Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we got dressed our best and headed out to Christmas Eve service.

The boys looked so cute in their matching outfits...

Our attempt at a family picture...

These pictures are slightly out of order, but Santa did make it to our house on Christmas Eve. He left a truck and shopping cart for Liam and a scooter and tablet for Kale.

 

Liam was on melt-down mode by the end of the picture taking time. Our church service didn't start until 8 p.m. and our boys usually go down for the night at 7:30 p.m. He was not a happy fellow.

We enjoyed a great church service with wonderful music. The boys made it through with very little issues (luckily the nursery was open).

 

We enjoyed a smorgasbord of appetizer for dinner on Christmas Even night. Delicious!  

My family has a tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve night. David received an Obama magnet, which was a gag gift from Kris and I...David is not an Obama fan.

David Ray received a movie he wanted.

In effort to get Kris and I back from our birthday gift to him, David Ray gave Kris a calendar that had "hot guys and baby animals." We got a good laugh.

I got a new Bible from Kris.

Christmas Festivities

We had a great Christmas this year. My parents and brother came for a visit and arrived the Saturday before Christmas.

Kale and Liam were both quite intrigued by my brother's crutches. Kale thought they were stilts and tried to react a Curious George episode he had seen.

He also loved rough housing with my dad and brother. With so many people in the house, there was always someone to wrestle with.

Kale and Liam started opening presents almost as soon as my family arrived. They had an insane amount of presents and we knew they would never make them through all of the presents on Christmas, so we let them open a few each day.

 

They received a train track from my parents. Kale is in love. I knew he liked the train at the children's museum, but had no idea how much this train would capture this attention. I foresee a train table in his future...

Liam loved his Poppa. Unfortunately, he still wasn't feeling the greatest when everyone was here. This was going on 3 weeks of being sick...I finally took him back to the doctor to discover he had the flu...poor thing. Both boys got the flu shot, but it didn't seem to Liam.

Kris and David Ray holed themselves up in the garage to put together the toys from Santa. I think Kris was grateful to have a helper who was mechanically inclined.

Great Wolf Lodge

I am a bit behind on my blogging. I recently found out we had a "blog stalker" and it kind of freaked me out. I decided to make our family blog private, but then discovered readers had to have a gmail account to access the blog, so many of our family members wouldn't be able to read it....so I haven't decided what to do yet. 

We recently made a trip to Great Wolf Lodge to celebrate Liam's 1st birthday. It was lots of fun, but also lots of work. I think Liam enjoyed playing in and on the suitcase more than the actual water park itself. 

The resort had all sorts of things to do. In addition to the water park, they had an arcade, which had games and toys similar to Chuckie Cheese. Kale and Liam both had a great time and mom and dad managed to drop some serious buck at the arcade! 

If you know Kale, you know how much he LOVES basketball. (The odds of him being a basketball player are not in his favor though...the doc says he will be a pretty short adult.) He played the basketball game numerous times. 

We went to a nearby restaurant the eat dinner. The food at the resort was all pizza, fast food, or buffet, so we thought we would be better off eating elsewhere. 

I should have known the restaurant was suspicious when they served my wine in a pint glass. We decided to stick with fried food, because how can a restaurant screw up burgers and fries...well, when they brought my food, I put ketchup on my plate. As soon as I did this, ants swarmed out from under my fries. Ugh! Needless to say, we ordered a pizza that night! 

More playing in the suitcase! 

Liam was playing around with the stroller and somehow got stuck. I thought it was pretty comical and began taking pictures. 

Kale attempted to help him. I eventually had to intervene and pull him out! 

Great Wolf Lodge had very rustic interior and had some cool pieces of furniture and decorative items. 

They had an entire gingerbread house that people could reserve and eat dinner in. It was made of real gingerbread. 

Friday morning, the boys got to meet some of the characters in the lobby of Great Wolf. Kale cried and clung to me. Liam loved it and grabbed the character's large facial features and even kissed them! 

We didn't take any pictures of the boys actually playing in the water because we were afraid the camera would get wet. The water park was pretty fun!  

All and all the boys had a great time! I think we will wait until they are a bit older to go again though. 

Happy Birthday, Liam!!

This little man is finally one!!! I made his shirt myself with iron-on appliques from Michael's. I was quite proud of myself! 

He loves to play with our toothbrushes and mimics what we do with them. Including putting them back in the holder. 

We went to Liam's one year check-up today. He is growing like a weed. He was 31 inches tall and 24 pounds, 6 ounces. He has lost a few ounces now that he is on the go. He is in the 75 percentile for height and the 90 percentile for weight. 

Liam is starting to stand more and more on his own. If something is close enough, he will take a step towards it. 

This is what it's like around my house all of the time...

constant wrestling!! I need a girl!

My parents got Liam this chair for his birthday. Now he and Kale can chill out and watch Curious George together! 

We took the boys to Great Wolf Lodge this weekend to celebrate Liam's birthday. We did a smash cake before we left though. 

Liam was not really into the cake at all. Kale demolished his smash cake...Liam pretty much just looked at his. This was shocking to me, knowing how much Liam enjoys food!

Kale loved getting to eat cake and ice-cream at 10 o'clock in the morning!

I tried to tempt Liam by giving him a small taste of icing...but nothing seemed to elicit much of a response from him. 

I took a before picture of Liam and this is the "after" picture. Looks pretty much like the "before" picture did. He really was not messy at all. 

This car was Liam's birthday present from us. Kale has a little four-wheeler that they try to ride together but it will hardly move with both of them on it. Liam can't drive the car yet, but we know he will be able to soon! We also bought Liam stock in Johnson & Johnson...Kris' thing he does for the boys for each special event. And I made Liam a special book that was kind of like a year in review. I was very happy with the way it turned out. He got lots of toys, a cookie monster shirt, some money for his college fund and numerous other items. He is one spoiled boy and Christmas isn't even here yet!