March

Where, oh where does the time go? I can't believe it's mid-March already and my baby will be turning 2 years old next week! We recently visited the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. They had a wildlife exhibit going on, so the boys enjoyed seeing all the reptiles and spiders. Of course, the dinosaurs were a big hit also!

 Last weekend we went to the zoo, and after a year off, we decided to get a membership again. We got to see the elephants eating, the tigers playing with each other and trying to chase birds, and an adorable baby ape among other things. We can't wait to go again soon!

President's Day Weekend

My parents visited over President's Day again this year. It was supposed to rain all weekend, but we got lucky and ended up with some nice weather Saturday morning. Mike and I got to go out to lunch and do some shopping while my parents had a picnic in the backyard with the boys. They LOVE their Gram and Pap!!

Well, January kind of flew by here. We didn't have much exciting going on, but managed to keep busy! Mike and I have been trying to get a little more organized around the house, so a couple trips to Ikea plus the time to put things together seemed to eat up a lot of our time. He was also working like crazy this month. Unfortunately, I've been back to the doctor with Grant over his skin issues again. The poor kid had another eczema flare up and has an itchy rash all over his belly and back. The antibiotics seemed to help his face, but the itchy rash is still there. I never know whether to take him back to the dermatologist or wait it out. I feel so bad for him, but he's still a happy little guy :)

January marked 10 years since Mike and I started dating! This is one of the first pictures we have together, drinking green beer at 5am on Green Beer Day at Miami University.

And these are the beautiful flowers he sent me to celebrate our milestone!

We had a fun Valentine's Day, which included a trip to the dentist for the boys. They were excellent (it helps that their dentist has tv's on the ceiling)! She suggested we try a product called Mavala Stop to help Nolan stop sucking his fingers. He's not happy about it, so we may have a rough road ahead of us as far as that's concerned. I think we definitely would have had an easier time if he'd just taken a pacifier (he refused)!

The Night Before Christmas, By Nolan

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!!