December 30, 2010

Our Crazy Christmas - Part 2 (The Pictures)

 Austin and Grandma
 Austin helping Papa Bobby open his presents
 One happy little boy with his baseball bat and glove!
 My 3 handsome boys!!
 The loot from Santa
 Of course the $3 slinky was one of the favorites
 Austin doing what he did all morning....he can't even wipe the smile off his face for a moment!
 He took a break to play a little guitar.  Doesn't he look like such a rock star!
Owen's 1st Christmas!
 Back at the train table...
 In Columbia, Austin and his doggy cousin, Penny
 Getting into Mimi's apple-balls....his favorite "toy" at Mimi and Papa's house
 Owen getting some love from Aunt G and Uncle Nick
 Buddies...Mrs. Martin and Owen
 Austin becoming all domestic with his vacuum from Aunt Dianne
 Mimi feeding Owen his first bottle
 Our gift to Catherine and Nick
 A gag gift from Aunt G, picture taken last Christmas after Ryan ended up with a Snuggie in the Chinese Christmas exchange
 Owen awake...
 Owen asleep...
 Toasting flutes for the soon-to-be newlyweds!
 Penny also thought Ryan looked like a good place to nap
 Back at the house, Austin opening a gift from Am Ma
A little snuggle time with Am Ma before bed
 Owen wanted to open one more gift before his bath
 Wondering how he got into that position...
Austin taking a ride on his new bike!!

Our Crazy Christmas - Part 1

So, December 23-26th were quite possibly the busiest and most sleep deprived 4 days I've ever had, but oh my goodness they were some of the best as well!  Here's the breakdown of our Christmas vacation.

December 23rd:
9:30 pm - Ryan attempts to put together the boys' train table from Santa
11:30 pm - It's a catastrophic failure.  The one we bought from Costco was missing several key pieces, but we didn't realize that until after almost completely putting the whole thing together.  

December 24th:
2:00 am - After freaking out and wondering what to do for a few hours, on a whim, Ryan goes to Toys R Us and buys a new (and much better) train table. 
2:30 am - Ryan gets pulled over leaving the Toys R Us parking lot for a burned out headlight.  Awesome.
3:00 am - Ryan gets home and decides to stay up and put the new table together to make sure everything is accounted for.  
6:00 am - Ryan finally climbs into bed after waking up next to the train table that he got mostly assembled before falling asleep on top of it.
7:30 am - 3:00 pm We get up with the boys and start our day.  We get them ready to see Santa, do a little last minute shopping at the mall, make a grocery run, pick up some lunch and finally get the boys down for afternoon naps.  At that time, instead of crawling in the bed ourselves (which was so very tempting), I finished my Christmas baking and Ryan started wrapping some presents.  
3:00 pm - Boys wake up, Austin and I decorate cookies for Santa, we finish wrapping and head to Papa and Grandma's house for Christmas Eve.  We eat, we chat, we open presents...
9:00 pm - 11:59 pm We get back home, the boys go straight to bed and Santa and Mrs. Claus lay out the gifts (after opening them all and adding batteries) and then finish wrapping presents for the next day.

