The first snow!

I was so excited for DC's first snow yesterday!! I have to admit I was getting a little jealous of all the snow in Cincinnati (and everywhere else) over the past couple of weeks haha. It was so cute watching Alex check out the snow from the window all morning! He was so excited! Here he is showing his puppy the snow (he's been more attached to his puppy lately... more in a "favorite toy" kind of way than a comfort object). He explained that since it was snowy "Santa's coming in 5 more minutes!!!" I had to explain (again) that snow doesn't mean it's quite Christmas! He's been checking for snow lately and telling me that it's not Christmas because it's not snowing yet.

Alex was so excited to play outsisde!!! We got all bundled up, and put Nathan in his carseat. Poor little guy has a pretty nasty cold, so I made sure he was nice and warm and put him in the warm car while Alex and I played.

Alex LOVED the snow this year!!! We only lasted about 20 minutes or so because he wouldn't wear his big gloves and his hands got cold pretty quick. But he LOVED throwing snow at mommy, he thought it was the funniest thing ever!

I got him a few times too... he wasn't always quite so sure about that haha.

We even tried to build a snowman... but it wasn't the best packing snow so it ended up being more of a snow pile!

After about 20 minutes Alex was teary because his hands were cold... and yet he didn't want to go in yet. It was quite the dilema lol. We ended up going in for hot cocoa ("coffee" according to Alex - he thought he was so cool!) and cookies!

"It's my coffee mommy!"

A few pre-holiday traditions!

I am big on tradition... it's so fun to pass traditions on to our kids and to begin some of our own traditions throughout the holidays!

I've been looking for one of these little people manger scenes this Christmas! I found this one on sale this past weekend at the Christian bookstore and both of the kids LOVE it! It's a toy we'll pack away with the Christmas stuff and I know our kids will love pulling this out each year!



Alex has been enjoying having me read the Christmas story while he acts it out! It's sooo incredibly cute! I've had to remind Alex several times that this is for BOTH him and Nathan... and that he has to share it. His typical response is to give Nathan some insignificant figure like a sheeep or camel and remind me "he's just a baby..."


We went to see Santa on Monday at the Fairfax Mall! We have decided to do Santa... I know a lot of people decide against it for fear that their children will begin to question God, feel lied to, or put too much focus on the wrong things at Christmastime... but I grew up with Santa and really don't see the huge harm in it I guess. I love this tradition as well. We went to get our picture with Santa EVERY SINGLE YEAR (our parents made us go even in junior high and high school when it was the most embarassing thing ever - we'd drive 3o minutes away so that we didn't have to worry about running into people we knew - ha!) We have pictures now though of our family with Santa every Christmas! Looking back I'm able to really appreciate this tradition :)

I don't have any pictures with Santa because we "weren't allowed" and I'm married to a serious rules follower... LOL. I REALLY wanted to snap a couple of pictures... and I consider myself a "rules follower" too, but I guess with trivial stuff like this that doesn't matter at all (and when I'm spending the $20 to buy two pictures and an additional $30 to buy two frames, I don't see the harm in taking a couple of my own photos!) Anyway, Gary wouldn't let me and I couldn't find the camera to do it anyway! LOL We didn't have any tears this year though! Nathan was a little unsure when I passed him over to Santa, but didn't cry. And Alex was soooo cute! He was really excited, but I kind of expected him to be too shy to actually say anything or smile. When Santa asked what he wanted, Alex said "toys!!" Santa asked what kind of toys and he said, "...and ONE book!" (holding up his little 1 finger.) I'm kind of glad he wasn't too specific, because he didn't really ask for a certain toy this year so if he picks somehting now it's kind of too late! haha. Him and Santa chatted for a while about trains and whether or not he's been a good little boy and a big helper with his brother this year :) He was a little confused when it was time to go and he didn't actually GET any presents from Santa! haha

I remember checking the tree each day for newly wrapped gifts and shaking them all to try and figure out what they were! We wrapped most of our presents Saturday night after the kids went to bed... it was so fun to watch Alex check out the tree the next morning! He pulled every gift out and tried to figure out who it was for. We showed him how to check the tag for the name (although there are lots of letters and words on the tags by the time they say who they are to and from). He knows the first letter in each person's name and with a little help in finding the word he's supposed to be looking at, can figure out who they are to. Any time he finds one that's for him, he'll say "awww, that's so nice! thank you!!!" He's been shaking them all to try and figure out what's inside... it's hilarious to hear his logic! ANY present (regardless of size or shape) that makes noise, he'll guess is building blocks! LOL... he'll say "oooo, it's more building blocks!" I'm not sure why he thinks we'd have 15 gifts under the tree for various people that are building blocks lol.

