Family Christmas Party

 On Saturday December 17th, Mike's family had their annual Christmas party at Grandma Susie's house.  It was a fun evening of family and food, even though I was exhausted.  (I didn't take any pictures, but that morning we went to Wes' friend Aaron's birthday party.)  We always have Italian Christmas dinner, and this year was spaghetti and meatballs, breaded steak, salad and garlic bread.  And lots of delicious desserts!

Grandma Susie and her girls! 

And with the boys :) 

Getting ready for the ornament exchange. 

This year the kids did their own ornament exchange, here Wes is getting some help from Aunt Kathy. 

He picked this neat light up globe ornament! 

Gia with her Mickey Mouse ornament.

And here's Mike holding the ornament I went home with, after stealing it from Aunt Kathy.  Our tree is filled with funny and bizarre ornaments from this fun family tradition!

The "New" Snoopy House

On Wednesday, December 14th, we got all bundled up and drove over to city hall to see the "New Snoopy House."  The Peanuts display, at a house on Santa Ana street, had been a tradition in Costa Mesa for 44 years.  Until this year, when the house went into foreclosure.  So sad!  But the city of Costa Mesa gave the owner of the house permission to set up the display on the lawn at City Hall in order to continue the tradition.  If you want, you can read the article about it here.

Here are our pictures from last year's visit to the Snoopy House.  I'm really glad we went to see it there when we had the chance!

Happy Birthday Great Grandma!

On December 11th, we went to Downey to help celebrate the 89th birthday of Wes and Cora's Great Grandma!

This pic is from the end of the night when Cora is in some comfy jammies her Great Grandma got for her. 

But this is the cute party outfit Cora came in (her cousin Haley bought it for her).

Great Grandma's house has a bar area and Wes decided it was the perfect little play place.  He tried to get everyone to play back there with him.  Here he is with Grandpa. 

Happy Birthday Great Grandma!

Christmas Crafting

Believe it or not, I/we actually got around to some Christmas crafting:

I made this poinsettia clip for Cora and a couple others for some friend's of hers.

 Wes and I made a classic cotton ball snowman picture.

 He lost interest after the glue and cotton ball phase, so I finished the hat, scarf and hands :)

 Wes got this little lion stick figure guy and some stickers in his Advent calendar so he had fun embellishing him (it's ok if a boy embellishes, right?)  

Since Wes was born, I've been doing a hand print or footprint ornament each year for our tree and for his grandparents.  I saw an idea similar to these "Mistletoe's" on Pinterest but it was for a ceramic plate and only one pair of feet.  I figured it would also be a super cute ornament especially with my kiddo's two different feet sizes.  I planned on laminating them, but ran out of time.  I thought they would also be cute to hang over a door like real mistletoe.  Is it gross to kiss someone under feet though?   

Here are my ornaments from the last couple of years:

2009 was foot prints in ceramic.

2010 was sewn felt hand prints.

A Right Jolly Old Elf

We took Wes and Cora to see Santa at Crystal Court on December 12th (boy am I behind!) and opted for the family shot.  Santa reached out for Cora, but I said we all wanted to be in the picture.  He mentioned that I was a little possessive of her when Mike suggested we get a shot of just the kids and I declined.  Come on Santa, she was just a couple of weeks old!  But he was a great looking Santa and very friendly, so I'll forgive him for that one :)  

These are scan's of some pictures my mom took so they're not very clear.  She gave me more pics on a CD but I couldn't get them to load and I wasn't being very patient.  Like I said, I'm really behind!

After seeing Santa, Wes road the train around the giant Christmas tree and we wandered the mall for a little while, then had lunch at Ruby's with Grammy.  Cora was such a good girl and slept the whole time! 

Cora's First Bath

Cora's umbilical cord fell off on Tuesday December 6th, so on Wednesday we gave her her first bath.  She really seemed to enjoy the warm water!

Another reason why we love our new kitchen, her little bath fits perfectly in the kitchen sink.  Though she's growing so fast, this is probably her last bath in the little pink tub.

Musings on Having Two Children

So now that Cora is three weeks old, I've been thinking about how crazy it is that I have two children.  Here are some random thoughts from a mother of two:

- After holding my 7 pound newborn, my 32 pound toddler (who didn't seem all that heavy before) now weighs about 132 pounds.  Holy cow he's heavy!!

- The difference in size between newborn diapers and size 6 toddler diapers is ridiculous.  (Don't get me started on why Wes is still in diapers, we're almost there!)

- The sweetest thing to hear is Wesley saying to his crying sister "Don't cry baby Cora, it's ok."  Though that is usually followed by "Mom, baby Cora barfed on herself again!"  Which leads me to my next thought...

- Laundry....NEVER ENDING

- My mom told me that when she had my brother, she enjoyed the nighttime feedings because it was time she got to spend just one on one with him and didn't have to worry about what I was getting into.  I figured that sounded nice, so I thought I might feel the same way...Not so much.  Though I do have to say, I am cherishing the time spent awake in the middle of the night with Cora since I know this is my last child and the newborn stage (like all childhood) stages, goes by so fast.

- The irony of having a second child is not lost on me...the baby part is so much easier the second time around (I'm not second guessing myself as much as I did with Wes, I feel comfortable with a newborn, I accept that we all have to be flexible).  The difficult part is having a toddler and now trying to figure out how to mesh two separate schedules.  At the end of the night, I sometimes ask myself why I thought having one baby was so difficult!  I guess it's all a learning curve :)

- When your husband is holding your hungry and crying newborn, and he says to her "Hold on, the milk wagon's coming," make sure your two year old is not within ear shot.  It will be repeated...over and over and over.

- Don't let your husband EVER call you a milk wagon!  Tears will follow.

How Lovely Are Thy Branches

On December 5th we headed to Home Depot to pick out our Christmas Tree.

Wes spent most of his time in the tree lot scooping up pine needles and putting them in the trimmings bins.  He kept saying he needed to "clean the place up."  A never ending task! 

We continued our tradition of picking our tree from the ones that were still wrapped up.  Mike picked out two good looking ones and then Wes chose this one.  We haven't been disappointed in a tree yet, and this one is nearly perfect!

Then we headed inside to pick out some poinsettias. 

Wes helping out dad with the lights.

Wes decorating the tree (I think this was the only ornament he actually placed on the tree)

Mike got such a kick out of taking this picture...it's hard to tell, but Cora is spitting up, I have mascara smeared on my face from crying (stupid hormones!) and Wes, though smiling, was refusing to put ornaments on the tree and only wanted to open up all the ornament boxes.  We still had a fun night though.

Big Brother and Little Sister

I wanted to get some pictures of these two in their Little Sister/Big Brother shirts but Wes decided he didn't want to cooperate, so there's only a few that are postable :)

In my mind he's saying "What the heck? This chick is stealing my thunder!"

I took this photo, then Wes started asking "what's this thing on her belly?" and Cora erupted in screams. I didn't realize I'd actually captured him pinching her umbilical cord until I downloaded these photos. Poor baby girl!

But she recovered, and I got one of them making silly faces :)

I had to include this one too, I love this picture of my two kiddos. Auntie Caitlin made Cora this blanket and they both love it!