Meet Criddle

I don’t know if you have every heard of The Elf on the Shelf.  He made his first visit to our house last year.  This year, I thought that I would try to document his shenanigans. 

Mikayla named him Criddle last year.  Criddle visits our house during the Christmas season and watches over our home.  He reports back to Santa each night and then picks a new spot each day in which he sits to continue to watch us.  Sometimes, he can be quite mischievous. 

Tonight, Criddle came and set our tree up.  I can’t wait to see Mikayla’s reaction when she sees what he did.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We had a great time spending some time with my family.  Both of my sisters and their families were in town this week, so it was especially fun to be able to spend time with them. My mom found these cute hats in the dollar bin at Target.    Mikayla had a lot of fun wearing that all day. On Thanksgiving Eve, Mikayla, my mom and I made these place cards.  We had a great time working together and succeeded in keeping little hands off of the M&Ms prior to other people consuming them.  (That was no small feat!) We have about reached the capacity of my mom’s dining room.  I think there will definitely be a “kiddie” table needed in the near future.  It was so nice to have so much family there together.  The only person that was missing was my brother and his girlfriend (they were out of town with her family).  The more our family grows, the harder it is to get us all together.  I feel very fortunate to have so many wonderful people in my life. 

We think my dad is the master of being able to get EVERYTHING on his plate.  Most of us had to do things in shifts, but he was able to pack it all on.  So funny!

I am so grateful for my family and the opportunity to spend time with them.  I miss those that I wasn’t able to see yesterday, but I hope they all know I missed them and love them. 

And the winners are…

  

Mikayla's school pictures.

 

The winners from Gavin’s portrait session

 

The winners from the family photo shoot.

 

A personal note to my family… Let me know what pictures you want and in what sizes.  I have a large variety.  Just email me your requests!

I am thankful for…

 

…these two sets of little hands

Gavin

   Mikayla

After working 12 hours last Friday, it was nice to come and see these two little school projects that the kids had done.    I am a definite sucker for anything that captures the size of those sweet little hands.

Two year olds and pictures are not a good combo

We have had two separate appointments for pictures with Gavin this week.  Last week we did some of just him and then today we did some Christmas pictures and some of just him and Kayla. ( I hadn’t gotten any since he was about 9 months old! )  Gavin did not want to be a part of any of this.  He didn’t want to sit, stand still, or smile.  He also wanted to hold all of the props used to try to make him smile.  I have decided that this is my least favorite age to photograph.  At age one, the don’t have to much of an opinion about stuff and they are generally pretty agreeable.  At age three, you can bribe them.  At two, well nothing works.  Thankfully, we had some very good and patient photographers.

He are some of the “best” ones.  I will share the winners in a later post.

Total mischief!

He was supposed to be laying on his tummy – that never happened.

He did not want to sit on the stool for this picture.  We ended up putting him on the very end of my knees.  The didn’t capture pics of him flailing back trying to throw himself off of the stool – thankfully I was holding him!

  He was not a fan of the red chairOne of many action shots. I love how Mikayla has a look like “What on earth is wrong with you!”

Complete meltdown

This one wasn’t too bad, but neither wanted to look at the camera, and Mikayla was not too happy that Gavin was holding the box with the ornament hiding inside.

Strong Legs Race 2009

Last Saturday, several members of my family and I drove down to Atlanta to participate in the Strong Legs Run.  It is a race sponsored benefiting Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta which happens to be the hospital that I work for.  It is a great event with tons of fun family events.  I have done the 5K in the past, but since Mikayla has started joining in, we have started doing the 2K fun run.  Last year, I had to carry Mikayla the last half of the race.  This year, with a little encouragement, she finished the whole thing!  I was so proud of her and she was so excited that she beat all of us and “won” the race. :) This year my mother in law, sister and nephew joined us for the fun event.

Here is Mikayla playing a little put-put.  It looked a little more like shuffleboard to me, though. There was also a balloon artist there – as you can see the kids were enthralled with him.  I need him to come to my house because I can never captivate their attention like this for that long.  Mikayla also had an airbrushed tiger tattoo put on her hand.   She decided to have it look like "Daddy’s tiger” (also known as the LSU Tiger).  I was quite the proud daddy when he saw that.  There were also various mascots from local companies.  This one was definitely the most interesting one.  He is a natural gas flame from Georgia Natural Gas.  Wierd!He is my mini family pic.  Gavin, as you can tell, was in a fantastic mood.  He was a grump all day.  After the race, we went to the post-race booth and got some food.  Two bananas and part of a bagel later that boy was in a much better mood.  If I had known that was all it would take, I would have gone through MUCH sooner.  See how happy Mikayla is to have finished the race!  I hope to finish many more together and eventually graduate to the 5K with her.     Since the race was pretty early, we decided to have a “slumber party” at my parents house the night before.  Mikayla had been wanting to have one for quite a while so it was a perfect opportunity.  We set her up with her sleeping bag on some loveseat cushions on the floor in the family room.   Papa slept on the couch next to her.  I think they both enjoyed their sleepover. :)

Happy Halloween

We have had a week full of Halloween celebrations.

