Christmas Day

Here's the tree with all the presents.

Me and James' stockings

Elizabeth's Santa gift and stocking. She got a bike and a sled (that's for Clay too).

Clay's Santa gift and stocking

Mom, Dad, and Jason got a surprise from Santa too.

Santa worked hard to make cute gift tags for everyone ;)

Well our Christmas was pretty good. Elizabeth enjoyed it. She came into our room in the morning and was laying on our bed and looked at me and said, "Merry Christmas Mommy." We also have been reminding her throughout the week that the reason we're celebrating Christmas is because we're celebrating Jesus' birth. So all throughout the day she kept telling us it was Jesus' birthday. She even sat still before we went upstairs while I read the story out of the bible.

We immediately went upstairs to see Grandma and Grandpa. When they were up and going me and the kids went back downstairs. Lizzi saw what Santa had brought her while we were still going down the stairs. "Look my Bike!" We got it on tape, so as soon as I buy a USB cable for our camera I'll post it online. That was our surprise gift from my parents was a really nice camcorder. It counts as a Christmas, birthday, Easter, valentines, etc present. So here is Lizzi on her new bike.

Clayton hanging out. He still didn't get it so we let him play in his toy mostly.

James hamming it up for the camera. This is a new book by JK Rowling (Harry Potter author). James also got a gun for the Wii, Lego Batman (wii), 2 board games, pj's, and books. I'm sure he got a bit more, but that's what I remember off the top of my head. And we also got a huge stack of DVD's. But that's normal for us and Christmas. We also got a few things for our 72 hour kits from James' parents. They also gave us some money (thanks again!) that we are going to use to buy a Wii Fit.

Lizzi and Clayton got many toys and books. Next year I might go more low key for the kids. Lizzi was very overwhelmed after a few presents. So she didn't really open a lot of her own presents. She did get a few Curious George books (she loves those).

Dad, Jason, and Mom. They mostly watched while we all opened our presents.

James was talking to Clay. See the pile of DVD's accumulating on the floor?

A new Dora book from Aunt Tiffany and Uncle Mike

New Signing Times!

Every year I set a budget for James and I. And every year he goes WAY outside the budget. His defense is that he likes to spoil me at Christmas. I got a Kitchen Aid Mixer (so excited about that one! And he got a great deal on it.), lots of DVD's, pjs, Monopoly (wii) and these surprise earrings that Elizabeth helped pick out. They are diamond and pink sapphires from Shane Company. I love them, and it was a nice surprise (of course the earrings were wrapped in about 6 different boxes).

Unfortunately James and I were both very sick most of the day. My Dad got a nice prime rib for Christmas dinner and James and I haven't even had any yet. It was not a fun day for either of us, but at least the getting sick part is behind us mostly (we think we got what Lizzi had). So today I'm looking forward to actually eating and enjoying my gifts.

James also has his sleep study tonight to see if he has sleep apnea or something similar. Please keep him in your prayers! It's horrible to hope he has sleep apnea, but I would really love to see James actually get some sleep and be rested.

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve was pretty low key. I was the only one home all day, everyone else was working part of the day. My brother, Jason, came in from Vegas that day. We didn't have our big Christmas dinner that day because of everyone working. James and I started the tradition of giving the kids pjs for Christmas eve. Lizzi liked opening the presents and wanted to open more.

Opening Clay's present too.

Finding her slippers in the box too. She loved them and they haven't left her feet unless absolutely necessary. Both Clay and Lizzi's pjs have snowmen on them (Lizzi loves snowmen).

Lizzi admiring her new slippers. She calls them jumping boots.

Cute Hair

Well for something different my Mom and I decided to curl Lizzi's hair for church. So after her Saturday night bath Mom put her hair up in curlers to sleep in. Lizzi did awesome and cooperated the entire time for Grandma. She was even checking herself out in the reflection of the fireplace afterwards.

All finished, and still smiling.

Here is a cute picture of James with the kids. I couldn't get Lizzi to hold still long enough to get a good shot of her hair. It was very cute though. Lizzi and Clay both had new outfits today. Clay's little suit outfit was given to him by my Parents for his birthday. And I got the dress for Lizzi at JCPenneys. I'm lucky I found anything for her. All the holiday dresses were already on clearance. It's actually a 3T, but it fit her enough.

I had a hard time getting Elizabeth to even look at the camera. Her big concern this morning was that James was going to leave for church without her (she LOVES nursery!). Clay was tired, and took a 2 hour nap at church today.

Sick Lizzi

Well we actually had a very sick Lizzi yesterday. Beside Clayton getting croup we've never had one of the kids really sick. James was letting me sleep in and suddenly I hear James yell downstairs, "Get up! I need you!" I'm thinking oh crap what happened. I get upstairs and Lizzi is crying and James looks like he's going to be sick. James doesn't deal well when the kids get sick, so I told him to throw his cloths in the washer along with a blanket that Lizzi got sick on. I cleaned Lizzi up and took her back upstairs. Well she got sick again. Poor Lizzi was crying again saying, "I'm sorry I throw up." I let her know that she didn't need to apologize. Then Lizzi lounged around the rest of the day. You can definitely tell when my kids are sick. They just sit still forever. Luckily Lizzi didn't get sick again at all. It was a long day and I'm just hoping that Clay doesn't get what she had.

