Papa Visit - Week 2

Fri - Papa babysat so I could clean the house in preparation for the holiday, I made Grandma Sandy's famous lasagna for dinner

Sat - My Mom and Dad spent the day with friends on the other coast so Jon and I took the kids to see Santa at Bass Pro

Sun - the men watched the Vikings game at the bar while the women did the final holiday chores, Papa's favorite takeout Chinese dinner

Mon - Christmas Eve (detailed post with pics to follow)

Tues - Christmas Day (more to follow)

Wed - the kids and I spent the day at Gaga's since it was Papa's last day in town :(

So it was a super quick trip for my Dad this year.  We were sad to see him go, but excited for him to get back and give us updates on my parents new house.  It looks like the build will be completed and they will be able to move in within a month!  Rylee cannot wait for her new bedroom at the lake.  We're all excited that the new place has a bathtub, but a little sad to say goodbye to the white trash baths.  Maybe we'll have to pull out those Rubbermaid tubs just for fun...

Christmas posts to follow once I get all the photos downloaded!  :)

Holiday Photo Outtakes 3

Just a few more!  Some funny (but still adorable) outtakes of Jace...

 

 

Raarrr!

 



Whoopsy daisy!

 

Talk to the braid...

 



 

A true ankle biter...

 



 

I don't know what I was thinking with this setup at all, but these two are kinda cute... 

 

 

Merry Christmas!!

Holiday Photo Outtakes 2

A few funny ones... :)

Puffy coats!

 



 

 

What's this thingie?

 



 

 

I think Mom accidentally gave us the spiked egg nog!

 



 

 

This thingie is fun!

 



 

Jace, stop touching my pom pom!

 

 

Mom, make him stop!

 

 

Holiday Photo Outtakes 1

These photo outtakes are mostly sweet (rather than funny) but I couldn't help sharing.  :)

 

Inside jokes...

 



 

Hugs...

 

 

Christmas magic...
 (too bad we hadn't cut Jace's hair yet, he looks like he has the Donald Trump comb over)

 

 

Secrets...

 



 

Man, you're heavy for a little guy...

 

 

Kisses...

 

 

Oh, and one not so cute one...  :)

 

 

Santa Scaredy Cats

Per usual, Rylee refused to sit on Santa's lap again this year. She did sit on the step (and only looks slightly terrified in the photo). In Jace's defense, he's actually more tired here than scared.  Ho ho ho!
 

 

Mater Mouth

These last couple of weeks have been busy for Jace...

He got his first tooth (top left) so I joked that he wanted his two front teeth for Christmas.  I guess he really did - the top right just started to break through.  Right now he looks like Mater (from Cars) with one big tooth and one little tooth when he smiles.  Adorable!

He had started sitting up, but was still toppling over once in a while.  Now he sits up for as long as he wants and can even roll down to his tummy (much more graceful than the toppling) when he wants to crawl away...

...which is all the time!  He's only doing the army crawl so far (although he's practicing getting up on his knees) but he sure is fast!  His favorite things to crawl to are: the TV/stereo volume knob, the dog's water dish, and the open dishwasher.  Luckily, Rylee is on Jace patrol.  She grabs him by the ankles and drags him away from all the no no's.  Jace thinks it is a great ride!

He's been saying "da da" for a while and just a few days ago, he started saying "ma ma!"  He likes to really over-enunciate the m's so sometimes it sounds like "mum-mum" but I'll take it.  Right now he mostly uses my name in two ways: when someone else is holding him and he's looking for me and when I'm feeding him his baby food.  Apparently I never shovel it in fast enough, because he yells at me between each bite.  :)

His one (slightly-annoying) new skill is screaming like a pterodactyl.  He's most vocal at dinnertime.  He really wants to eat with us and he lets us know it! 

There you have it - that's Jace (month 7)!  :)

Papa Visit - Week 1

I haven't been on the blogs since my Dad arrived.  We've been too busy having fun - not a bad problem to have!  :)

Thurs - Papa arrived (Rylee was disappointed that she couldn't meet him at the airport, but she did get to run to him outside), both my Mom and Jon were busy that night so my Dad had dinner with me and the kids

Fri- breakfast at Gaga's, relaxing day, delicious kabob dinner by the pool

Sat- Jon watched Jace so the rest of us could go to Lion Country Safari.  Of all the things Rylee loves about this place, her favorite might be that she can ride in the car but not be strapped in her car seat - such a novelty!  We saw the cutest baby zebra and fed the giraffes.  Rylee also had a blast riding the rides and playing a few holes of mini golf (she managed a par 3 - lucky girl). The weather was perfect (overcast and not too hot) and Rylee was a peach during the hour car ride up and back, playing her iXL the whole time (it was a true Christmas miracle).

Sun - We all went bowling in the morning.  I was extremely rusty so Rylee almost beat me my first game.  In the end, I managed to break a hundred (barely).  The boys went to the bar to watch the game so the rest of us hung out at Gaga's.

Mon- Monkey Joes (bounce house), Rylee's dance class, pizza from the place next door (they conveniently offer a 2 for 1 on Monday nights)

Tues- Gaga and Papa had a day to themselves, the kids and I went to Ooopsy, did our grocery shopping, and caught up on some chores.  That night Jon volunteered to watch Jace again so we could go look at Christmas lights (we have two amazing places a few miles from us, both of which have been featured nationally, plus we drove through Tradewinds Park and also a couple of other neighborhoods that are known for good light displays).

