A weeble wobblin' to a teedle toddlin'...

This past week (January 6-10) Drew has really honed his craft of walking. He quite literally went from a few unconfident steps here and there on Monday to maneuvering his turns and walking long distances before toppling over by the end of the week. We are very proud of our little guy (and also scared at all the baby proofing we must do again!) and his persistence.

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Baptism birthdays abound...

We celebrate three baptism birthdays in January. Neil, Ashley and Drew. Ashley's was yesterday, today is Drew's and the 18th is Neil's. While out looking for a pair of pants for Ashley we saw a pet store that called our name. Boy, they had our number. The most adorable little pieces of fluff were running around. They sure looked like hamsters, but they were so tiny! We found out they're called Robo Hamsters, and two of them were welcomed into our home yesterday. They are very low-maintenance and *so* cute to watch! So, this became a present for all our January baptism birthdays. Now, the real question is what to name them...

Please cast your vote at the top of our blog to help us decide what to name these lovable critters!

{the house, with the white picket fence - apparently, even hamsters have dreams?}

{the sleepy-eyed kiddos sleeping in the 'basement'}

Today, a year ago...

Drew was baptized

I debated what would technically be an appropriate title to celebrate Drew's baptism. Yes, it was a year ago today (Saturday), but it was the 12th, not the 10th of January. We celebrated his baptism at our parish, St. William's, with Deacon Dennis officiating.

Since we started our blog a few weeks after the baptism, this never made it in. Here are some pictures from his first sacrament.

**January 12, 2008**

Well, and Merry Christmas to you too! Part II

Christmas Day!!

Traditions are meant for the holidays. Ours have evolved into some really special Christmases. It all starts with Christmas Eve when we attend one of the early evening mass times (midnight mass is *not* an option for us), take a longer ride home and look at the Christmas lights and oooh and aahhh over them. Then when we get home, we change into our new Christmas jammies, say our evening prayers, pick our one gift to open and then go to bed and wait for the real fun to start the next day.

***

On Christmas Day, the kids know to wait for us to get up. Neil and I have our coffee, the kids have their hot cocoa. We have bagels and cream cheese - nothing too heavy to interfere with the task at hand...all the gift opening!! It took us the better part of two hours to open all the gifts. After the gift opening, we spent the day lounging in our jammies, playing with all our newfound loot and watching movies that we received as gifts. We got The Ultimate Gift from Grandma and Paka and decided to watch it. What an awesome movie!! We also watched A Christmas Story and one other movie that escapes me right now. We had a really nice dinner too. A spiral ham, loaded mashed potatoes (milk, butter, shredded cheese, ranch dressing and bacon crumbles), King's Hawaiian Rolls (if you've never had these, they are similar to the ones you can find at Logan's or Texas Roadhouse), and a Caesar salad. Yummo!!

Needless to say, it was a perfect day. Though I don't have pictures of it, Neil and I got ourselves a new knife set. Our gifts usually lean towards practicality but I have to say I was stoked to get it since our previous set couldn't cut a balloon, lol. I've never seen such a clean cut!!

Enjoy the photos! :)

{Paige with one of her stocking stuffers}

{Typical Jonathan pose screams CHEEEEEESE!}

{She told me I could take the picture as long as she could turn around}

{Yup, this is pretty much what our morning looked like for two hours - a blur of wrapping paper}

{Paige shows one of her gifts from Santa; the other was a St. Therese doll}

{Drew sizes up his new BlaBla doll}

{Click HERE to find something cute from BlaBla for your little one}

{Paige brought this home from preschool but was so anxious for us to open it, we saw it days after her last class of the year. It's her tiny hand print on an oven mitt}

{Each report card, Ashley can earn up to $10 per academic class. This last report card, she earned $30 and wasted no time deciding on spending her hard earned money on gifts for her siblings. She bought this foil teddy bear ballerina that you can color for Paige. The kids all worked really hard on it and I couldn't resist standing on the coffee table to capture this great memory.}

Well, and Merry Christmas to you too!! Part I

Christmas Eve

{everyone gathered around the table to decorate some homemade gingerbread cookies. ok, so not "homemade" but still so awesome! great job, Neil!}

{Paige, the gingerbread men she plans to decorate and the signature "Paige pose"}

{workin' hard or hardly workin - you decide.}

{the final result and the proud owner}


{Neil's creation. Surely this does not surprise anyone.
I'm wondering why he didn't make a gingerbread amp to go with, lol.}

{Jonathan working on a giant gingerbread cookie}

{Ashley and her masterpieces}

***


{The only two who would let me take a picture of them! By the way, I got to help put the nativity scene together that's behind them. It is becoming our tradition to help decorate at the church the day before Christmas Eve.}

{Each Christmas Eve, after mass, we all come home and pick one gift to open. Ashley picked the boots (long story, but we eventually found a pair so she was hip to that gift already) and we decided to let Drew try them on.}

***
Bedtime Prayers

Just before bedtime, we said our Advent prayers and a decade of the rosary before looking in the Advent calendar to find baby Jesus behind the 25th! We took him out, placed Him in the manger and sang Happy Birthday to Him.



***
The cookies!!

{Everyone offered up their favorite cookie for Santa. He wasn't able to refuse them!!}