Big Lil Brother Shirts

I don’t think I ever posted pics of my boys in their “bro” shirts…

Joshua has already grown out of his, so I guess I need to make him a new one!

Christmas Eve

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas week in Jacksonville with my family. 3 seemed to be a magical age for Jack and Christmas. He was very excited about everything. Each time he saw lights somewhere he'd say, "It's Christmas here!"

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas Eve...

Playing around the house in the morning

Pictures by the tree before church

I made Jack some reindeer food to put out for Rudolph.

Sprinkling quickly turned to throwing

Opening the boys' Christmas pj's. It's our family tradition to open a new pair of pj's on Christmas Eve night.

I made the boys pj pants out of an old (too small) pair of pj pants of mine. I used scraps to cut the t-shirt circle then ironed on letters saying "sweet."

Making hot chocolate and putting out cookies for Santa

Sampling in a tiny Santa mug

Tummy Time

Just like him

I've always know that one day this boy 

would want to be just like him.

And he would want to be just like him.

What I didn't anticipate was him

wanting to be like him.

My favorite almost 2 year-old

My favorite almost two year-old made me a mama...

and he made us a family.

 

While I was teaching him to sit...

crawl...

and walk...

he was teaching me patience, compassion, and love...

 

and to take life just a little less seriously. :-)

 

My favorite almost two year-old began this year of his life as a baby,

and is finishing it as a little boy.

Lover of dinosaurs, balls, and blocks,

eater of lots of food (you know, when he feels like it),

maker of silly faces,

 

superhero pretender,

enjoyer of the finer things of life.

Cousin of two,

brother of one,

apple of our eye.

 

Happy almost second birthday, to my favorite almost 2 year-old!

(Thus commences the birthday week  posts.) :-)

Best Brothers

Are you guys sick of the brothers posts yet? Too bad! Did I mention I'm loving my boys? Oh, I did. Again, too bad! :-)

Yesterday I put the boys in matching clothes and tried for a very simple photo shoot to put in the new header for my blog (by the way, didn't Nikki do an awesome job?!).

The result was a whole bunch of flops, involving Jack rubbing his hands in Charlie's face...

 

and Charlie screaming for help. :-)

 

However, I did ultimately get the shot I was looking for.

Then Jack insisted that he needed to take pictures, and kept trying to steal my camera from me. I got out our old, broken camera and let him have at it. His token line?

 

"Say smile!" Ha! Gotta love that kid!

In other news, just so you don't think our life is all sunshine and roses, last night was rough. Jack started crying at about 10. I went upstairs for about half an hour to rock and pat, to no avail (might have something to do with the fact that he's used to coming to snuggle with me when he wakes up in the night, no longer an option with a baby who wakes up at all hours). So Mike and I traded kids- he went into Jack's room and I took Charlie to our room to get to sleep. An hour and a half later, Charlie and I had been asleep for a while, and Jack was still fussing anytime Mike left the room. Mike came in to change Charlie's diaper (he was up and hungry again) and we made the decision to just let Jack cry, seeing no other option. He actually only cried about 5 more minutes, but it was a heartbreaking rendition of "Mama, Daddy, Gigi! Daaaaaaddy!" Then, Jack was up at 6. Yikes!

Good thing they're cute!