A Very Merry Christmas...

From our family to yours!

Sweet Boys

Liam loves to hold his brother. The other morning, at 5am, he asked to hold Max while he watched his morning show. They sat quietly on the couch like this, Max happily holding on to Liam and looking so proud to be with his big brother:

The dark living room was so peaceful as they sat in the glow of the TV, just being brothers. I added a little flash to one picture, just to pick out some detail:

Two of my favorite things about this shot are Max's tight grip on Liam's pajamas and Max's size compared to his 3 year old brother! What a monster!! What sweethearts, too.

Art Class

The boys and I have been busy making Christmas artwork for the past few weeks.

Our latest is footprint reindeer. Liam's turned out super cute:

Max's are cute too, but definitely give you an idea of how much energy he has!

I don't think he ever stops kicking his feet:

Being the neat freak I am, having paint smeared all over the kids' feet (and sometimes all over many other surfaces) isn't my favorite thing, but a little extra cleaning is worth the cute memories we'll have of when they were this small.

Cookies for Santa

Grammy Pammy brought this adorable plate for the boys last weekend!

Liam is super excited to leave out cookies for Santa.

I think we're even leaving carrots outside for his reindeer!

I'm sure they'll all be hungry after their long trip from the "Norf Pole!"

Laundry Day...

Only, it appears that Liam's "laundry" consits of:

a hammer, a couch pillow, one of Max's toys and a drill.

Chew-bacca

Max has two teeth and just started eating finger foods! He had a few baby cereal puffs the other day and seemed relieved to know that his new teeth had a purpose! He's still mastering the pincer grasp, but can get that cereal in his mouth one way or another!

Liam is always so excited when Max does "big kid" things!

He had to come over and cheer on his brother!

Max loves attention from his big brother.

They're good buddies already!

It's so great to be able to see Max learn and grow.

It is definitely just as exciting the second time around as it was the first!

Daddy's Boys

Many days I can't wait for Aaron to get home to help with the kids, and provide some adult conversation! Most days, though, it's this I look forward to the most:

Seeing the boys so excited that Daddy is home...and then turning him into a human jungle gym!

They both light up when they see him...so do I for that matter...

Love you, Daddy!

Liam Goes Grocery Shopping

I went grocery shopping the other night and Liam met me at the door when I got home.

"Come and look at all the food in the fridge!" he said excitedly.

"What food, buddy?" (because there really was no food in there yet...)

"See? Look at all my foooood!"

The fridge was filled with legos, Star Wars figurines, a plastic deer and even one of Max's socks.

All delicacies in the neighborhood of make-believe...

Thanks for your help, buddy!

Disney Fashion Show

Awww! The boys acting cute in their new Disney shirts from Grandpa Ron and Grandma Meg! Every picture I take turns out just like this one...

We're just so lucky that they stop everything and pose:

And always use their nicest smiles:

No one would actually pretend to be asleep in a photo I'm taking:

Or look suspiciously at the camerawoman:

They're very well-trained...

Away in a Manger...

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

It's just too cold for me to take the kids outside for more than a few minutes during the day. Liam is dying to get out of the house and play, but he has to wait until it warms up a little bit. I thought I'd bring a little bit of the outside in today, and Liam had a blast! We filled two pans with snow and he drove his trucks and diggers around and around!

He then played Dr. Liam the paleontologist and buried dinosaurs to "discover":

I'm finding that I can be quite creative when I want to be! I have a huge box of old Family Fun magazines waiting for me to dig through to find our next craft projects (thanks Da!). It's fun to have a kid at the age where crafts are fun. There are only so many toilet paper roll angels I can get Aaron to make... ;)

Let's Build a Snowman!

Liam has been very anxious to build a snowman since we told him about the storm that was coming this week. While the grass was still green in the yard, he was asking when there would be enough snow for a snowman. It did start to snow, but lightly at first on Tuesday. I told him that when the grass was covered with snow there might be enough for a snowman. Of course, when there was about .0001 inches of snow on the ground and the grass was just barely dusted he figured it would be enough! We decided to "build" a snowman in our project room downstairs, instead! This snowman has fingerprint eyes, recycled cardboard hat and scarf and chopstick arms! Liam had fun making him, and it occupied him while we waited for the real snow to get here!

Snow Day!

This was the scene at our house around 5:30 this morning...

It was beautiful, and crazy all at once. We must have over a foot of snow. Our tree in the front yard had branches almost touching the ground under the weight of so much snow! There was no snow on the ground yesterday, and today it looks like this:

So we have to dress like this:

Snow days are fun!

(But shoveling is...not...)

St. Nick

St. Nick came to visit our house on Sunday! Liam got an I Spy Merry Christmas book and he and Max both got The Night Before Christmas book read by Grandma Karen and Grandpa Richie! (St. Nick is a close, personal friend of theirs...) I videotaped them opening the present and listening to it for the first time. My favorite parts are Max watching Liam so intently and Liam nearly picking his nose and taking his fingers in and out of his mouth (proud moments!). They were both very cute!

I love this idea, and I'm so excited that Grandma and Grandpa thought to do this! Liam has listened to the book at least a dozen times each day since Sunday. He loves it! And I know Max will, too. Thanks, St. Nick!

Fun Factory

Liam is playing with playdough and using household kitchen items as tools. I found a plastic fork to make patterns with and then we dug up some chopsticks, too. His eyes lit up and he ran over to the table with them to start making holes in his playdough.

