Bella, Gabe and Josiah

My little Gabe is growing up entirely too fast. I mean, look at this picture of him with his morning coffee! Don't worry, it's just a vanilla steamer, even though he called it his "coffee." Also, yesterday he busted out the word excavator. "Excabater." That said, he is still a little guy. I took him to his two-year appointment this week. The doctor is totally impressed with how well he's doing. At this point, she's not concerned about anything. He's up to 20 pounds and 30 inches tall, which isn't even on the charts for his adjusted age (and is how much my friend's 7-month-old weighs), but he's growing she's not worried at all. He's such an awesome little guy. I love him so much.

We haven't had a normal Christmas, well, ever. And by we, I mean Pat and I and the kids. Growing up I had plenty of normal Christmases, but apparently my life got complicated when I met Pat... When Bella was 5, our first Christmas together, she spent part of the day with her birth mom and part of the day with Pat and I at my parent's house. But it was a little awkward trying to coordinate timing and multiple families, since everyone wanted to spend Christmas with Bella. Plus, Bella didn't talk to us yet, so it was very quiet, even when she was there. When she was six, we spent the day at my parents. Everyone went a little over-the-top on presents for her, mostly because her mom had just died and it seemed like the right thing to do. I tried to incorporate some of her mom's family traditions into our traditions, but the only one I was ever told about was making pierogi on Christmas Eve night. I made pierogi to go with our Swedish pancakes and Bella refused to eat them, s

It's been so much fun to watch the wonder of Christmas through Gabe's eyes this year. Everything is new and exciting and he thinks it's all just amazing. I wasn't around when Bella was this size. My first Christmas with her, she was 5. She was at her mom's house for part of Christmas and even when she was with Pat and I (at my parents house) she was still in her don't-talk-to-anyone phase, so it was a much different experience. Now she loves Christmas, but the magic at 11 is very different from the magic at 2. My little two-year-old is super excited to see lights and trees. He doesn't really understand presents yet (which means that he leaves them alone!), but if you hand him one, he gets super excited to open it. He recognizes Santa (and then sticks his lips out and says "Ho ho ho"), but wants nothing to do with him in real life.  His favorite part about Christmas, though, is Frosty the Snowman. It came up the first time at breakfast. He didn'

Christmas Tree Hunting is one of my favorite Christmas traditions. Everyone else in my life seems to whine and complain about it every year, but once we're out there, everyone has a wonderful time and agrees that it's a great tradition. As such, I will continue to force my entire family to do it with me every year! This year was a bit odd. For one, we didn't have Gram, as she is two weeks post knee replacement and didn't think that hiking up a mountain was going to work. For two, there was no snow. At all. In fact, it was pretty rainy and wet. Some years we're hiking through snow well past our knees and that definitely was not a problem this year. But we managed to find a great tree and we all had a great time. Well, I did anyway... Since we were all wet and cold, we celebrated a good trip for coffee and waffles.  The next day, once the tree was dry, we brought it in to decorate. I figured that Gabe would be a disaster so I planned to do it during naptime. Well, we

Since Gabe is only 2, we decided not to have a big birthday party for him. Next year, when he knows what a birthday is, we'll invite some friends over, but not this year. Instead, we did a family party, with us, Gram and Gramps and Aunt Jan. I'm still not sure that Gabe understood what was going on, but he loved running around with the balloon. And he would have been perfectly happy to open one present and then just play with that for awhile, rather than having to ignore the fun new toy in order to open another one. This could make Christmas interesting...    He was very confused by the candles on the cake, but after we wouldn't let him touch them, then he figured out the whole blowing-them-out thing.  Since Gabe is currently obsessed with garbage trucks, I decided to try and make a Garbage Truck Cake. It was my first time doing anything more complicated than putting two round cakes on top of each other, and I think it turned out pretty well. After cake, he was definitely o

My baby is 2. How is that even possible? How can it possibly be two years since we were sitting in the hospital looking at our tiny little baby wondering how a baby can be that small. Two years since he grabbed my finger for the very first time. Yesterday morning I was awake at 7 and I realized that we were in the half hour window where we didn't know if he was going to live or die. As soon as he was born they handed him to the nicu so fast that the doctor didn't even have a chance to verify that he was a boy. And then we waited. And just like last year, I was awake thinking about that half hour. That half hour that could have easily gone the other way. And now we have a happy healthy two year old little boy. And he makes me so happy.    

I know that life can get pretty crazy around Christmas, but so far we've been doing pretty good...until this week. This week has been chaos. Sunday Pat and I had a Christmas party. Monday Bella had a dentist appointment and a band concert. Tuesday Pat had a youth group Christmas party. Wednesday both Bella and I had separate Christmas parties. And yesterday we spent the evening at Gram and Gramps's house for the first time since Gram got her knee replaced. I think there's a reason that we're all tired and a bit cranky. I'm hoping for a very quiet evening tonight so we can make it through this weekend which will involve Christmas tree hunting, another Christmas party, a piano recital and Gabe's birthday. This may explain why this morning Gabe just wanted "bito" (wrapped up in his blanket like a burrito) and "song".  

This kid sure makes our lives more entertaining... This weekend I was putting away the laundry.  I told Gabe what I was doing and then I grabbed a bit stack of clothes and headed to our bedroom.  When I walked back to the living room, I saw Gabe in his room.  He'd also grabbed a stack of Daddy's clothes, put them in the drawer with his clothes and was trying desperately to get the drawer closed. ---------------------------------- He was helping me with a sewing project yesterday.  He actually was pretty helpful.  He was poking pins into the fabric and every time that I needed to backstitch, he'd push the reverse button for me. --------------------------------- He found the cat toy this morning, but he's pretty sure that it's a fishing pole.  He spent all morning talking about "Fishen."  At one point he even said "Luv fishen."  The "fishing pole" is currently in my car because he insisted on fishing in the car. --------------------------

This morning Pat and I were in bed and Bella and Gabe were playing in the living room. Suddenly there was a little knock on the door and someone said "Mommy Daddy Hat! Mommy Daddy Hat!" I yelled at him that his hat was in his carseat and then I heard him run down the hallway. A few minutes later I heard another "Mommy Daddy Hat!" at the door. I opened the door to see Gabe standing there in his jammies, with his hat on sideways, holding Daddy's hat. He came in, put Daddy's hat on his head, and ran off to keep playing with Bella. Silly boy.  

Now that it's December, all the Christmas fun can begin! Friday was the first Friday of December, which means that it's Gallery Walk. Daycare offered to watch Gabe for the evening so Pat, Bella and I went on a date just the three of us. We got some dinner and then wandered downtown for a few hours. It was a lot of fun! Clearly we need to work on our selfie game... Then yesterday I took Gabe to see Santa. As you can see, it clearly went well...