Santa, Songs, and One Spoiled Kid

Christmas was fun this year. It was the first time that Ethan was aware of the season. It was so much more exciting to see Christmas through the eyes of a child again. Eric and I made him watch all the old Christmas cartoons and movies we used to love as kids and tried to shove all the traditions that we love down his throat :) . This was also the first year where he actually wanted stuff for Christmas. Which means we totally spoiled him. Hopefully we can tone it down a bit next year.

This has been Ethan's favorite Hymn this season:

(He breaks into Portuguese on the last line because that's how Daddy sings it)

We opened presents in three different waves. The first wave:
Christmas morning at Grandma's house in Orlando.

Ava looked like this the whole trip. She was and is still feeling sick. She has had to be in my arms at all times this week

The Second Wave:
Christmas evening with all the family
Grandma Ursic sure knows how to spoil kids too. We all made out really well!

The Third Wave:
The day after Christmas at home.

Did I mention we spoiled him? All I can say is Santa shops on Craigslist.

Christmas Time

We got to see Santa at the Christmas party Saturday night. Ethan has been a little apprehensive about the whole concept of Santa. He's even asked if Santa can just leave the presents on the doorstep instead of coming in the house. Knowing this, I had been preparing Ethan all day for the dreaded event of sitting on Santa's lap. We talked about what was going to happen and that he could tell Santa that he's been a good boy. He even decided that he was going to tell him he wanted a big dinosaur with batteries for Christmas. (the first I'd heard of that present by the way-- back to Walmart I guess) I even pulled out the great parenting technique of "if you sit nicely on Santa's lap and smile, you can get a candy cane"... because, let's face it, I wanted a cute picture. But when we walked in the room I said lets go sit on Santa's lap. Ethan yelled "no". People started to laugh. Ethan started to cry. People laughed more. Ethan cried more. Finally, after a few minutes (and a cupcake from the Primary president) he agreed to help me put the babies on Santa's lap. So here's what we got:

It doesn't look like the babies want to be here

This one's a little better

9 Months

The babies hit their 39 week milestone. They have now been on the outside as long as they were on the inside... so to speak. For some reason, I feel like that's an occasion to mark. So here are a few pictures.

Here's Zach getting excited for the monkey bread in the oven. It smelled really good.

He got baby food instead. Sorry buddy.

We all had a rather messy dinner.

Ava... I don't know how she does it--I promise I don't have clothes strewn about the house all the time-- but somehow she always finds a sock to crawl around with. Any sock. Usually a kid's sock, but any one will do. I've seen her steal them when I'm folding laundry, but she must have a secret stash somewhere. It's the funniest thing. She'll be playing in the other room, and then come crawling around the corner with a new sock in her hand. She'll hang on to it all day too. Don't worry, they are always clean socks. I don't know what she loves about them. It's a mystery.
Zach loves his bottle. If Ava has a bottle and he doesn't, he'll crawl right over to her and snatch it out of her mouth. Sometimes he does this even when he has his own. They both steal pacifiers from each other all the time too. It's pretty funny.

The Kiddos

Finally Some Halloween Pics

Ethan really wanted to be a lion this year. So we decided to do a jungle theme. Zacky is a monkey if you can't tell.

Yes, I think this is the cutest elephant ever.

Ready to fill his pumpkin
We went around the neighborhood with some friends from Church.

Happy Halloween!

Ethan at work

Daddy often works at the computer with a book nearby. The other day Ethan grabbed his baby Elmo book and announced he had work to do. Later that day I got on the computer and found this typed out:



The / equals a ? because they are on the same key and i means l because the i key looks like a l.

Also, today we made a Mickey Jack-o'-lantern in honor of our Disney trip

Disney World

With Eric on vacation we finally made it down to Orlando for the first time in 10 months. Eric’s mother watched the babies and we took Ethan to Disney World. The weather was beautiful (mid 70s) and we had a really fun time. Ethan probably liked the racing cars the most. He also liked Soarin at Epcot, but will not admit it.