"Oh, I'm SO GLAD you gave me these, Mom!" he said excitedly.

Old chopsticks = highlight of the day!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

And soon it might look Christmas-y outside as well! We're forcasted to get 8-10" of snow tonight and tomorrow! Aaron is hoping for a snow day, and we're keeping our fingers crossed, too! It's always fun to be stuck in the house during a snowstorm...at least it was when we didn't have two kids under the age of 3...! But Liam is very excited for snow and can't wait to make a snowman. Let's hope the snow will stick around for Christmas, too. I love white Christmases.

Naptime Gymnastics

Liam is supposed to be napping. I heard him banging around in his room a few minutes ago and went in to see what he was up to. He quickly climbed into bed when he heard me opening the door and started whining before I even got into the room.

"I told you to stay in bed and take a nap," I said.

"I AM!" he whined.

"Why were you out of bed then? I told you no playing until after nap!"

"I wasn't playing!" he said.

"Well, what were you doing then?"

"I was just doing some summersaults..."

Oh, ok then. Carry on.

All I Want for Christmas...

...is my two front teeth!

And less chins... :)

Christmas Cookie Fail

I love my mom's cut-out cookies. I remember helping to cut the shapes out as she rolled and re-rolled the dough when we were kids. She chilled the dough before rolling it out, so sometimes dad would sneak a big spoonful of it, followed by three children with spoons. I have made similar versions to this cut-out cookie recipe in the past with decent results. I had no reason to believe that this year's batch would be any different. The only problem was that I did not have my mom's original recipe. Now, most cut-out cookie recipes are very similar, so I just decided to go online and get the measurements for the ingredients correct. I went to a recipe near the top of the search results and thought it looked fine. You know how things often look fine on paper and then taste like crap later on? Similar story here.

I'm mixing the ingredients and the amount of flour seems pretty extreme. I keep mixing. The dough looks to be about the right consistency, but I have about 2 cups of flour yet to add. By the time all the flour was mixed in I had a bowl full of dough pebbles that wouldn't form into a ball no matter how hard I tried. What the heck. So, Aaron came to the rescue and added some milk and some sugar to get it pliable again. He double-checked the recipe I'd been using and said, "Umm, honey, this recipe didn't get very good reviews..." Indeed it had not. The first review minced no words and announced that "This recipe sucks." Way to go me on not checking the reviews first. We put the dough in the fridge and went out to run some errands.

Liam and I bought cookie cutters and busted out the dough when we got home. It looked relatively normal, but no person with actual taste buds should have ever tried a bite of it. I did. It was not good. I couldn't waste the dough, so I added some more sugar and decided to just go for it. We cut out a few dozen cookies and I put the first batch in the oven. Liam dragged his stool over to check the progress and we waited with bated breath.

Well, the resulting chunks of hard tack tasted just as bland as the dough had. So, we were stuck with about 3 dozen Christmas-shaped cardboard cookies in need of frosting. I thought I'd have fun frosting them at least and mixed up some fun colors and got started. I had wanted to frost the reindeer cookies brown, so we mixed up a combination of colors and got...gray. This entire venture is not going well.

We ended up with cookies that looked...pretty much as gross as they tasted:

Expect some gray Christmas Santas in the mail soon! Merry Christmas!

MTV Cribs

Liam loves to play with Max in his crib. Max will wake up and Liam will run in to see him. He'll pick out some books, I'll lift him over the side and he'll read books with his brother for quite awhile. Max gets so excited when he sees his brother!

I was thinking about how great it is to be home with the boys for me, but I didn't realize how great it would be for them! Sure, they went to the same daycare before, but they rarely saw eachother during the day. At home they're together all day long, and I can tell that they're really bonding:

I'm so grateful that they'll be able to spend this kind of time together. Liam gets to see Max grow and change every day, and he's really excited about it! He's right there with us as Max rolls around on the floor, and wants to show Max things and include him in things already! Max watches his brother closely, and likes to have him close by:

Kids are cute...but mine are screaming and pretending to chop down trees in the living room. I'll let you decide who's doing what while I go and take a nap.

Funny kids...

I heard Max laughing and laughing in the living room the other day while Liam played with him. Usually all Liam has to do is dance a little dance, or sing a little song, or just look at his brother to get him to laugh. I went in after a few minutes and this is what I found...

Liam had emptied the stuffed animal basket and wedged each one into Max's bouncy chair! Max was kicking and laughing and having the best time...even though only his feet were showing by the time Liam ran out of animals! He eventually peeked out...

Crazy kids! I think I'm going to have my hands full once Max is mobile and can get Liam back!

I love these boys!

Max loves his brother! He would follow Liam around like a puppy if he could! He's such a smiley baby, always laughing and excited about something. I love seeing him first thing in the morning. He's always got the biggest smile...that helps at 5am!

Liam is growing up so much, and turning into such a great kid. We all went to nursing school with Auntie Annie yesterday. She needed to do an exam on Max for her final class, so we all went along. Liam was just along for the ride, but was so well behaved. I was really proud of him. There was a huge food table with way too much candy, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, soda...and then one tray of fruit, one of veggies and several kinds of juice boxes. Liam went to the food table, passed by all of the junk without even asking for it, and filled his plate with fruit and a tiny cupcake. Proud parenting moment right there, folks!

Days at home can be trying sometimes, but I love that I get to see them learning and growing every day. It's worth it for these memories that we're making.