Christmas Eve Party!

We had such a nice Christmas weekend. My parents came into town Saturday evening and stayed until Wednesday. We really enjoyed having them here, the kids loved it! We got in some last minute shopping, ate lots of yummy foods, watched some movies, played around and ate some more. Addison always has the best time with bapa and bom bom (we finally figured out that that's what she calls grandma), she loves all of the attention she gets. And of course Urban was an angel for my mom (and yes dad, that still pisses me off!). =) For those of you wondering, my dad asked me if it made me mad that Urban would be fussy for me but then as soon as my mom would take him he would stop crying. The answer is YES, although I very much appreciated the help.

Our family has a tradition of doing an appetizer dinner for Christmas Eve, so this year we invited Jared's family over too. Bipa & bipa came (that's what Addison calls grandma & grandpa Estes) along with Julie and her kids and Joe & Trecia and their kids. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! It got a bit chaotic at times, but we always have so much fun when we're all together. Dianna suggested that we do a white elephant gift exchange, and I'm so glad that we did, it was a blast. Jared and I finally got rid of those stinkin' elephant under ware that his brother Jake gave us when we first got married (5 years ago) and we made sure that Ron got them. HEE HEE! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of that. I also didn't get a picture of the food table, but boy did we have quite a spread. There were meatballs, little smokies, veggies, fruits, cookies, brownies, shrimp, crackers, cheese, olives, chips & dip, drinks, chicken salad, bacon wrapped artichoke hearts, mini quiches and more. It was all so delicious. Then we took the kiddos outside to sprinkle reindeer food and glitter on the grass so Santa would know how to find our house. The entire time we were doing this Addison kept reminding me that she doesn't like Santa and didn't want him to come to our house. I assured her that he would come at night when she was sleeping so she wouldn't have to see him. He would just drop off her presents and leave. Oh, Jared and Joe also entertained us by putting on a wrestling match. I'm not sure who won but they must have been at it for 15-20 minutes. They finally stopped when Dianna threw water on them. It was quite amusing watching two grown men wrestling like they were 10 year olds.

After watching their daddy wrestle Addison & Urban decided to give it a try. Just kidding, Addison was just trying to hold Urban but he started to tip over so it looks like she has him in a head lock.This is the real wrestling match. Jared was glad that I posted a picture that looks like he's winning. =)

We really did have such a good time. I can't wait until next year so we can do it again.

Better late than never!

I have not been on top of things lately AT ALL! So needless to say one of the many things I did not get done was mailing out Christmas cards. Heather designed this super cute card for us so I thought I'd post it on here for you all to see. Sorry I did not get cards out, but I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was fabulous! I will post pictures later.

SHE LIKES HIM

SHE REALLY LIKES HIM!!!

It's only taken two months, but Addison FINALLY not only acknowledges Urban's existence but interacts with him too. It's not that Addison has been mean to Urban up to this point, she just hasn't paid much attention to him at all. These past couple of weeks though she's been so cute with him. If I'm giving him a bottle she wants to be the one to feed him and she loves to help me give him a bath. She gets really stressed out when he cries so she'll try to comfort him by saying "shh Urman (that's how she says his name), it's okay" then she'll try to stuff his pacifier in his mouth whether he wants it or not and come tell me that "baby brother is crying". If he's laying on the couch sleeping she likes to cover him up with a blanket, although it's a bit scary because she always covers up his face as well. She even gets down on the floor and plays with him while he's having tummy time. I think this may be a bit more because she's fascinated by his baby toys and because of the attention she gets, but it's still cute. She absolutely LOVES when he smiles at her and thinks it's hilarious when he burps or farts (which is constantly). For some reason she's got this strange fascination with his eyes and likes to poke them which of course makes Urban and me extremely upset! She still gets a bit jealous from time to time which is understandable, but for the most part she's a great big sister. I'm very proud of her and hope that they grow up to be very close siblings.

The animals like to get in on the playing action too! (and no, I don't normally let the cat in the baby's crib!)

My Elf Name

I got this idea from Heather & Melanie and thought it was very cute. I did this before but accidentally closed out of the page while trying to transfer it to my blog. My first name was something like Floppy Mc Flufferson. So I did it again and this is what I got:

Your Elf Name Is...

Floppy Sweet Cheeks

What's" Your Elf Name?

Now I think the "sweet cheeks" is quite endearing, but I'm still not too keen on the "floppy". Although as I told Heather, I have been feeling a bit "floppy" lately thanks to yummy holiday food I can't seem to resist. So perhaps this name is rather fitting!

The Baby Whisperer!

