this moment

new TV

We recently got a new TV. Ryan was pretty excited. Mason had some help carting the beast out of the way (thanks, Casey!), and in the interim, before he had a chance to set up the new one, we came to find this:



In case it's not clear, Ryan had taken the "tv" (I'm actually not sure what exactly it's supposed to be... tv? stove? microwave?) from his play house & put it on the tv stand. Cracked us up!

Snowed in & FAMILY (part 3 of Christmas in CT)

The day after Christmas, we had a blizzard in CT. The wind was pretty amazing, and it snowed about a foot. With two babies (and many others) in the house, we were just so thankful that the power didn't go out! Our flight out the next day was canceled and we couldn't get another for 3 more days - what a mess for the airports. Mason decided to rent a car & drive back the next day so that he could get back to work, but the boys & I were happy to hang around and spend some extra time with all of these wonderful people! :-)

Here are the remainder of my favorite photos from our time spent in Connecticut, mostly centered around my awesome family & lots of snow!

Our trip up meant baby introductions to Uncle Kyle, Aunt Debbie, and Uncle Dain - they were excited to meet their new nephews & were amazing at jumping right in and letting the mommies & daddies relax a little bit. Thanks, guys!

Kyle & Debbie getting to hold a sleepy Kaeden for the first time!

Dain & Kaeden getting to know each other

actor Uncle Kyle does an awesome rendition of Curious George

One of my all time favorite photos of Kyle + one of my all time favorite photos of Kaeden = a really great photo :-)



Even though we get to see Uncle Bret, Auntie, and Atticus quite often since they live in our neighborhood, it was so much fun to live in the same house for a week and especially see Kaeden & Atticus together. Some day, they're going to be best buds (whether they like it or not! hehe)

babies conversing

photo shoot #2 of Atticus & Kaeden - showing off their matching sweaters from my Great Aunt Nan (isn't she amazing?)


playing together

and photo shoot #3 in matching outfits from Mrs. Cross

Mom & Dad gave Ryan Candy Land for Christmas & he loved learning how to play his first board game. He has no concept of winning or losing yet, which makes playing with him so sweetly innocent - everybody who makes it to the candy castle gets a big cheer from Ryan :)


Kaeden found a great playmate in his Papa:

My cousin Sara stopped by on her way back down to DC so that she could meet the babies. We were so sad the she could only stay a few minutes due to the impending blizzard, but had to get a photo at least. Kaeden wasn't in the best of moods, in case you couldn't tell!

And here is the SNOW! Ryan was eager to get out and play, although he didn't last very long either day. The problem with living in North Carolina is that I don't bother to get him snow pants. At least Nana had gotten some snow boots!

enjoying some rides on the sled

Mommy with her two sweet boys


As you can see, Ryan liked the snow... and Kaeden didn't! (I think it was more the brightness that was the issue for K)



And finally, some extra photos of the boys, enjoying their time at Nana & Papa's.

Christmas at Nana & Papa's

I love Christmas at my parents' house - it's so fun to be able to continue on with the traditions that I hold dear from my childhood. It doesn't matter how old we are or how the group has changed, some things are just the way they were when I was a little girl, and there is something very comforting about that.

With the exception of a nasty cold that made its way around the family, Christmas day couldn't have gone any better in my opinion. I just wish everybody could have felt well!

Here is Ryan on Christmas Eve, hanging his stocking with Nana:

We had a rather full house this year - 12 stockings barely fit!

Another Christmas Eve tradition: Grammie reading "The Night Before Christmas":

13 people yielded quite a lot of presents under Nana & Papa's tree:

I couldn't wait to see Ryan's reaction to that tree, and he certainly didn't disappoint :)



Here he is pointing out his stocking, ready to dig in!

... and stocking time!

The babies looked so cute in their Christmas outfits that we had to get some photos - here is the first of many Kaeden-Atticus photo shoots that week!

...and of course we needed some with big cousin Ryan:

Grammie with her great grandsons:

.. .and Kaeden smiling for somebody (can't remember who!):

Ryan was very good about being patient through breakfast, showers, and getting dressed. Finally, it was time to open the presents under the tree. Ryan would have been the perfect elf if he could read. He loved handing out presents to everybody, but he needed assistance to tell him who they were for. He was quite particular about everybody having one each time around - luckily we were able to even them out during nap time so that he wouldn't realize that not everybody gets the same number of presents. After one round, he stopped in the middle of the room, looked around, and said "Everybody good?" We just cracked up! He was such fun to be around all day and was better than I expected at being patient in between opening his presents.

Here he is with one of his favorite gifts of the day: a duplos fire station!


Uncle Dain gave him a real digital camera (for kids if you couldn't tell), which he showed some interest in initially, but got very excited about when it was time to watch "The Grinch" later in the day - he was determined to take a picture of the Grinch... so funny! This continued on for the rest of the week, that every time we watched a video, he had to have his camera ready. I guess real life isn't as exciting to him.


Finally, some more photos from our wonderful Christmas day - here's our family of 4...


...our sweet Kaeden on his first Christmas...


...and our family of 13!...

Thanks to everyone for making it such a memorable Christmas :-)

Advent excitement

This was the first year that I was really able to talk to Ryan about Christmas - both the Christmas story and our own Christmas traditions. There was a lot of excitement in our house leading up to Christmas this year.

The first thing we did was to made an advent chain - this is something I loved doing as a child and was glad to be able to share with Ryan now. He enjoyed decorating all of the strips, and then we worked together to staple them into a chain. In theory, we were to cut off one every day leading up to Christmas, but we often forgot. And since we didn't bother to bring the remaining chain to Connecticut with us, I have to admit that there is still a little chain hanging on our wall. Oh well!



A new tradition that Ryan & I started was decorating a gingerbread house. I had great intentions of baking our own gingerbread, making our own frosting, and buying candy to decorate, but then I remembered that I have a newborn and opted for the $8 kit from Michaels instead - wise choice on my part!




Once we got to Connecticut, one of the first things we did (after a nap, of course!) was to decorate Nana & Papa's tree. We decided not to bother putting ours up at home this year since we were rather busy & wouldn't be here for Christmas anyway. So, Ryan was very excited to put ornaments on the tree & did a great job!



this is what Kaeden was up to while we decorated the tree... he had been playing & just fell asleep. Don't worry, though, we were right there keeping an eye on him!

And, of course, my favorite thing to do leading up to Christmas is making cookies! Thanks to extra baby-holding hands, we were able to do quite a bit of baking & decorating at Nana & Papa's house :-)

First, candy cane cookies:

showing him how to roll, twist, and shape the dough into candy canes



Then came the sugar cookies. Ryan was sleeping while we rolled & cut them, but he did a great job helping to decorate. He did his first cookie all by himself, start to finish, but after that, he wanted me to frost it and then just do the sprinkles on his own.

working on his first cookie

showing off the finished product


meticulously adding red hots

this might explain why the whole house got sick this Christmas... (just kidding... it's all part of the process!)

And that is just the beginning of a Christmas full of wonderful memories :-)