White Christmas

Starting on Monday the forecasters were predicting snow for Christmas. My response- "I'll believe it when I see it." Lets just say, I am now a believer! :) We have had a very full and beautiful weekend.

Friday night before the Christmas Eve service (which, by the way, is CRAZY when you have two small children and it's a family service. I basically hung out in the hall with the other moms and dads of pre-two year old children. Elliott was not to be contained!) our former neighbors who love Nolan and Elliott as their own grandchildren, came over to do gifts. They know of Nolan's passion for all things John Deere.

He was so excited when he woke up from his nap to find this waiting for him. We are now the proud owners of a 6 ft. tractor and trailer. Jerel is counting down the days until it is warm enough to get this out of our play room. :) Nolan talks to it like it's human.


I thought that I had a picture of Elliott int he trailer. I will have to put one up later.

Our sweet Rocky- who has been really sick with chronic anemia- may be our last Christmas with him.

Nolan got a kitchen from my parents

Elliott got the cutest retro rocket from my parents. As you can tell, he is pumped!

This morning we were able to get out in the snow!

My little man started walking this past week!

He fell over, but was so cute down there that I had to get a picture!

Two seconds later he burst out in tears! He had enough!

We had a great time celebrating the birth of Christ. We made a coffee cake Saturday morning and put candles in it to sing happy birthday to Jesus. I confess, before I had children and I had other friends that did this, I thought it was really dumb! However, I want Nolan to begin to learn that Christmas is not all about the presents we open but about the true gift that Christ gave us when He came to this earth to become the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. THAT is what I look forward to teaching my boys in Christmases to come.

Hope you are your family had a great weekend as well!!

POP

Most 14 month old babies try to get OUT of their cribs...

Not mine...

He tries to get IN...

Because he knows these are in there...

This is Raffi and Pop and Elliott is totally in love....

Too bad buddy, they have to stay IN your crib!!

Love,
Your Mean Mama!

Baby, it's cold outside!!

I have been a bad blogger lately. The truth is- it's been so cold out that we have gone nowhere, we have done nothing. So unless I post pictures of me and the boys in the playroom, there's just not much to talk about. However, we did go cut down our tree which we always try to do Thanksgiving weekend. It was a gorgious and very bright day, which is enjoyable, but bad for pictures. Above is Nolan being blinded by the sun.

My men cutting down our very cute tree.

Elliott watching their every move.

Bad, shadowed, two-year-old-not-looking-at-the-camera, family picture.

This is in front of one my neighbors house. Their yard is currently a BIG part of our lives. Nolan is fairly obsessed with the light display. The mailbox behind him is a faux mailbox that opens and closes when it's on. They turn the lights on around 5:30 and I swear Nolan knows the second it happens because he starts begging me to go see the mailbox. Many nights we drive down to see them because it is just so dang cold. The whole time he will say, "Oh Mommy, I am pretty excited!" How cute is that?? Today, however, it was warm enough the put layers and layers on and walk down. We were all so glad to get out. It is a trick to put mittens on small children/babies. I said about 236 swear words (in my head) as I was putting them on the boys. I think that's partly why we haven't gone out much. Once I have the socks, shoes, coats, vests, gloves and hats all on I am totally carnal. Maybe I need to work on that!! :)

Right now my mom is totally freaked out that I don't have their coats zipped up to their noses. Don't worry Mom, they were fine!! :)

Thankful!

Today had the potential of being a very long, exhausting day but I am so THANKFUL that we had a great day. I am thankful that it didn't rain here this morning and we were able to play outside. I am thankful "Ms. Karin" invited us next door to help rake leaves (of which we were zero help, but it makes the day less lonely! :)). I am so thankful for how beautiful this fall has been- I really don't know if I have seen more vivid colors. And I am thankful that I dressed my children in something half way cute this morning- made for some fun pictures!

I couldn't narrow down the pictures beyond this. And as I always tell myself, my mom will at least like looking at them! :)

Pictures

We got Elliott's one year pictures back. Jut to review- Elliott had a nasty stomach bug of which we were passing off as "drainage". However the rest of us in the next 24 hours were severely affected by the same bug. Needless to say none of us felt 100% during these pictures. With all of that- I would say that they turned out pretty well. I don't know that I LOVE any of the ones of Elliott but I am happy with the family pictures. And lets face it- it's so much more difficult to get a family picture than just one baby!! :)

Click here and under clients use the password sarah0327

Enjoy!!

Priceless

I love this picture for so many reasons. Nolan was attempting the big boy potty and Elliott, as usual, has to be in the middle of all the action. He crawls into the bathroom, stands up in the tub, attempts to crawl in and gets stuck.

So, here are the behind the scene things that I really love.
1) Jerel was standing there the whole time. I don't think that I would have let Elliott crawl into the tub in the first place just to fall on his face- but that's why boys have dads!!
2) Elliott was screaming his head off because he was stuck on the ledge. Instead of any of us rescuing him; Jerel, while laughing, calls to me to come look. I then run to get my camera- all the way across the house and back. I should have taken a picture of how red his face was once we were kind enough to help the little prince out.
3) I am not actually potty training Nolan. It scares me to death, I don't want to do it. But sometimes he says he needs to go and we put him up there and he does the deed. I think I will commit over Christmas break. I am getting tired of buying so many diapers. Just think of all that money that would be freed up if I would potty train my kid. I'll keep you posted!

