Holiday Break

Well, here's what I'm doing tonight. Snuggling my babe while he settles to sleep, and watching Merlin, which has totally grown on me, btw. We just got back from my parents' place last night. Lucky us (thanks to Alan's work allowing him to work remotely), we were able to take two weeks and really make the drive worth it. Mathis did fantastically on the drive, though. He slept a lot, which really saved us. I'd say the other two complained a lot more than he did, but they survived!

While we were there, we were also able to see Alan's family - both of his siblings live nearby and his parents made the marathon drive from Washington so we could all see each other. We did Mathis' baby blessing while we were at Anna and Jonathan's house the day after Christmas. Usually its done at a typical Sunday church meeting, but it is more of a family affair, so we chose to do the blessing when we were all together as a family.

Have I mentioned that our family is super cool? As proof of this, my parents, Alan's parents and siblings, and Anna's husband's parents all got together on Christmas afternoon for dinner and good times. (The cool part is so many in-laws happily getting together so we can enjoy everyone's company at once instead of driving around like crazy people on holidays). Unfortunately, I took zero pictures. My camera's been having issues and as a result I find that I just don't bother to get it out as often. The two above, taken on the blessing day, have been stolen from Alan's parents' blog.

The other thing that was striking to me was how much Mathis changed over the course of this trip. When we drove up north, he was very sleepy in the car the whole time, and he had been smiling some, but I wasn't confident that it was always in response to one of us. At the end of the two weeks, he is more alert. He's smiling a lot! He recognizes voices and gets excited to see certain people. He tries to talk. He is such a cutie, its amazing how quickly he's changing all the time!

Other pictures of note:
Have I mentioned that Ethan is absolutely over the moon about Mathis? He's suffering from what I call Elmyra syndrome (which his big sister once suffered from also), where he just wants to love and squeeze on the baby every second. He even told me that he loves Mathis more than me because he is infinity adorable. This picture is evidence that Mathis is pretty crazy about Ethan, too. He definitely recognizes Ethan's voice, too. I see a Superhero Duo (or Trio if Amara's still into it) in our future...

Grandma and Mathis chatting.

Amara checking out Ethan's expanded Bionicle stash. The best thing about this picture, imo, is that Amara's shirt is really a dress. We asked her to go put on pants because we were going outside and it was chilly. So she literally just put on pants and tucked the dress right in. I don't know how it didn't drive her crazy, but she left it that way all day.

Ethan and his Bionicles. That boy loves Bionicles and Legos. And other stuff, but those two can keep him busy for hours.

Snoozing Mathis wearing his ghetto-style sleeper. I know we have one of those sleep sacks somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it in our bins of hand me downs. I didn't want to spend the money for a new one, so when I saw a two pack of warm sleepers at Walmart for cheap, I bought it and cut the arms off the sleepers. With the sleeves in, its often too hot and he gets sweaty. With the sleeves chopped off and a long sleeved onesie, its perfect.