I got a few cute shots of Lizzi sleeping in the recliner. That's "her" seat. She had to have her blanket and baby with her and a bear. And I brought her pillow up for her as well.

Today we had to brave the snow to get some grocery's. I was craving some Burger King for breakfast. Elizabeth got a crown, and has worn it ever since.

She's feeling better today, but is not totally herself yet.

Clay's Year Check Up

Well on the 15th I took Clayton in for his check-up and 2nd dose of his flu shot (for some reason they split it up the first year they get them). Anyways, first of all I was very irritated with the office because they were out of the flu shots for Clayton's age! Hello, they scheduled me specifically to get the shot the same day and they didn't save one? Idiots. So now I have to try and find another clinic or doctor in town that still has them. Anyways, enough of my rant, here are Clay's stats:

Height: 28 1/2 inches

Weight: 19 pounds

Clay is doing great, and he's healthy. He's a little on the small side (what's new). But at least I am actually getting my moneys worth out of all his cloths. I still haven't retired all his 3 to 6 month cloths. We'll have to wait until he's 20 pounds to turn his car seat around, so for the time being he'll still be facing the back of the car. It was a good visit (minus the flu shot).

First Hair Cut

Well it was time for a hair cut. Let me give you the back story though, leading up to this. I have been meaning to get Clay's hair cut for some time now. Well over Thanksgiving my brother-in-law, Derek, mentioned that it looked like Clay had a hair piece on. It was true, for some reason Clayton has a good amount of hair on the top, but the sides are still pretty bare. So we finally did it and cut his hair. He was a little confused when I put him back in his highchair after cleaning him up from dinner.

We even got some smiles out of him...

The first cut went well, although I cut a lot off. But I wanted to get a good amount of hair to save for my scrapbook. It was sad cutting off his beginnings of little curls in the back. I'm thinking he might have wavy hair.

I'll admit he was pretty patient with us.

But then it because more of a 2 man job, and that's when it stopped being fun for him. Not to mention it really didn't help having Elizabeth whining in the background because she wanted a hair cut too.


Luckily "Pat-a-cake" proved very helpful to keep him from freaking out while I held his head still.
And the finished product. So cute, and it doesn't look like a hair piece anymore.

And then of course he went to sleep, because on top of this traumatic even my poor little guy is getting teeth too.

The Things She Says

Well Elizabeth talks really well for her age. And of course that means now she's saying really funny stuff. Yesterday I was over the food for a women's social at the church. James being the great husband he is took his one day off that day so he could watch the kids since my time that day was taken up mostly by cooking. He also watched the kids while I was at the social, and I didn't get home until after Elizabeth was in bed. This morning James asked me if I taught Elizabeth to say, "Love you more". I hadn't. I guess last night James told Lizzi he loved her and she looked at him and said "Love you more". James said it back and they went back and forth saying that for a good 30 minutes. She is definitely a character.

Clay's Birthday (Lots Of Pictures)

Before we get to the birthday pictures, I just wanted to show off these cute slippers. Clayton doesn't keep his socks on and his feet are always cold. So I bought his some slippers (0 to 6 months size) and they fit him perfect and he loved them. Never tried to take them off once. And of course Lizzi wanted slippers too, I did buy her some for Christmas. Unfortunately I like to get all my wrapping done early so they are already wrapped under the tree too. I told her she'd have to wait.

On Clay's actual birthday my Mom went to the dollar store here and got Clayton some balloons and books. He thought they were both pretty cool.

James was being funny and tied the balloons to Clayton's jeans. We took them off soon after because Clay was getting tangled in the string.

And what a sweet Grandma, she got Elizabeth some balloons too. Didn't keep Elizabeth from trying to take Clay's too.

It was just a small celebration. I'm avoiding parties until the kids actually want them. We did invite our friends Tiffany and Doug over though, but they are like family to us. Elizabeth helped open most of the present (like we all thought she would).

Cute little toy piggy bank that Elizabeth keeps telling me is "hers" (she's in that stage where everything is hers). Thanks to James' family (Anna, David, Tiffany and Mike). This is one of the gifts we got for Clay with the money they sent.

Basketball toy. Clay loves the sounds this one makes.

Big present from Doug and Tiffany

A little hammer that makes noises.

Lizzi was SO into the presents. Christmas will be interesting. And I'm proud to say so far she hasn't tried to get into any of the presents under the tree.

Little truck

Clayton's cake.

His special cake for just him. I used the leftover cake from carving the #1

He almost did a dive into the cake. James got him in time. Clay is very fast.

Lizzi after we sang happy birthday
Checking out the cake

He loved the cake and dove right in. He wasn't too messy, but definitely got into it.

The kids after cake all trying to get to the toys

This is the toy he got from Doug and Tiffany. Elizabeth takes it away from him a lot already.

Overall it was a lot of fun. After Clay's birthday and Christmas we will definitely have a lot more toys around.