Christmas!

We had an awesome Christmas. We did not travel (hurrah! finally!) and family came to visit us. It was ridiculously fun. Christmas Eve we had a lot of family over (14 adults and 4 kids age 2 and under). We attempted the nativity with the kids. Isaac was a great cow and mooed a lot. Henry was a really cute shepherd. William was in bed and it lasted about 30 seconds (if even). Maybe next year the kids will have a slightly longer attention span.

Christmas morning was nice and leisurely. We ate a good breakfast. Isaac opened his stocking present in that time and was thrilled. I think that we could have stopped there (trains and cars!).

We had one meltdown when Isaac found out that he could not open all of the presents under the tree. He got over it pretty quick.

One of my favorite gifts for the kids was an indoor bounce house. I got this for them (and me) last summer on a July clearance. Isaac LOVES it.

Grandma Kay got the kids matching outfits. It is the first time they have been dressed in the same clothes. (I will add that this photo was incredibly hard to take. We have lots of one or both of them crying or crawling or running away).

Puzzle time!

Pre-christmas December

Catch up time...

We had a great December. Isaac had several visits with Santa, which seemed to serve him well on Christmas morning. It seems that Santa understood when he whispered "Diesel" and "all the engines".

We also got to have cousin Benny come over for a while so his parents could go out. We had a lot of fun.

William continues to be super cute and super chubby. He just started to crawl, so I fear that some of the chubbiness might start to melt away. He is nine months old and wearing 18month clothes. Some of those are a little tight, though.

He seems to always need something in his mouth. Poor playmobil girl did not know what hit her (or bit her).

He still has the helmet, but seems to be making great progress. We are optimistic that the helmet should be staying on the shelf soon.

Girls

Isaac and I had a good conversation in the car. I think that this is the beginning of many more open communications between mother and son. It began with me asking about a female friend at daycare. He told me that she pushed him. Then he mentioned another girl who has pushed him. We talked about how to respond to pushing (I was careful not to mention that we should not push back for fear of the power of suggestion-he does not need any suggestions for that). We discussed and practiced say: "Please don't push me" (he did great). Then he said the following:

"Girls aren't good for me. I don't like to play with girls, they push me. Boys are good for me. They don't push me. Boys are fun to play with."

YES!!! Just the attitude that we have been aiming for. Keep those girls at a distance until his twenties. I suspect that we still might have to resort to our original plan of assisting the development of social awkwardness (should not be hard since we can easily lead by example there), wearing the same clothes for the whole week, and wearing a coat at all time to cover said clothes.

When I grow up, I will be...

Tonight we were looking at a picture of Jesus as a boy and talking about him growing up. Isaac said that he is going to get bigger and become a horse. I asked him what he will do then and he said live in a barn, eat hay and become a cow. He proceeded to rattle off all the other farm animals that he will become after that. I think it might be tricky to impress on him that being born in a stable/barn is not the greatest thing in the world. Maybe next Christmas he will understand that Jesus was not the luckiest kid in the world in that respect.

A Witch

Isaac and I were just discussing William's imminent transition to crawling (or at least it seems reasonably imminent). I asked Isaac what William will do when he starts crawling, in hopes of helping him anticipate the toy-snatching that will ensue. He replied that William will not be a baby and that he will be a witch. Who knew?

Yesterday morning, Aleks woke up before the boys and began to hear odd noises upstairs. First he heard Isaac singing to himself (Old McDonald and some other classics). Then he started to hear the bear singing in William's crib. William is not capable of pulling it to make noise, so he got suspicious. Turns out Isaac had woken up and climbed into the crib with William. He was talking to him and telling him to wake up. Aleks got Isaac out and the amazing thing is that William still remained in the crib and slept a bit longer. William has become a much deeper sleeper since we put the boys in the same room.

In other news, we recently went to the zoo and had a nice time. Isaac is a bit animal aficionado, so this was right up his alley. William did not complain.

We headed to Ithaca for Thanksgiving and had a nice time. This shot came from after Aleks got back from a run and was doing pushups. Isaac wanted to join in and insisted on being without his shirt, too.

This week Isaac's animals had a party in the train station. It doesn't get much better than that for a toddler.

We celebrated Aleks' birthday this week. Isaac helped blow out candles and open presents.

Belly Blow

I sort of feel like this does not require commentary.

photo free post

I decided that rather than wait until I actually upload photos to the computer and go through them, I might actually just post something without photos. At the rate I am going, I will never post anything again if I wait for photos.

So here are some goings-on with us these days. Part of the reason we are behind is that William got sick a couple weeks ago and ended up in the ER. Our pediatrician was concerned about his breathing and sent us there to be safe. Aleks had taken him to the doctor while I was at work, so needless to say, I was a bit distracted after I got the call from Aleks that we might be heading to the ER with William, which we ended up doing. Thankfully he was doing ok and they sent us home with a nebulizer that night. He was still smiling and giggling through all the wheezing and coughing. He is a really, really happy kid.

Isaac is saying lots of funny things. Yesterday he woke up from his nap and I when I went upstairs, I found him wandering around with a bucket with some toys in it saying "Christmas" over and over again. Today he told me that he wants to go to Christmas so he can get Diesel, and Mavis and some other toys.

He tells us he does not want his "janamas" on at night.

This morning Aleks was not the favored parent. When Isaac came in to our room he told Aleks to go back to sleep because he wanted to play with Mommy. Too bad for Isaac that Mommy had already been up with William for an hour and a half (he decided to get up early) and had just gotten back in to bed. He manged to do just fine playing with Aleks. I think that sometimes he forgets that Aleks is actually a lot more fun than I am.

Now that William is enjoying the world of solid foods, we have been reminding Isaac that he once loved things like squash and sweet potatoes. Recently we offered some squash to Isaac and he told us: "No squash, William east squash. I eat applesauce and yogurt." And he does..."ganilla" yogurt.

I will try to post some photos later. I know that is why the grandparents actually look at this anyway. Who reads books without pictures anyway?