Christmas Jammies

I was inspired by a friend who has taken annual pictures of her boys in their Christmas pj's.

Never mind that my picture was a) taken on New Year's Day and b) Jackson looks like Lloyd Christmas because Mommy had just given him a haircut (you should see the back - sorry sweetie!)

Better late than never!


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Yum yum eat 'em up

As a nursing mom, I'm thankful little Weston loves to eat straight from the source. Jackson didn't take to nursing super well so I managed a hybrid of nursing & pumping for over 9 months. Weston, however, has been slow to take to the bottle and pretty much refuses it. He's pretty much been my side-kick 24/7 since he was born, except for the occasional mommy outing where Ben or one of our parents has kept him and he may or may not take his bottle. However, the true test is approaching...next Friday will be my first night away from my baby.

For the 3rd year in a row, my high school BFF Sally & I are heading down to Atlanta for a day at the Gift Market. We'll spend the night & head back on Saturday, diverting through Dawsonville to hit up those fabulous outlets. I am so looking forward to a little getaway and I'm super grateful for Ben being brave enough to keep both boys overnight. Especially when one of them wakes up every 4 hours to eat....and doesn't exactly like his bottle. The next 7 days are crucial for me to get Weston gobbling it up. Or else it may be a loooong time before I get away again!!

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Weston is 4 months old!?!

Wow, these 4 months have absolutely flown by. Too fast for sure. I love having a baby in the house. We are getting to enjoy stages that we didn't get to enjoy with Jackson. Now don't get me wrong -- its HARD -- but I love it. I am treasuring each stage this time, instead of rushing & pushing towards the next milestone. Now if he would only start sleeping well at night...

Weston has been rolling over for a few weeks now and is growing much more tolerant of tummy time now that he knows he's not stuck. This week he has reached the huge milestone of sitting up unassisted. How precious is this?

I also starting giving him some rice cereal by spoon this week, which he seems to dig. I'm thinking that he may be ready for solids in order to sleep better at night. However, I don't want this partial weaning to affect our nursing success so I'm apprehensive about doing too much too soon.

At Jackson's request, we've been giving the boys a bath together. Our tub is large enough to fit the infant seat and Jackson with plenty of room for toys & bubbles. Westie loves it and so does Jackson. Just makes more work for me trying to wash & dry off one little boy at a time & keep the other from drowning.

Weston is barely fitting in 9 month clothing and his size 3 diapers are being traded up for the size 4s just as soon as we run out. Weighing in at 17 lbs at 4 months, I am losing all hope of Weston being able to wear any of Jackson's clothes.

Skill-wise, Weston seems older than he really is. He tracks us well from across the room and seems very intuned to what is going on and shows appropriate emotions. He is reaching for objects within reach, and had more than once pulled over a glass of sweet tea which was left within reach of his perch in the Bumbo. Shame on us. Westie is always smiling and seems so friendly & happy. He loves watching Jackson and his eyes light up when he sees him first thing in the morning. He can bear his full weight on his legs when standing and we are starting to prop him up against the coffee table/couch/etc to see if he can figure out how to stand independently.

We love every minute of our life with these two precious boys. What little blessings they both are!

Christmas 2011

This year, we celebrated Christmas Eve with a morning church service at Grace, followed by a low key afternoon. Dad & Linda arrived late afternoon and Jackson had the best time chasing, tackling, running and lovin on them. After dinner, we sang Happy Birthday to Poppy (again) and to Baby Jesus.

We gave the boys a bath, sprinkled the reindeer food on the lawn, left homemade cookies & a glass of milk out for Santa & then climbed into Jackson's bed to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" on the iPad. Yes, the iPad. We were unable to find our authentic hardcopy and not being one to break tradition, we downloaded the e-book version. It was sufficient and definitely more elaborate than the old school format, complete with scurrying mice, chuckling Santa & flying reindeer.

After the book was read, Santa's little elves spent the next few hours assembling train sets, bikes & stuffing stockings. I think we were more excited for Christmas mornin than Jackson was!

Christmas morning rolled around and it was fun to see what Jackson ran to first. Upon hitting the first floor, he immediately ran to the breakfast table to see if Santa had eaten his cookie & milk (which Ben had). When I asked him if Santa brought him any presents, he looked at the stack of wrapped gifts that had been under the tree for weeks and nodded excitedly. Only then did he notice the huge train set in the middle of the living room floor. And only after additional prompting did Jackson notice his new Lightening McQueen "big boy" bike.

He also got a slew of other things from Oma & Opa and us, including a new pair of cowboy boots that fit, a baseball glove, a new lunchbox and a little compartment suitcase for his matchbox cars.

Weston pretty much chilled out and just took in all the chaos. Santa brought him lots of books, stuffies, jammies & baby toys. Poor little thing has all the hand-me-downs so its super hard to buy for him.

