Grandparent Fun

We had a great visit with Nana and Papa Swoop (Phil's dad and stepmom) this past week. It's always great to see them and Charlene always gives me a really nice break by holding and loving on Emmett and playing with Jackson so much. Phil and I felt bad because we didn't really do very much while they were here, but we had yucky weather most of the week and there's not a ton to do in this town! We enjoyed just being together, though, and we hope they did, too! Here are some things we did do:

We went bowling (twice!)...

We played in the snow for the few hours one morning that we actually had some...

Jackson didn't want to ride on the sled by himself, so we stuck Emmett on there. He was sitting up for the first few minutes, but then flopped onto his back because of his overstuffed snowsuit. He was happy as a clam just lying there and being towed around, so we left him like that. He looked so funny!

Phil had forgotten to ask for New Year's Eve off, so he had to go into work for a few hours. We met him there right before he left...

The four of us also enjoyed a kid-free evening out on New Year's Eve. We ate a late dinner and then made it home to see the ball drop in NYC. Sad to say, but we all went to bed right after that! :)

Thanks for a wonderful Christmas and a fun visit, C & C! We love you!

Christmas Videos

This isn't from Christmas Day, but we wanted to be sure to share it. Here's Emmett walking with one of his Christmas presents. We were very impressed, and he loved it for sure!

Holiday Recap

This Christmas season was a total whirlwind. It went by so fast! I cannot believe it is December 28th already. We've all been spending the past few days recovering from all of the excitement of the days leading up to Christmas, as well as the excitement of the day itself! We had a wonderful day, even though it was snow-free. We have a ton of pictures and the boys got a huge load of presents, but I'll try not to make this post too crazy long.

Flashing back to the 19th... Phil and I got to enjoy a night out with our friends at a "Sweaters and Sequins" party. We had a choice of wearing an ugly Christmas sweater or dressing up in sequins. You can probably guess which choice each of us made! Phil waited until the last minute to visit Goodwill on the hunt for an ugly Christmas sweater, and found that the sweater section was completely picked-over. He had to settle for this lovely Christmas-green polyester suit with a red button-down shirt. The suit actually fit pretty well, aside from the pants being about 4 inches too short. Unfortunately, this picture doesn't capture that.

Here's my good friend, Kylie, and me. She just got engaged over Christmas! Hooray!

The 22nd was my 33rd birthday, and as I backed out of the garage in the morning to drive to the gym I saw that it was snowing heavily! It was so beautiful and a wonderful birthday surprise, since we've been seriously lacking in the snowfall department this year. It made for crazy driving later on in the morning, though. Phil put chains on my car so that I could drive to a doctor's appointment, and it's a good thing he did because I don't think I would have made it there without them. After the doctor, I got to have a kid-free lunch with six of my close friends at one of my favorite little restaurants downtown. It was wonderful!! I love all of these ladies so much. That's Alexis in the front next to me, then Andrea and Lana. On the other side from the front there's Rocky, Kylie, Michelle, and Michelle's sweet baby girl, Ava (that run-down is mainly for my family members who hear me mention these people and want to put a face with a name).

On the 23rd, our Christmas cards finally went out, I made a short visit to the ER due to a stomach bug I've been fighting for three weeks, my grandma had emergency surgery, and my in-laws flew from Denver to San Fran, only to have to rent a car at 11:00 P.M. and drive to KFalls through the night because of a missed connection due to weather in Denver. Whew! Thankfully, I got a clean bill of health and am feeling better now, my grandma is still in the hospital but doing well, and Chris and Charlene made it here safely and have since caught up on their missed sleep.

On Christmas Eve, I made a kid-free shopping trip to Wal-Mart, baked some cookies, and then Charlene, Jackson, and I went to the children's mass at a Catholic church here in town. I had never been to mass before and it was neat to experience it. Jackson actually sat through the service with us and did pretty well. He went up front for the children's lesson and other than jumping up and down off of the top step of the altar and walking up to the altar to try to give one of the priests a kiss, he did fine. We left a little early right after communion, though, because we had been sitting (and standing) still and quiet for over an hour and Jackson was done. Here are a few pictures from the 24th...

