No Baby Yet!

Playing with our new cars with Daddy
Stockings!

Frosty

Liam and Daddy

Luke wasn't so sure about the snow, but he finally came out of the garage

Did I mention we got a lot of snow?

Check out my new boots!

Luke and his kitchen

Christmas Morning

Christmas Eve-Daddy is putting together the kitchen (note the beer on the bottom right)

Thankfully, we made it through Christmas and the big snow storm and we have no baby yet! I was a little nervous when I started seeing all the snow falling, but we seem to be getting back to normal. There is a new hospital that is scheduled to open on Wednesday, Dec. 30th that we would like to use for this delivery and at this point, that looks like it may happen. It would be more convenient than the hospital we used for the boys because it is much closer to our house.

We had a very nice Christmas and the boys loved opening all the gifts. They are still pointing to their stockings each morning and saying "candy." Their favorite gift was probably the kitchen set we got for them. Luke loves to "grill" and spends hours each day busy in the kitchen. Liam loves all the Little People stuff, puzzles, the new duplo (leggos), the cars, etc...Liam tends to move quickly from one thing to another. They are also loving their new bathroom stools from Grandma and Grandpa Carrithers and insist on washing their hands each time we go in the bathroom. This is a great habit, but it has become pretty difficult for me to lift them to the sink recently so Mommy really loves the stools. I still need to get a picture of them actually on the stools, but for some reason I tend to have my hands full with two toddlers on a stool playing in the soap and water and I tend to forget about taking a picture.

Happy 2010!!

Snow, Snow, and More Snow

Why can't we open them???

Tackle!

This is great!

Packing Peanuts!!

One of our best purchases

Thursday morning

The snow (and this is only the beginning of the storm)

We are in the midst of a snow storm in Minnesota in case you have not heard the news recently. And, in case you are wondering how to fill the hours with two energetic and nearly two year old boys, check out the pictures! A few Christmas packages arrived this afternoon and the boys would not accept the idea of waiting until tomorrow to open these boxes. So, being the "experienced" parents that we are and knowing that we have at least another 48 hours of snow to come, we decided to open the boxes a little early.

Ironically (and thankfully), John purchased a snow blower about a week ago. Alghouth we both don't really mind the work of shoveling snow, it is more the time factor that gets in the way. Well, the snow blower has been worth the money this weekend.


Happy Holidays to all our friends and family. We will miss seeing everyone this Christmas, but we are very thankful and excited about the upcoming arrival of Baby #3 although we hope it does not happen during the snow storm.


Jesus is the Reason for the Season. Merry Christmas!

Santa, Macy's, and Fun with the Boys

Walking through the Macy's display with mom

I think they loved Santa this year?!



Exhausted after the trip to see Santa

Not so sure about this guy....

Drinking out of a cup with one hand

Tackle!!

Taking a rest after all that fun with the boxes

Giving Dad the "bump"

Luke was trying to drink milk from the carton while Dad pours it

We have heard from several Minnesota locals that we should take the boys to see Santa at Macy's downtown and visit the holiday display that Macy's has each year. This is the 47th year Macy's has been doing this and each year the display has a theme. This year the theme was "A Day in the Life of an Elf." It is an amazing display similar to something at Disney World. The boys, however, were not impressed with Santa this year if you cannot tell by the pictures! It was a busy morning and we visited Santa at the end of the day when the boys were already a little tired so the outcome was not very good.

There are also a few random pictures of the boys. We have recently learned to drink from a cup. In addition, there are a few pictures of the boys having fun with each other after a recent trip to Costco. We had numerous diaper boxes and other items and they had so much fun playing with them. Their newest word is "tackle". They say this all the time right before they jump on each other.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Daddy is introducing us to "The Elf on the Shelf", a gift from Uncle Jason and Aunt Sarah. Luke sat for the entire story (above), Liam lost interest and only wanted to hold the Elf himself.

Oops...that was not a throwing type ball, it was a glass ornament ball.

Luke holding his favorite ornaments for the day

Liam telling the tree about his phone conversation

Checking out the tree

With the snow, our Christmas lights, and the tree...it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. The boys have been very facinated by the Christmas tree this year. They still don't quite understand the concept of being "gentle" with the fragile ornaments so the majority of our ornaments are hanging at the top of the tree and the tree is located in the office behind closed doors!

The boys and I had a few long days while John was out of town on business, but we are happy to have him home and glad that he won't be planning to travel again until after the arrival of Baby #3. We got our first big snowfall for the season yesterday and today. The temperatures have really dropped, the wind has picked up, and we have about 6 inches of "no" (as Luke calls it). Unfortunately, we all know that we are likely looking at 6 inches that won't melt until spring, but I am trying not to think about that too much.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas

John's lights on our house
Gotta love that timer...

Liam

It was almost a good picture

Luke and the timer

After one of the coldest Octobers on record in Minnesota, we have had one of the warmest Novembers. It has been nice to have the extra time outside without any snow on the ground. It is very unusual for us not to have snow by December, although I am pretty sure it will be coming this weekend. Anyway, this gave us some extra time to decorate the outside of the house and John did quite a bit of work on it. We don't typically do much for outdoor decorations, so this was a first for us. The boys were more excited about playing with the timer for the lights than they were about the lights themselves, although they were very intrigued by them. I am a little skeptical of putting lights outside since it seems like most neighbors end up having to leave them there until the snow melts in May, but John assures me that we will be too busy to notice that there are still lights on the house post Christmas so we won't notice the Christmas lights at Easter!

We had a nice Thanksgiving despite a rough weekend. I had some food poisoning from a local restaurant that really set me back for a couple days. The boys both ended up with sinus infections and ear infections which meant two trips to the pediatrician approximately 24 hours apart. Needless to say, we were very thankful that John was healthy!