa!



To Braden, train + Santa = Polar Express. He was in heaven. He loved the tickets. He loved looking out the window. He loved singing Jingle Bells. He loved it so much which means it (naturally) ended in tears. Cute, angry tears.



(He crosses his legs all the time and it kills me.) Finley enjoyed it too--he got to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas... a bell from Santa's sleigh (which he asked for and got last year), a Sonic Screwdriver and Duplos.





Santa walked through all the trains to chat with each kid--the on train photos were a little tricky and not the best, but it's Santa on a train... so it's a winner.



Did I mention five out of the boys' six ears were infected last week? Yes, they were. Oh they were grouchy boys. We're almost done with our Amoxicillin and enjoying life a little more. Keaton had a few weeks of very rough nights and is making some slow progress towards being a normal sleeper. He's started angrily rubbing his ears--so I'm a little concerned we are about to go through teething.



Hey! I was on the train too!



Braden liked Santa--but he LOVED the Conductor. That's why he's grinning in the first picture. He saw the Conductor. He loves to say, "All Aboard!" and "Tickets please!" when he sees the Conductor. He also said, "The Conductor is so cute!" when he saw him. He cracks me up.



I wish somehow Keaton was in this awesome picture with Santa--I love it. Santa, two thirds of my boys and a train.

First Snow in Pennsylvania

Finley's sure it's going to snow on Christmas. Like, he's sure. And when I try to gently tell him it miiight not snow, he brushes me off and tells me that if it doesn't snow, he'll throw ice cubes in the clouds and that will fix it. So, there you go meteorology.



It did snow on Sunday--quite a bit. Enough that we weren't able to make it to our very special train ride with Santa. And enough that they cancelled preschool tomorrow. (The first time I've been sad about a snow day...) But we did quickly go out and let the boys play for a few minutes. Like five minutes, hence the weird snow clothes. I knew they wouldn't last long. Sol got to use his snowblower and cleared the driveway super fast. And we had hot chocolate even though we were barely out long enough to get cold.



And then I took some pictures of my baby by the tree. All the boys are at different points in a cold--and we're not having much fun. There haven't been many smiles from this guy--mostly just wiggling and fussing all.night.long. We're all going to the doctor tomorrow.  Also funny about Keaton...



When he rolls onto his belly, he really really wants his arms back by his sides like he's superman. I have no idea why. He pulls them back when you try to put them up by his face.  Which means he'll probably never learn how to crawl or walk, and he'll be my baby forever. Right?



I still can't believe my first baby turned into this big thing. Oh man.

A Typical Thanksgiving Post (Or, The Time We Jumped on Trampolines)

Thanksgiving is a trick of a holiday--it just goes by too fast.  My family came to celebrate in Pennsylvania with us this year. That's the benefit of having a newborn. We told them we weren't leaving, so they came to us. The silliest thing we did was go to a Trampoline park--where we made up 8 of the 9 oldest people there. #toocoolforschool

And in case you forgot, I know how to make gifs now.  So watch out.  This top one is a series of photos where we all were supposed to be doing synchronized flips.  Sometimes we joke about my brothers being raised by a different set of parents--and here's some evidence.  Laura and I (green and gray shirt) grew up honing our trampoline skills in the backyard--my brothers had no idea what to do.  They are the two knuckle heads in the background.  Luckily, Laura and I married men with some sort of trampoline sense. Equally impressive are our synchronized toe touches.

There you go. If my mom can figure out how to send a gif as a Christmas card, I'm pretty sure this is what she should be sending out.

I wanted to try to do four front handsprings in a row, but the best I could get up to was three. And only two were actually recorded.

I was really proud of my ability to land on my feet after doing a front flip! And so I'm immortalizing it here so I can show anyone who ever doubts my skills skillz.

And Sol gets a solid A for effort. He didn't hold back.

We were all pretty sore the next day. Thirty year old bodies were not meant for lots of jumping. They were meant for lots of chip eating.