Christmas morning!

Our Christmas tree this year was one of my favs except that it died a few days before Christmas so here we have rather droopy branches, but it was still beautiful. I don't know what it is, but I just love the look of wrapped presents all under a tree so it makes me sad when our tree looks like this for only moments on Christmas morning before they all start getting shredded into. I could try to do this earlier in the month, but it was hard enough to stop Mikey from opening the handful that were under the tree before Christmas morning.

Stockings all ready to go!

Mikey digging in

Mikey was big help with everything "present."

Mikey the fire fighter (Thanks Mimi!)

Lucky for Luke Mikey was there to help

Mama and her boys

Mikey helped Luke open the bear he gave him, gave him a hug and now hasn't stopped trying to claim the bear for his own. He reacts well to kind reminders, though.

Merry Christmas!!

Family Christmas Eve Breakfast

On Christmas Eve morning we had a breakfast with all of my siblings where we ate and traded gifts. (What could be better than food and presents:)

My favorite picture of the season!

Cutest elf, right?

I wasn't very good a taking pictures except for when all the kids were tearing into gifts.

Mikey got a Diego rescuer vest and equipment from Amanda. He and Lance "rescued animals" non-stop for the rest of the day and Mikey went to sleep crying about how he had to rescue more animals. What a sweet heart to care so much about animals ;)

December got away....

Let me just say this:

husband in finals + running own business + bank personnel not knowing a thing about their services and telling me half truths for three weeks + employees doing dumb and stupid things + post office doing dumb and stupid things + teaching R.S. + Christmas + 2 kids + the flu(going through everybody) = Kristy hardly having time to sleep all month let alone blog

So I'm doing some catching up. Just give me a second!

6 months already!

I can't believe my little baby is already 6 months old. He's growing so fast and is so much fun. We love him so much and are so excited that he is such a wonderful addition to our little family.

He constantly sticks his little tongue out like this. It's ridiculously cute!

On November 18th Luke rolled over all by himself! He's pretty good at it now. The only problem is that he can't roll back onto his back and he only lasts on his stomach for a short period of time. He happily rolls over then gets mad moments later.

Oh, and he's obsessed with his feet. (I love this stage. It's just so cute.)

He LOVES daddy. Whenever dad comes into the room he just stops and gets a huge grin on his face (including in the middle of a feeding! Focus, Luke!)

He has started to take baths with big brother (though it's mostly because Mikey will actually get in the bath if he hears Luke is taking one too.)

So I know it looks a little like Luke is about to go under...I only found this picture on the camera days after this bath, of which I was not a part...Lance? (Just joking. For the record, I do, in fact, trust Lance with our kids :)

Happy 6 months! We love you!

Family photo shoot continued

We got our pictures back from our family photo shoot and we're quite pleased (especially considering the fact that Mikey was freezing and not all that happy through most of it). If you are on facebook chances are you've already seen these, but here they are. Thanks Sami! You did a great job!!

The Diminutive

Suddenly Mikey can only talk in the diminutive. All day long this is what I hear:

"Luke is sady"
"Come into my roomy"
"Can I have a drinky?"
"I need a snacky"
"Can we go to the storey?"
"I need to watch a showy"
"Can I have some milky?"
"I need to brush my teethy"
"I don't want to take a bathy"

I don't know where he came up with that, but it cracks me up!

The end of an era...and only 8 years too late

Kristy obviously didn't think this made the blog cut, but I was pretty happy with my work, so I thought I'd share. She was also worried that it would cause people to conclude that I don't think "W" is a moron...not so.

Poor Lance

Anyone who has been to our house knows about our trees. They are huge. They have many leaves.

Lance had, in fact, ALREADY raked a week or so before this was taken.
And this was how many leaves were still on the trees soon to join the others covering our lawn.

Poor Lance

Happy Halloween!

(Okay, first of all, sorry about the major onslaught of posts. Geesh, I went crazy! But there was so much to catch up on, I just had to get it done. This is the last one for today, I promise!)

On Halloween evening, we went over to Heather's to see some of Mikey's cousins all dressed up. They all got to play in their costumes before doing some trick-or-treating. Getting pictures was another story, though.

While jumping, we got a few of them to stop long enough to snap a picture.

Then we tried for the posing on the ground in the leaves.

Kate and Ben were quite cooperative, but Mikey and Abigail were a different story.

We thought Kate could hold Anna and support Luke at the same time, but that wasn't so easy for a 6-year-old. You can see a hint of Mikey and Abigail running off in the background. Those two wanted nothing of posing.

Finally we got Mikey to sit down for one second, but he wasn't able to hold Luke up very well and right after this picture, Luke was pretty much flat on his back.

This was the final attempt to get a picture of Abigail. We never did get a very good one. But she was a darn cute monkey!

Anna was pretty much the only one who held completely still. Way to go Anna!

On a side note, as we were getting ready to go, Mikey and I had the following conversation:

Me: Mikey, do you know what Kate is for Halloween?

Mikey: What?

Me: A cat.

Mikey in a high, shocked, screech: WHAT?! A Cat?!

Me: Do you know what Ben is?

Mikey: What?

Me: A froggy

Mikey in same, aforementioned voice: WHAT?! A froggy?!

Me: Do you know what Amanda is going to be? A bumble bee.

Mikey, same as above: WHAT?! A bumble bee?!

And so on and so forth, through Caroline as a bunny and Abigail as a monkey and Anna as a ghost. He was just as shocked at the last one as he was at the first