He's done great keeping secrets this Christmas! He picked out his own presents for Nathan and Gary and will tell them "no peeking" and "it's a surprise!" :) He was very thoughtful (but also a little selfish) in choosing both gifts... he wanted something they would like, but also something that HE will like ;) I guess that's probably pretty typical for a toddler/preschooler!

Anyway, Alex is so excited for Christmas! And, if it's possible, I am probably more excited than he is! :D Kids make the holidays so much fun!!!

A week of single parenting...

Gary was out of town last week for a business conference... to most, a seemingly insignificant event I would guess. But for me, my first time ever being home alone since we got married! Crazy, I know... we've been apart before, but I've always been the one traveling somewhere without him - never the other way around! Anyway, we tried our best to keep busy, but oh my goodness we missed him so much and those were 4.5 long days! (I'm a baby, I know!) Between the lack of help in the evenings (I realized how much I depend on a little break from those two adorable but demanding little boys after 6:00!) and the loneliness that comes along with being without my best friend and love of my life! I think even moreso being a stay-at-home mom and still not having really anyone to depend on around here, I really really look forward to talking to, laughing with, snuggling up to, and just relaxing with my husband each evening. Daily phone calls and text messages throughout the day just don't come close! Anyway, enough complaining... here are some of the things we did to keep busy this past week:

We made cinnammon applesauce Christmas ornaments! They smell amazing (but didn't turn out nearly as cute as the ones in the picture... haha they never do!)

It was very hard for Alex not to habitually eat the dough! I kept reminding him there was glue in it!

We worked on Christmas thank-you gifts - mint chocolate covered pretzels with m&ms on top! yuuuummmm!! These are AMAZING! I'm making more for Gary to give as part of his gifts for his bosses at work!

We mixed, rolled, baked, and decorated 8 dozen (yes, DOZEN) sugar cookies for a cookie exchange we went to on Friday! When I chose sugar cookies I don't think I really realized how many cookies 8 dozen is... rolling and cutting takes a loooong time! Especially when you have two little "helpers" by your side ;) As much as I enjoy baking with my little man, when I have a large amount of something like that to make - and when it's not just for "fun" - I found that I can get pretty impatient!

Here is my "helper" again! He BEGGED me to let him vacuume! After cleaning under the table, he wanted to do the whole apartment!

And we played of course! These two have been soooo cute together lately! Alex has started paying more and more attention to Nathan as Nathan responds more and interacts! Alex had him belly laughing for quite some time this day! We also finished up just about all of our Christmas shopping, had a lunch date at Panera, and stayed up late watching Christmas movies two nights!

Well after 4 1/2 long days without Gary, we were all more than ready to have him back on Friday night! While checking his e-mail the next morning, Alex grabbed his laptop to check his "me mails" too! (this lap top is pretty cool by the way - you can program in your own e-mails and your child's name!)

And they snuggled up together on the couch most of the morning! :) Gary had Monday off, so it was great to have a 3 day weekend after a week without him!

He makes me smile :)

Just a couple of fun moments with my favorite little 2 year old...

*He wanted more money for his piggy bank (we let him put loose change in there sometimes). We didn't have any laying around when he asked, so he wanted to know if we could just print some money out of the computer printer. If only it were that easy ;)

*Lately whenever mommy becomes "mean mommy" (aka Alex doesn't get his way...) he starts crying "I want my mommy though" Gary and I have decided that what he's really saying is "I want my nice mommy back!"

*The other day Alex was spontaneously checking out the Christmas tree... it was just so cute that I had to grab my camera. After snapping a couple of pictures, he was about to move on to something else and he looks at me and says "should I keep doing it mommy?" He did the same thing when reading his little Bible in bed. I saw him snuggled under his covers reading it during room time and ran to get my camera because it was just so completely precious! I snapped a couple of pictures and then he looks up before moving on to a new book and says "keep going?" LOL I guess that's an indication of how many pictures I take ;)

7 months and the Christmas Parade!

I kind of want to freeze time right now... I am loving 7 months and almost 3 :) But parenting is weird like that, because at the same time I am so looking forward to Nathan crawling around, learning to talk, and developing his own little personality more. I love watching them develop, grow, and learn... but it is so hard at the same time. Here are a few little updates about my 7 month old!!


