Celebrating Daddy's Birthday

John's birthday was the weekend before Christmas. John's sister came to town for the weekend along with her husband and 2 daughters. This was Joshua's first time meeting any of our family. He did great and especially loved playing with his cousins. We got to celebrate John's birthday with them and then later as a family of three.

 Do you think he likes cake? And yes, that's a Care Bear plate. Someone gave it to us and it was the only one we had clean. :-) That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

More Christmas Fun

One of my favorite memories from this first Christmas with Joshua is singing Jingle Bells to him while he was having lunch, and wearing Santa hats while doing so!

One of my other favorite memories is him playing with his Little People nativity set.

He loved to put the angel on top (or camels) and hit the button to play the music (Away in a Manger). As you can see he was quite pleased with himself whenever he did it. :-)

Christmas Outtakes

Well as usual I am behind on blogging. So I plan to do a bunch of picture posts to get caught up on what Joshua is up to and hopefully I will manage to write something a little more substantial in the near future.

I got the idea of showing the “outtakes” of my attempt to get a cute Christmas photo of Joshua from Wendi’s blog. I never did manage to get the picture I was hoping for, but hey that’s the way it goes with a toddler. They may not have been Christmas card worthy, but I still think they are pretty cute.

   

 

And a little later that day, not part of the Christmas picture taking, but just for fun.

Countdown to Grandma!

Joshua will be meeting his Grandma (my mom) in just 3 hours! This is his first visit from a grandparent and also the first visit from my side of the family. I am so excited!

Of course, as usual I am lagging behind in posting Christmas pictures and an end of the year post. John was off for 10 days, so I didn't have much time for blogging with celebrating Christmas and then spending time together to take advantage of John's time off. We also worked on getting our Christmas card and letter out to family and friends during that time. Thankfully, we got all our addresses entered into a word document, so it should be much easier next year.

Anyway, we had a great Christmas, though Joshua is still too young to really get it. By the end, he really didn't want to open any more presents. I think Christmas is going to be a lot of fun next year when he is two and a half and can understand a bit more. Also, I realized John and I have totally different styles when it comes to opening presents. I want to take it slow, open one present, let Joshua play with it until he is tired of it, and then move on to the next present. John wants to move things along and open all the presents really quickly. Hopefully, we can find a good compromise that keeps us both happy next Christmas. :-)

Well, a little somebody is waking up from his nap so I had better go.

Merry Christmas!!!

 

"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:8-12

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Somebody Has a Woobie...

or a lovey, blankie, or whatever you want to call it.

And it is absolutely not the one we sent to him in Korea, you know the one I have 2 of.  Nor is it the little frog lovey we bought 2 of, one to send and one to keep. Nope. I had put some blankets around the edge of his crib because he rolls around a lot when he sleeps and smooshes himself against the sides of the crib (probably need to just buy a bumper since he is no where near being able to climb out of his crib). Out of those blankets he chose this one, not sure why. But he is not parting with it, that is for sure. It's pretty cute actually.

This blanket was a gift we received at our 1st baby shower. I think I need to make a trip to the store. :-)

Christmas Fun

Joshua loves to play with things around the house. He seems to have more fun with "toys" that aren't really toys. Here is some of his Christmas fun.

Moving the Christmas tree candles from the table to the chair is lots of fun!

When John was growing up, his parents collected Hallmark ornaments for each child, several of which are the lights and sounds ones. Those particular ones are a bit much for me, so if I put them on the tree I don't plug them into the light strand. This year I decided not to put them on the tree at all and just let Joshua have some fun up close with the ornaments. Plus that way the rest of the tree doesn't get destroyed. :-)

I never did this as a child, so I definitely wanted Joshua to have the experience.

We are enjoying our first Christmas together so much, though I don't think Joshua understands much about it yet. My heart is still very much with those of you who are waiting on your little ones to come home. I have been praying for you guys often. Remember it is okay to be sad. And remember next Christmas is going to look very different for you all!