Aaron and his Aunts

Aaron Michael looking so debonair at 11:30 at night!

On December 30th Amy and Allie were both free and we decided to have a sisters night at my house. We sat around, drank wine, talked and watched a little TV...ok, we mostly drank wine and talked. Around 11:30 Aaron woke up and his Aunties ran in to get him. They played with him for a while before putting him back down to bed. He is such a sweet boy!

Air-bear and Aunt Ba-Ba.

Da-bear and Aunt Ree.

Merry Christmas!

We had such a wonderful Christmas spending time with all our family. My family as well as Adam's parents went to mass at 6:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve at our church. Adam, myself and the boys then went back to Adam's parents house where we had a lovely evening opening gifts and spending time together. As we drove home Alec was searching the sky to see if he could find Santa's sleigh flying through the sky. When we got home we put out cookies and milk for Santa and then got the boys to bed.

Christmas morning dawned and Alec was up with the sun! We first ran out to check and see if Santa had eaten the cookies and sure enough he had! We looked through all our stockings and then went out to the family room to check the tree. Alec could not believe all the gifts that were under the tree! We had a blast opening gifts and seeing Alec's reaction to his presents. His favorite gift was the Thomas slippers that Santa had brought him. He wanted them on his feet immediately! Santa brought Aaron some toys also and he put them right into his mouth! Yummy!

After we opened gifts we went over to my parents house to have breakfast and open gifts there. It was so nice to be able to spend the morning with everyone, including the newest member of our family, Allie's husband Jason. That afternoon the rest of the extended family came over as well as Adam's parents and we all celebrated the birth of Christ by enjoying the company of our loved ones.

The only flaw in the two day celebration was that I somehow managed on Christmas morning to reformat the disc on our new digital camera and deleite ALL the pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. I cried my eyes out when I realized what happened! Thankfully Adam's parents have some pictures from Christmas eve. That will teach me to go messing with the digital camera!

More Christmas pics

Grammie, Aunt Amy, and Aaron

Papa helping Alec open his Thomas suitcase

More more Christmas

Allie and Jason with their Godson

Mommy and her boys

On Saturday, December 13th we decided to take advantage of the Law Enforcement days at Knotts Berry Farm and take the kids. What we did not realize is that it was also Toys for Tots weekend so anyone else who wanted to go just had to bring a toy and they got into Knotts for $10.00. It was PACKED!!! We did get to do a few fun things however. Alec was excited to meet Snoopy in person. He LOVES all the Peanuts gang from watching the holiday specials over at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Momma and her boys!
Alec and Daddy in Camp Snoopy.

Alec and Daddy sitting in a old train car.

After leaving Knotts we went and had dinner at Po Folks. Talk about yummy down home cooking! It was a nice day hanging out with the family.

First bath together

Aaron has finally gotten big enough to be able to enjoy sitting in the tub with his big brother. Alec thought it was pretty funny to have Aaron in the tub with him. Alec enjoyed pouring water over Aaron's feet and body and helping to wash his hair. He is such a great big brother!

Making a gingerbread house

I thought it would be lots of fun for us to make a gingerbread house this year to have as a holiday center piece. I thought about making the gingerbread myself and then decorating it but then I came to my senses. I went to Costco and bought a kit. The only problem was that I turned into psycho perfection mom while making it. Alec of course wanted to help make the house but he was not doing it the way I wanted so I was getting stressed out. I know, sad.

The gingerbread house turned out really nice but I think next year I will buy one for me to do and one for Alec to do so that he can actually do what he wants to it.

Here is Alec doing his part...tasting the icing. That icing had SO much sugar in it, I can't imagine it must have tasted very good! He did not seem to mind.

Aunt Allie came over and helped us make the house. We love her SO much!!

Aaron was looking adorable as always that night. I had to get a picture of him in his bear PJ's. SO cute!!

"Loser!!"

Aaron was having fun playing on his activity mat and Alec was near by playing with his puzzles and toys. All of the sudden Alec came over to me and said, "Look Mommy! Aaron has a puzzle piece!!" I looked over and Alec had placed this L on his forehead! Alec of course had no idea what the "L" meant but I thought it was TOO funny and had to get a picture of it!

Jumpin' Jamin'

The weather was pretty crummy for our regular friday play date at the park so Pauline and I decided to take the boys down to Jumpin' Jamin', an indoor play ground down in Mission Viejo. When we first arrived at the place the boys went into the ball room. I went in with them and thought it would be fun to shoot the balls in the air with the air powered machine in the middle. Unfortunately I did not know the VERY loud noise that went along with it! The boys freaked out with the loud sound and ran out of the room. We quickly found the toddler area after that and set up camp there. The boys enjoyed running around and playing with the big soft blocks.

Aaron also enjoyed looking at all the different color blocks and really liked this block shaped like a duck.

Alec somehow ended up in the corner near the blocks playing with some cute girls. He is such a ladies man!

Cormac and Aaron enjoyed chilling on the soft blocks with eachother. I bet they can't wait till they can run around like the big boys!!

Double trouble!! As always, we had a blast with our friends Pauline, Ian and Cormac. We are very blessed to have them in our lives!!

