Our First Time at the Circus

We went to the circus for their opening show. It was great. Izzie sat through the whole two hours. It helped we had front row tickets. They were a Christmas present. Izzie got to see the whole thing. It was great that no one was sitting in front of us. She could even stand up and hold onto the little rail and watch. She loved the elephants as expected. Garrett got to hang out with his Nina while the three of us had fun. Poor Nina. Garrrett cut his first tooth that night and was extra grumpy.

The Elephant Walk

This past week, on Wednesday, we decided to go to the Circus' Elephant Walk. I went to the dentist that morning, so was a little tired and sore, but I'm glad we went. My sister, Brooke or as Izzie calls her Aunt B, came along. We got a little excersize walking. Izzie fell asleep but woke up just in time to see the elephants. After we saw them, she insisted we go see the elephants "now." It was hard to explain to her that we had to wait for the next day before we could see them again. We had front row tickets to see the circus the next night. It was a blast.

6 Months Old!

6 Months Old!! Garret Jaco Kirkland. My little, big man. He is 28.75" long and 24.5lbs. 99th percentile for everything. I actually think Dr. Guyton said 99.9% There's not many bigger than him. I love my chunk. Don't you? Chunky babies are so squishy with so many rolls. His little wrists, well he really doesn't have any. They look like little rubber bands have been wrapped around his chubby arms. Just another thing I love about him.

He's in 18-24month clothing. Size 5 shoes. We do have to roll his pants up a little

His sister still affectionately calls him "baby brother." She gives him lots of love, hugs, and kisses. I get a little jealous of the amount she gives him.

Garrett can also sit up all by himself. He rolls both ways. He hates sitting still. His favorite thing is to jump in the Johnny Jumper like a crazy man. He literally swings in it! Our door frame is now a little morphed. It is hard to shut the door. Garrett also like to scoot around in his walker. He moves with purpose and knows where he is going, so move out of his way!

We started him on baby food. He is a much better eater than his sister. Here's to hoping that he stays that way, because she doesn't eat anything. So far we have tried sweet potato, squash, bananas, pears, and sweet peas. He eats them all. He even grabs my hand with the spoon in it forcing it to his mouth. He is so strong.

Of course, as you can see in the pictures above, Garrett is a boob man. ;) We are still breastfeeding.

The Guilty One

Yes, this one. She is guilty. Don't let the little smile fool you.

(I spy Elmo, Do you?)

She likes to put things on her brother's head. Poor Garrett. This is at least the second or third time, I have found him like this. She put a princess crown on him today. Don't tell Todd that. I have another picture of him with a juice cup lid planted on his noggin. The juice cup lid that has a handle on both sides. Poor Garrett. Someday he will be bigger and she will no long take advantage of him like this. He's almost the same size as her. It won't take long! He already sneaks a few handfuls of her hair every now and again. I swear you can hear Izzie scream across the country.

Play Hard ... Sleep Hard

I work weekends as a nurse. Well, I work Fridays and Sundays. It's great because I am basically a stay at home mom the other five days. I have an awesome husband, who is off on the weekends, and makes it possible for me to have this schedule. He's great with Izzie and Garrett. I couldn't ask for a better father for my babies. He tries to keep them busy while I'm working or recuperating from a hard shift at the hospital.

One of their favorite places to go is Nina's house. Nina keeps Rylee every other weekend, so it is even more of a reason for Izzie to want to visit. However, for some reason, Izzie always "borrows" something from Nina's house and puts it in the car with her. This also happens sometimes when she is at my mom's house. She will refuse to get in the car unless she has her _____ fill in the blank. Well, this day she decided to take half of Nina's toys with her. Okay not really half, but the proof is in the picture. She then usually crashes in the car after such a long day of playing. :)

You have to love that death grip on the marker. She knew her mom was going to take that first.

Cookies and Soup?

Izzie thought Santa was a little extra hungry Christmas Eve. She grabbed some soup from the pantry, too.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Ever since getting married, Todd and I have pretty much done the same routine for Christmas with our families. This year was really no different. Next year, I am sure we will have to change it up a little bit since our babies are getting older.

Christmas Eve, we first went out to eat with the Kirkland's. We went to Copper River Grill to eat a late lunch. It was just Nina, Grandaddy, Rylee, Izzie, Garrett, Todd, and me. After eating, we headed over to Nina and Grandaddy's house to open gifts. We had to wait on Eric and Katie, his girlfriend, to get there. Then, we all opened together. The pictures above are from their house. My favorite moment was giving Nina and Grandaddy the picture book we made them. It was a picture book of their grandchildren. Of course, there was crying and that is always a good sign that you did good. I don't' know how we are going to top that next year. We also got PGA Championship tickets for the boys. They are going to have a blast in Kiawah Island.

After Nina and Grandaddy's, we went over to my parents, Poppy and Mimi's. My parents do basically a dinner of snack foods. It's all fun stuff. Dips, chips, chicken, smokies, meatballs, cheese and cracker trays. You know! All the good stuff. After eating a little, we get our Christmas pajamas. I was so thankful because by this time it was at least 8 o'clock. The kids were getting tired, too. Everyone gets pajamas to hang out in. About three or four years ago, we decided to do a white elephant exchange. This year we did two! We did one "good" gift. It had to be something everyone would want. The second one was a DVD exchange. This was a good one, too. Todd and I both got DVDs we wanted. The good gift, well that was interesting. My dad has a sense of humor and unfortunately Todd got stuck with his gift (a wooden monkey figurine- yikes). To make it even better, Izzie was carrying the monkey and dropped it. The monkey ended up having an above the knee amputation by the end of the night. We left shortly after the fun and games.

