christmas pix part 2 - kids kissing

Andrew looks a little worried in this one...

christmas pictures

At the end of November our friend, Daniel McNamee, took some awesome family pictures for us at Freedom Park. He is extremely talented and we are thrilled that he was able to capture some beautiful shots of our family.

In the above picture - biggest smile Caleigh had all day. We thought feeding the ducks would make the kids smile - instead it just made them look at the ducks. love this one - this is the one we ended up choosing for our Christmas card photo this year... silly face...

christmas day!

I realized we hardly took any pictures on Christmas day - bummer! Here is a video of Caleigh playing in one of her favorite new toys - a princess tent from Bampa and Gammy.

And another video... Sweet little bruiser in his Santa outfit (disclaimer: I did not purchase this outfit and only put it on him as a joke) On Christmas after spending Christmas morning at our house, we headed down to my parents house to open some presents. We enjoyed spending time with Uncle David especially who was visiting from New Hampshire. Bampa and Gammy joined us at my parent's house for a Christmas feast (as is our Christmas tradition) - we had a great time and especially enjoyed introducing the Dyers to one of our favorite family games - Rummicube. Merry Christmas!

christmas eve 2009

After I spent Christmas eve mostly in bed, the Dyers (Bampa, Gammy, Jon, and his girlfriend Kayla) came over to open presents with us, go to church with us, and then we all went out for a feliz navidad fiesta at Cantina 1511 (as is our Christmas eve tradition!). Caleigh loved opening presents...

After she opened each item she wanted to take the item out of its packaging so that she could play with it.

The doting grandparents - Bampa and Gammy. After presents we went to the Christmas eve service at church which I LOVE going to. Caleigh was absolutely hilarious - I thought she would be nervous to go on stage for the children's message but she wasn't. I think she must have had nervous energy because she kept trying to jump ('jump, jump' and squatting up and down since she can't actually make herself leave the ground yet) and she kept saying, "hi, bampa!" - at one point she was trying to climb up on stage and Bennett Kulp (age 4) even tried boosting her up but couldn't, for which I was utterly grateful... who knows what a nervous bundle of energy would have done to the drums, guitar, and microphones. Afterwards we went out for a fun mexican dinner with the whole gang and had a blast!

third annual christmas eve breakfast

On Christmas eve I met my best friends from college - Marcy, Jessica, and Kim for our third annual Christmas eve brunch. We had a great time chatting and catching up.

And then I got one of the worst migraines I've ever had and spent the rest of Christmas eve (until around 3) laying in bed and throwing up. More pictures from Christmas eve to come...

christmas eve eve

A new tradition! We celebrated Christmas eve eve with good friends - the Kulps, Dirks, and Hunts. We ate dessert, we sang Christmas carols with the kids, we talked with them about Christmas, we attempted to get the obligatory picture, and we watched them as they ran/marched around the house in a parade.

Foard, Celia, Sam, Caleigh, Andrew, Maggie, Henry, Bennett, Camilla - And then all the kids went to bed for a half sleepover (we woke them up around 11 or 11:30 and took them home). We had such great adult time after the kids went down - playing games, having fun drinks, and just talking. Times like that really make me think that is what heaven will be like - eternal fellowship with other believers in the worship of our King. Come quickly Lord Jesus!

little a is 6 months

Our little bruiser is 6 months old (actually almost 6 and a half as I write this post). We seriously love our sweet boy so much. He is so lovable - he loves to laugh and be tickled. He is super social - always wanting to be with people. As soon as he sees us he will reach and out grab our faces and try to pull them close to him. He loves to be held and is at such a fun baby age. I can't believe how big he is already -

• He is rolling over front to back but he still hasn't rolled from back to front yet. He can sit up for several minutes unassisted and is pretty steady.
• He takes a morning nap from 9-11 and an afternoon nap from 1-3. Most days he also takes a little cat nap from 4:30 - 5:15. He goes down at 7 and sleep until 8 am without waking. He is a champion sleeper nowadays (just like his sister - a huge blessing!). He falls asleep quickly and has really grown attached to his silky. As soon as you put him in his bed he grabs the silky, pulls it all the way over his face, and starts sucking his thumb.
• He loves to eat - he is eating solids three times a day now and I am back to making baby food again. So far he has liked pretty much everything we have given him - bananas, applesauce, pears, peaches, apricots, prunes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, peas. He does not like green beans or avocados. I am determined to get him liking green beans though and keep giving it to him. He will eat small bites of them and then do a big shiver after each bite.
• I am still nursing him 4 or 5 times a day and hoping to stay with that until we get a little closer to spring (out of this season of colds).
• He seems to be growing out of his milk protein allergy. I have started eating cheese and he is tolerating that fine. I haven't tried drinking milk again though and I think I will probably steer clear of that until he has been weaned.

