O Christmas Tree

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, how pokey are your branches....

I think that is the theme for our tree this year. We went and cut one down yesterday. Caleb had a great time and Isaac stayed in the car. We ended up getting a Blue Spruce and I don't think we'll get that type next year! It is a very "pokey" tree as Caleb says. Nate and I had to wear gloves while working with the tree. At least I know small children won't mess with our tree, it will be too painful! I am very happy with how full it is, no Charlie Brown tree this year!

In other news, Isaac has been keeping us up at night. The past two nights he has been waking up at 3 am and crying for 30-45 minutes. Last night he made the night even better by waking at 5 am again at which point I finally fed him. We know he doesn't have to eat at 3 am. Conventional wisdom says it takes about 3 nights for kids to break a bad sleep habit and sleep better. Tonight is night 3... I hope conventional wisdom is right. It didn't help that Isaac woke up early from his nap this afternoon, just as I had laid down for a nap! Timing is everything.

Brothers

I've been taking pictures lately of Caleb and Isaac together. They love being next to each other. I think I want to record these moments because I'm afraid once Isaac is mobile and into Caleb's toys, Caleb won't be showing much love. Those of you with older kids, are my fears realistic?

In the first picture, Caleb is holding a number 1 and Isaac the number 2. Nate will say "Where's son number 1?" And Caleb will come running. Now Caleb refers to Isaac as "son number 2" and likes Isaac to hold the number 2. For now we think it is cute. However, Isaac might get a complex when he's older about Caleb always being referred to as number 1. Maybe I'm reading into it too much.:)

The last picture is of cookies I made recently. Sorry if I don't sound very humble, but for the most part I am a really good baker. However, I discovered that having the full amount of baking soda called for in a recipe is very important. The cookies looked so funny! They were supposed to be Hershey kiss "suprises" in the middle, but the cookies didn't rise well-so the kiss is very obvious. I just get a kick out of baked goods that don't turn out well. (As long as it doesn't happen too often!) Dad, remind you of some fudge I made??

In other news, we got our car back after a week and a half. Of course it was some tiny piece to replace, but with labor costs is was a couple hundred dollars. Grrrr.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We hope you had a chance this weekend to be with family or friends and thank God for all of His blessings. We're thankful for all the friends and family we see often and those we wish we could see more often! We had a very relaxing week. Nate was off pretty much all week. He got some projects done like painting our front door, hanging a wallpaper border in Caleb's room, and hanging Christmas lights outside. We spent Thanksgiving at my grandparent's house with other family members. The first picture is my Mom with her grandsons and the second is my Grandma holding Isaac. Everyone enjoyed seeing Isaac and he was charming the whole visit.:) The last picture is of a cake I made for our friend's baby shower this weekend. They are expecting twins! This was my first "free hand" cake in a while. I see lots of room for improvement, but Nate says I'm too hard on myself.:) I am happy though with how the booties turned out. In other news, we had our first snowfall this weekend. It wasn't alot, but winter has started. Nate is super excited, I'm counting down the days til spring.:)

Trauma and Drama

We had an interesting weekend in our household. The "trauma" happened on Saturday. Caleb was getting out of the car and shut the door on his thumb, big ouch! I was inside and heard the screaming and Nate frantically running to the other side of the car to open the door. Caleb is probably going to lose the fingernail, but I think he is ok otherwise. A scary experience for us though. I'm so thankful my Mom is a nurse because the first thing I did was call her to see if we needed to have his finger looked at.:)

The "drama" is our Corolla. It died on Nate the other day at work, so it was towed to a repair shop. They basically said, we can't find anything wrong with it so come pick it up. Later on Saturday I left in the Corolla and it died on me at the end of our street. Thankfully I wasn't further from home! So the repair shop is towing it back in today. I just hope they figure out what is wrong. We know the car is nearing the end, but it would be nice to not have to replace it yet! So we are learning how to be a one car family. It hasn't been too bad yet.

We also had some fun this weekend. We went bowling last night with my friend who runs MOPS with me. They have a little boy Caleb's age and a son 9 months older than Isaac. The boys had a great time. The adults also had fun because we were bowling with bumpers, high scores all around!

So Cute!

Aren't my boys adorable? All three of them of course!:) Isaac is 3 months old tomorrow, I can't believe it! Last night he slept from 10 pm-6:45 am! He doesn't do that every night, but hopefully we're making progress. Isaac loves cooing and laughing at anyone. He is fighting the bottle these days, but I am NOT going to give up. I will go crazy if I can't miss an occasional feeding. Caleb refused a bottle and we didn't push it- so he went everywhere with me that first year. We are not going to repeat that again!

In the second picture you'll see Caleb petting Isaac's head. Whenever Caleb is near Isaac he is petting Isaac. He's very gentle, but it drives me crazy because Isaac's hair gets so greasy! He looks like a little greaser most of the time.:) Caleb had a funny comment the other day. The receptionist at church was getting him some candy. She asked Caleb if he liked Mike & Ike's. He replied, "No they're someone else's kids."

Enough with the Green!

So, am I the only one who is sick of all the "Live Green" campaign going on?! Every show on NBC this week has some kind of live green theme. It seems like global warming is being talked about ALL the time. Obviously God called us to be good stewards of the earth and we need to take care of the environment. So it is good that the media is drawing some attention to the issue. But at the complete expense of any other issue?! What about focusing on issues that affect human beings such as; orphans, kids in foster care, poverty, etc.? Sometimes it feels like the media is more concerned with the decline of polar bears than declines in human life.

I will get off my soapbox now. Does anyone else feel similarly or am I being overly sensitive?:)

Candy Isn't Enough

So trick or treating was a bust this year. First we had to cajole Caleb to even put his outfit on. For some reason he does not like to dress up. Nate walked him to one neighbor's house and came home after that. Having to interact with strange people was too much for Caleb and the prospect of candy was not enough of an incentive. We were disappointed mostly because we wanted to see the neighbors and show off our cute kids! Oh well. Some friends pointed out that he may enjoy it more next year when Isaac can tag along and provide support. We'll see what happens!

By the way, thanks to Aunt Colleen for Isaac's Packer snowsuit!