Recovering

We are home today from our week of Christmas Crazy, trying to put our house back together and getting Jonas used to not being held 24/7.  #babyproblems

Daphne turned 6, we had many parties, we did our post-Christmas shopping (Hobby Lobby was the best), I made lunch today on my new skillet thing that covers two burners so I can cook lots of food quickly, and I found Christian being super cute, still in his jammies at noon:

Sums up what we'd all like to be doing, I think.

Happy Recovery to you all!

Jonas: 6 Months

Fun fact for the day: Jonas was born on Friday the 13th, the day of a full moon, and he turned 6 months on 12-13-14.  Such a cool life he's living, mathematically speaking. 

intro to cars by prof. big brother

The most exciting thing that happened this month was that two nights ago he slept for 9 hours straight!  This was a PR for him.  Lest I get too excited thinking this is a new thing, last night he slept for the opposite of 9 hours.  The opposite of sleeping for 9 hours is waking every 3.  Sadly for him, now I know he really doesn't need to eat so I don't have to feed him.  Ha!  I win.

He got to try some Big Boy food this month because when he sits on our laps while we're eating our meals, he likes to open his mouth really wide and face-plant his mouth on our faces in an effort to steal our food.  It's funny, slimy, and gross.  We really like following the baby-led weaning approach for introducing food, so we've been giving him some big pieces of meat, fruit, and vegetables to gnaw on.  He loves all of them, even dill pickles. 

happy feet waving while gnawing on ham

(I like that my floors look deceptively clean in that picture.)

Other points of interest:
*It's his favorite to stand up and jump.  If we had some sort of excersaucer or jumping contraption, he would probably adore it.
*He smiles at me with a huge, happy, open mouth.  Adorbs.
*He loves his older siblings.  They are hilarious people.
*No stranger danger yet!  But he still likes me best.
*I ask him every day if he wants to be my baby boy forever.  So far I think he's amenable to the plan. 

I tried to recreate some of his newborn photos for the 6 month marker.  It did not go well.  Maybe another day?  Or maybe it's fine to have these be our pictures, because rarely do things go perfectly.

And honestly, the mess makes me laugh.

i mean, how can you not laugh at this picture?

It's Christmas, Let's All Fight

Christmastime is sparking some fiery conversations at our house.  Maybe someone can come over here and try to rationalize with my children?  Because they don't seem to want to listen to my words. 

Daphne had flung her body across the stairs and was wailing, "No one understands me!  My birthday is the one-seven, but no one understands me!"

I told her I DO understand her: understand that she's wrong.  (OK, I didn't say that.)   She knows her birthday is Christmas Eve but apparently that's December 17?   I haven't been able to convince her otherwise. 

Arguing over Christmas song lyrics is another fun and popular game. 

There's the stanza from 'Have a Holly Jolly Christmas:'

Ho ho the mistletoe, hung where you can see
Somebody waits for you, kiss her once for me

Do we say "blizzard once for me?"  Daph is convinced that we do.

Christian was listening to 'I'll be Home for Christmas.'  The song says,

Christmas Eve will find me, where the love light gleams

and he thinks love light gleams is Lightening McQueen. 

Because if you happen to be away at war at Christmastime, I can see how thinking about Christmas Eve and Lightening McQueen would be VERY comforting.

at least they know what Christmas is all about

 

The Tree

It's our tradition to get our tree the Monday after Thanksgiving.  Not for any significant reason except that David works weekends and is home on Mondays, and we want to get the tree early enough to enjoy it for the whole month of December.  The tree farm we've been going to for years is now a mere 4-ish miles away.  How convenient is that?  If it was snowy here and we had a horse with a sleigh, we could ride to the tree farm.  Except no snow and no horse, so that 'perfect tree hunting' stereotype will probably never happen.  Even though it would be so nice if it did. 

I'm pretending this is us getting our tree

Sometimes I feel like tree-getting day is so chaotic.  Fall stuff is mostly put away while the Christmas boxes are an exploded mess around the living room.  We clear a path for the tree and ornament boxes and hope we remembered to have some sparkling cider or something on hand.

This year, though, thanks to a majorly chaotic weekend of getting ready for a Sunday event, the house was sparkling on Monday, and there was even time to bake cookies and make this homemade sparkling apple juice in time to bring the tree in!  Plus, this year I FINALLY got myself a Christmas apron.  I felt like Martha Stewart herself, except a nicer version with no felony record.  And with brunette hair. 

the perfect tree...tall and skinny, just like we needed.

look at that sweet little reindeer!  another little boy wore that outfit HERE

three kids and a train

This year I'm feeling like Norman Rockwell himself came in and painted me a life.  An awful good one, at that.

But for good measure, here's another fake picture of fake us:

we're really happy in our fake life

Who Doesn't Love a Gluten Free Thanksgiving?

Just a few things to say about Thanksgiving 2014:

1) We've discovered that this house goes with holidays like macaroni goes with cheese.  Peanut butter with jelly.  OSU football with sad fans.  (Ha.  Kidding.  You don't have to be a winner to be happy.) 

Holidays and this house are fantastic.

2) We got some good pictures of our first Thanksgiving hosted here, the first of what will hopefully be many Thanksgivings to come.  I love hosting Thanksgiving if for no other reason than I get to make turkey stock after the meal is over.  And because Daph loves donning an apron and getting messy in the kitchen with me. 

"Is this the turkey's buns?"

They set the table with no regard for proper place setting etiquette

well, hi there, handsome

at the last minute David miraculously got the day off!  yay!

post dinner football

We loved this house in the fall, but now that the pumpkins are put away and Christmas has taken over...well, I just want to hole up here for the month of December and never leave.