Our Christmas

This evening we celebrated Christmas. We've always traveled to our parents for Christmas, so this is the first time we have ever done it at our own house, and it was quite nice. We had a wonderful supper with a good steak, corn, salad, potatoes.

So after supper we sat down to open presents. We've had a gate around the Christmas tree because the boys would like nothing better than to tear it down and pull all the ornaments off, which would probably result in Finn trying to eat hooks. So Jon pulled the gate away and we pulled out the boys' presents. Ben began by tearing the name tags off (good thing there weren't more people involved in this celebration). Finn went right to the tree, which is his Everest. So while we got Ben to begin ripping paper and proceed to properly open his presents as a 2-year-old should, Finn spent the time playing commando in the tree. Jon captured him once to try and open a present, but it held no interest. He was so excited to touch the tree freely. I think he would have stayed in the corner behind the tree all night if he could have. When the gate finally went back up, he became interested in whatever Ben was playing with. We got the boys 2 potato heads with 5 "outfits," and they sat nicely playing with them for a long time. So the toys weren't all bad after all.

Jon bestowed upon me a beautiful cross necklace with diamonds at the tips and in the center.

We then had a bit of egg nog, which the boys couldn't get enough of, and some cherry pie that at least tasted decent. It was overall a very nice evening.

And Baby Makes Three

I think I've got all my Christmas letters either out or ready to go. It seems to take a lot to get everybody's address, order pictures, print letters, and print labels. Microsoft Office's mail merge is one of the best things in life. No more writing out addresses for bulk mailings (not that we do bulk mailings regularly). It's a lovely thing.

However, I have had little to no ambition lately to do much of anything else after chasing boys all day. We are having a baby on or about July 28 next year!!!!, and I am in the feeling yucky/tired stage. I remember when I was pregnant with Ben and would come home from work and sleep, and Jon would make his own supper. Those were the days!

Due to the snow and the lack of a winterized stroller, I pulled the boys to the post office today on the sled. I think they enjoyed it, though Finn couldn't hold himself up from the forward momentum and basically laid on Ben's lap all the way there. They were pretty cute all bundled up in snowpants and barely able to move. Maybe another day I'll get a picture.

I am currently attempting to potty train Ben. He is a willing learner, so we're making slow progress. I had planned on starting anyway, but my goal now is to get him trained before this baby comes. Hopefully it doesn't take that long, but one never knows.

Ben is also really into colors. He loves naming the color of everything. Between that and naming everything on the page, books take a lot longer to get through. (This is good because it occupies him on the potty.)

Finn has a bad cold and is just a miserable little boy. He is still working hard to keep up with Ben and people have commented how active he is for his age. He's still getting into everything and we love watching him run away when he knows he's in trouble.

So that's what we've been up to. Merry Christmas to all!

It's A Little Windy

We're currently in a blizzard watch until midnight tonight. It's been rather windy and we have some very high drifts on our yard. What a great excuse to stay in and do nothing! And for the first time in 2-1/2 years, I am cold. Let me tell you, I'm not really enjoying this new sensation. I've been wearing sweatshirts and putting blankets on.

Since I didn't get this posted before, we celebrated Finn's first birthday. He shares a birthday with my mom, and we were able to celebrate with my parents Thanksgiving weekend. I did a fish cake (with a lot of help from my mom) since Finn's favorite thing is his fishy.