We gave him crackers and the little baby puffs this past weekend . He was confused at first (hence the picture), but LOVES feeding himself now that he's getting the hang of it! He continues to enjoy eating - but is not liking his green veggies at all!!! He pretty much spits them right back out. His favorites are his cereal with fruit mixed in, pears, and squash. He'll eat other foods, but there is a distinct difference with these - he opens his mouth wide, leans forward, and shows real excitement! :)

He loves playing with balls lately. Too cute! He's also rolling all around. He doesn't purposefully roll across a room or anything yet, but does roll to get to his toys more and more frequently. The other day I sat him with the boppy behind him to play and a few minutes later I notice he is all of the way behind the boppy on his belly by the Christmas tree! He is a wiggler and mover :) I don't think he's anywhere close to actually crawling around, but he's learning to move more and more with purpose!

We got all bundled up and headed to the Manassas Christmas Parade on Saturday! Alex is very into fire trucks, cars, motorcycles, etc. etc. So we figured he'd LOVE it... and Santa would be there! It was our first time with the winter coats, hats, gloves, scarves, etc. and it was very windy and COLD!

We really enjoyed the first 30 or 40 minutes or so... Nathan was happy and warm (he was wearing A LOT and was all snug in the stroller with blankets... he was perfectly content to sit and watch all of the lights and people!) and Alex was LOVING all of the "cool stuff". Then suddenly, just before Santa was supposed to come, BOTH kids completely melted - Alex was cold, and Nathan was ready for his nap... and both wanted mommy... So off we went through the crowds in the middle of the parade with two screaming kids... we got many sympathetic smiles. As soon as we got to the comfort of the car with the heat on, Alex asked if we could pleeeeaaaase go back and see Santa ;)

Thanksgiving with the Friske Family!

We traveled to Aiken, SC to spend Thanksgiving with Gary's parents, brother, sister-in-law, and sister! We got up early Wednesday morning and left around 5:30... it was a long day of driving, but overall the kids did great and we got in around 2:30.


Wednesday evening we walked around downtown Aiken (a huge horse community)!


Playing pinball... Alex LOVED this :)

Nathan loves his Opa!

Thanksgiving day :)

Gaming... a favorite activity for the guys ;)

Nathan trying to get his presents!

Alex couldn't wait to open gifts after eating Thanksgiving dinner! (Somehow I managed to not get any photos of dinner! oops!)

My sweet boys ready to open presents!

Family picture!

All of the "kids" :)

The kids LOVED opening presents! Even Nathan got into it... tearing the paper and watching all the action!

We had to keep a close eye on Alex to make sure he only opened HIS presents ;)

Playing with Uncle Brian :) Alex loves his uncle!

Checking out all his new toys!

We had such a great time with Gary's family... lots of food, family time, Turkey, gaming (for the guys), board games, yummy mixed drinks, playing with the kids, exchanging gifts, and even some shopping and a date! Gary and I got up early to do the whole Black Friday thing this year :) We took Nathan with us so that we wouldn't have any time constraints and spent the morning doing a lot of our Christmas shopping for the kids... we got some great deals! :) Gary and I also had the chance to see Harry Potter and go out to lunch on Saturday while his family watched the kids, which was SO much fun! As much as we love our kids and family time, it's so much fun to go out alone every now and then :) One of my favorite things about being out on a date is being able to hold hands with my hubby... something you really take for granted before carrying kids, holding THEIR hands, and pushing carts and strollers. I am so thankful for my husband!

We really have so much to be thankful for this year... a new baby, a healthy and happy almost three year old, wonderful family, a new job, and so many other things!

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

I'm a bit behind on my blogging, but wanted to post a few pictures of us decorating for Christmas! We put up our tree the weekend before Thanksgiving since we knew we'd be out of town for the holiday and we were celebrating Christmas at Thanksgiving with Gary's family. Alex was SO excited. We made the mistake of telling him that morning that we were putting up the Christmas tree (even though mommy insisted on cleaning the ENTIRE apartment before we could start... I wanted everything to be clean before we got out the decorations) Alex had a hard time waiting, he probably asked 50 times if we could start yet.


Spreading the branches


Nathan enjoyed decorating too! He's fascinated with the lights, shiny ornaments, and prickly branches :)

Christmas decorating is such a sentimental activity for me - it has been since I was a kid growing up. The decorations all have special meaning and bring back so many memories. Here we are talking about one of the Santa pictures. Alex insisted that ALL of the pictures of him as a baby were Nathan - such a hard concept for a 2 year old to understand that HE was a baby once too :)

Pulling out more ornaments!