It was so nice to have my parents here visiting last weekend. We always enjoy spending time together. They are such awesome grandparents, Addison always gets so excited when they come to see us. It was especially nice this time because my mom has this amazing gift. BABIES ABSOLUTELY LOVE HER! This is a quality I very much admire and desire. She's always been so great with babies and kids, and they always respond really well to her. Urban is pretty fussy and he's hard to calm down a lot of the time. I'm always telling my mom how much he cries and how little sleep he allows me to get. I don't think she believes me though because he was so good the entire time they were here. He even slept better at night. He happened to be sleeping when they left, but he woke up 20 minutes later and fussed the rest of the night. I guess he missed his grandma already. Jared and I keep saying that we think we're going to have to have her move in with us for the sake of our sanity.

Some how we ended up not getting a picture of my mom and Urban together even though she was holding him almost the entire weekend. So this is her giving him a kiss on the head while he was sleeping before she left.

Blessing

Urban was blessed last Sunday, December 2nd. It is such a special and emotional occasion to have your child blessed. I am so grateful to Jared for being worthy and willing to bless our children. Urban looked so sweet and heavenly in his blessing outfit. It was really neat because he wore Jared's blessing outfit, little booties from Dianna's side of the family and he had my blanket from when I was blessed which was also used for Heather's kids and other family members. I'm so glad that our families were able to share this wonderful day with us. It is amazing to me to look at my little baby during peaceful moments and know that he is still so close to his Father in heaven. I love to watch him smile in his sleep and like to think that he's remembering and dreaming about celestial moments before he came to this earth. Urban Claude truly is a blessing in our lives and I know that he will continue to bless us forever.

This is a family picture taken at church the day Urban was blessed. Bapa & Bama Van Rij, Grandpa & Grandma Estes, Joe & Trecia and their family. Julie and her family were also there, unfortunately we didn't get them in the picture...so sorry about that.

OH SANTA!

We took the kids to see Santa this weekend while my parents were here, and as you can probably tell from the pictures it didn't go so well. I wasn't sure how Addison would react to Santa, so I kept telling her how nice he is and that if she sits on his lap and is a good girl he'll bring her presents. Well she seemed to be okay the first half of the line, but the closer we got the more she seemed like she didn't want to do it (it didn't help that she was already cranky from missing her nap). When I went to set her on Santa's lap she freaked out, so then I just put her on my lap and sat next to Santa. TOO LATE! The damage had already been done, she wanted nothing to do with it. She wasn't the only one who was upset. Urban had been all comfy, cozy & asleep on Grandma so when she handed him over to Santa he got mad and started crying as well. So we have this wonderful picture with me and Santa smiling and both of the kids on our laps crying hysterically! I don't think we'll be taking them back to see Santa again unless they specifically ask to see him because otherwise it's just traumatic for the poor kids. Can we say "mother of the year"...again?!
This picture CRACKS ME UP! It looks like Santa and I are having a great old time just chit chatting and laughing, meanwhile Urban and Addison are crying their little eyes out. It doesn't even seem like I care that my daughter is running off away from me. What you can't see in this picture is that grandma and grandpa are standing off to the side, she's running to them to be rescued.

"Mother of the Year!"

I have a lot of catch up to do from this weekend, but first I wanted to share this story real quick. We have an on-going joke in our family that when we do something dumb as a parent or feel bad about something we've done we say we're "mother of the year" (sarcastically of course). I'm not sure but I think Heather may have started this. Well this morning was one of those "mother of the year" moments. Let me begin by saying that last night was absolutely awful. Both Urban and Addison were up all night long, which meant of course that I was too. So come this morning I was not quite the ray of sunshine I should've been. I was trying my best though to keep my patience, and doing a pretty good job, until the smallest most insignificant thing set me off. Urban was crying so I was trying to get him fed and Addison comes walking in behind me to ask for fruit snacks for the third time this morning. Now she had already had waffles, a banana, two things of fruit snacks and a sucker and it wasn't even lunch time yet so I was more than a little annoyed. When she asked for the fruit snacks AGAIN I lost it and yelled "no, you don't need anything else to eat right now, just leave me alone". As soon as it came out of my mouth I realized how harsh it sounded and felt horrible, but to make it even worse she just looked up at me all sweet and cute and said "mama, no yelling at me, that's mean". I'm not sure I've ever felt worse. So I set Urban down, picked her up and gave her big hugs and kisses and told her I was sorry. Of course as children do she forgave me and of course I gave her another packet of fruit snacks. However I still think this shameful moment qualifies me to win the "mother of the year" award for this week!