Ready to Take Notes?

It's a Monday again. Time for a mega-post.

So, when we last left off, the boys were sound alseep in the car on Thanksgiving night. When they go to bed late they wake up even earlier than normal...except I'm not sure why they called for me when they did Friday morning, it doesn't seem like they were quite ready to wake up:




Um, I can't remember what all happened Friday. I remember that when Easton sat to snuggle on my lap I noticed he had a fever. He didn't seem sick, didn't seem to have any symptoms so who knows?

All I remember is that on Saturday morning just before 4 a.m., Easton was moaning that he was thirsty so I gave him a drink of water. And he (and I) never went back to sleep. One time he told me laying down was "too boring" another time he had to go potty another time he needed more water. I gave him medicine to reduce his fever but even after giving it time to start working he never did get back to sleep. Jason eventually got up with him for the day but the damage was done and I was awake too. But he still didn't seem sick, so I kinda forgot he might be contagious, and took him to the mall for some one on one time. Whoops. I hardly ever get to enjoy just him much these days so we headed off.

First stop was "the ornament store" so we could pick up the ornaments he and Dalton were eyeing at Kohl's the night before (Kohl's was out of them).

Easton had his heart set on Wonder Woman:

I am often referred to as "Wonder Woman" or "Diana Prince" in our house (mostly by E), so he must have picked it in honor of how much he loves me. :)

Dalton's choice this year made a lot more sense:


As did our choice for Tum-Tums:


Anyhoo, we bought the ornaments and headed over to Starbucks for our favorite chai frappacino and browsed some other shops and went where Eastie wanted to go. Including the play area. He'd shout "I love you, Mom!" while he played. But without his brother there I think he was a little bored and a little old for the play area. He was happy to move on to Old Navy to try on jeans with me:

Look at his little Starbucks in hand. :) Would've been a cute picture if he was the one in focus, eh?

Eventually we headed home. Autumn had been asleep all but the last 6 minutes we were gone. That worked out well. She had some milk and eventually went back to sleep. She's getting a little big to sleep swaddled in her swing. She kept trying to sit up and then we kept finding her with her head resting on the hard side of the tray. :(


Saturday afternoon we set up the Christmas tree. Jason prefers to do it the weekend AFTER Thanksgiving weekend but it won't work out for us this year so we got to do it this last weekend (which is my weekend of choice!). Yippee! And the kids were excited too. We found out that the bottom "rung" of our new (last year) pre-lit tree isn't working. Jason had to work on that for quite awhile and right as I snapped this picture Easton also tripped over the cord (which you can see) from the flash of the camera combined with the lights going out, Jason was thinking he was being electrocuted. Hee hee. Can't say that I blame him:


Finally...and I mean finally...we had to give up. The poor boys were soooooooo ready to decorate. So the new ornaments from this year are the first to go on:








We put some decorative balls on this year and opted not to put all our crap ornaments on. We have some really lame ones that we've had to put on in years past because we just didn't have enough. Like, the ones that would come on the top of a M&M filled candy cane. Or the free heart on a box of Bath & Body Works gift set. I think the boys were a bit bummed that we stopped after all the truly special ones were up. But oh well. I think they were just like, "What? Done so soon? I waited all day for this?" Poor little fellas.


And a confused little someone was spotted hanging ornaments on places other than the tree:


When we were done, I ran out for a pizza and we had the LSU/Arkansas game on and had a picnic by just the light of the tree (and the TV and the camera flash):






Watching the game:


And the boys' latest obsession, old Chip & Dale cartoons on YouTube during halftime:


The kids went to bed, the Tigers won, I went to sleep early after that early early start with Easton. Yikes.

Sunday morning was the day of the kids' dedication. At our church they do baby dedications on the months when there is 5 Sundays. They do it on the 5th Sunday. We had wanted to dedicate Easton as a baby but didn't have a church. We tried to have Jason's pastor from his church back home do it, but our visits never worked out that we were there on a Sunday at first. Then we began our church search here at home and wanted to wait till we found a congregation to dedicate our boys in front of. Finally we found one (our current one) and "Wabie" was on the way so we decided to wait to do all three kids at once. And yesterday was the day. They only do it at the second service and we almost always go to the first one. So we had tons of time to kill in the morning. Including opening up our new box of Crocs. There was a sale recently (I emailed several of you about it LOL) on the "sport" Crocs. We bought some for each of us shoe-wearers:

Dalton got 2 pairs and Easton (who has a blue pair already) got a pair in the next size up for whenever his feet decide to grow. Our children have very small, slow growing feet. Not complaining too much because we save a lot of money that way! :)

Finally it was time to get ready for church:


You already heard about church and the dedication...afterwards we went to Sweet Tomatoes with Gramoo and Lauren. Autumn got hungry towards the end and Easton said, "Excuse me, I can feed her!" and did (but he didn't feed her the whole bottle):


We didn't get home till around 3 in the afternoon and we just took it easy for awhile, let Autumn get in a good nap, watched more Chip and Dale...it was the first Sunday in a long time that there wasn't an NFL game (Broncos nor Saints) that we "needed" to watch.