Wed- The kids and I went to Rylee's library class and then we all spent the afternoon at out house.  Gaga and I baked fudge and other goodies while Papa and Rylee played in the kiddie pool (the big pool is officially too cold for Rylee!).

Today- Jace had a doctor appt so I dropped Rylee off at Gaga and Papa's.  Afterwards, Papa babysat the kids while my Mom and I ran a few errands.  We were all supposed to go Christmas light gawking again, but Jon was at basketball and Jace was too tired.  My parents ended up babysitting so Rylee and I could go to those two fancy places again (there was a snow (read: foam) machine tonight so Rylee had fun with that).

Santa Letters

We finally got around to writing our Santa letters tonight.  Rylee wrote hers herself.  With spelling help, she wrote "Dear Santa" at the top.  The she made a list of three things she wanted, but it was just a string of random letters.

Me: "Tell me what you asked for and I'll write it next to your word so we make sure Santa knows exactly what you want."

Rylee: "Oh, Santa will know what I want."

Me: "Can you tell Mommy and Daddy what you want?"

Rylee: "No!  It's a secret."

She was not making it easy on me!  It took some persuading (and a few disparaging remarks about Santa's reading ability), but I finally figured out that she asked for a pretty necklace, an Ariel book and a toy.  :)

Next, we worked on Jace's letter.  According to Rylee, he asked for a "chew toy."  She wasn't taking any chances with her brother's letter so this time she was trying to sound out the words before writing them.  Of course, the beginning sound 'chuh' is a blend so she needed some help with the spelling.  When she got to the word toy, Jon was about to spell it for her when I reminded her that she already knew how. 

Me: In my best Sheriff Woody impression, "You're not a real Space Ranger.  You are a toy..."

Rylee (finishing): "T-o-y, toy!"

See she does learn something from memorizing her favorite movies!  :)

First Word!

A few weeks ago, Jace started saying something that resembled "Dada."  First it was mixed in with a string of his other babble-y sounds, but then it was its own stand alone sound.  I was hesitant to call it his first "word" since he was using it pretty randomly. 

Well tonight, he kept saying it over and over and he was either looking at Jon or trying to get his attention so I'm officially declaring it his first word!  :)

I've been working with him on "Mama" but when he tries he mostly just sticks his tongue out in an attempt to imitate the "m" sound.  Dang those tricky soft consonants!

So Big!

Jace accomplished some impressive firsts this week...

He can sit up now (or at least for fairly long periods) without topping over. 

"Look at me, Mom!"

 

 

His first tooth finally broke through!  It's his top left.

"Cheese!"

 



 

"Ok, that's enough now!"

 



 

"Well, one more... for Rylee."

 



 

 

P.S.  Jace did indeed have his first cold (alien green boogers and that awful croup cough), but he was a trooper.  He hardly fussed at all.  What little bit of fussing there was seemed to be more from his tooth.  Hopefully he'll be back to healthy for Papa's arrival on Thursday!

Behind on Blogging

I am WAY behind on blogging so you'll have to settle for the abridged version of what we've been up to.  :)

Thanksgiving Weekend Recap
Thursday
First off we had a wonderful, and amazingly relaxing, Thanksgiving with our friends.  Thanks go out to the Froyd Family for hosting!  Rylee played with the kids so she was out of our hair most of the day and Jace slept through dinner (we couldn't have timed that bettter if we tried).  Speaking of the kids, they practically outnumbered the adults (not quite, but close).  The kids table was quite the riot at dinner time.  It was fun to listen to their conversations.  And yes, my daughter did yell out "boobies" during the meal.  Good times, good times...

Friday
Friday night, we had our first girl's night sleepover at my Mom's.  We played games, colored, watched movies and ate popcorn.  It was really fun.  Rylee went to bed with no issues so my Mom and I stayed up late watching those cheesy TV Christmas movies we like so much. 

Saturday
We invited Jon and Jace over for brunch the next morning and then the kids and I hung out for a while longer since Jon had to run into work. Later, we spent a few hours hanging out with the Froyds and our college friend, Andy, was was down visiting. 

I don't remember Sunday so I'm thinking it must have been a relaxing day.

Last Week
In addition to running the kids to their usual activities, the highlights were:

- my Mom babysat on Tuesday so Jon and I could have a date night (Food Truck dinner -delicious!-followed by Xmas shopping)
 - my Mom and I hosted book club on Thursday night (huge thanks to my Mom since she did all the hard work of cleaning and cooking for me!)
 - my Mom and I took a girls day (no kids!) to the other coast on Saturday to see our friends, Greg and Sharon.  We spent the day shopping and then had a fun, chatty dinner before heading home.

The biggest reason for my busyness though is Christmas preparations.  Shannon's Workshop is only open from the hours of 9 pm to midnight so I'm behind on all other things: housekeeping, blogging, TV watching etc.  I want to have everything wrapped up (get it?!) before my Dad arrives on the 13th. 

I have some interesting Jace news, but I think I'll save that for his own post.  :)