Gobble gobble!

"I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home."
-Robert Orben

This first picture has nothing to do with Thanksgiving.  In fact, it has nothing to do with anything really.  We just think it’s funny and want to make sure that we have it printed in a book and on the coffee table when his friends come over when he’s in High School.

Okay, so on to Thanksgiving #1.  The first Thanksgiving dinner was over at Nina and Papa’s house with Aunt Lisa, Uncle Jeff, Pepa, and of course Baby Ben.  I somehow missed getting any pictures with Nina and Papa, oops.  James was very interested in Baby Ben, and would lock on to him every time we got close.  Baby Ben just wanted to eat and sleep.

On Thursday the family minus Dad went off to Freeport, TX.  I had planned on going but between work and James I was completely exhausted.  Mom was my angel this weekend and asked me to stay home so I could catch up on work and sleep while she and the kids went with Grandma Wolfe to the coast.

James got to meet a bunch of family he’s never seen before.  Here are some pictures of James meeting Great Grandma Doodle, Great Aunt Elaine, and Great Aunt Nancy Jo.  Interesting fact, James is Great Grandma Doodle’s 21st great-grandchild.  He’s also the most smiley.

Ashlyn got to play with a group of second cousins that she hasn’t seen since last year, with the exception of Lilly who she hadn’t met until this weekend.  Here is Ashlyn playing with Second Cousins Aubrey, Lilly, and Riley.  That’s First cousin once removed Wendy holding James while Lilly gave him a kiss.  Confused with all the cousin titles?  This should help:  Link to Cousin Chart

While I was discovering what defines a 1st cousin once removed, James was discovering his foot.  Who needs sweet potatoes when you have the real thing?  Get it?  No?  Well as an apology for the poor joke, here’s a few mementoes that came from James being photoed which we had to take inside due to the mosquitoes.  I’m here all week folks.

They say this is the time of the year to give thanks for the great blessings in your life.  You could consider yourself lucky to have one, and I have three.  Between my wife, my kids, and my family, I have everything in the world to be thankful for.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A quick pre-Thanksgiving update…

Note:  This post will not be as long as you have come to expect.  Change at work has kept me very busy, and between it and two children I’ve had minimal time to dedicate to things other than work and kids.

I wish I could say that James has been a perfect baby the past week, but I don’t think perfect babies exist.  When he’s awake and rested he’s still a very chipper baby.  We still struggle getting him to sleep at night though, but what can you expect with a four month old baby?  I expect we’ll get sleep once they are both off at college.

Tonight was spaghetti and meatballs night.  This event did not turn out like we expected, although to be fair we really should have planned on a bath afterwards for Ashlyn.  James did not really eat a meatball of course, although he really wanted to.  Right now we’re thinking we’ll wait until 6 months before giving him his first solid food and based on what I’ve seen so far I have no doubt he’ll be ready to chomp down his avocados.

Upsets, birthdays, and (lack of) sleep…

“People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one.”
– Leo J. Burk

I realize the kids will never remember this, and by the time they are old enough to care it will be a faded memory in Aggie folklore.  But it was big enough that I had to write about it:  Our dear ‘ol Texas Aggies beat #1 Alabama.  We started with a 20-0 lead but let Alabama creep back and almost beat us.  The suspense was so great that Ashlyn had to hide, but we ended up with the win.  In so doing we not only upset the best team in the nation, but we royally pissed off our new conference.  Gig ‘em Aggies!

I should have remembered back when I was first blogging about Ashlyn that a certain rule exists when writing anything public.  If you brag about something, it’s going to turn around and bite you in the... ahem... rear.  James, who was at first sleeping so incredibly well before he was three months old has continued his unabated sleepless behavior.  Luckily he has a great big sister who doesn’t seem to mind.  As I type this mom is busy reading a book on baby sleep, and I really hope she finds something good.  As they say, this too shall pass as it’s just part of raising a baby, but there’s a reason why they list this part on the fine print in the brochure.

It was a week of birthdays, and we celebrated with PePa and Aunt Jasmine.  Not pictured in the birthday pictures below are PePa and Aunt Jasmine.  I’m not sure why that happened, but I can promise you that the picture on the left is Ashlyn playing fetch with PePa (yes, I typed that correctly) and the pictures on the right are of Ashlyn playing with cousin Heidi at Aunt Jasmine’s birthday dinner.  Happy birthday to both of you!

As much as we would like to sleep, especially mom who is up half the night feeding him, we still love the little guy.  When he’s awake and happy, he’s very happy, and we’re hopeful that once we can get the sleeping thing squared away we’ll be geared up for a great toddler.

Giraffes, bears/mice/monkies, and Bens, oh my!

"I don't know that there are real ghosts and goblins,
but there are always more trick-or-treaters than neighborhood kids."
-Robert Brault

Halloween was once again upon us this week.  We let Ashlyn pick out her own costume this year and she went with her favorite animal:  the giraffe.  James also got dressed up for the occasion and went as a bear/mouse/monkey thing.  It was cute, that’s all I really know.  Each of them prepared for Halloween in their own way, Ashlyn tried to get a head start on the candy gathering and James took a nap.

We were glad that Heidi joined us again and everyone seemed to have a good time.  It took Ashlyn awhile to get into the spirit of things (see what I did there?) but once she got more comfortable she was up at the doors holding out her bucket.  She didn’t say “trick or treat” very often, but it was funny to hear a giraffe say “thank youuuuu” after getting a piece of chocolate.

James continues his basic development and is now big enough for the activity center.  It didn’t take him very long to figure out how to operate some of the buttons but I think it’s still half luck when he hits them.  It’s nice for us that he enjoys it because it gives us an easy 10 minutes of distraction when we need to clean up or cook.

And he also continues to smile.  A lot.  Even when he’s crying he will sometimes smile in between wails.  I’ve seen him smile in the middle of a coughing fit when he had a cold.  The kid just smiles.  Not to be melodramatic, but it’s good to know that that we come into this world with the instinctive ability to smile.  Smiling is not, as you may believe, a learned behavior.  And that gives me hope.

The highlight of the weekend was our trip too see baby Benjamin.  Ashlyn was so overwhelmed by the experience of meeting her new cousin that she wanted to spend the entire time outside on the play house.  James just looked around and smiled at things.  But I got to hold my nephew for the first time, and that was pretty cool.  And the family just keeps getting bigger!