On Tuesday, we had a the Trunk or Treat at church.  We had to hold it inside because it was raining.  I didn’t get a lot of pictures of the actual Trick-or-Treating portion because it was pretty much mass chaos on the hallways where all of the kids were.  Mikayla was excited to dress up for her premiere showing as Tinkerbell. 

On Wednesday night, Jeremy was home from work ,  so we decided to carve pumpkins together.  

Mikayla helped poke the holes of the pattern so that I could carve the designs out.  I also let her help carve the larger portions of it. 

Daddy and Gavin watched the Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin while Kayla and I carved.

I thought they turned out pretty cute!

On Friday, Mikayla’s preschool hosted a costume parade.  It was a lot of fun seeing all of the kids dressed up – there was some really cute costume.  There were a couple of fairies, but I do believe that Mikayla was the only Tinkerbell.

The kids even got to go Trick-or-Treating to all of the classrooms.  

After the Trick-or-Treating, they had a Halloween party full of yummy goodies, stories and crafts.  Mikayla had a lot of fun and I was happy to be able to be there with her.   

So, finally, tonight was the “big” night.  We were a little worried that the weather and rain was going to spoil our plans, but we had nothing more than a heavy drizzle.  So with umbrellas in hand, we were able to go out and have a fun time.  Mikayla had a great time, but she was also fairly patient in waiting for her slow moving little brother.  The were so cute together!

My sweet little Tinkerbell.  She had so much fun having her hair done “pretty”, having glitter put in her hair and getting to wear makeup.  She was such a cutie!

This is my handsome little Peter Pan.  You can guess how long that hat stayed on his head, but it was pretty cute for the 30 seconds that it did.  He had a lot of fun this year and really enjoyed going to the houses and saying “tweee!” (treat)

This is my cute little nephew, Andrew.  He was a turtle – such a cute costume!  He was so laid back and really seemed to enjoy watching his crazy cousins. 

We had our family over for dinner during all of the trick-or-treating fun.  This has become a fun tradition that I really enjoy.  The kids had these “mummy” dogs.  Mikayla thought they were really neat. 

This is apparantly what happens after a serious sugar high – you crash!  Mikayla just crawled in to Jeremy’s arms and passed out.  She is such a sweet and cuddly girl at the end of the day

Gavin, on the other hand, who had no candy, was wired and ready to go all night.

I just love these special occasions with my children – they make for wonderful memories!

My sweet 2 year old

Two years ago today, this little boy entered our family.

I just can’t believe how fast he is growing up. This is Gavin at his first birthday party. He was just starting to get those sweet little curls at the back of his head.

Now he has a head full of those curls (that I just love and I hope they never go away!) .

He brings so much joy to our lives. He is generally, a pretty easy-going little boy, but when he wants something or doesn’t get what he wants, he has quite the temper! That is definitely one of his more challenging traits. He is, although, my little cuddle buddy. He loves to be held and will sit in your lap for a long time, especially after waking up in the morning or after his nap. He loves to give kisses and hugs. I just can’t get enough of them.

He if finally starting to talk some. He has a couple of words that he says: mama, dada, bye-bye, book, cup, juice, tay-tah (Kayla), Ah-ma (Grandma), Nana, Papa, backpack, outside, okay, and No!. His specialty, however, is phrases. It’s funny because he really doesn’t talk very much, but it’s seems that we’ve bypasses most words and have jumped right to simple sentences. He says: Here you go, Let’s go, What did I do?, Where (insert name) go?, What’s up Mama?, and I’m okay!. He also is apparently bilingual. If I ask him a yes or no question and he wants to answer, yes, he seems to be saying, “Si.” We can thank Dora and Diego for that. I also think that Gavin says a lot more than anybody can understand. Gavin is ALWAYS babbling. He is so serious about it, too. He looks at you and just babbles of a sentence. Occasionally, I can pick out a word or two. I know one day, I will miss this fun language of his.

So, Happy Birthday my sweet boy! I love spending time with you and am so enjoying my this time with my little toddler. Your sister has proved that this time goes by way too fast. You can slow down a little if you want – I am in no hurry for you to grow up. Love, Mama xoxo

Party!!!

Last Saturday, we celebrated Gavin’s 2nd birthday.   I can’t believe that he is almost two years old.  We had a great day, despite the drizzly, 4o degree weather. 

Look at the cute birthday boy!  He was very excited to wear his “go” (Diego) birthday hat.   My mom made this wonderful Baby Jaguar cake – she is so talented!

Gavin got some great presents.  He is such a lucky little boy to have so many people that love him.  My favorite part of the gift opening portion of the evening was Gavin climbing into his Tonka truck to go for a ride.  So cute!

I just love this little guy!  We had a great night celebrating his two years here in our family.  He has brought us so much joy and I am so thankful to have him in my life.   

Little drummer boy

A couple of years ago, my sister in law Ashley, got Mikayla this great gift of a drum that had several little musical instruments in it.  Both of my children have loved it.  This week, Gavin has been playing with it a lot.  Jeremy taught him to knock the sticks together, say “one, two, three!”, (well, it actually sounds more like “free, free, free”) and start drumming on the drum.  It is so darn cute!

I should clarify that we don’t typically walk around the house shirtless.  The was a little incident a leaky dirty diaper.  I won’t way anything beyond that.