Christmastime

Wow, I'm exhausted! We've had quite the busy holiday season this year, but we're finally home and getting back to normal. We spent last week in Ohio, first visiting my family, then Mike's, and then back to my family again for Christmas. Santa was nice enough to visit our house before we left! This was probably our last Christmas in Ohio for awhile. It will be nice to start our own traditions here, but we'll miss having all of our family around.
Grant's sleeping during the trip was absolutely horrible, which was pretty miserable for Mike and me. Not only were we in the same room with him most of the time, but we also didn't want him keeping everyone else awake. We are definitely cracking down on this sleepless baby for the new year! Between late pregnancy bathroom breaks and a baby that doesn't sleep, I'm pretty sure I haven't slept through the night in over a year!
Here are some pictures from the last week, in no particular order. I was practicing shooting with my new 35mm lens, as well as shooting in manual mode which I just recently learned how to do. That, plus Mike's decision to not use a flash in very low light led to lots of blurry pictures. As Mike pointed out, blurry memories are better than none at all! Thanks to all of our family for a great visit!

Wonderful Time of the Year

We had a busy weekend here. Besides Mike's 31st birthday, his mom also flew in for a quick visit and we had our annual Christmas party with friends and Santa. There were the same number of families at the party, but almost twice as many kids this year. Nine 2-year olds and seven babies (Grant's the oldest of the bunch) makes for some craziness! Nolan did great with Santa and was happy to tell him he'd like "a digger, a bike, and toys" for Christmas!

Christmas Photos

Mike and I attempted a Christmas photo shoot with the boys to get a picture for our Christmas cards. Needless to say, getting a picture of them together and happy is not easy! Here are some of the shots that didn't make the cut.

And here's a picture of Mike and me on our way to his company holiday party!

Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving this year with a group of friends who did not have family in town. Mike cooked the turkey (like usual), and the rest of us helped out with everything else...it was all delicious! It was so nice to have great friends to spend the day with. And of course, the 4 toddlers were thrilled to have eachother around!

Grant is 8 Months Old!

It's hard to believe, but yet another month has gone by and Grant is now 8 months old! He's not crawling yet, but scooting and rolling everywhere. He also has a lot to say, but it'll be a while before we know what he's talking about. This month we've been doing some hard core sleep training, and it appears to be paying off. He went from waking up almost every 2 hours at night to just once or twice right now. We've even had a handful of nights that he's slept until 5 or 6am! I would really LOVE to get a full night's sleep again....hoping he gives me that for Christmas! Here's a picture of the boys having fun in the bath, and also one of Nolan helping Mike rake the leaves last weekend.

Nolan's Wishlist

We had Nolan look at the Sears catalog to see what he wanted to put on his Christmas list. This is his message to Uncle Dan. :)



Halloween!

We celebrated Halloween this weekend with some pumpkin carving and a Halloween party and some trick-or-treating with our friends. Thanks to the Hawkins Clan for having us all over! This year, Nolan dressed up as a cowboy and Grant was his horse. Grant was fussy through most of the trick-or-treating, but Nolan had a blast!

 

7 Months Old

Grant is 7 months old! He's sitting like a pro and likes to practice standing now. He stands holding onto the ottoman and also to play at his musical table. He's eating all kinds of baby foods and is doing a great job picking up his puffs and getting them in his mouth. He has four teeth already! Nolan loves making his little brother laugh!

Our month has continued to be very busy with a trip to Tennesee last weekend to visit some of my mom's family. As always, we had a great time with my family and we enjoyed getting to see Nashville! Apparently we were having too much fun to take pictures, but here's one of the few we got (the family minus Mike- the photographer)!

Airshow

We got to go to the Atlanta Airshow with friends this past weekend. I think it definitely ranked up there in Nolan's top 5 days of his life! He was totally in awe of the airplanes. I was amazed that both of the boys actually kept their earplugs in- a testament to how excited and distracted they were! We had gorgeous weather and well-behaved kids...couldn't ask for more!

Ellijay

We took a drive up north to Ellijay to get some apples and pumpkins! Our first stop was Hillcrest Orchards where we had a nice picnic lunch and Nolan got to play on tractors and pet lots of animals in the petting zoo. We bought a ton of apples in hopes of making some homeade apple sauce and apple pies...and of course we didn't leave without getting some of my favorites- apple fritters! After that, we went to Burt's Pumpkin Patch to pick out our pumpkins and go on a hay ride. It was a beautiful day and fun family time!

HHI

Since we didn't make it to the beach all summer this year, we decided to take a little family trip to Hilton Head last weekend. We stayed four nights, which was the perfect amount of time with the little guys. We got adjoining hotel rooms at the Westin, in hopes that once the kids went to bed Mike and I could stay up and hang out. It sort of worked! Nolan slept great in his own king sized bed, but Grant wasn't very happy in his "Heavenly" crib, so he slept with us most of the time. The weather was a little on the cooler side, but still warm enough for Mike and Nolan to brave the water. Nolan could not get enough of the sand and waves! Mike and I learned that "vacationing" with two babies is not very relaxing, but fun in a different way. There's nothing better than watching a 2-year old get excited about experiencing all of the things we grow to take for granted!!