Alex checking out his baby ornaments! He loved that these were HIS. One is the ornament we got when we were expecting (he was about a month from being born!) and the second was for his first Christmas. I am so not into the whole "pretty ornaments that you can't touch" thing... I LOVE having special ornaments on our tree. So our tree is filled with kids' crafts, pictures, and other sentimental things- and I think it's so much more beautiful than the "perfectly decorated" tree :) Ever since we put up the tree, Alex has made sure that the lights stay on all the time and he loves checking out the decorations... we'll see if our manger scene peices stay intact this year ;)

We're working hard to maintain a balance now that Alex is getting a little older and understanding more and more. We've been talking a lot about Christmas being Jesus' birthday and celebrating with gifts to show our love to one another and remember the special gift God gave us. He seems to KIND OF get it... but is still very excited for presents and Santa :) I'm so excited about celebrating Christmas with our two kiddos this year!! :D

Shutterfly Christmas Cards

Shutterfly has a great Christmas card promotion! You can get 50 free cards just for posting a blog entry about them! I have used Shutterfly for prints before and it is so easy to use and you get great prints! We've always sent out a photo Christmas card and accompanied it with a letter telling about our year for out of town friends and family. I came across this promotion online and have seen a couple of friends' blog entries about it already, so I decided to try it out - it's worth the 50 free cards, right??



There are so many styles to choose from. Go here to check out their many cards. I'm thinking I want one that allows for multiple photos like this one or this one. We got some great pictures of the boys over Thanksgiving and a few family photos too, with all of the choices for cards I know I can find a great one to use!! I really haven't looked through them much yet though, and there are SO many options! There are other great ideas for personalized gifts as well, such as their calenders you can find here. Anyway, especially if you send out photo cards anyway, you should definitely check it out... it's quick and easy and free!!! If you have a blog, go here to get your free cards!

New Things: Sippy Cup, Teeth, and Better Sleep!

First a picture of my boys during one of my favorite times of the week: Saturday mornings! I love our Saturday lazy morning routine: jammies, couch, cartoons, coffee, snuggles, breakfast, and all four of us just relaxing! It's the next best thing to sleeping in, right? ;)


We gave Nathan a sippy cup about a week ago! I just put a little apple juice and mostly water in the cup and have been letting him experiment a little with it. He loves it! Although, I don't think he really gets much out of it ;) I remember it taking Alex a long time to figure it out though, so I figure just letting him play with it once a day for 15 minutes or so for now will help him learn!

Alex enjoyed it as much as Nathan did! I know I say it all the time, but I love how much they enjoy each other already! :)

Such sweet boys.

The other really fun thing about the last week or so is that Nathan has these two little teeth on the bottom. They are SO cute! And Nathan plays with them all the time. He puts his fingers in there and you can tell he knows there's something new about his mouth! I love watching him discover new things. He's also started to like the sound of his own laugh. He'll get going and start "fake laughing" just because he likes the sound of it... it's hilarious :)

On another note, his sleeping has been pretty sporadic lately. He'll sleep straight through the night for a couple of nights without waking or fussing or anything... then the next night he'll be up 1-3 times fussing. I'll let him cry for a few minutes and then have usually been going in to give him his passy, which usually works. Every now and then he'll fuss a few minutes and go back to sleep. I haven't been feeding him through the night anymore and he's been doing great with that :) His naps are getting better and better... he has good nap days and cat nap days. On his good nap days he takes two 1 1/2-2 hr naps and usually a short 10-20 cat nap in between (often in the car). On his "cat nap" days he takes 4 naps ranging from 35min-1 hr ish. He's also gotten to the age where he wants to nap in his crib. He'll still cat nap in the car, but won't really sleep "on the go" unless he's in the car anymore (no more rocking him to sleep in my arms or in the carseat :( ) Occasionally on his cat nap days I can still take naps with him on the couch, although it's a little sad that he's outgrowing this too.

Oh and I also wanted to mention how cute it is the way that Nathan reaches for me! When he wants to be picked up he flaps his little arms and legs and reaches them toward me (accompanied with a big ear-to-ear smile and sometimes even a giggle!) It is so sweet, and of course nearly impossible to resist :) It does make me a little sad in the middle of the night when he'll occasionally do this when I go in to just give him his passy and make him go back to sleep... he'll sometimes protest in dissappointment. It usually lasts only a second though and he's back asleep :)