Picking out our Christmas tree!

Since Adam was going to be out on training for a good amount of days in December we decided to get our tree a little early. We went to Home Depot in Savi to search for our tree. We actually found our tree pretty quickly...good thing because it was a little chilly outside!! Alec was running around the lot like crazy and had a great time! It is fun to think that he may remember this Christmas some day. It makes doing things like this even more fun!

The Hawley Family!! A very nice person at the tree lot offered to take our picture for us.

Alec thought it was just the best thing to push his brother around in the cart!

Aaron had fun that night snuggling in his carseat.

After we got our tree we went up to Ho Toys and picked up some Chinese food for dinner (one of Alec's favorite foods). We got home, ate dinner, and got the kids to bed. Adam and I put up the tree and got the lights on. We saved decorating it till the next day when Alec could help us.

Getting ready for Christmas!

We wanted to go and see Santa before the lines got too long so we headed to the mall first thing on a monday morning to avoid the lines. Our plan worked as we only had to wait about 10 minutes to see the big guy. Here is a picture of Alec and Aaron next in line to see Santa.

My boys with Santa!! Alec was hesitant about sitting on his lap but I gave him a Thomas train to hold onto which helped. As soon as Santa saw the train he started talking to Alec about Thomas and that perked Alec up. Santa asked Alec what he wanted for Christmas and Alec answered, "Thomas slippers!!". I think Santa will come through on that one.

Pauline, Ian and Cormac also came to the mall with us although Ian decided that he did not want to see Santa that day. When we were done seeing Santa and looking at the puppies at the pet store we headed over to the food court for lunch. Alec and Ian have a great time whenever they are together! They are such good friends!

What would a day at the mall with two little boys without some bouncing!? Alec and Ian tried out the new benches in the food court at the Brea mall to check how bouncy they were.

Alec's girlfriend

Mya came over to spend some time with us as the guys went to lunch and the movies. We always love having Mya over since she is such a sweetie. Alec considers Mya his "Girlfriend".

Say cheese!!!

Aaron was also a very happy baby that day. Actually, he is a very happy baby pretty much every day!

Princess Mya!

Daddy time!

Aaron's favorite thing to do is to sit and watch his big brother. I am sure that Aaron is taking notes so that he can jump in and do everything that Alec is doing once he is mobile! Alec and Aaron were sharing some PJ brother time here in this picture.

It's tickle time!!! Alec must have had some monkeys in his pants!!!

Alec LOVES being a "helper helper" and here he is helping Daddy do the dishes.

Aaron at 13 weeks.
Daddy and Aaron hanging out together.

Alec's favorite things to say at 2 years, 4 months old...

- Please may I have a christmas cracker?! (saltine cracker)

- Mommy, I love you SO much!! I'm SO glad to see you!! (this usually proceeds him doing something bad)

- Teacup!! (usually said when throwing something while in a silly mood)

- I'm not ridiculous!!! (said while throwing a fit and stamping his feet)

- I'm nuddie boy!!! Obi, don't lick my butt!!!! (said while running around nuddie after his bath)

- Doe-doe (repeated after daddy while in playing)

- Mommy, put Aaron in his bouncy chair, I want to snuggle!! ( I LOVE this one!!)

-Alec tooted!! Excuse me!!

Alec's Favorites...

food - chicken stars, christmas crackers, nillas (good boys get nillas!!), ice cream

tv shows - Thomas, Bob the builder, Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Aladin

Disneyland rides - Small World, Casey Jr., Pirates

Toys - Thomas trains, trucks, blocks

Songs - Anything sung by Miss Lori, the soundtrack to A Mighty Wind

Friends - Ian, Cole, Mya, Maddie

Thomas!

Grammie, Aunt Baba, Grandma, Grandpa, Aaron, Alec and myself all went to go and see 'A day with Thomas' at the Orange Empire Train Museum on Sunday. Adam was going to go but he unfortunately was sick at home with the flu. Alec could not wait to see Thomas!!

We got to meet Sir Topham Hatt! Alec was not all that excited about having his picture taken with him alone so I got in the picture also.

Grandpa and Alec on the back of one of the old cabose cars at the museum.

Grammie and Aaron

A Mommy and Alec self portrait while riding on the train being pulled by Thomas.

We all had such a blast at the museum but Alec was especially excited. He loved riding on "Bertie" the street car and eating his first snowcone. He was pretty quiet that day taking everything in but has not stopped talking about it since!!

more Thomas

Alec looking out the window of Bertie at Thomas going by.

Alec riding on Thomas with Grandma

It's Thomas!!

Alec and Aunt Baba riding on Bertie

Triple trouble!

Alecs best buddies, Cole and Ian, got together at the park for our regular Friday morning play date. Their favorite pastime at the park is chasing eachother up and down the big hill and taking big handfulls of wood chips and throwing them at eachother. We were able to get the boys to stop for a few minutes for a drink so I quickly took a picture. The boys have a blast at the play date, but the real reason we get together each week is so Chery, Pauline and myself can get together, swap mom war stories and hang out with eachother. It should be VERY interesting when the little boys (Cormac, Nate, and Aaron) are running around also!