Cowboy & Bee

First of all, I posted these pictures in the wrong order and now just don't have the energy to fix it! Now that I have that off my chest, I can move on...

We had a great Halloween. I have been talking to Nolan for months that he was going to be a cowboy. Sometimes you really have to give this boy a LOT of advanced warning. He doesn't do so great if you spring things on him. He loved it and would walk up to the doors of the neighbors he knows well, take off his hat and say, "Yee Haw!". It was way cute. Jerel took him around our street while I held down the fort and handed out candy with the bumble bee. Elliott loved being in his costume, which I figured he would only keep on long enough for a picture or two. I think he would wear it daily if I would let him. Truthfully, I was going to skip dressing Elliott up this year, but I found this at a consignment sale for $4 and couldn't help myself. I am so glad I did.

On a funny note, one of the boys on our street dressed up like a creepy, evil clown. As he was running down the street in all his candy induced excitement, Nolan was freaked out!! Jerel was very kind and patient and explained to Nolan that the clown would not get him and besides, Nolan was a cowboy, and clowns could never "get" a cowboy. Nolan talks about that scary clown several times a day!! :)

Stats

I took Elliott in for his 1 year well check. He weighed in at 27.12 lbs (96%) and measured 32.5 inches (99%). I don't even want to talk about this head measurement- one because, who cares- and two, it's so big the nurse had to measure it three times because she couldn't believe HOW FAR it was off the charts. Oh well, no hats for this kiddo! Anyway, I was surprised about two things. I really thought he would weigh more- even though that is hefty, and also that when I looked back at Nolan's one year he was also exactly 32.5 inches in length. I guess that I think Elliott is so much bigger. Maybe it's those four extra pounds! So, there you have it folks! Everything else looks great. We have a big, healthy boy on our hands.

Read Me A Story

My sweet friend Emily has an endless wealth of knowledge about children's literature- of which I know nothing!! I lamented to her that the library overwhelms me ESPECIALLY when I have my boys with me and that I needed a plan. She was so sweet to type up a list of her favorite books, authors, and illustrators. She loved doing it so much that she decided to start a blog about the subject. You should check it out here - your kids will thank me! :)

If you scroll all the way down to her first post you will see the list she wrote up for me.

Ode to Elliott

Can you believe that I had this sweet thing a year ago today?? It has honestly gone by so fast and I have really enjoyed Elliott's first year. This little guy is so sweet and so fun. He has us laughing all the time. He and Nolan are starting to enjoy each other. Well, Elliott has always been enamored with Nolan and I feel like Nolan has recently started to play happily with his little brother. Elliott is cruising on furniture but doesn't seem all that interested in walking. He's a great sleeper and a good eater on days. I'm convinced that I have no idea how to help my children be good eaters- but that is another post for another time. He's starting to use more and more words. He says Dada, night night, pop, GO GO GO, honk honk, and he'll sign all done. Did you happen to see Mama on that list? No?? Me either!! :) I wanted to share a few of my recent favorite pictures of our birthday boy.

He seriously loves this dog and Rocky is so sweet and patient with him.

I could squeeze these legs ALL.DAY.LONG!

This is one of his favorite toys. This kid will crawl all over the house, including up stairs, with this in his hands. Now that is talent!

I had just finished folding this basket of clothes. Thanks buddy!!

Again, why I don't clean windows.

He's a cool daddy. Always has a foot propped up. He and Nolan were holding hands during lunch. Melt! :)

My parents were here last weekend so we celebrated Elliott's birthday early. You have to be able to collect social security in order to be invited to my childrens' birthday parties. :) I made these cupcakes and frosting from scratch. YUM!! I may never be able to go back to the box.

Nolan did a great job helping Elliott open presents and showed him how to play with then. It gave me a insight to what Christmas is going to be like this year. Crazy!!!

It took him a while to warm up to his cupcake but once he had a bite he was all in!

So...that leads us up to this morning! He hasn't been sleeping all that great this past week. He's been getting a cold, or maybe allergies, AND cutting 2 teeth. Just stuffy and grumpy. I got him up this morning, snuggle with him as he has one of his final bottles and 45 seconds later he proceeds to throw up all over himself, me, and the carpet. I was just thankful that he hadn't had the milk in him long enough for it to curdle. I know, it's the small things in life that keep me going. I took this picture right after I stripped him down. He wasn't the least bit phased. I think that he was dealing with a lot of drainage. I had his 1 year pictures scheduled to do this afternoon and was so hoping that I wouldn't have to cancel. I was careful with the food he ate and there were no more incidents UNTIL we were almost to our picture destination and he vomited all over everything. We pulled over, changed him, got back in the car and had the pictures done. No promise on how those will turn out!!

Happy birthday buddy. Sorry you threw up all over the both of us!! :) We love you no matter what!