End of December

To say that we have had a wonderful Christmas is truly an understatement.  Looking around at all the gifts our children have received leaves no doubt in my mind that they are so loved by all of our family and friends.  It is a little overwhelming to see such an outpouring of love.  We are so fortunate to be able to give Natalie and Ben a nice Christmas, and I hope that they learn to appreciate all of material things they receive.  What's more, looking around I cannot believe that we still have another Christmas to celebrate this coming week!  We are so excited to have a long week with Eric's family coming up, and for Ben to have his first trip to Wisconsin.

I have loads of pictures from Christmas and Natalie's birthday (two!  Can you believe it?!), but I can't find the cord that connects my camera and computer.  So, to appease the masses, I have a few randoms from my phone and some pretty funny videos of Natalie from the past few days.  Enjoy!

check out my tummy time pro

bath time before his first Christmas Eve party

she finally learned....

(P.S. she found that and put it on herself)

new vacuum and baby...is this what I look like?

Christmas morning chores in her pjs and chef hat

all the parties and presents meant not a lot of nap time, 

and finally she couldn't take anymore and fell asleep before she 

could climb all the way into the chair

(have I mentioned that I just love her?)

I'm TWO!!!

and Ben is so glad he doesn't have to wear that goofy hat!

dressed up in her party clothes before her birthday soiree

now that's a tutu!

Learning about horses

for example, did you know that horse is white because it's covered with snow?  

Well, the book says so according to Natalie.

how sweet is she at the end?  "I love you, dada."

Stinker would not put that tutu on at her party, but boy when she saw it this morning...

clearly the child loves it!

reading her birthday cards

I wish I had longer video of her dancing to that music.  hilarious!

If I can't find my cord, I'll be forced to buy a new one, so either way pictures are coming soon.  I have no more room on my camera memory card, so time is of the essence.  

In the meantime, we wish you all a safe and happy New Year.  Can't wait to share more of our adventures in 2013!

'Tis the Season....

....for slice and bake cookies?

Cut a busy mom some slack, eh?  Ordinarily, I look forward to holiday baking.  It usually goes something like this: create a list of some classics, add a new idea or two, end up baking a ridiculous amount of cookies, feel the need to get them out of the house and gift them away.  But this year, something has to give and it's my wild list of baked treats.  Thank goodness!

Since Natalie is really into Santa, and I still love cookies, we decided that we needed to have something on hand to leave out for the big guy Christmas Eve. Enter the modern world's greatest time-saving invention.

 

She took her job very seriously.  Check out the concentration!

We decided that regular white sugar just wasn't good enough for Christmas-time, so we dug out what remains of my colored sugars.  

Anxiously awaiting a taste

 my two helpers

I'll try to post pictures throughout our holiday celebrations, but if we are absent for a couple of weeks it's because we truly are jam packed until sometime in mid-January!  Here's a run down of our next couple of weeks...Friday we host Eric's co-workers for Christmas, I picked up some extra work shifts on Saturday and Sunday, Sunday evening is Christmas with my family, Monday is Christmas Eve, Tuesday Christmas day, next Friday is Nat's birthday and party, Sunday I am working again (and it's my birthday!), then we are heading North to spend some time with Eric's family, when we get back the kids have their next doctors appointments, then I work on Saturday and then the next Monday Jack will be back with us on Mondays and Tuesdays.  

Who else needs a drink?

Ben: Two Months

Our little Ben is two months old already!  Time goes fast enough, but the addition of the holidays seems to be making his first months go even more quickly.  Natalie could not possibly love her ittle brother any more.  She wants to help with everything: holding him, feeding him, changing him.  It's sweet, but I have to say, not all that helpful just yet!

If we could just figure out how to get both of them sleeping at once, we'd really be in business.  I can recall being tired when Nat was a newborn/infant, but there was just one weird sleep schedule to deal with.  She continues to be an odd sleeper, and Ben is no better himself.  Despite my best efforts, we have not gotten either of them to sleep through the night since Ben's arrival.

In an effort to make things less hectic we doubled up well-checks at the doctor.  Nat will be due for her 2-year check and Ben for his 2-month check.  Since Nat was already on an immunization scheduled, it ended up pushing Ben's visit back several weeks.  Out of curiosity, I got on the scale with our boy....he weighs 14.4 lbs already!  Needless to say, he's having no problems in the eating department.  (By comparison, Nat weighed 12 lbs 6 oz at her two month visit.  Granted, she was smaller than him at birth, and I guess they say girls are smaller by comparison anyway.)

Here's Ben...then and now:

one week

one month

two months

Hey There, Handsome

In no way do I consider myself a professional photographer.  Simply put, I like to look at pictures and I like to take pictures.  When I was asked to snap a few shots of my handsome nephew, I jumped at the chance.  Who could resist those rolls and chubby pink cheeks?  Jack is at such a fun age, and I quickly recalled what a difficult task it can be to take a good picture of a baby who doesn't stay in one place very long.  That said, I think these turned out pretty good.

Did I mention I have such a handsome nephew?

Jack Wyatt

He loved playing with the lights

I LOVE his expression here

The chair Jack is sitting in was his mom's when she was a little girl, isn't that awesome?

