Christmas 2011

Christmas 2011 was an exciting year for us!  Ever since Amos, Emma and Josie were born; everyone has been saying how fun Christmas would be, and they sure were right!

At the beginning of break, we were able to enjoy just Daddy, Mommy and Amos time!  It was fun having Jason at home all to ourselves!  Aside from finishing some last minute Christmas presents, we pretty much relaxed and enjoyed each other!

On Friday we headed to Altamont to prepare for Christmas celebration with my Mom’s side of the family!   Four new babies were added to the family this past year.  We had a ton of fun eating, playing, singing, and exchanging gifts!  

Uncle Joe and Amos had quite the time together!

                  

"I've got your nose, Uncle Joe!"

                

Wrapping paper was Amos' favorite present!

Grandpas with sleeping babies!

Intense game of ping pong!

Christmas Eve morning brought my family’s Christmas celebration!  A few slept out by the Christmas tree and we still woke my parents up by jumping in their bed while singing a Christmas carol.  Some traditions may never die.  Amos and Josie took intermittent naps during the 5 hour Christmas extravaganza.  Some how we always find a way to make Christmas last a LONG time!  This year’s gift exchange involved homemade gifts for siblings!  It was so fun to see everyone’s creative side emerge!  

Smiley Josie

Amos' first stocking...

My homemade gift from Audrey!
She combined two of my favorite things...Amos and coffee!

Audrey opening her homemade gift from me.

"Where'd all the wrapping paper go?"

After saying goodbye to everyone, we hit to road bound for Lebanon.  Amos chose to stay awake for almost the whole drive!  I guess he just didn’t want to miss any of the exciting scenery along I-44.  Jason’s family was excited to see us, especially Amos!  After the cousins got reacquainted, we enjoyed dinner and present opening! Keeping with tradition, we watched “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  

Amos got to see a lot of family that he hadn't seen for a while as well as completely new faces!  Everyone had at least one thing to say... "He looks just like Jason!"

Here he is with Great Grandma Musgrave

Teigan was patiently waiting the opening of presents.

Here he is with both Great Grandmas!

We saw a lot of this tongue!

The great part about having two babies is that everyone can hold a baby!

Week 25

Check out these cool faces!

HAPPY  NEW YEARS!!!!

Cousinly Love

During this holiday season, the cousins were able to get together an love on each other!  Its so fun now that they can actually interact with each other!  Amos thought his cousins were the coolest things!  The pictures below weren't posed by us, they just started hugging each other!

HUGS

AND KISSES!

Amos borrowed Josie's hat!  It was a little too small on him!

Then we headed to Lebanon to see our cousins on the other side of the family!!!  They weren't too interested in each other at first!  But they warmed up fast!

Emma is one smiley girl!

Here's the big cousin Teigan!  He was busy wrestling with Uncle Jason to take many pictures!

They sure all had fun together!  And I think the grandparents enjoyed it too!

Week 24

On Tuesday night, I got away for a Ladies Night Out for the first time.  I’ve left Amos with Jason to do some quick shopping here and there.  And Jason and I have gone on date nights, but I had never slipped away for the evening.  Now that he eats at 7:30 and goes to bed, slipping away is a lot easier.  When I got home, Amos was asleep (a GOOD sign) and I asked Jason how it went.  He gave me a look, then said that everything went well…until about 15 minutes before I got home.  It was then he remembered that he forgot to change Amos’ diaper and put him in his pajamas when he put him to bed!  Uh oh!  Luckily, Amos wasn’t too disturbed by the disruption and was already back asleep!

Here's Mom and Amos right before ladies night!

This is what they spent their time doing!

The other MAJOR first was leaving Amos with my parents for not ONE, but TWO nights in a row!  It was a very last minute plan.  We had been planning to meet up with some friends from college over the weekend, but were planning to take Amos with us.  However, my parents became available to watch him (they even picked him up and dropped him off), so we decided to get a hotel and make a weekend of it.  We had a great weekend away, doing all kinds of spontaneous things you can’t do with an infant and I just tried not to think about Amos not being with us!  He had a great weekend too!  He came home very tired and with a new trick!  Grammie claims she didn’t teach him how to stick out his tongue and blow bubbles, but he’s doing it all the time now, so I’m not so sure!

Amos helped me pack for the weekend!

We had a sweet reunion with him on Sunday.  He gave me a huge smile when he saw me!  And was really smiley all day!  I think he missed us!  But probably not as much as we missed him!

Also, we don't have a crawler yet, but check out these new moves!

Most of his time is spent sitting these days!  Its fun just to sit him on his blanket and let him play with his toys.  Occasionally he'll topple over and practice "crawl".  He wants to crawl.  I see him eye toys way out of his reach and dive to get them!

He's learning like crazy.  He loves to watch and take it all in!  I'm always wondering what is going on in that head of his!