When Autumn woke up I went a little crazy:




Her hair is just so long all over her head. I wanted to see how many ponytails (pigtails? how many is 5?) I could put in. And so, yeah, there were 5. With the too big tights her Daddy had put on her she was a total little ragamuffin:


And still as sweet a snuggler as can be:


When she napped again later (in the swing) we left her legs unswaddled so she could fit a little better and not rest her head on the tray:


That brings us to today, Monday. Easton had school, the rest of us ran errands. But first we had to get dressed. And for Autumn, if it's a new outfit, that usually means a new picture too. :)


Dalton asked for a picture too:


We came home after picking up Eastie-bug and I took a few more pictures. I wanted to show you my new nutcracker for 2009:


It's in honor of another little blue-eyed brunette...

...who also happens to be celebrating her first Christmas. See...

...she's got the hat to say so. :)

And that brings us all the way till now where Autumn is napping (in her crib this time) and the boys are watching Christmas Max & Ruby to finish up their quiet time.

The end.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. --Deuteronomy 6:5-7

Today was a special Sunday for our family because we (and other families) stood up in front of the congregation--which today included Gramoo and the kids' great-grandparents--to officially dedicate our three babies to God.

We are not a family or church who baptize infants (it's not in the bible) but we still want to present them to God for His blessing as they belong to Him. We are mere stewards of our children who are gifts from God. With an official dedication, we're committing to raise them to know Jesus is the Savior. Of course raising our children as Christians in a Christian home, by word and by example, we'll strive to "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." --Proverbs 22:6


How much do you love this picture where you can't see any of our children? :) The church people took it and I like how Easton is nervously chewing on his thumbnail, Autumn is all snuggled in on me and Dalton the Short gets cut off. Oh well.

Our Thanksgiving

So, it started off very very early for some of us. Jason went to bed too early (for him, the weirdo needs very little sleep) and so he was up for the day around 4 or so. But, Dalton had also gone to bed waaaaaaaay too early for him (he fell asleep in the car around 5 p.m. and never woke up). So, Dalton was starting to wake up in the 4-5 a.m. hour. Luckily Jason was already up to get Dalton and they watched Nemo while Dalton drank milk until the rest of us woke up at a more normal 7 o'clock or so.

When I woke up, I discovered that the special side dish I'd made for Jason (spinach Madeline) was ruined because I had left it on the counter all night long. Oops. I don't even have pregnancy brain as an excuse anymore and it's really disturbing me because I don't really make those kinds of mistakes too often. It's hard for me to realize I'm less than perfect, hee hee. But, Jason ran to the store for the few things I'd need to make it again and some Starbucks too. Things were looking up. :)

We watched the parade and had breakfast and looked through Black Friday ads, cooked my side dishes...all that.


Eventually Dalton had to go down for a nap because of his extra early morning. He no longer naps regularly. Jason was pretty tired himself and if he was going to be in any kind of shape to hang around with others he needed a nap too. Only the boys' room has room darkening shades so he hopped into Easton's top bunk with Dalton sleeping below. Ha ha! Autumn snoozed in her swing and Easton spent his quiet time with some Playdoh:


And I made that turkey bow.

Once everyone was awake, the side dishes were baked, and we were all dressed we headed down to Grammy's house as is Thanksgiving tradition. My mom's step-brother and sister-in-law Frank and Laverne were in town from Texas again and Laverne headed outside with the boys when we first arrived:




While Jason and I stayed inside with Autumn because Grammy wanted to get a picture of her in my old cradle:






Grammy made that cradle for me when I was a wee babe:

Awwwwww.

Pretty soon, Gramoo and Lauren and my aunt, uncle and cousin arrived as well. Gramoo brought a festive appetizer:


And festive headwear:


Before long, Lauren's boyfriend Russell showed up as well. We all stared at the Cowboys game, visited, sipped cider or beer, ate snacks and waited for dinner to be served. It was delicious and so was dessert. My boys were plenty entertained with Russell who took turns arm wrestling them:




Dalton wins!


Showing off his muscles:


Finally "Super Jeff" was done with his pie and Easton could try to "get him down" like he'd been looking forward to since the last time we saw them:


Eventually Easton got a little too spazzy and conked his head on the floor and didn't want to play anymore. So it was a calmer time once again:


Autumn showing off how sweaty she can be.

I think it must be all her hair holding in extra heat because she is way sweatier than either boy ever was. Kinda gross. She had just nursed under a fleece blanket but still...

I had Lauren take another shot of all 5 of us, this time as The Browns instead of in our Halloween jammies:


And eventually we packed up everything and headed for home. It was about 8:30 and all three kids fell asleep:

We'd planned ahead with the boys' jammies so they could be put straight in their beds.

We got them to bed, Autumn too and I wasn't far behind! And that was our day.