Thursday, December 6, 2007

Happy Birthday Mom/Nannie (a day late)! Yesterday was my mother's birthday and I must say she is a great person! She has always been there for me throughout my life, even through my teenage years which she might say were not the easiest. My children absolutely adore her and Ella was so sad yesterday when we called and she had it in her mind that she would see her Nannie instead of just talk to her answering machine. Thanks mom for being you and I hope you had a grand birthday!

Now we are just planning and getting prepared for the next big birthday, the biggest one of the year - Jesus'! The kids are getting more and more excited by the day and yesterday when about 20 snowflakes (total) fell in the morning the whole preschool thought it was Christmas. Later Landon told me when we have a really big snow and Christmas is here that he wanted to play outside in it. I am working on explaining that just because it is Christmas doesn't mean it will snow and just because it snows doesn't mean it is Christmas. We have our tree and a few other decorations up but we have actually decorated the tree itself yet. It may take us a couple of weeks to do that but knowing how much Ella likes to hold stuff, I am a little aprehensive about putting decorations on the lower half of the tree. For now they are satisfied with the lights and so am I. Today we are working on our gingerbread house, or I am working on the house and the kids are working on the candy. Last year was the first one I had ever made in my life so they don't come out looking so well but I thought it would be a fun tradition to start. Outside of the tree and the gingerbread house we have visited Santa Claus and driven through the festival of lights. I guess we don't talk much about Santa because when we told Landon we were going to see Santa he said, "I don't know what he looks like". We had to pull up a picture of him on the internet to show him then he said (as we were just going to our neighbors house to see him) that he didn't know how Santa was going to get there because he needed a car or something. I don't know how long we will be able to keep the Santa thing going with him with all of his questions. Eli didn't seem to care too much either as he slept through it all. We did get a picture of all 3 of them with Santa which was our main goal.

Eli is doing well and growing so fast. It is hard to believe that in less than two weeks he will be 3 months old. He isn't sleeping through the night yet but is only getting up once most nights. Landon and Ella are still showing him lots of attention and Ella has become quite the "little mommy". If Eli cries she says "baby Eli needs me, baby Eli needs Ella", if he goes to sleep she says "baby Eli needs carebear" and if he is sitting in his bouncy seat she tries to put her arms around him and says "Ella hold baby Eli" or if he really fussy she says to me "mommy hold it" and lastly at any moment in time she is ready to stuff the pacifier down his throat whether he is awake, asleep, crying or just smiling. Speaking of smiling, we are getting lots more of them lately and they just warm my heart.

Landon has really taken off with reading lately. He has read several books to Mike and I and is constantly asking me if what he thinks something says is right. It's amazing how quickly he catches on but I have to watch how close I am behind cars at red lights because he tries to read bumper stickers and some of them are very hard to explain, that and billboards. Ella is working hard at coloring these days. She can spend 20 to 30 minutes at a time coloring and also drawing circles. However, she has also colored on the table, on part of the wall and also on the sofa. Sounds like a two year old thing to do doesn't it.

Happy Holiday planning to you all!