Santa also brought us a Wii, Ben a new 18V drill, me a keyboard for my iPad and the promise of an iPhone 4s in February when my contract is up.

We packed up and headed to Conover to spend Christmas night with Mom & Bruce. Which meant yet another round of presents. The boys were thrilled to see his Uncle Mikey & Aunt Jenn.

Jackson scored an awesome remote control car from Bebe & PopPaw and he had a ball figuring it out.

The day after Christmas, we took the boys on their inaugural trip to Claremont Cafe, a local dive that has been around for decades (without so much as a face-lift) and still uses a saran-wrapped calculator to add up your bill. Cash only and don't dare ask to see a menu. True to form, we ran in to several people we knew while there, including my Uncle Kenny and Ben's high school friend Rudy. Gotta love a small town.

After lunch, we went to see Ben's friend Austin & his family, then we stopped by to see MawMaw, who has been doing well since she left her post-surgery rehab. Back at Mom's, we had an after-dinner marshmallow roast in their fire pit. Sounded like an awesome idea but cold weather + dangerous fire + sticky marshmallows + no afternoon nap for Jackson = very short-lived activity.

And I do realize that Weston's precious face is seriously lacking in most of my blog postings. Its not that we don't take lots of pics of him (well...), they just all look the same. Same chair, different day. So I'll leave you with this precious one. This little boy is such a joy.

And I'm now realizing that we didn't get one single family picture of the 4 of us this Christmas. Nor did we get ANY of Bebe with her grandsons. Seriously, I need to do better!!

"Rusty"

We welcomed our own little Santa's helper into our home by giving him the redneck name of Rusty. It is pronounced "Rrrrus-teh". He is not exactly mischevious, per se, but he does like to hang upside down from lights, eat (and share) powdered donuts and even went rogue and returned from the NP with some snow one morning, complete with an elf-sized shovel.

And on Christmas Eve morning, Rusty surprised us with some sparkly reindeer food to sprinkle in our yard that night. How thoughtful!

The concept of Rusty reporting naughty or nice feedback back to Santa didn't exactly eliminate naughtness as well as we had hoped. The threat of the wooden spankin spoon still gets the job done in half the time.

We did enjoy having the daily "Where's Rusty?"....certain nights, I'd forget to relocate him and Ben would do so on his way out in the morning. Then both J and I would be scouring house for Rusty...and which point I would frantically text Ben demanding hints in order to avoid a meltdown out of frustration. Only once did Rusty spend the night in the same spot two nights in a row.

Now, 3 days post-Christmas, Jackson is highly concerned as to Rusty's whereabouts and doesn't understand that his elf buddy will be taking an 11 month sabbatical.

Happy 60th Poppy!

Today, my Dad turns 60 years old. That use to sound down right ancient but now 60 is the new 40!

We celebrated 2 weekends ago by spending the weekend in Blowing Rock with the fam. It was a relaxing trip and we managed to get a little Christmas shopping done too. We enjoyed singing & blowing out the candles on the birthday cupcakes and enjoyed a great dinner in downtown BR. 

 After a napless afternoon, I was worried Jackson would be less than well-behaved at a nice restaurant.  However, after his disco-nap in the car, he woke up fairly happy and munched on oysters, shrimp, trout and then nawed on some lamb as well.  Classy.  Weston slept from start to finish.

For Poppy's birthday, we gifted him with a camping trip to take place sometime this spring or summer.  Linda's idea of camping is the Holiday Inn so its been a while since Dad's slept in a tent.  We don't exactly rough it...we take enough modern conveniences to make our load quite large. 

Unfortunatley, there wasn't much snow up there.  They were blowing snow on the mountain but there was only a light dusting for Jackson to play in, despite the multiple layers & cold-weather accessories I decked him out in.

Clark Griswold would be proud

Rewind back 3 years ago. December 2008. Alisha & I hear about this amazing, over the top Christmas decorated house that is truly unbelievable. As in the local news stations routinely feature them every holiday season. So we decide to take the hubbies on a surprise date and they are less then pleased about our idea of a surprise date.

Fast-forward to 2011 & 2 kids later. Ben suggested we track down crazy Christmas house and take the kids. So we did just that. Saturday night, we had pizza at our friends Allison & Garrett's house then we all headed over to Mauldin to see crazy Christmas house. And for the record, it's still crazy 2 years later.

The two guys that live there spend the better part of 5 months unpacking, displaying then repacking holiday decor. Over 80 inflatables, 250,000 lights, arbors, trees, you name it. And the lights are synced up to Christmas music so it's like a mini light show. Santa was there, along with free popcorn & hot chocolate. Cars line the neighborhood and the line to walk around crazy Christmas house was about 60 people long. Seriously.

The best part of the night was when we caught Jackson & sweet Emerson kissing under the mistletoe.