December 25th:
12:01 am - Ryan and I say Merry Christmas to one another because we are still awake wrapping presents
 2:30 am - We say it again as we finally get into bed, still not completely done wrapping
 7: 30 am - Owen wakes me up on Christmas morning!  Him and I spend some nice alone time together as the other two boys continue sleeping.  
8:00am -  Everyone is awake and we all start coming down the stairs, Ryan and I as happy and giddy as we were when we were kids coming to see what Santa had brought us.
8:01 am - Austin spots his train table, ignores us all for the next 20 minutes.
8:20 am - Austin spots the pile of other toys on the floor and makes his way over there.  He picks up every toy with wheels, plays with them for a few moments, and then goes back to the train table.
Meanwhile, Owen is having a fabulous time playing with all his goodies, especially his Activity Lion!
8:45 am - I made chocolate chip waffles for breakfast, but even that yummy temptation can not draw Austin away from his beloved train table.  From the kitchen, we hear him whispering "thank you, Santa, thank you" several times as he plays with his trains.  Instead of dragging him away, Ryan and I alternate taking bites to him while he plays.  
9:30 am - Owen naps while Austin continues to play and Ryan and I clean up from breakfast (finish wrapping) and get ready for our trip down to Columbia.
12:00 pm - We are finally on the road to Columbia (about an hour later than we had planned).
1:00 pm-6:00 pm - We arrive in Columbia to spend time with Mimi and Papa and the rest of the Banks side of the family.  We have a fabulous lunch followed by lots and lots and lots of present opening!  Owen is smitten with Mrs. Martin and she takes quite the liking to him herself.  No part of his body touches the floor for the rest of the day for all the people wanting to hold him.  Austin is a hoot!  He is opening gifts left and right, sneaking in the kitchen and stealing cookies off the table, being his absolutely adorable self and loving every minute of all the attention he's getting.  Those two boys were spoiled rotten the entire afternoon.  I guess it helps that they were the only two children in a house full of adults!
6:00 pm - We hate to leave, but are excited to get home for Christmas dinner with Am Ma.
7:30 - 11:59 pm We arrive home to see snow falling and about an inch already on the ground.  Am Ma is there waiting for us so we wake both boys up from their car seat naps to get ready for our final Christmas day celebration.  We eat again, open presents, play with toys, get baby boy in bed and after a few more hours, big brother follows.  Ryan and I open our presents from Am Ma and chat for awhile.

December 26th:
1:00 am - We finish opening all the gifts, Am Ma leaves, and Ryan and I race to the bed to see who can fall asleep first.
8:00 am - We wake up to blankets of snow outside and spend the morning playing with the boys, ALL their new toys and in the snow.
2:00 pm - Midnight  - We achieve double nap time and figure it's about time Ryan and I finally exchange our gifts to each other.  We finish unwrapping our wonderful gifts, clean up the mess and start heading to bed for a quick nap ourselves...until we hear both boys awake on the monitors...Oh well!  We get up and play with our sweet boys for the rest of the day and then crash for the night.

Whew!  And that's the short version!  It sure was a busy holiday season, but I loved every moment.  What a wonderful Christmas for our family of four.  I already can't wait until next year!

December 29, 2010

Christmas Morning Peek

Still working hard on sorting through the hundreds of pictures I took on Christmas...

...but here are a few "teasers" for your immediate viewing pleasure!

 "Is this really....ALL mine?"
 "Owen, you need to build up some stamina for Christmas morning toy playing.  There are no naps on Christmas morning.  Now drop and give me 20!"
 "I'm keeping my eye on you, Owen."
O-zilla Attacks!!!

Mater the Caboose

December 28, 2010

White Christmas!

For the first time in my lifetime, we officially had a white Christmas!!

It started snowing around 5pm in Greenville but we were still in Columbia celebrating Christmas with my family there.  We eventually made our way home to discover about an inch of snow already on the ground.  It continued to snow through the night and we woke up to over 4 inches!  We couldn't wait to get the boys outside to play!

We will always remember this Christmas because it was the first Christmas with our two boys, Owen's 1st Christmas and the first white Christmas for all 4 of us!

More Christmas pictures coming soon, but I just couldn't wait to get up these fun snow pictures!!

Our first steps outside on the day after Christmas!
Austin absolutely loved playing in the snow
Owen couldn't feel the cold through all his layers...
...so he was pretty happy too!
My little snow baby!
Austin said "snow slide" as soon as he saw his slide covered in snow and couldn't wait to go down it!
Chasing mommy with a snowball!
The view from our backyard.
My other sweet snow baby!
Got ya!


It's never too cold for a little baseball!
Me and my little snow angel!

December 27, 2010

In case you were wondering,
these two boys...







...were VERY good this year!

More coming very soon about our truly amazing Christmas!!

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