Christmas at our house

We celebrated Christmas this morning since we will be gone on actual Christmas day. We started off by waking Amelia up to her snowflakes. Then we brought her out to open presents. She had a good time opening everyone's presents. In this collage you can see her helping all of us. If you could hear the sound of her showing Phil his gift it would be, "woooeeeeee". Unfortunately we were not videotaping this one burst of excitement. All other videos had little to none of the emotional outbursts we were expecting and hoping for. She is very meticulous about unwrapping gifts (and always has been). She rips little bits at a time, slowly and softly, as you can see in the top right pic. She made sure Ben didn't eat the wrapping paper because, "that's gross, buddy". She had a good time and we managed to do all this, eat, shower, dress and be at church by 9. I say that's a good morning. Merry Christmas to all. (Now I must help Phil take down the tree so we don't have to do it when we get home!!! I feel a little bah humbug taking the tree down BEFORE Christmas)

Let it Snow

Philip had a great idea last night to make some snowflakes and hang them in Amelia's room for when she woke up this morning. It turned out pretty cool and she loved it.

Ben's Eating Cereal

I love this series of pictures. Amelia insists on feeding Ben if she sees me do it. I like how wide she opens her mouth to show Ben. What a good teacher and Ben loves everything Amelia does. They could entertain each other for days. He is her real life doll for feeding, changing, inserting pacifiers, burping and wrapping up. If she could carry him around, she would. Although she has just realized that she can move him around by grabbing his feet and dragging him. He mostly thinks it's funny, but it's not helping his bald spot or dry skin on his face.

Quote of the Day (a few days ago)

The Subaru died last week, and every time we go past it Amelia has to remind me 50 times, "mom's car's broken". A couple days ago, she asked me if we could go to Costco. I told her we couldn't go because daddy has the car. She looks at me all accusingly and says, "mom's cars broken. Mommy broke it." I immediately said, "No I didn't" then laughed out loud because I felt the need to defend my honor to a 2 year old.

All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth

This is Ben's theme song this year. Today Ben cut through his first bottom front tooth. He's been gnawing and drooling and whining for a couple of weeks now. I thought teeth were a little early, but when I saw and felt his lump a couple weeks ago, I was preparing for the long haul. With Amelia, it took months of swollen gums to cut 1 tooth. This kid fusses a few days and whines a little and boom, there's a tooth. Can I request that all my other kids be like this, or should I just end on a good note?!?!?! Look close, this was yesterday and you can kind of see his gummy lump. Today's it's a tooth. Congratulations Benjamin!!

"I'm a fix the tree"

This is Amelia "fixing" the tree. It is fake, so when you pull it out of the box it needs to be fluffed up. She climbed up next to me and tickled the tree limbs telling us that she's fixing it. She was very encouraging telling me how pretty and fancy it was every time I put anything on it. If you ever need an ego boost, I'll lend you this one.

I am getting a little worried

So, as you all know a few posts ago I brought to your attention Ben's little rebellious side. Well, what you don't know is this happens quite a bit. I usually delete them or just ignore it because he is just a little baby, right?? Well, yesterday he did it again, and so I went back and found the ones I still have and put together this little collage for you all to laugh over. Keep in mind, I know I have deleted multiple others. Coincidence?? I also looked at Amelia's baby pics and I couldn't find or recall any of her doing this, so does this mean something about Ben?