Christmas 2013

Oh what fun Christmas was with a 2 year old this year! Drew still didn't fully understand, but for the most part he was really in to it. We read "The Night Before Christmas" and "The Christmas Story for kids" every night leading up to Christmas. He loved to point out Santa Claus in the first one and Baby Jesus in the second one. I loved to hear him say "bay cheesus" and point to Mary and Joseph. He still asks to read "bay cheesus" every night, but after he met Santa Claus, he stopped asking for "The Night Before Christmas". Ha! He talked about Santa the entire way to see him. He told us Santa was nice, that Santa says Ho! Ho! Ho! and that he wanted to set on Santa's lap. However, when we turned the corner and he saw him, he was definitely not a fan. On the way home he told us that Santa was scary and then later that night I asked him to tell me what Santa Claus says and he responded with "walk away Sanka Cwaus!"....

Christmas Eve was just the three of us and we started our own little tradition. Andy grilled steak, we made cookies for Santa and just had a quiet night at home.

Once Drew was in bed, Andy and I got to work getting his gifts together for Christmas morning. Since this will be our only Christmas in the rent house, I wanted to make sure I included a picture of the set up and where we were on Drew's second Christmas.

Drew's big gifts were a train table and a tricycle. He wasn't sure what to think when he came down stairs. Watching his face put it all together was pretty cute! He immediately went to the train table, but it only took about a minute before he wanted on his "mycycle". He was so fascinated with those two things that he didn't open all of his presents and stocking from us until the night after Christmas.

He finally tore in to a few packages and we got some "oh wow's" and enthusiastic "what is that's". 

After we finished Christmas morning at our house, we went over to my parents house for lunch. This is a newer tradition as well and we love it! Mimi goes above and beyond to make it a perfect day. She even put out a place setting for the kids. How cute!

Marlowe was cute in her apron and oven mitts..

And Poppy was pretty cute in his new headphones too!

Thought this was a sweet picture of Uncle Lance and Drew playing with his new wooden train. Drew thought he needed to be eye level with it to make it move.

Mimi and Poppy bought Drew a new pair of tennis shoes. I am pretty sure I have talked about the favorite red shoes that he was so obsessed with. Well,  I think we finally have a replacement. He opened these and immediately put them on! He hasn't asked about the red shoes since then! Whew!

Drew got this pillow for his Mimi. Couldn't be more true! She is too good to us and we couldn't be more thankful!

I wanted to add this next picture, because it is the only clip of a picture I have of Drew in an actual Christmas outfit. He wanted that shirt off as soon as he walked in the door. 

And, I couldn't leave out our family picture in front of Mimi's tree..

Later that afternoon, we headed to Berryville to see Andy's grandma and do Christmas with that side of the family. We draw names for that Christmas and Drew got a fun little steering wheel from Aunt Dessa, however, I think he enjoyed his QT with the Emerson girls even more. They love him so much and the feelings couldn't be more mutual. 

We had a few other Christmas celebrations before Christmas day. One weekend we spent the night at Andy's mom's house to celebrate with her. He got a cozy coupe car and loved hanging out with Uncle Tim and Daddy while they put it together for him. Doesn't he look so big here?

He also loved hanging out with all the girls...

This picture was the next morning as we were getting ready to leave. Could these two be any sweeter? 

One other family Christmas we went to was my mom's side of the family. We get together on a weekend close to Christmas with her brother and their family every year. We were too busy playing Dirty Santa for me to get any other pictures, but I was impressed with GleeAnna's skills in holding both of these boys at the same time. 

We truly had the best Christmas! We are so very blessed with the best family and friends to celebrate with and I'm so thankful that Drew gets to grow up with all of these memories and traditions. 

