New Developments

First off, I just wanted to share some cute pictures of Reid that I've been meaning to post.  He is just cutting his first tooth (and working on others, I imagine) and has been really rough to deal with lately.  For the past week and a half if I'm not holding him he pretty much follows me around the house screaming at me every day.  I hold him as much as I can, but sometimes I just have to put him down to do some things!  It's really frustrating.  He's also been waking at night again.  I feel bad for him because I know his mouth hurts, but it's still rough to deal with.  Neither J nor E teethed like this... I  usually never even knew they were teething until I saw teeth in their mouth!  We have had a few days where Reid has been his usual happy, content self, though.  But we are seriously regressing at church... he won't spend more than 15 minutes in the nursery before he's absolutely screaming bloody murder.  And he doesn't want to sit in the dark nursing room with me so we end up standing and rocking back and forth in the lobby of the church during the sermon... watching the pastor through the window. (And I don't want to leave early because J and E really love their Sunday school classes.  E cried when I first dropped him off this week saying, "I want to go home!" but after about a minute he calmed down.  He has the same teacher every week - Miss Robin - and she is wonderful.  She told me when I picked E up how well he did and how sweet he is.  Apparently, while they were eating plain old Cheerios for a snack (that he doesn't really love at home) he said, "MMMMM!  Miss Wobin, this snack is so goooood!"  Haha!)  I know this stage with Reid will pass, though.  We are just pushing through.  

Here he is after eating a cereal bar...

And he loves to sit in his high chair without the tray.  I guess he likes being up high like the rest of us.  He loves to pull his bib and socks off.

He also loves to ride on Daddy's shoulders...

And he loooooves the shower.  So much so that I have to keep the bathroom door closed so he doesn't open the shower door and climb in there and get all soaked like this...  :)

Even though he's been difficult lately, he is still so very precious to me.  He is very snuggly and yummy and I just want to eat him up when I look at pics like this....

I just love those big brown eyes.  He used to be really bad about scratching his nose... I keep the boys' nails really short but the edges of Reid's nails get to be like little razors even if they're not that long.

Here he is in the shower again... this time with the nice warm water on...

Ahhhhh... nice!

I have a newfound love for Instagram on my iPhone.  I never really used to understand why people liked it so much because I thought the pictures always looked a little grainy and blurry-ish.  But now that I have it and have used it myself I am kinda obsessed with it!  It's so easy to take pics on my phone and all of the different filters are so fun!

It's so hard to get pictures of the older boys because they don't like to sit still and smile at the camera.  But they do like to see themselves on my phone screen so sometimes I can bribe them with that.  And I pretty much always have my phone handy so it's much easier to snap pics with that than run to the cabinet and get the camera.

Emmett is growing up so fast....

Here he is at toddler gymnastics.  He absolutely loves this.  Jackson was never that keen on it, but Emmett is all into it and usually tries everything and follows directions.  Here he is doing all of the warm-up movements by himself.  With J I used to have to do everything and even move his body into position myself, but Emmett just goes off on his own!

And please notice in this picture... NO DIAPER!!  Yes, Emmett is potty-trained!!  It was like a miracle from above.  We were totally dreading potty-training E because he is our little stinker and really digs his heels in with most things we ask him to do, so we thought for sure that making him go potty would be a huge battle.  Not so!  He really surprised us and was pretty much completely potty-trained (including #2) in a week.  It was unbelieveably easy.  He still has a potty accident every once in a while, but is so good about telling us he has to go.  As soon as he gets up in the morning he asks to go.  It is totally amazing.  Who knew??  I am so very thankful.  I really think that seeing Jackson go all the time helped a lot.  And so did Hershey's kisses and marshmallows.  :)

He keeps us laughing all the time with the things he says.  After Christmas he would say totally out of the blue,  "You better be good, o-wise no pesents!"  We don't remember saying that to him, but maybe we did and it obviously stuck with him.  Then last night at Fred Meyer he wanted to hold the receipt and said that he was going to read it to me.  So I asked what it said and he said, "It says be a good boy!"  Haha!  I know we do tell him that a lot.  :)

He loves to line things up in rows...

Here he hooked Lightning up to Mater and was so proud...

Next up with E is getting rid of the pacifier.  Ugh... I don't think that's going to be as easy as potty training was.  He is obsessed with his "bink".  And I don't mean to make him sound like he is all stinker.  He is all about Mommy lately and can be very sweet and loving.  He is really good about using his manners and is an excellent helper.

