Merry Xmas 2012

We're creatures of habit and we stuck to our routine again this year. We celebrated with Jordan's family on Christmas Eve at the "Big Fat Mexican Christmas Party" (that's really what it was called). When we got home from dinner that night, I opened the fridge and discovered that my parents had done a sneak visit and brought the breakfast casserole and all the food over. My mom was freaking out that there would be too much snow and they wouldn't be able to make it over for breakfast in the morning. So she delivered the breakfast to us...just in case. That's so my mom. :) Anyway, the snow didn't come until later so my parents we're able to join us that morning and watch E open his gifts. We went to their house for dinner and then celebrated my birthday the next day. Big number 33!

 J's stocking was on the ground because Santa left him some booze. 

Emmett loved the advent calendar this year. Every morning we opened one of the boxes and talked about the special treat that Santa left for him. He was a little perplexed when the boxes disappeared and he didn't get his treat after Christmas. The holidays are so much more fun with kids around! I'm not going to lie, I'm looking forward to doing the "Elf on the Shelf" thing next year. Jordan and I tried to hate on it and make fun of all the crazy crap people do with their little elf, but it just looks fun. I bet E is going to love it. I'm ready for 2013. I think it's going to be a great year!

The Tree

Decorating the tree with Emmett was really fun...for about the first five minutes. I had visions of E actually hanging some of the ornaments and thought he would enjoy watching us decorate. What was I thinking? All he wanted to do was touch all the breakable ornaments, pull everything off the tree, and rip Santa's head off. We eventually gave up and finished decorating while he napped. My mom is a genius and she bought Emmett a bunch of soft cloth ornaments to hang on the bottom half of our tree. He really enjoyed touching those ones and we would find them hidden all over the house.

 Santa lost his head...shortly after this was taken. 

This is one of our very favorite ornaments. It was a gift from Genie, Jordan's mom.  

White Christmas (aka SNOW!)

Our weather this winter has been pretty boring, so I was excited when we saw some snow on Christmas. Even though its not nearly as exciting to get snow when you already have the day off work, it was still fun. Jordan took E out for an adventure to the mailbox. He got to test out his new shovel that the next door neighbor gave him.  

Santa

They were giving away free Santa photos at Fred Meyer. We thought we might get a trial run in before we head over to Nordstrom Santa; hence check out the sweet sweat suit Emmett is sporting.

UPDATE...
The trial run did not work. We had tears and fussing for the "real" Santa. Although, in E's defense. I'm also not a fan of this big guy. The Santa last year was way better and had a legit beard. This guy was creepy and the background was weird and makes it look like the picture was wet.

Naughty or Nice?

Here is E's report from Friday at Daycare: 

• "Emmett is having a great day, he didn't cry when his mom left, nor on the playground. :)"
• "Emmett holds a crayon very well (a 3 finger grip). :)"
• "Emmett pulls children's hair sometimes. :(" 

Good. Great. Oh no! I find it hilarious that the teacher includes the little smile and sad faces next to those comments. She even drew a little tear next to the one about the hair pulling. We clearly need to work on that. I'm going to make him practice "gentle" touching Jordan's hair this weekend. 

Finger Painting

 First he had to taste it. Actually, what am I saying. All he wanted to do was eat it. 

 Jordan decided that he would like it better if he was painting on a real canvas.  

The final masterpiece! I love it.  

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a rough thanksgiving. I stayed home from work with E the day before because he had a stomach bug. He seemed fine the next day and we all felt great so we went ahead with our plans for turkey day. We cooked, laughed, ate, had dessert...then the trouble hit. I'll leave it at that, but Jordan and I have NEVER been so sick. Ever. I'm so thankful for my amazing parents who came over at the drop of a hat after I called them at 3:30 am to tell them we needed help with Emmett in the morning. Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished and my poor mom ended up catching it too.

By Saturday we finally felt up to leaving the house and we went to get our Christmas Tree! A day late, but at least we missed out on all the rain. Emmett really enjoyed the adventure at the Christmas tree farm. Surprisingly, he hasn't been too interested in the fact that there is now a giant tree smack dab in our living room. I wonder how long until he starts messing with it.

Happy Halloween!

We thought for a minute about actually carving the pumpkins, but why do that when you can just cover them with fancy stickers? Seriously, I didn't miss the mess at all and Emmett really liked putting the stickers on his mini pumpkin. I'm a little worried that not having a lit pumpkin on our porch is going to affect our trick-or-treater numbers. Our new neighbors have told us to expect the little kids to arrive by the van full and I'm going to be really disappointed if that's not the case! 

As evidenced by the last photo, Emmett was super excited about the pumpkins. Happy Halloween!! 

First Day

Today was our first day of daycare. I say "our" because I seriously felt like it was my first day of school. I laid out all of our stuff the night before, stressed over what to wear (went with the lucky husky shirt), and couldn't sleep. All in all it went good. He was fine, like totally fine when I left him there in the morning. A little girl came up and started playing with him and he forgot all about me (this little girl will forever be my favorite). However, when I came back three hours later to pick him up, he was in a slightly different mood. He was sitting on the teacher's lap crying while she read a book to all the kids. I know he had fun today, he was just overwhelmed and exhausted. It's just going to take some time to get used to the new routine. I've always hated the first day of everything. So, I'm sure tomorrow will be way easier.

10, 11, and 12 Months

Well, as you can see I'm really on top of things around here. I wanted to finish out the completion of the sticker pictures. So here you go. 10, 11, and 12 months. It's so funny looking back on these photos.  Jordan and I took a million photos of the early months and then once he started moving and noticing the sticker...we we're lucky to catch one or two. Happy Birthday little Emmett.  

10 Months 

11 Months

12 Months