Happy 2010!

Happy New Year!  Just thought I would share a little bit of Fenn's artwork.  He obviously didn't do the '2010' part.  But he did color the background colors.

In my spare time {snicker.... "I have lots of that!".... snicker...}, I plan to start scanning all (*) of the boys' artwork and then create a photo album to store it all.  I'll put a link to it somewhere over in the right-hand column of the blog.  I'm not sure of when I'll actually get the link set up, but hopefully I'll have it within the next few weeks.  But it may take me a while to go back and scan the artwork.  I have a basket in the office full of it.
* When I say 'all', I don't mean every single piece that comes home from school.  I haven't kept every "picture" with scribbles on it.  But I do keep a few of those.  And I keep everything that involves a handprint or a footprint.

And I am still trying to find time to go through the hundreds of photos I've taken over the last few weeks and then do a few blog posts about Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fenn's birthday party, etc.  But they will be coming eventually.  They'll just be backdated so they stay in chronological order.  I'm OCD that way!  A post like this only takes a few minutes to do.  But a big post about a big event with multiple photos takes some time.  And we've just been really busy here lately with Thanksgiving, then Boone's surgery, then Fenn's party, then my surgery, and then the mad dash to get ready for Christmas.  Hopefully, things will settle down a little... at least until tax season gets in full swing and Dan starts working 6 and 7 days a week.  I'm not looking forward to that!  This will be my first year with TWO babies to keep up with on my own.  But I know I'll manage... just like millions of other moms.

Christmas Eve 2009 - Boone's First

This year, it is just the four of us for Christmas.  We don't have any of the grandparents coming to spend it with us.  Although we miss them, it is sort of nice this year.  This is our first Christmas as a complete family.  We won't be having anymore babies.  So this is a special one.
{Since we were alone, we had to use the tripod to take a family photo.  For some reason, the camera focused on the tree instead of us.  But at least we have a family photo to document the occasion.  Lesson learned!}

We spent Christmas Eve by going to an early candlelight service at church.  Then off to our family tradition of eating mexican.  Since moving to Knoxville 4 years ago, we have always gone to Pelancho's.  Pelancho's is also the place Dan and I had lunch right after we closed on our house in August 2005.

Fenn was trying to feed Boone a chip.  He's not quite ready for them, but I have a feeling he'll love them this time next year.

After dinner, Fenn made some cookies for Santa Claus with his daddy.

And then the boys got to open one present each.  Shhh.... don't tell them, but it will always be new pajamas.
{Not sure what I'm doing with my mouth in this photo!}

Waiting on His Very First Christmas {Boone}

Boone is waiting on his very first Christmas.  He's not really excited because he has no idea what it is all about.  But give it a year or so, and he will be.  His mommy and daddy are excited that he's here and we're about to spend our very first Christmas together as a complete family.

We'll go to Christmas Eve candlelight service at church this afternoon. And then we'll go eat mexican, which is our family tradition for Christmas Eve.  And then I think we'll bake some cookies for Santa Claus.

Ho! Ho! Ho!... A Visit with Santa Claus

Yesterday, we finally found time to go visit Santa Claus at West Town Mall.  Santa had already dropped in to see the boys at school on Friday, but I wasn't sure if Fenn remembered to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas.  So we thought we'd go again just to make sure Santa got the message.  I don't have a photo of the boys' encounter with Santa on Friday yet, but I heard it went pretty well.  At least Fenn didn't cry and wasn't terrified of Santa this time.  {If you want to see last year's Santa photo, click here.}  We were told Fenn wouldn't smile at first, but then they brought Boone into the room and he gave them a little bashful smile.  My guess is that it was similar to the smile he has in the first photo above.

We headed over to the mall around 5:00 p.m.  It was a little later than we had hoped, so we knew we were going to have a limited time to stand in line before having to possibly give up and try again another day.  Luckily, even though the line was long, it seemed to be moving somewhat quickly.  Here are a couple of photos taken while waiting in line.

To help pass the time, Dan pushed Fenn around the mall for a while.  And I stayed in line with Boone.  Boone was happy the whole time and was enjoying being entertained by the kids standing in line with us.  I think we made it up to the front of the line around 6:20 p.m. and we were getting in the car by 6:40.  Fenn did great and didn't seem scared of Santa at all.  He sat there very sweetly and even talked to him a little.  I think he said "bicycle" to him.... he doesn't quite know how to say "I want a bicycle."  Just like at school, he wouldn't really smile.  I think he was distracted by all the lights, people, and the camera flash.  Boone was his nomal, happy self.  No real reaction to Santa.  He just sat on his lap with his fingers in his mouth most of the time.  Santa commented about what a good baby he was.  When we were about to leave, Fenn gave Santa a high-five and even gave him a little hug.  All in all, our first experience standing in line to see Santa was a good one.  Here's another photo with Santa.

