Christmas(es)

It's the middle of January and things have finally settled down enough for me to get back to this blog! Mike had two weeks off over Christmas (if you don't count his almost daily conference calls), so we got to enjoy some good family time. One night we went on a date- dinner and ice skating- and had so much fun!

Another night we visited the Life College Lights of Life. Being the third year in a row, it's become our family tradition to get Chick Fil A peppermint milkshakes and go see the lights the week before Christmas. We also went downtown to Christmas on Peachtree one day. No surprise here, but the boys loved the train and wanted to ride it over and over!

This year was the first year since having kids that we stayed home for Christmas morning. We were very thankful to have friends to spend time with on Christmas Eve since we were definitely missing our family. It was worth it to be home on Christmas morning though! I doubt the boys could have been more excited that Santa came, although I may be proven wrong in the years to come!

One of Nolan's favorite gifts was a "shooter with hotwheels" that he asked for--if only Santa knew that by "hotwheels" he meant the foam discs that come with it, and not Hot Wheels cars!

Christmas evening, after dinner, we loaded up the car and headed out on our loooong drive to Ohio. We spent that night in Kentucky and drove to Mike's brother's house the next day. Our nephew Brayden is 18 months older than Nolan and Blake is 2 days younger than Grant, so the boys had a great time playing with their cousins! We spent a night and day there before heading to our next stop, Mike's dad's house.

At Grandma and Grandpa Peresie's house, we spent some time with Mike's other siblings and their spouses and kids before Santa showed up to celebrate our Christmas #2.

Nolan, Jenna, and Garrett helping Grandma make some Christmas pies (Nolan's request)!

The cousins, some not so happy.

Next, we went to my parents' house to celebrate our Christmas #3 (seriously) and New Year's!

Mike, Gram, and the boys built a snowman. Little did we know how scared Nolan would be once the snowman was complete (thanks to Scooby Doo), which is why he isn't in the second picture. He thought the snowman was going to ring the doorbell and sneak into the house to get us all. He told me he needed my hairdryer to melt it. He even insisted on sleeping with a flashlight the rest of the time we were there, just in case!

After a week of traveling all over Ohio for Christmas celebrations, we were ready (sort of) for our loooong drive back home. We did the drive all at once this time and my mom joined us so she could visit (and help me out) for the rest of her break.

Over the course of the last few weeks, Grant's language has really exploded! There's not much he can't say, and he's always practicing repeating words after me, Mike, and Nolan (especially Nolan, or "Noni" as he calls him). Nolan's been impressing us with his memorization skills lately. He learned to recite just about all of "The Night Before Christmas" solely from listening to it on his recordable books every night this season. Of course, because he's a stubborn 3 year old, he won't let me get it on video, but my mom got a good one that I'll post once I get it from her.

We had a wonderful 2011 and we're excited to see what 2012 has in store for us!!

December So Far

As usual, we've been extra busy this month! On top of the normal birthdays, Christmas parties, and shopping, we spent some time dealing with Grant's medical issues. He had a rash on his cheeks and chin for a few weeks, so I brought him in to the doctor to see if there was anything we could do (I figured it was eczema). The doctor put him on an oral antibiotic in case it was infected and also gave us an ointment to use. A few days after using the ointment, things were looking much worse so we brought him back in. That doctor told us to take him off of the ointment, keep him on the antibiotic, and take him to a dermatologist. A couple days after that, the poor kid broke out in a horrible itchy rash all over his body, which turned out to be an allergic reaction to penicillin. While the penicillin worked its way out of his body, he was pretty miserable since the itching made it really hard to sleep (even with Benadryl). Anyway, we survived that, got into the dermatologist this week, and within a couple days of using a steroid ointment he's looking and feeling much better (it is just a bad case of eczema, by the way)!

The first weekend this month, Mike's mom came for a short visit. She helped us pick out and decorate our tree! She also brought the boys little battery operated trains that they quickly became obsessed with :)

The next weekend, we celebrated Mike's 32nd birthday, and he and I went to his Christmas party for work.

This past weekend, we had our 3rd annual Christmas party with friends and Santa. Grant was a little shy with Santa (he was also very tired), but Nolan loved the whole thing! 

Now Mike is off for two whole weeks over Christmas, and we're both looking forward to the break!

Happy Thanksgiving!

My parents and brother joined us for Thanksgiving weekend this year. Even though it makes for a crowded house, we love having their company- especially at the holidays. Mike cooked one of his best turkeys yet and we all had a fun weekend!

 My dad convinced Nolan that he had to wear his Indian costume to search for the Thanksgiving pies :) 

 Helping Gram and Pap decorate gingerbread cookies!

We also recently took some pictures of the boys for our Christmas cards. Like usual, we took a LOT and were lucky enough to get just a few good ones! I should probably be shooting at super high shutter speeds at all times since it's impossible to get them to stay still!

Florida

Last weekend we took a trip to Florida to visit Mike's mom. The drive is always longer than we think it'll be, but the boys did pretty well (thanks to the DVD player!). Saturday we went to Busch Gardens and had so much fun! We'd never been before, but it was a perfect place for the boys. Besides getting to meet the Sesame Street characters, ride a train, and see tons of animals, they got to go on rides and Nolan rode his first roller coaster! We were all exhausted after that, so the next day we took it easy, visiting the manatees at a local power plant (they go there for the warm water), watching football, and the boys even braved a quick dip in the pool to test out the water slide.

Trick or Treat!

Nolan and Grant dressed up as ninjas for Halloween this year. They had a blast trick-or-treating with friends and got a ton of candy! Nolan threw quite a fit on the way home (past bedtime) because we told him he couldn't eat it all that night. Poor kid :)

Pumpkins and Soccer

Nolan played in his last soccer game of the season this weekend. Although I could probably count on one hand the number of times he kicked the ball during a game, he LOVED being part of the Knights team. We're so proud of how well he listened to his coaches and ran his little heart out at every practice and game. He can't wait to play again next year!

We also carved our pumpkins this weekend in preparation for Halloween!