We went to the park yesterday even though it was freezing outside because we were all stir crazy and just needed to get out.  It was nice and sunny, though, and the boys had fun.

E didn't want to wear his hat (of course!) but I asked him to put it back on and this is the best he could do.  :)

I just had to post this video of Reid.  He really loves chocolate Cheerios and just cracks us up with the way he totally dives into them as soon as we put them on his tray.  Slams his hands into the pile and shoves handfuls into his mouth... so funny!

And then there's this one of Jackson reading Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! to Emmett.  We have three of these pigeon books (which Phil and I think are kind of the dumbest books ever - haha) and the boys are obsessed with them.  They both have all three of them memorized.  Jackson is reading the part of the pigeon, who keeps asking to drive the bus, and Emmett keeps telling him, "No!"   They love the saying "no" part.  :)

Christmas Morning

We spent a quiet Christmas at home this year with just our little family.  I still really missed our extended families in Florida and Hawaii and wished we could be together, but I tried not to think about that too much and just enjoy being with my babies and sweet hubs.  

Here's Phil on Christmas Eve helping Santa by putting together the boys' train table so that Santa didn't have to.  :)  We bought this table a few years ago but never opened the boxes that had all of the tracks and accoutrements.  We finally decided this year to actually put the whole thing together and permanently attach it to the table so that no one (i.e. Emmett or Reid) could destroy it.  Emmett loves to put tracks together and run his trains over them, but then when he gets bored he also loves to just completely tear the whole thing apart, which is really frustrating for Jackson (and for Mom or Dad when we take time to set up a track for him and then 10 minutes later he wrecks it!).  The boys still have some loose Thomas tracks that they can put together themselves if they want to, but now they also have this fun track that stays permanently together.  I think this was the favorite gift of Christmas this year.  

Here's a pic from after Santa came and left all of the presents for the boys...

We had fun having the boys set out the plate of cookies for Santa with their letters and stockings all next to the fireplace.  They were so excited.

And here is Christmas morning...  Emmett made a beeline for the train table.  We thought his new bike would be the biggest hit, but it wasn't.

One of the main things J wanted was a Buzz Lightyear and here's Phil showing him what all of Buzz's buttons do...

It's so funny how times change.  Last year I remember it took forever for the boys to open all of their presents and we even had to save stockings for the next day because they were a little overwhelmed.  This year we had to constantly tell J to slow down!

Reid loves the train table, too.  And it's so nice that he can't tear things apart!  :)

The other main thing Jackson wanted was this stomp rocket.  Some of our friends brought this whenever we went camping with them this year and Jackson was absolutely obsessed with it.  I can't believe we held off so long in getting him one!

Here he is in the middle of yelling, "BLAST OFF!"  Emmett was counting down and then Jackson would stomp on it.  They loved it.  It was such an inexpensive present but so much fun for the kids.

We just crack up when Emmett takes his turn because the rocket only shoots up about two feet and makes the funniest little popping sound.  I need to take a video of it.  He still loves it, though, even if it doesn't go as high as Jackson's.

Here's Reid trying to eat Emmett's new bike...

And the boys opening presents from Nana and Papa Swoop...

They were so excited about these walkie-talkies!

N and PS got them this Buzz Lightyear game that has a gun that shoots little foam disks.  The guns are battery-powered and very easy to shoot and the boys just love them!

Phil had them shoot down the hallway so they could keep track of the disks...

My mom sent the boys these adorable matching Christmas pajamas a few days before Christmas.  She knows that I love for the boys to match whenever possible.  :)  We tried to get a good pic with all three of them in their pjs, but this is the best we were able to do.  Phil and I didn't plan very well... I was obviously not near the camera and they were looking at me instead of the camera.  Oops.

Notice E doesn't let go of his gun!  :)

Reid kept looking up at his big brother.  :)

J is so very sweet to him.

And that's pretty much all, folks!  I got a few videos but they weren't really that great.  The boys didn't say much when they first came out after waking up... I guess they were just taking it all in.  And then my camera memory card was full after a few videos and our other camera was out of batteries.  I really didn't plan well!  It was a very special Christmas anyway, though.  :)  Thank you to everyone who sent the boys such wonderful presents!  They really loved everything they opened and have been very entertained with all of their new loot!