One Last First for 2009

I have been saying for weeks that it was time for Justin to get his hair cut.  It was getting out of control!  Jonathan always cuts his own hair, and he kept telling me to just let him do it instead of take Justin to the hair salon.  Well, finally today Jonathan decided to do it.  I got him a robocut for Christmas (similar to the flowbee he has been asking for for years).  Basically it makes it super easy and less messy to cut your hair.  It's a vacuum haircutter so you just put the attachment on the vacuum of the size length you want your hair to be and it cuts and sucks up the hair at the same time.  Poor Justin is not a fan of the sound of the vacuum so he cried most of the time, but it looks great now that it's done.  At first I thought Jonathan buzzed it a bit too much, but it is much easier to manage now... no more bedhead!  I forgot to take a "before" picture but you can get an idea from our Xmas pics and this first one I posted.  Katelynn was our photographer for Justin's first ever haircut since I had to hold him down.  She took lots and lots of pictures, but they are all pretty blurry.  I posted the best ones.

A Very Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had some happy holidays!  As you can tell, I have been a little busy over the holiday and have neglected my blog yet again.  I actually didn't even upload my pictures off my camera since the last time I posted and finally yesterday my memory card was full after 509 pictures.  It took quite a while to upload them all to the computer!  I'm not going to even try to catch you all up on all the pictures I took over the month, but if you're on facebook you'll see a few more than on here that I took over the month of December (once I get them put on facebook, that is).

So, we started off celebrating Christmas at Jonathan's parent's house on Christmas Eve.  Being the only grandchildren on both sides, it's like three christmases for my kids between each set of grandparents and Santa.  Justin didn't have much of an interest opening gifts like Katelynn did at this age.  We opened all our gifts with Daniel (Jonathan's brother) with us via Skype.  It was fun to get to have him with us as much as he could be while we all opened presents and chatted.

We got home from their house and got the kids ready for bed in their matching PJ's.  Katelynn was really excited about leaving milk and cookies for Santa and seeing what he brought her the next morning!

When we woke up the next morning, Katelynn was more interested in playing with her new toys from the night before than going downstairs to see what Santa had brought.  When she finally went down, she was excited to see her Barbie car that she had asked for and wanted to play with it more than open any gifts.  It took quite a long time to get gifts opened up.

Every year since Katelynn has been born, we have set up the video camera and let it roll while we opened gifts.  I'm not sure how exciting this year's video will be, but we did tape it!  After the tape had stopped rolling, Katelynn decided to try to take some pictures with the camera herself.  :)

Part of a new tradition we started this year was to take Katelynn to the dollar store and let her pick out a gift for each person (grandparents, uncles, mommy, daddy, and Justin) that was from her.  We didn't sway her in any direction; just let her roam the store and pick what she thought was best for each person.  Then we came home and she wrapped each gift all by herself.  It was a big hit and made for some fun laughs that we'll probably smile about for years.  This was the gift she picked out for Daddy.  She was very set on these flowers for him.  She says they are for his garden (which we don't have one...)

Want to know what everyone else got?  Each of her uncles got a "Cars" movie plastic plate, I got a ceramic bride and groom cake topper that Katelynn says is me in my wedding dress with her daddy, Justin got a little toy horse, Grandpa Carney got a flashlight for when he sees bugs, Grandpa Miller got a new watch, Grandma Miller got a loafa, and Grandma Carney got some glitter body wash.  I think for a three-year old Katelynn did a pretty good job.  She even bought the dogs something (each grandparent has a dog.. not us).

Our traditional family PJ picture on Christmas morning (well, except Daddy who is never good about wearing Xmas jammies).

Apparently we wore Justin out opening gifts all morning.  This was what he did when we got in the kitchen after opening all the presents.  He was actually ready for his nap for once!

The original plan was that my parents would drive here Christmas morning and arrive right around noon so we could celebrate and open up gifts with them before Jonathan's parents arrived for a Christmas dinner with everyone.  They started out that way, but my dad's truck broke down about 1.5 hours away from here.  Jonathan went to pick them up and bring them here so we waited until the next morning to do gifts with them.  (And Dad had to rent a Uhaul truck and trailer to go get his truck and bring it home to fix it.)

Both our families on Christmas

Opening gifts from Grandpa and Grandma Carney

Justin discovering his BIG Thomas train gift (this was (and still is) a big hit for both kids)

All Aboard the Thomas Train!!!!!!!!  My parents got them a two seater so they can both ride!  Justin points to the basement constantly to go down and ride it and Katelynn is right behind him each time!

So that was our Christmas in a nutshell- minus a few hundred pictures.  Somehow the time with family always goes too quickly.  I can't believe it's over already and I'm now having to start thinking about what we will do for Justin's 1st birthday in less than a month! 

Saying Goodbye

Jonathan's brother Matt left on Tuesday for Sweden, where he is now going to reside.  It was a bit of a teary goodbye as he will now be pretty far away and someone we seldom see.  The kids now have no uncles that live in the same state as they do.  Matt is pretty excited about what his future holds in Sweden for him, and we are wishing him the best!  We miss you, Uncle Matt!

