What a Girl!

Paisley is one stinking cute kid. She has hit the terrible twos which means there is A LOT of whining and crying for no reason over here. But we put up with it because she is so cute and quite the riot.

The other week Jason came out to the living room to find her sitting on the chair nursing her baby. After a minute she stopped and turned the baby and started nursing again. Jason asked her what she was doing and she matter of factly told him, "time for the other boob". Sigh....Baths are so much more fun when daddy is involved.
Reading in the morning with mom. I believe it was December in this picture. Um yeah....Benton is wearing shorts. And really do we need to go into what Pais is wearing. Let's leave it at, I'm just happy that they get themselves dressed.
For several days in a row Paisley was taking very short naps. I was worried that she was beginning to think she didn't need them anymore, which is far from the case. One afternoon I slipped into her room during naps to grab the dirty laundry and found her sleeping like this. No wonder she hasn't been napping well.

First Smiles

Once upon a time it took extreme effort to get these pictures. Didn't quite get the smile here, but I share this because the boy is so darn stinking handsome.
close...Success! He has been smiling for about 2 months now but golly day I can't get enough of it. I just eat him up. This boy brings our family so much joy!

Hobbes's Blessing

Together after Hobbes's blessing.
We attempted to get a decent family picture. Ummm.. yeah not so much.Attempt #2 was slightly more successful.We were lucky to have so much family be able to make it for Hobbes's blessing. My parents were able to come up.Jason's parents and siblings and their families were able to come as well.The little goobers. Love them to pieces. Jason may kill me for posting these before he could edit them at all, but lets be honest, it's been months since they were taken...

Christmas!...almost

The weekend after Thanksgiving the town we live in had a little "Tree" lighting ceremony. Note the that tree is in quotes. This is because due to snow storm that we had in October, the tree that they were going to light up was destroyed. So instead they lit the bushes that surround the fountain my the borough offices. The kids were waiting in front of the fountain for them to light the bushes.We met up with some friends there and waited in line for Santa.It is always funny when we get together with these friends because you can see other people continuously counting all of the kids. We each have four kids. Only three of each of ours are pictures below though.As we waited in line, Santa rode in on the fire truck. A few of the kids were a bit confused by this. We finally got in to see Santa. Paisley walked right up to him and immediately and very excitedly told him that she wanted Strawberry Shortcake and Zoobies (aka Zoobles) for Christmas. When he didn't immediately hand them over she was NOT happy and wouldn't have anything to do with him. She was one ticked off little girl. I guess we forgot to mention to her that just because she was telling him what she wanted didn't mean he was going to immediately hand over the loot.

After seeing Santa the kids got to explore his ride.

Thanksgiving

Hey look at that we have now progressed to only being ridiculously far behind in blogging. Thanksgiving was fun. Jason worked...boo! But my parents came up and brought with them my brother, Matthew and his wife, Erikka and their daughter Arya. Paisley made fast friends with Arya. They played and played and played. And snuggled...Tab was also a big fan.It probably had to do with the fact that she let him do whatever she wanted, unlike his little sister.Benton got in on the action too.A lot of the holiday was spent like this.
And this... (So crazy to see my brother as a dad. He is awesome at it!)And a fair amount of shenanigans such as this.I think the kids favorite part was this. Though it may look like they were wrestling, they were in fact holding on for dear life as Matt would muster all of the strength he had a would jump with all four kids attached to his legs. It was quite amusing and I dare say tiring, for Matt that is. As a matter of fact I think he went a took a nap after this was over.Don't worry, they came back for more. This time in the form of acrobatics of sorts, you know the kind where he throws them and swings them around like a crazy person. Mom helped to calm things down a bit by working on TP's with the kids.Matt joined in helping but I think that is just because he wanted to eat some of the yummy maple frosting and candy.Grandma and Grandpa took all of the kids to the park to get out of the crowded house for a bit.Poor grandpa got stuck in the trap that is pushing Paisley on the swing for pretty much the entire time they were there. Somehow, I don't think he minded. You see he and Paisley are good friends. She loves to snuggle grandpa. And play with his beard.I dare say grandpa has an affinity for little granddaughters in general.And now to it. The turkey!
And the feast, minus the pies.

More Random Hobbes Pictures

Tab is such a good big brother. When Hobbes was first born he begged and pleaded to be allowed to feed him. He was quite happy when we finally got around to trying to give him a bottle. He took it quite well. He does not now as we went two months in between trying...sigh.Again, Tab being a good big brother, helping me give Hobbes a bath.My handsome man, NOT relaxing in his cradle. He now takes all of his naps in this cradle that lives in the Family Room as he won't nap in his bed because it is too quiet. He is just too used to all the noise to be able to sleep when we put him upstairs away from everything. By the way, my ever skillful dad made this cradle for him.
As this time around we couldn't find a reasonably priced photographer and didn't want crappy JCPenny's pictures, we tried our hand at taking our own. They were mostly awful but we got a few that were better than bad so....This was him saying "Fat Chance" to us trying to get him to lay in a certain position. He was having none of it.

The Prince's Tooth is Loose!

Ok, so it isn't loose, it is long gone, but I couldn't help myself. That was my FAVORITE book when I was a kid and the first one I remember learning to read. Anyway.... Tab finally lost his first and now second tooth. He had been very impatient as kids in his class began loosing teeth. Then he lost two in a row.I'm sure you can't tell, but he was THRILLED!