Jackson fits into the 3T Carter's pajamas pretty well, so I ordered some 3T ones from Old Navy and they are way too long. He'll be able to wear them eventually, though. He can still run at full speed throughout the house, even with crazy long pajama feet.

Here's the tree all ready for the morning, after Santa and his elves put most of the presents together...

And here are some pictures from Christmas Day. Jackson woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning (of course, only on Christmas!), so instead of running out to the tree like we thought he would, we had to try to coax him out. That didn't work so well, so we just left him alone for a little bit and eventually he came into the room and saw the presents.

After presents, the men fried a turkey for dinner. YUM!

I had forgotten to buy chicken stock for the stuffing, so it wasn't very good. Phil and his dad fixed that by deep-frying balls of stuffing. I heard they were pretty good! This was after dinner... we threw most of them away.

The weather was beautiful that day, so we all went for a walk after eating.

Then the 26th was Chris (Papa Swoop)'s birthday! Jackson helped decorate the cake...

... and blow out the candles...

Happy Birthday, Chris!!

Thank you to everyone who sent the boys such wonderful gifts! They are truly enjoying them. We haven't had to watch George on TV hardly at all these past three days! And thank you, God, for the best gift of all - Jesus! I'm very excited for next year when Jackson will be able to understand the Christmas story and celebrate Jesus's birth. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, too!

Holiday Happenings

Man, I am so behind this Christmas season. Our Christmas cards aren't even here yet, a few of our gifts to other people may arrive late, and my house seems to be a constant mess because I haven't had time to tidy it up every day. I feel like I can't keep my head above water! Next year, my goal is to be totally organized and have some sort of plan to get everything done in a timely manner. And no traveling at the beginning of December! I've done that two years in a row and it really puts me behind.

Today was actually a relatively calm day, so I've had time to clean up and even upload some videos. I'm doing this during naptime because I've made an early resolution to stop spending time on the computer while the boys (especially Jackson) are awake. I feel like I've been missing some discipline-related "teachable moments" with Jackson lately because I've been otherwise occupied on the computer. It sure is an addiction that I need to keep under control.

We went to my Mom's Club Christmas party last night and the boys got to see Santa again. This time he arrived in a police car, which J totally loved. Compared to that and an F-15, a boring old sleigh is going to sound really lame to Jackson once he's able to comprehend the whole Santa story! :) Jackson wouldn't get near him... he wouldn't even take the present that Santa had for him. Here he is checking Santa out from a distance.

Emmett, unable to know what he was in for and make his feelings known about it - poor thing, had to endure sitting on Santa's lap. It didn't go well!

I just love a plate of Christmas sugar cookies. Aren't these pretty? I used an icing recipe that my friend, Kristen, recommended from allrecipes.com and it was perfect. I could eat this whole tray. Except that I won't, because I've just started noticing weight loss from going to the gym! It took a while, but is finally happening (albeit very slowly). Hooray! So now I have to try to be extra good these next two weeks to make sure I don't undo everything.

Just look at these precious boys in their matching Christmas pajamas. Ooooh, I could totally eat them up!

Here are four videos from the past two days. The first is Jackson opening his present from Santa at the party last night. I was there by myself because Phil was night flying, otherwise Emmett would not have been rolling all over the floor. Yuck.

Next is Jackson telling me about the present he got from Santa last night. I tried to make out what he was saying as best I could!

This one is Emmett enjoying his bath. My friend, Michelle, lent us this bath seat and it is the best. thing. ever. He can splash away to his little heart's content and we don't have to worry about him falling over backwards (which, unfortunately, has happened before).

And finally, here's Emmett making his first real crawl! He's been trying to do this for days, but always ended up just sliding backwards or collapsing back to his tummy. I think he's got it!