All I want for Christmas

Justin probably should be asking for his two top front teeth (actually one of the two just popped through yesterday so I guess he's already getting that for Christmas!), but instead he really, really, really wants a BIG yellow and black Tonka dump truck.  Seriously, I am not kidding.  I thought it was a fluke last week when I took the kids to Toys R Us and Justin went nuts over this large yellow and black Tonka dump truck.  Everytime we would walk by it, he would screech and reach for it and scream until I let him put his hands on it.  It was in the center aisle and we went passed it several times.  Each time he had the same reaction.   Tonight we were at Sam's Club with my parents and they had a similar yellow and black dump truck (I think this one wasn't a Tonka though), and Justin got super excited again.  He started chattering and bouncing his legs and reaching for it.  When my mom (who was holding him) started walking away, he was leaning back and staring at it mumbling and reaching for it.  I don't know what it is about a very large yellow and black dump truck- the size?  the color?  big wheels?  I have no idea, but I think Santa better make sure to bring him one!  He may only be 10 months, but he knows what he wants Santa to bring him!  :)

Santa!

Today we went to visit Santa.  I wasn't sure how the kids would do with him this year, but they both did great.  No tears and to my surprise not even any shyness!  Katelynn walked right up to him and asked him where his Santa hat was (he wasn't wearing a hat, and her grandpa had suggested she ask him why so she did!) and then proceeded to tell him what she wanted (which is a Barbie, a Barbie car, and a dog with the "hurt" thing (a little vet shop)).    Justin went up a few minutes later and just stared at Santa.  He wasn't scared at all.  We'll see if next year goes as smoothly with Justin. 

Oh man!!  I got a USB stick with the kid's pictures from Santa.  They took several pictures and I picked out three.  I just realized they gave me the wrong one of Justin.  Ugh!  We had a super cute one of him looking at Santa checking him out and Santa was talking to him and looking at him.  It was soo cute, and the darn lady gave me the one of them looking at the camera instead!  I really want to go back and make them retake it for free, but I wonder if I will have any luck with that?

Two little feet...

..took two tiny little steps today!! 

I can't believe my 10-month old baby boy is about to be walking!  We are in Georgia visiting my parents while Jonathan is out of town.  Jonathan totally called it.  He knew Justin was going to do something big while he was gone, and he was going to miss it.  Sure enough, our first full day here and Justin let go of the couch and took two little steps towards us!  He has taken one to two steps a few times since then, and then other times he is still just standing and going straight to crawling.  Still, I bet it won't be long!!  Hopefully in the next few days I can get a video!!

Not worth the argument...

The older Katelynn gets, the more things I realize just aren't worth the argument.   For example, there are days when I just don't feel like arguing about her shoes being on the wrong feet and how she has to switch them or let me switch them.  Instead I just let her go out with shoes on the wrong feet and let everyone think I'm a neglectful mom.  Oh well.  Some days it's just not worth it.  Tonight, however, it was the "princess crown".  She HAD to keep it on when it was bedtime.  Yes, I know it has long ribbons that could potentially choke her.  That's exactly why I was in her room after she crashed to remove it, but I had to snap a quick picture first!

There's an even cuter story to this crown that she had to wear tonight.  Tonight we read a book about a princess and pizza (Katelynn's two faves- she loves pizza and adores princesses.).  Part of the story is about this princess trying to win over the prince.  At the end of the story, Katelynn asked if she could be a princess and Daddy be her prince.  I asked her what would happen to Justin and I if she and Daddy were princess and prince.  She said, "You can be an elephant and Justin can be a duck."  Wow.  Lucky for me and Justin- we get to be animals while Daddy and Katelynn are living large in a royal kingdom!  :)  I did find it absolutely adorable though that she wanted her daddy to be her prince. 

Elf on Shelf- Day 1

Have you all heard of "Elf on a Shelf"?  I think I learned about it a little late as plenty of our friends in playgroup will be having their elf visit for the second year, but this is our first go around with it.  The story is that Santa has sent one of his elves to our house to watch Katelynn and Justin and make sure they are being nice.  Every night he leaves and goes to the North Pole to report to Santa, and then every morning Katelynn can find him hiding in a new place in our house.  His first spot this morning was the chandelier in the dining room.  It took some help from mommy to find him!  I love this idea and hope that our little elf is going to become a new Christmas tradition around here!

I'm B-A-C-K!!

Phew.. it took quite a while to get caught up around here, but I have finally gotten to that point!!  I promise to post again regularly.  It is so much easier to stay on top of this when I'm not so far behind.  I hope that signing into our blog isn't too much of a pain and that you all will still be stopping by.  Leave me any feedback if you have any suggestions to make this whole going-private thing any easier!  I hope you all are getting in the holiday spirit!  I love Christmas time!  :)

P.S.  I made a lot of posts tonight.  If I'm not mistaken, you may have to go back a page to read all of them and view all the photos!  (And I didn't even post half the ones I wanted to!)