Our Christmas

This year was the first year of Josh's life he hasn't had a "Christmas break" (though thankfully being in his psych rotation is about the closest thing you can get to that during third year ;) ) so with that and the distance and what not, we had Christmas here in Saginaw.  While we did miss our family, it was nice to do it with just our little family too and start some of our own traditions.  On Christmas Eve, we
had honey lime chicken enchiladas for dinner,

read the Christmas story in the Bible with the help of this fun Fisher Price nativity set Josh's grandma gave us

made cookies for Santa (you did know he's gluten free, right?)

exchanged our ornaments that show something from our year,

watched a personalized Santa video with Shane, then put the kids the bed so that Santa could come.  I think Santa may have had almost as much fun setting everything up as the kids did the next morning.

Christmas morning we woke up and saw what Santa had left out for us (including "Lewis Hamilton"- the car Mrs. Clause luckily found at Kroger the morning before when she realized that was what Shane thought Santa was bringing), checked out our stockings,

ate some cinnamon rolls,

then dressed in our best duds and went to church. 

We ate lunch candy from our stockings, Marissa napped a little, and we opened our presents,

and enjoyed the afternoon playing with all the new toys

We skyped with our families, had lasagna for dinner, and then relaxed on the couch with a new movie we'd gotten (The Blindside).

We were certainly spoiled and couldn't have asked for a much better day. Although it wasn't a White Christmas it was actually a beautiful day, and I'm sure we'll make up for the lack of snow in the coming months ;)  Merry Christmas everyone!

P.S. Thanks for all your Christmas cards, I have loved getting them, and sorry I have been too lazy to do my own this year!



Best Buddies

It has been so much fun for me to watch these two become friends.

Now that Marissa is mobile,

she likes to be right where he is playing with whatever he's playing with

And that's the way he wants it to be most of the time

They do have their squabbles over toys

She is usually the aggressor, he usually takes a more defensive strategy and scoots away if he knows she wants something of his or blocks her with his body

They sure do love each other

Everything is always more fun when the other is involved

He does things to try to get her to laugh and make her happy when she's crying, and today he fell out of his chair and was crying and she came crawling over to give him some love. (Though she does often think it's funny when he's upset and likes to imitate him ha ha)

They look like my little twins but it is funny to see their different personalities form and see how different they are from each other.  One that would still gladly be spoon fed and one that already demands to feed herself.

One that squeals in delight when I turn on the vacuum and one that hides on the couch.  One that would sit on my lap and read books for hours and one that would rather destroy them.  Not better or worse, just different, and I'm finding it's true what they say that love multiplies.

So this is what it's like to have a child who crawls...

Ah, but they are so much happier making all that mischief!

This is her favorite spot in the house.

Bet you can't guess whose chair that is.  She knows where the goods are!

My 3 Year Old

My little boy turned 3 on Tuesday!!!  We were having a gathering at our house for a bunch of our friends that were leaving Saginaw last weekend and so we just did cake for him there where he had lots of people to sing to him.

It was a pretty low key birthday- McDonalds for lunch, he watched Cars 2, had one of his favorite dinners (barbecue chicken enchiladas), and more cake.  But the magic for him was opening his presents and finding that my mom and Josh's grandma had gotten him some cars from Cars 2 that he didn't have and he was VERY excited about them.  He got a few other presents that I'm sure he'll play with next week but for now it is all about these cars.

They all have foreign names and he loves saying them.  (He knew them already from watching these little 20 second turntable clips on Youtube)

And he pretty much thinks that everything in our house is an accessory for them. 

I'm not complaining because they get him to do all sorts of things (Shane, I think Miguel Camino wants a bite of apple...)

The fun continued today with Grandma Dettinger's package

And he is loving the card that Heather gave him that I am pretty sure was designed especially for him.

I love my little buddy and am so glad I get to be his mom!

First Snow

Our first snow came on Wednesday, just one day shy of December.   The kids both loved it- good thing since we live in Michigan!  It has since melted, just in time for the fresh batch in the forecast tomorrow.  I do enjoy it a lot more during the holiday season, and when I look through the eyes of these cute snow bunnies.

P.S. don't worry, I let her touch for a minute, and she now has gloves:)