6 month stats:

• weight: 16 lb 11 oz (36th%)
• height: 27 and 1/4 inches (79th%)
• head circumference: 17 and 1/4 inches (53rd%)

We are SO in love with this lovable hug-able squeezable little guy!

christmas bears...

On the Tuesday before Christmas while Adam was still skiing my parents came up and watched Andrew so that I could go with just Caleigh to see the Christmas bears. We met up with the Kulps, Hunts, and Dirks at Uptown Church and rode the trolley (choo-choo to Caleigh) uptown to Founders hall.

Caleigh is sporting her new travel silky. These are the famous Christmas bears. They put on a little 45 minute show of Christmas songs. Very much like the bears at Showbiz from 1990. We brought a bag lunch. And then took a spot up front to listen to the bears sing. Caleigh took a front row position trying to climb over the fence. We stopped at this awesome hand after getting off the trolley on the way back. We had a great time - this was the second annual trip to see the Christmas bears and it was a blast! I love traditions.

christmas cookies

Caleigh helped me make some snickerdoodle cookies...

She was a crazy woman with those red sprinkles...

operation single parent

Operation Single Parent (OSP) is well underway. Adam is skiing in Vermont and New Hampshire with my brother, David, who lives in Keene, NH. Adam left on Friday afternoon and will be back Tuesday around 11 pm. Caleigh has turned up this hilarity (is that even a word??) while Adam has been gone.

Some funny things that have happened:

• Saturday night: I was feeding Andrew baby food and he flailed his arms to try to get the spoon and it caused the baby food (butternut squash) to go flying everywhere. So I said in kind of a half singsong, half annoyed voice, 'Andrew Dyer.' Then Caleigh, the little mimic started saying, "A-dro Dyder" which is her version of Andrew Dyer... she just kept saying it over and over. So cute.
• Later on Saturday night I decided to give the kids a bath (and actually put Andrew in there with Caleigh for the first time - of course this required me holding him the whole time which was difficult to say the least) - Caleigh loved it - she seriously thought the sole purpose of him being in the bath was so that she could bathe him. She tried repeatedly to dump water on his head, wash his face with a washcloth, and give him the soap.
• Then today (Sunday) at lunch: Caleigh has been saying "Loo waa I dus did" ( = Look what I just did) after she does something she thinks is significant. So today Caleigh burped and afterwards she started singing "burp, burp, burp" which is what we sing when we are trying to get Andrew to burp. I said Caleigh, "What do you say?" intending to get an excuse me response and our adorable little goose said promptly, "Look what I just did." We had quite the laugh about that!

funny Caleigh things

I wanted to record some of the funny/cute things Caleigh has been doing lately:

• She has started counting - this is how she counts, "one, two, nine, two, nine..." She really likes to say the number nine. She doesn't realize that when there are three balls she should just count one, two, three and be done with it. Instead she keeps going back over them, "one, two, nine, two, nine, two.." as if they don't have a finite end.
• She is very concerned with fairness - when she gets her diaper changed she says, "Change Andrew's diaper." Or especially when I cut her fingernails she will say, "Andrew's turn."
• She has started pointing to everything and saying, "wats dis?" (What's this?).
• There are 4 things she can be guaranteed to say when you go in to get her in the morning after she wakes up, 1. 'turn dat off' so that we will turn off her noise machine, 2. 'i want dat open' so that we will open her blinds, 3. 'mama, need bow' so that we will put in a bow to get her hair out of her eyes, and 4. 'change diaper please' so that we will change her diaper.

trip to NYC!!!

For my birthday (Dec. 11) Adam surprised me with a trip to NYC (Happy Birthday to me and Happy 5 year anniversary to us this past summer). I have always always always wanted to go to New York City at Christmas time! Thankfully (for me) he surprised me about 2 weeks in advance so that I would have time to switch my work schedule, prepare and pack for the kids (including bottles and baby food for Andrew), and figure out what I was going to wear (most importantly!). We had a fabulous time! The kids stayed at my parents' house on Thursday night until Saturday afternoon and then with Adam's parents' from Saturday afternoon until Monday afternoon. On Thursday after dropping off the kids I ran about a bazillion errands while Adam took his last final of the semester (1 semester of MBA school down - congrats babe!). We met Adam's parents to celebrate his finishing and my birthday and so I didn't get home until 11 pm. At 11 pm I had to pack and clean the house - we got in bed on Thursday night at 1:30 am and woke up at 3:30 am to catch a 6 am flight. We were already exhausted! On Friday morning we got to New York and were able to check into our (awesome) hotel in Midtown around 9 am. We went and got some New York bagels for breakfast and hopped on the subway to go shopping in SoHo. It was FREEZING on Friday - with the wind chill it was -11. Thankfully my friend Debbie had let me borrow her jacket (she used to live in NYC) and that helped some. We went shopping in SoHo and walked around for the morning and early afternoon. One of our highlights of the whole trip was that twice on Friday we got asked for directions on the subway (we were so proud that we were mistaken for locals).