I'm fairly certain he was wat

Not So

For nearly two years I've been posting adorable pictures of Natalie on this blog, and I've been sharing wonderful and heart warming stories about her.  She is adorable most of the time, but then there are days....days when I wonder what demon has possessed my daughter.  I figured it was high time I stop all the false advertisement and show the world that our very intelligent and talented daughter has mastered yet another skill.  The temper tantrum.  Lord help us all if her "terrible twos" last until she's four.

Allow me to translate.  She dragged this kitchen chair over and was mad that I told her to return it to the table.  She then starts yelling that I should return the chair and when I touch it demands that SHE return it.  

So, who wants to baby-sit?

Santa's Home!

We got a little Christmas surprise this afternoon.  A giant inflatable Santa found its way to our front yard.  Natalie was more than a little excited at this, exclaiming "Santa's home!" as soon as she saw it.  She sat by the front window off and on until it got too dark and close to bedtime to be bothered with, just staring and periodically saying, "there's a really big Santa out there."  Have I mentioned that I just love her?

Christmas Preview

Thank goodness Natalie isn't a girly girl, or I am not sure I'd really know what to do with her.  Around here, we are truly play clothes kind of people.  But, I find that picking out nice dress clothes is really fun and makes it seem like a way bigger deal since we spend most all of our time in jeans and t-shirts.  I scored some pretty nice Black Friday deals on the kids' Christmas outfits (which I'm really ok with since if they wear them twice it's going to be a lot).

With some serious bribing I got Natalie into her dress and then put Ben in his outfit for pictures for our holiday cards--I didn't include that picture here so you can all be surprised when they come.  Here's a little preview:

I like to think that she's telling him that if he stops crying and cooperates, I'll get the pictures I want sooner and we can move on to something they really want to do!

our handsome boy

I just love these two faces

our beautiful girl

all 4 of us at Thanksgiving dinner

Festival of Lights

Monday night we packed up the car and headed to the zoo for the Festival of Lights.  We LOVE the zoo anyway (I lost count how many times we went just to the Cincinnati Zoo this year, somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-8 times, plus trips to the Phoenix Zoo and Milwaukee Zoo), but we especially love wondering around at night the the whole place covered in Christmas Lights.  Plus, did you know that Santa comes to the zoo?

For weeks Natalie talked about visiting Santa.  As predicted, she clammed up when the time came.  It was really pretty sweet the way it all went down.  We had a bit of a wait in line to see the big guy.  At first she was excited, pointing and rehearsing what she planned to ask for.  As we worked our way to the front of the line, she got more and more quiet and then needed to be held.  When it was our turn, Ben sat solo on Santa's lap while Nat watched from the safety of my arms.  I think she did really want to go, but just couldn't muster the courage.  Maybe next year.

poor quality cell phone photo of all 4 of us

this is why I'm tired...one baby in the carrier and another on my hip!

Nat and dada on the train

It's December!

Whoa.  Seriously, it's December?  November really got away from me.  We've been busy, busy, BUSY!  Or, maybe that's just life with two kids under two?  Here's a quick run-down of what we've been up to...

We hosted our first Thanksgiving.  It was such fun, all the shopping, preparing, planning, cooking.  Without tooting my own horn too much, I'm proud of the way the meal turned out!  Sorry, no pictures.  Things were made a little more hectic because Nat came down with some kind of mystery illness (fever and poor appetite) the day before Thanksgiving, then sort of head cold like symptoms a couple of days later.  Then Ben got it, then Eric, and so far I've been the lone holdout.

I'm happy to report that everyone is pretty well on the mend.  Ben is even sleeping back in his bed tonight, rather than sitting up in his chair like he's been for the past few nights.

Last night I got to enjoy a night out to dinner and Jersey Boys downtown with the ladies.  I showered, dried my hair, put on makeup.  I would have felt like a million bucks just going grocery shopping like that!  So in between Christmas carols today, I've been humming Four Seasons tunes.  If you have the opportunity to see Jersey Boys, please do.  You won't be disappointed.

We've got a busy month coming up, so I'll try to stay on top of keeping you all up to date...

Today we broke out the Christmas decorations.  Over 12 hours later, we're still at it.  Let me just say that it is significantly more time-consuming to decorate the house when you're chasing a toddler and tending to an infant.  Obviously, right?

Monday we have plans to go to the Festival of Lights at the zoo.  Eric and I have a shopping date for next week.  We're hosting Eric's company party and Nat's 2nd birthday party, we've got Christmas, a trip to Wisconsin, plus the extra work shifts I've picked up.  We're going to be swamped this month for sure.  And, I have birthday this month, too!

Here's my number one helper, being a maniac:

Nothing like crazy Natalie to provide some comic relief

Our sweet daughter has been talking pretty much incessantly about visiting Santa at the zoo.  There is not a snowball's chance that she actually sits on his lap as she's been saying she will, but whatever.  I wish that I had been able to video the conversation she and I had prior to this video about Santa.  She was telling me she planned to ask him "please" for "orange presents" including "legos, video games, a phone, an ipad, and whatever you want."  She also made sure to say she was going to ask for "presents for Ben."  I just love her.  

Did you catch her saying her name in the video?  Isn't she funny?

Hey, Hollywood

My two favorite kids and I soaked up some sun and got out for some exercise before Thanksgiving.  Nat has located a pair of sunglasses and is insistent on wearing them at all times (along with her "purple shirt").  Check her out: