Santa Claus came to Eagan

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We had a lovely christmas, but it went WAY too fast! We took Caleb and Ellery to see Santa Claus and when he first sat on Santa's lap, he was ALL DONE!!!, but Mrs Claus bribed him with a candy cane so he did cooperate long enough for us to get a few pictures. He didn't quite ask Santa when he was there, but a few nights prior, he said he wanted broccoli and cookies for Christmas-easy to please I guess.

Caleb was very mesmerized by the little band that was playing at Tim's holiday party. He just stared at them while they were singing and playing their instruments.

Santa brought Caleb his very own kitchen on Christmas morning. He even heard Caleb's request for broccoli and put some in his stocking. Maybe he will be a chef someday???

We spent Christmas Eve with my family. Caleb got lots of great gifts from Santa here too.

Grandma G and her "Sweet Pea"

Grandpa Pat got Caleb some cool cards about animals from a "secret" place.

Caleb got a drum set from uncle Ben. I think that is something Ben would have wanted when he was little. He likes to be LOUD and have a lot of fun! He even told me that I had to have one more "all nighter" just for fun. I told him that Caleb and Ellery don't let me sleep until 3 like he can!

Uncle Jon here with Miss Ellery. Everyone gave Ellery money for Christmas because we are putting up a swing set and she won't remember this Christmas anyway. She did get a beautiful faux fur coat from Grandma for next winter so she didn't totally get the shaft.

Uncle Jon was a little disappointed because Caleb was "ALL DONE" by the time it came to opening his gift. He did open it though with uncle's help-he got an Aquadoodle puzzle-it is a mat that comes with a pen you fill with water. That way he can't make a mess, but he can show his artistic side! He's getting quite good at scribbling now.

When Caleb was born, I decided to take a picture at each month. We are continuing that with Miss Ellery and this is her photo at 3 months!

Merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a safe and happy 2007!

So much to say!

Big Smiles!

This week has come with changes for both kids. Ellery has started to "talk" to us. It is so fun to hear her little coos and gurgles. She smiles like crazy when you talk to her except when you put her on her tummy. She doesn't like being there too much so she isn't rolling over yet. It is hard for me to not compare her to Caleb and he was making his way off of the Boppy pillow at this age! Oh well, they all develop differently.

She has also learned to take a bottle too finally! Tonight she was even taking it alone-daddy was supposed to be feeding her, but he wasn't holding the bottle-she had it in her mouth and was holding it up alone. Progress! Now, according to dad she is up to clean the garage next. Also, she is so much better at sleeping through the night now-although now that I said that she probably won't be since she has slept for the better part of today despite my efforts to keep her up!

She also discovered her hands recently. Unfortunately, she also discovered how to get her thumb in her mouth. I told Tim that we must breed thumb suckers! Hopefully she doesn't love her thumb like Caleb does or we will have an incredible orthodontist bill!

Caleb has been talking so much these days. He is putting words together more and more. Today he said "listen to mommy" after I had just gotten done saying that to him of course. And the other day I spilled some water from his humidifier on the floor and I said "oh crap!" (yes that is what I said!) and he of course picked up on that and was saying "crap" for a few hours-the little parrot. It is fun to hear him talk, but frustrating sometimes because we don't always know what he is saying.

He also has a few books that he LOVES. "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" which he calls "meatballs" and recently "Socks for supper" which was my book when I was little. We read these books over and over again-dad was threatening to start a fire for "meatballs" tonight. He even hid it for a while, but mommy took it back out again because Caleb loves it so much. I believe we gave our nephews a book about lobsters one year that was loved as much as "meatballs" and it "disappeared" eventually. Maybe "meatballs" will have a similar fate.

We put up our Christmas tree downstairs just after Thanksgiving and every day Caleb goes to the stairs and says "tree" and wants us to turn on the lights. It is so fun to see him so excited. He loves the bird ornament that I stole from my mom. I had to have it because I loved it so much as a kid and now Caleb loves it just as much. He usually asks to hear the birdies along with turning on the lights. I am very excited for this Christmas because of how much fun he will be. We'll see how Santa goes over though. Last year he cried when we put him on Santa's lap, this year he knows who Santa is but every time I ask him if he is going to sit on Santa's lap, he says no. He did agree to it when I said that Ellie would be there too.

"OOOHHH! Birdies!"

Pointing at the tree in amazement!

"Tree!!!"

My Little Grinch!

We just watched "How the Grinch stole Christmas" on tv and

Tim swears this face is a dead ringer for Jim Carrey!

2 months old!!!

This will probably be the longest post that I have. Hopefully I will be able to update about every 2 weeks. But maybe sooner. I guess it will depend on how soon I get my pictures. I imagine that during the holidays, I will have more pictures. And I will have some from my dad as he does live in the current century! I am still in the dark ages as I still use a 35 mm camera so it takes me a little while to get new pictures up. I can't help it though, the film pics do turn out better! We will have new pictures sooner than I thought though because I figured out a way to get my pictures on my computer as soon as Snapfish develops them instead of waiting until the prints are sent to me. Ya hoo!

My dragon and sweet pea on Halloween!

Uncle Jon and the kids on Halloween.

These two are from Ellery's second photo shoot at 6 1/2 weeks old. She is wearing my dress in the bottom one!

This month (2 months old), Ellery has started to smile and she is quite cute! We are working on Ellery sleeping in the bassinet these days, but it isn't going the greatest (she must need the extra cuddle time with mom at night since she has to share me during the day). We are also trying a bottle, but that isn't going well either. She had better figure both things out in the next month or she's out!!! (mom goes back to work on Dec 26th) Well, we just tried a new bottle tonight and she took to it so here's hoping!

Ellery smiling cute for her grandpa!!!

Caleb is doing well these days too. He is 21 months old today! He is learning more and more words each day. It is so fun to hear him talk. Some of his words are very cute-and others make those who are a bit "young" laugh since he can't pronounce his L's (i.e. clock). He knows how to count to 10 and we are working on our ABC's-he does pretty good with those when you help him. He is a very happy boy and spends a lot of time laughing-mostly at himself! He is so good to his sister, but hopefully this week he will try to stay away from her since he just got a bad cold!

Hangin' out in Buddie's (my parent's dog) bed.

We celebrated Thanksgiving on thursday too with my family. Unfortunately, we had to skip Tim's family since Nicholas had some violent illness and we didn't want the babies getting sick-we missed the good meal! We took the family picture amongst the cooking chaos. It is always interesting getting a family picture. One year my brother Ben was very sick and could barely stand for the picture-thankfully this year at least everyone was feeling ok.

Ben, dad, Tim, Jon, mom, Caleb, Ellery, and me

These are my cousins Lauren (with Ellery) and Ryan (my godson) then there's Ben and I.

Fall and halloween

We took the kids outside a few weeks ago. Here we let Caleb hold Ellery,

but she didn't like it too much!
My cuties in their jammies. Notice Caleb's funky hair!
At Como's Zoo Boo. It was very difficult to get all the kids to look and stay seated!

Tim got me started on this. Hopefully it will be a fun way to keep everyone posted. One of my friends from work has one for her new little guy and tonight Tim started his own blog and I decided that it looked easy and fun. Hope everyone likes "keeping up on the Joneses"! (Tim's idea :))