Drew is ALMOST Two Update

I am so far behind on our blog! We have been crazy busy over the last month. We sold our house and have been packing, moving and getting settled for the last few weeks. We will be renting a house for 6(ish) months while our new house is being built. At this moment, we are just as exhausted as we are excited! I absolutely cannot wait to get in to our new house, but my goodness, I completely underestimated how insane it would be to move with an almost 2 year old. I will say, Drew has done really well with this transition. Something I was worried about and obviously shouldn't have been! 

Because it seems like it has been so long, I think it's time to do another Drew update. We are under four weeks of turning TWO. I'm pretty sure this second year went by faster than the first year. And we have had a ton of fun! At almost 2, Drew is:

• 99% potty trained (in both areas). He has done so, so good this last month. We have been working on it since he was 21 months and he would have good spells and bad spells, but he has gotten pretty hard core here lately. He has surprised us several times... sitting through 2 hour car rides, asking the lady in the nursery at church to take him to the bathroom when we had put a diaper on just in case, etc. He really makes a big deal about it now too. He will run out of the bathroom with his arms in the air yelling "i peed! i peed!" This past Sunday at church, we let him sit in "big church" with us because they had the kids Christmas play. He was being pretty quiet, so after the preacher started his sermon we let him stay in there with us. About 5 minutes in, he proudly (and loudly) announced to us "i nee poop!"
• Very independent. He is completely dressing himself, except for his shirt. He puts his own underwear, pants, socks and shoes on and is really good at it! He has even started getting particular with what he wears and wants to pick out his own clothes and shoes. It is almost always sweat pants, a long sleeved t-shirt and these cheap red tennis shoes that I am so ready for him to outgrow! We have shed some big tears and had some big fits to wear these red shoes. Most days I don't fight it and let him wear them with whatever else he has picked out, but there are times that the red shoes just won't work! I keep checking the toe of them to see if we've had any progress... we're getting close.
• Counting to 20, but usually only goes to 16 by himself.
• Singing his ABCs and is getting better and better at recognizing the letter when he sees it. He doesn't have all of them, but he's very close.
• Speaking in full sentences that are hilarious... "i want off my jacket"... "where is duke? right daya"... "oh no. i broken it"... 
• Very polite! He almost always says please and thank you when he is supposed to. "goldfish, pwease?"... "taintu, mommy" 
• Very caring. The first time I noticed this genuine concern and caring was a few weeks ago. He was sitting on my lap and I had read something that made me emotional. He stared at me for a little bit and said "mommy, hug?"and gave me the sweetest hug! Talk about a mommy melting moment. He has kept doing it since then. If he thinks someone is sad or mad, he wants to give them a hug. He has also turned this in to a little game. He has started doing things to people he knows he's not supposed to, so that he can immediately give them a hug. He was doing this with his little Mickey Mouse doll earlier. The conversation went something like this "no Mickey. Stop it. Walk away Mickey"... pause... "Mickey, hug? kiss?" 
• Still loves Mickey Mouse. This and basketball "backetbow" are the only two things he will request to watch. He knows all of the characters names on the show and likes "doofy" almost as much as Mickey. 
• Extremely active. He is constantly sprinting through the house, jumping in place, flying into a pile of pillows face first, using his little golf clubs to hit a ball, playing basketball with whatever he can, climbing up and down the stairs... he is 90 to nothing pretty much all the time! 
• Loves music and loves to sing. While I got ready for church on Sunday, he used my hair dryer as his microphone and serenaded me with Twinkle Twinkle. Baa Baa Black Sheep is still his go to, but it is slowly fading out. He loves Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle, Ring Around the Rosy and his newest one is Where is Thumbkin. I am waiting for the perfect opportunity to get that one on video. The way he sings "here I am"... and moves his little fingers is so cute!

I am sure I will have some to add to this list over the next few weeks, but this is a good start to count down to the actual 2 year mark. He is something else and we feel blessed beyond words! 

Because it is late, I will have to do a picture post later this week. I am too tired tonight! I will end with this sweet picture of the 3 of us with Andy's grandma at Thanksgiving.