And here are a couple of photos of Boone from yesterday morning.  He was pushing up into the "all-fours" position and rocking back and forth.  I definitely think he'll be crawling soon.  He's really strong and very determined to become mobile.

Just A Swingin'

This morning, I got Boone out of his swing and walked into the family room to sit on the sofa.  Fenn was still in the dining room where we have the swing.  I kept hearing something banging and figured Fenn was just playing with Boone's swing.  I thought he was most likely raising and lowering the tray because that's what it sounded like to me.  I finally looked in there and this is what I found.  Keep in mind that this swing is made for babies probably not much older than 7 or 8 months and that Fenn just turned 2 a week ago.  Notice Fenn's feet... he has both of them on one side of the leg divider.  The motor wasn't turned on, so he was making it swing all by himself.  He seemed quite proud of himself, too.

I'm running way behind on blogging and have several posts I plan to go back and do (like Thanksgiving, Fenn's birthday party, etc.).  Those posts will be backdated, so they'll end up showing up below this post.  So if you are someone who checks this blog regularly, be sure to scroll down to check for more posts over the next week.  My plan is to have it caught up by Christmas.  I actually just got the photos from Fenn's birthday party from the photographer yesterday, so I'll be doing a big post about that in the next few days.  You don't want to miss those pictures. 

Boone at Seven Months Old

This is Boone at Seven Months.  This is the seventh installment in the "12-month onesie" series.  He seems to be changing so fast these days.  I can hardly keep up.  I'm actually getting scared of what he's going to be like in another couple of months.  He seems to be much more active than Fenn was at this age.  He rolls around all over his crib during the night.  He has already started assuming the "butt in the air" position when sleeping {much sooner than Fenn did}.  When playing on the floor, he gets in a "semi" all-fours position on his elbows and knees and rocks back and forth.  He has even pushed up on his hands a few times and held the "all fours" position for a few seconds.  I can tell he is desperate to become mobile.  Something funny we have noticed about him is that he has figured out how to get our attention when he feels we're ignoring him.  Recently while eating dinner, we had Boone in the swing (which is close to the dining room table).  I got up to go in the kitchen for something and walked in front of him {without acknowledging him} and then walked back by him again {once again without acknowledging him}.  He actually started doing a fake cough to get my attention.  It was so completely obvious that it was a fake cough!  I'm getting the impression he's going to be a little actor.

He had his surgery on the 5th of this month and did great with that.  If you didn't know about it, you would have had no way of knowing from being around him.  Other than sleeping pretty much the whole day, he was back to his normal, happy self within a few hours after the surgery.  And mommy and daddy did okay with it, too.  The worst part was having the nurse take him away from me to take him to surgery.  But I knew he was in good hands and would be okay.  One thing we learned from the whole experience is to trust our instincts at all times.  We had an immediate negative reaction to the doctor who was on call the day Boone was due to be circumcised the day after his birth.  For some reason, she was in a mood that day or something.  The nurse assured us she wasn't normally like that and was very well liked and respected by the nursing staff at the hospital.  And she seemed fine later on when she came back into my hospital room.  But we should have gone with our instincts and scheduled Boone's circumcision for a few days later with a pediatric urologist. 

As usual, you can see all the "12-month onesie" photos by looking over in the right-hand column under "More Photos of Fenn and Boone" and clicking on the link to "Boone's 12-Month Onesie Photos".

Fenn's "Little Man" Birthday Party

In the photo above, L-R:  Jacob, Cam, Fulton, Fenn, Noah, Audrey (on lower step), Morgan, and Miles.

Yesterday was the big event ~ Fenn's 2nd Birthday Party.  I decided to do a "Little Man" theme after finding this blog post about a set of triplets' 2nd birthday party.  'Little Man' is one of several nicknames we have for Fenn.  {We also call Boone 'Little Man 2'.}  That party was actually called the "Mr. Man Party", but I borrowed a ton of ideas from it.  I actually left a comment on Christina's blog and she graciously emailed me and shared many of her sources with me.  Thanks, Christina!  Get this... she has twin girls AND triplet boys!!!  I'm impressed with how organized she seems to be.

Brace yourself!  This is going to be a long post because there are so many cute photos from the party.  {If you would like to see all of the photos from the party, look over in the right-hand column of the blog under 'More Photos of Fenn and Boone' and there's a link to 'Fenn's 2nd Birthday Party.'  There are tons more great photos to see!  What I have here in this post is only a small sample of them.}  I actually hired a photographer for the party.  And it was worth every penny! 

A friend down the street recently started her photography business.  I wanted to be able to enjoy the party and not be worried about taking pictures the whole time.  I think she did a great job of capturing all the special moments.  Her name is Angela Acker and you can go here to see her blog.