Friday evening we headed over to MoMA - the Museum of Modern Art where we got in for free (Target Free Fridays). The highlight was seeing The Starry Night painting by Van Gogh. After leaving there we walked over to Rockefeller Center and saw the Christmas tree. And took "that" picture of ourselves in front of it. And then we went ice skating right there! It was awesome. We were a little worried about our skills on the ice but not to fear - we were both pretty awesome at it. Let me tell you, it was SO cold - I mean absolutely freezing. If you want to get the feeling of skating in Rockefeller Center watch this video of us doing it.

Also while we were skating a guy got down on one knee on the center of the ice and proposed. Everyone that was watching all around the rink was cheering. It was pretty cool. After that we went to a really good Italian restaurant in Midtown West called Nizza's. On Saturday morning we got up and took the subway down to the Staten Island Ferry and rode for free past the Statue of Liberty. We had awesome views of the skyline. Then we walked around Battery Park and the Financial District. We walked down Wall Street. And saw the New York Stock Exchange and also Trump Tower. We saw where the World Trade center used to be. And some of the memorials around Ground Zero. We then took the subway to Chinatown and walked up and down the streets. It was a sight to see. It was seriously like being in another country - we heard hardly anybody speaking English. To experience Chinatown fully we even bargained for a purse that we bought for me out of the back of a van. After Chinatown we ate some NY pizza for dinner and then walked to see the Lion King on Broadway. The Lion King was absolutely amazing - definitely one of the highlights of the entire trip. We were so glad that we splurged for tickets to see it. We walked around Times Square and went to Toys R Us at 11:30 pm after the show. On Sunday morning the weather was absolutely horrendous. Cold and really really rainy. Nothing like the picture below. On Sunday we took the subway to the Upper West Side and ate breakfast at a cute little place called Good Enough to Eat. We walked around up there and through Central Park (in the pouring and freezing rain) over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the 'Met'). It was an absolutely gorgeous museum. We know absolutely nothing about art - and don't really care about it either. But at the museum we took a one hour tour with a tour guide (for free! after getting into the museum for $6 total) which took us on a quick tour through all the different areas of the museum. The museum was huge and the tour was really really interesting. If we wouldn't have done it we would have had no clue what to even look at (seriously folks - we know nothing about art). We saw this really cool birth plate that was commissioned for some famous old person - it was used to serve food to the mother in bed after she had just had a baby. I decided Adam needs to use one of these to nurse me back to health after our next child. We saw some neat stone art from the Iraq area from 1800 BC or something like that. And we saw the Christmas tree. And some beautiful armor. This armor is actually like a statue of the knight - it is that form fitted to him. And it seems ridiculously heavy at 60 pounds. But then our tour guide told us that this is actually the same weight that our soldiers over in Iraq today carry on their backs - that really put it in to perspective. On Sunday afternoon/evening we went to FAO Schwartz, grabbed a hot dog for a snack, and then went to church at Redeemer on the Upper East Side. After church we walked around the shops down by Rockefeller Center, saw some really neat light shows (especially at Saks), and got a really good steak at a steakhouse around there. We flew out on Monday around 1 pm and we seriously had such a fun time. We really missed the kids and talked about them all the time but they did great with their grandparents. Even through we were SO busy on our trip it was relaxing to not have to worry about eating meals at certain times and to wake up whenever we wanted (which was pretty early so we could see the town).

We commented on a couple of things while we were there:

• We saw tons of people smoking in NYC - I mean a lot. It really surprised me because even in this tobacco producing state I hardly ever see people smoking in Charlotte. Which I like.
• We felt so safe while we were there. I was worried about getting mugged or something but even in Chinatown and on the subways we never felt nervous about that.
• I would really miss driving if I lived there.
• And I would miss being able to only go to the grocery store once a week - I think there you can't really make big trips - you only get what you can carry (which is not a lot if you are also carrying 2 kids).

Part of me was a little nervous to go to NYC because we have always felt like we would love to live there (maybe even considering it when Adam finishes his MBA)... but we didn't love it enough to want to move there. It was great to visit and I can't wait to visit again, but even at church it seemed a little devoid of the amazing community of believers that we have at Uptown in Charlotte. Being in NYC made me realize how much we really do love Charlotte and made me unable to think about ever moving. All in all we did have such a fabulous time!