When we got home, I made it a point to take Izzie around the house. I showed her the tree, our chimney, and explained how Santa would come. I told her that he was very hungry and we had to leave cookies for him and that after he ate then he would leave presents under the tree for us. She was very excited. She was a little too excited. She helped me put the cookies out, went back to our pantry and grabbed two cans of soup (the only thing she could reach). She took the soup placed them both next to the cookies and then told me "Santa's hungry!" It was the funniest moment of our night.

We woke up the next morning, after sleeping in just a little (9am). We had to wake Izzie up. She was too excited about her powerwheels convertible to look at anything else. Somehow, we managed to pry her from the car. We went over to my parents' house and opened gifts there. This will probably be the last year we do this. Next year, I am thinking we will just have everyone over in the afternoon for a dinner.

It was all a lot of fun. I had to go to work that night, not really where I wanted to be. I just look forward to not working any holiday this next year, since they all fall on weekdays. My family came over and spent time with the kids and Todd. They played Dance Central on Kinect. It's so much fun. I highly recommend it for any group get together. :)

A Christmas Party

No Christmas is complete without getting together with good friends. Todd has a LOT. He has grown up with the same best friends his whole life. Most of us are married now, have children, ... and even more children on the way. It's a lot of fun when we can all get together especially with our babies. We did it two years ago but somehow last year it got away from us. This year I took the initiative to make it happen again. We see each other throughout the year, but it is just not the same to not see everyone at Christmas. We had to change the date about four time before all of our busy schedules worked out.

There was a total of 11 adults, 7 children, and 2 more little ones on the way. It was a full house, but so much fun. We all brought a dish or dessert and a couple little presents for the children. The kids ran around and played. They got to open their presents. We also had a little ornament exchange where we found out Bill and Amanda were expecting a little boy! I guess everyone is having one of each nowadays (boy/girl) ;).

Next year, it will be someone else's turn to host the party! Not to mention we will have a few more children at the party, too. Don't worry, no more from this family.

A REAL Christmas Tree

I was raised in a family who always had a real tree. It's a tradition. I've thought about going fake. Key word is "thought." It was a bad thought. There is just no way. I hope my children always get to celebrate with a real tree in the living room. The smell. The pesky needles all over. I'm still sweeping them up, but I wouldn't have it any other way. You just can't replace it.

We were able to get our tree the day after Thanksgiving. Another thing my family has always done is decorate for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving. I don't like it when people seem to look over Thanksgiving and start celebrating Christmas wayyyyy too early.

Friday night, we went and picked up our niece, Rylee. Rylee is basically Izzie's big sister. She's so good with her. We went to a little roadside stand to pick out our tree. I love having a big living room with humongous ceilings. There is no limit on the size of our tree. So, of course our tree was about 10 feet. We took it home. Todd and I managed to do it all by ourselves although the man at the stand offered to help us with it, which was so sweet of him. After getting it in the house and putting it in the stand, we decided to take the kids for "ice cream" (it was really frozen yogurt but Izzie's insists that it is ice cream). It was really a great night. Nina, Todd's mom, watched Garrett for us so that we could get it done a little quicker. He loves his grandmas, so I'm sure he didn't mind :).

I would like to add, that we took our tree down the week after Christmas. Well, not we, but I did. That's right. Todd came home one day and the tree was gone. He asked me how I did it by myself. I didn't tell him. It was pretty amazing though. It definitely was not pretty. I think I've also mentioned before that I somehow put together Garrett's crib while about 8 months pregnant... by myself! I'm so stubborn. Poor Izzie, she is just like me. No one can tell us "no."

Thanksgiving

Yes, I know it is January. Yes, I know Thanksgiving is in November. I'm going to try to catch up on the events of our kiddos and family

Well, ever since Todd and I have been together we have split up Thanksgiving Day between our two separate families. This year, although the second year in our new house, we decided to have everyone come to our home. It's a bit bigger and we figured, why not? Everyone means, my parents, sisters, Todd's parents, brother, Todd's aunt, uncle, and cousins.

It turned out great. I felt a little rushed organizing and cooking. Basically, my OCD gets the best of me at times. I'm a perfectionist although nothing seems to turn out perfect like I plan. I do try hard though.

We took the Thanksgiving menu from each family and combined them. This way everyone got what they wanted to eat. After combining the menus, I split it up between all the women haha. It made life a little easier. There was still a lot going on in my kitchen. The boys were put in charge of frying the turkeys (two to be exact) while we baked the ham. I learned a lot about defrosting a turkey this year. That was an ordeal. Thank goodness they were thawed in time.

While all the cooking was going on, we looked at all the Black Friday ads (a little upset about the stores opening so early this year.. I feel like they kind of barged in on our Thanksgiving day), played with the babies, talked, and spent time with those who we are truly thankful for :). My mom had to work but got off super early and made it in plenty of time for our early dinner.

I need to get a big dining room table. I need to add that to my list of things to accomplish this year. Oh! To top off our Thanksgiving weekend, I got called off of work that Friday which allowed us to go get our REAL Christmas tree then :).