I think this is a nice contrast to the previous photo. It is more typical when trying to get a family photo with a baby, a toddler, and a dog.

We invited all of our immediate family, but knew most of them wouldn't be able to make it this year.  Everyone lives so far away and December is such a busy month.  But Grami and Poppy made it up from north Georgia.  We also invited some of our neighborhood friends with kids around the same age, some people Dan works with and their kids, and the kids from Fenn's class at school.  We ended up with 7 kids here, plus Fenn and Boone, and lots of parents.

We had all the food set up in the dining room, and then had the basement designated as the play area, which included a pop-up tent and tunnel, a Radio Flyer horse, a slide, and an inflatable castle ball pit {which was a huge hit!}.  I also think the kids liked it because the static electricity was making their hair stand straight out.  The castle ball pit was a hand-me-down from Fenn's cousins, Piper and Sydney, and very much appreciated.  If you're wondering what's wrong with the castle in the photo, it apparently has a small pinhole somewhere that we need to get around to finding and patching.

Angela arrived a little before 3:00 p.m. to take some photos of Fenn before all the chaos started.  We went outside, but it was really cold out there and we weren't able to let Fenn stay out for too long.  People started arriving and the fun began.  That's the most kids we've ever had in this house.  It was totally wild and out of control, but so much fun.  I'm still looking for some pieces to a few toys. 

I think the kids had a really good time playing downstairs.  And all the parents enjoyed hanging out and chatting, too.  The wine and beer we had for the adults helped!  The plan was for the kids to play for the first 45 minutes or so and then come upstairs to sing Happy Birthday to Fenn and have some cake and snacks. 

We had limited the party to 2 hours, so we decided to wait and open gifts after everyone left.  Otherwise, that would have eaten up all the time.  We thought the kids would much rather play than watch some other kid open up a bunch of presents.

By the time it was all over, we were exhausted.  I'm glad this is the last party (for Fenn) we plan to have at home... at least for a while.  And it's the last one where I get to choose the theme.  I always said the first two parties are really for mommy.  After that, the choice will be Fenn's.  And we'll have the party somewhere else, such as The Little Gym, Chuck E. Cheese's, etc.  Whatever Fenn wants to do!  As long as it is simple!  But I have to admit I enjoyed planning Fenn's first two birthday parties, and look forward to planning Boone's.

Anyway, Fenn had a great time.  He was still talking about having his friends here the next day.  I need to get better about inviting people over for playdates.  I tend to keep waiting until the 'house is clean'.  But in reality, that never seems to happen since having kids.  Also, I'm not much of a planner.  I tend to wait for people to invite me to do stuff.  I need to change my ways and become more active in that respect.  

Boone Loves the Bathtub

Just a couple of cute photos of Boone in the bathtub last night.

It's 6:19 p.m. and Fenn is 2 Years Old!

Fenn's 2nd birthday fell on a Thursday this year.  His birthday party was planned for the Saturday following his birthday, so we had a "mini" celebration at home on the night of his actual birthday.  He got one of his presents and a cupcake.  As usual, he really didn't even touch the cupcake.  We just can't seem to get him to eat cake.  Is this our child???

Happy Birthday, Fenn!  We love you so very much!

"I........

TWO!!!!!"

Blowing out the candles...

Fenn's Birthday Party at School

Fenn had a little "warm up" birthday party at school today.  I took one of those big cookie cakes instead of cupcakes because I figured he was more likely to eat some cookie than he would a cupcake.  I love the photo of him at the top.  He has the sweetest (and proudest) expression on his face. I think he liked all the extra attention he was getting.

.: Blowing out the candles...

.: Classmates Mary Frances, Anabelle, and Ella Kate.

.: Classmates Charlotte and Fulton.

.: That's a little chocolate on his lips.  At least he ate some of the cookie!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our Little Man, Fenn!

Happy Birthday, Fenn!  Mommy and Daddy love you very much.  And so does your little brother, Boone!  Hug, Hug, Hug.  {That's what Fenn says when he gives hugs.}

Boone's First Snow (& first snow of the season)

Today was the first snow of the season.  And it was also Boone's very first snow.  It started early in the morning, so Dan (still in his PJs) took Fenn out for a few minutes.  Kind of a sneaky peek!  He was excited!

Later that morning, we took both Fenn and Boone out for a little playtime, and of course, some photos!  The snow was a nice little anniversary present for Dan and me.  Today was the 6th anniversary of our first date.

Here's daddy and his boys.

Boone seemed to like the snow!  Look at that sweet smile.  We didn't let him stay out too long, though.

A quick photo of mommy and her little man, Fenn.  Fenn played a little longer in the snow and loved it.