Merry Christmas!

My boys are loving this whole Christmas thing. Our four-day Christmas extravaganza began yesterday and will continue until Tuesday. We started things off by exchanging our family gifts.

For Christmas, since Santa usually brings toys, I've decided to start a tradition of buying books as presents. Greg and I bought the boys books for Christmas, and since they were the first Christmas presents of the year, Nick absolutely loved them. He was especially excited about the Shel Silverstein book, Every Thing On It.

Henry got a cute board book called Otis. I think he cared more about the wrapping paper, though--he kept trying to eat it. Henry has also been drooling all over the place, and the combination of baby drool and wrapping paper means that when I got into bed last night, damp wrapping paper stuck to my leg.

Greg received his real Christmas present early this year: a new TV and DVD player for the living room. The boys bought him new pajamas and slippers, too. They bought me a book light for my Nook. I guess you'd call it a Nook Light. I keep waking up my husband by reading under the covers with a a giant mag-light flashlight. This light is far less annoying.

I think my husband felt the need to impress with my Christmas present this year. He followed the rule that says you can never go wrong with jewelry. The picture below is the only one where you can kind of see my beautiful new necklace.

Here's a closer view:

I think he did well.  :)

I will write more tomorrow about our multiple celebrations. I promise lots of cute pictures, plenty of Nick smiles, and oodles of Henry drool.

For those of you who celebrate, I hope you are enjoying this special time with family. Merry Christmas to everyone!

On a Hot and Sunny Day. . .

I try to take the kids out in the morning, before it gets too steamy. I lay out a blanket in the shade so Henry has a safe place to hang out. He loved it. This is about as happy of a look as Henry gets.  :)

For Nick, all it takes to make him happy is a $7 wading pool and some tupperware.

It's funny, though. Nick doesn't spend much time actually in the pool. He'd rather dump out the pool one cup at a time. I'm not complaining. It keeps him busy. Every once in awhile I go over and dump him in the pool, and he laughs. Then he continues emptying the pool.

Yesterday, he was using this cup and pretending to drink coffee. "Mommy, look. I drinking my coffee. It good coffee." Can you tell this kid lives with two caffeine addicts for parents?


So what do I do to make myself happy on a hot and sunny day? I brew a nice cup of iced tea (Earl Grey, of course) and sit next to Henry on the blanket. I've been sitting in the sun, though. I know, I'm naughty. But just a little bit of sun makes my skin stop breaking out, so I indulge. The best part? My Nook works great even in bright sunlight.

I've been reading at an incredible pace this summer. It must be all of the sitting around and breastfeeding. I'm not a TV person, and I have to do something to stay awake. Just since I got my Nook, I've read:

A+ Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
A+ Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
A   The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
A  The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
B+  Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman
B+ Bossypants by Tina Fey
B+ Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha
B  Germs, Genes, & Civilization: How Epidemics Shaped Who We Are Today by David P. Clark
B  Daffodils in Spring by Pamela Morsi
B  The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma and Jim Brozina
B  How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
B- The Sweetest Thing by Barbara Freethy

That's not counting the three books I'm currently reading. I think this Nook is going to be addictive. Also possibly expensive.

I do like hanging out in the backyard, though. I have a great view of Nick, I can read, and Henry gets to practice his baby push ups.

A Pretty Good Birthday

The beginning of June is always going to be pretty crazy for me. My birthday is on the 5th, my wedding anniversary is on the 8th, and now our new little boy will have his birthday on the 9th. It ended up being a pretty good birthday, though.

We went to my mom and stepdad's house for lunch and a delicious chocolate cake. Nick's Gigi and Aunt Mandy were there, too, and everybody gifted me with baking supplies from the Wilton Tent Sale. I got cups with straws (for iced tea), new baking pans, cookie cutters and sprinkles (for cookies, of course), and a pan that will make whoopie pies. I can't wait to try them out. I suppose I'll have to wait a few weeks, though.

Nick got to play in the pool and with the hose. Grandpa Ray sprayed him and Nick asked him to do it again and again.

He was thrilled to be out in the sunshine, and ran around for literally hours.

Nick enjoyed sitting in the pool and dumping out all of the water.

He also chased his daddy around the yard, trying to get him wet. He can't run quite fast enough yet. But soon, very soon, Nick will be able to catch his daddy.

There are a family of robins living in one of my mom's bushes, and the babies flew away for the first time today. Here's one of the babies, sitting on the fence. He wasn't sure what to do, since flying was so new to him.







































You want to know what my birthday surprise was. . .? We went to Barnes and Noble, and Greg bought me a Nook!

It's the 2nd generation one, with something called E-Ink display. I had hesitated to get an Ereader, because I spend so much time looking at screens already. But this one looks just like a book page. I will have to play with it, but so far, I love it. It's small enough to fit in my purse, and I already found a bunch of books for free and for $0.99.

I think it'll be great for when I travel (or go to the hospital), because I won't have to carry a stack of books with me. I am a notoriously fast reader, and I'm always running out of things to read. I love how I can read with one hand--this thing is so light! It weighs less than 8 ounces, apparently.

We were in the store for awhile, so Nick spent his time playing with the trains and moving books from one shelf to another. He got to pick out a new book, too.

I had a great birthday, and now I'm going to go play with my new toy.  :)