2008 Christmas Memories

Andrew enjoying his "Little People Nativity". He called the Biblical characters by name and enjoyed talking about the Christmas story. He learned several Christmas songs and sang them with us - "Silent Night", "Mary Had a Baby, Yes Lord", "Knock, Knock Went Joseph", and "Jingle Bells", to name a few.

On this particular morning we drank hot chocolate and wrote our first letter to Santa Claus. Andrew would say every time that he wanted Santa to bring him "candy canes" and "Thomas" (the train). What fun memories!

Forrest 1st Christmas! What a blessing to celebrate Christ's birth with our two sons!


Forrest is lots of fun these days - into everything... especially Andrew's toys!

We really had great family time over the holidays - that's always one of my favorite things about the holidays... togetherness!
(I just noticed that in both of these pictures Forrest is looking at Andrew. :) He really LOVES his big brother!)

We loved our visit with Aunt Semmes! Forrest really enjoyed some cuddling!

These pictures were taken in Canton on the square. The boys loved the lights and Andrew and Wilson enjoyed riding the cars and the carousel. This was our 2nd year to go and will definitely be a holiday tradition!

First Hot Chocolate

What snow day is complete without a little hot chocolate?

Andrew loved his first hot chocolate!
He even had a little whipped cream & marshmallows on top. Yum!

Fun in the Snow!

We had a blast playing in the snow at May-May and Bubby's house! We were a little too north to have any snow at our own house, but May-May and Bubby had enough to share with us.

Forrest just took it all in!

Andrew loved making and throwing snowballs with Wilson... a true boy!

Wilson, Andrew, and Bubby made a little snowman, too! Andrew really likes "Frosty" so he was pretty excited about building this little guy!

A little red and white

Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent Thanksgiving Day in Meridian. The boys had a great time playing outside with their cousins and then taking a ride thru the woods with Wilson and me. We even did a little "hunting" - for Wilson's missing arrow, that is! We found it, too.

Here are the boys "pretend" riding the John Deere Gator!

Off he goes, this was the only picture of both the boys smiling!

Andrew riding with cousin Chian - holding on tight!

The day after Thanksgiving with MSU Santa t-shirts on.

Later in the weekend we had lots of fun celebrating May-May's birthday. We had a great lunch, delicious cheesecake for dessert and spent the afternoon decorating the Christmas tree together!! What fun!

Andrew LOVES this giant snowglobe at May-May and Bubby's house!

A cute "Bratley" picture! I love my sweet family.

Rebecca took this picture of me and Wilson. :)


The Bratleys again, plus the GRANDsons!

Andrew helping May-May blowout her candles! He sang Happy Birthday to May-May this year - that was his first person to be able to sing Happy Birthday to! It was very special for him and for her!

Elizabeth, me and the boys
Mom bought these cute Santa t-shirts for me and Liz, and we didn't plan to wear them. How funny that we both had them on!

Not far behind...

So I mentioned in my last post about Andrew growing up. I really feel like Forrest is not far behind. Clapping, crawling, eating, pulling up, "talking", playing with toys (especially whatever Andrew plays with) ... what a big boy! Here are a few pictures of my sweet boy from the last few weeks.

pulling up on EVERYTHING! and smiling lots, too, of course!

He loves playing at Andrew's train table!

Andrew is having to learn to share - it's a hard lesson. :)
This morning I kept hearing... "Mama, Torrest pulling my train apart!" "Mama, Torrest pulling track apart!" Hearing Andrew talk about it is the cutest thing to me. I guess it's not so cute to him, it's serious business!

This is from a few weeks ago. The first time I found him pulled up in his crib after a nap. I'm sure to pull the side up from now on!

Loving his food! He's also loving his puffs and other finger foods.

Growing up

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Andrew is looking so much older to me lately. I don't know how much longer he'll let me dress him in a longall. I wanted to take a few pictures even though he really wasn't interested. Love this boy!

8 months!

Forrest is growing up so fast! In the last 2 weeks, he has begun crawling and pulling up - and as Wilson said, "just in time for the holidays!" No longer are the presents under our tree safe. The few that I wrapped last week have already been unwrapped by our little fellow. Funny that I thought Andrew might be extra curious about the presents under the tree this year and try to unwrap them. It didn't even occur to me that Forrest would be the one causing trouble. :) Maybe it was those presents that really motivated his crawling!

He's already quickly disappearing down halls, into rooms, and under tables. He's definitely got us on our toes! I had forgotten how this stage calls for you to be extra, extra attentive! Between him getting around fast, pulling up and wanting to put EVERYTHING in his mouth, I'm constantly pulling things out of his hand or mouth or picking stuff up off the floor before he can get it there. The dog food, Andrew's toys, the door stop thingys, paper, magazines... whew - the list is endless!

Forrest has also begun talking more the past few weeks. It's really cute to hear him and Andrew "talk" back and forth. It amazes me how many of their sounds and especially their laughs sound so much alike! So cute! He's also learned to clap. This is really one of my favorite things to see - a smiling Forrest, clapping!

It's going to be such a fun Christmas with these two!

Yee Haw!

Our niece, Alexa, celebrated her 4th birthday with a Horse & Hayride party! We had a great time, and of course, Andrew loved riding the pony. He was able to have a lot of turns so he was a happy boy!

The Birthday Girl!

He was serious about riding the pony - no smiling for the camera. :)

Forrest looked like he was right at home and ready to go! Don't worry - we just took a couple of pictures and then he was off.

Forrest did have some fun quality time with Uncle Greg!

Enjoying the party! Wilson, Forrest, Andrew, and Papaw

A few fall photos

It's been a fun fall with the boys. Andrew has been feeling SO much better - praise God! After he had his tonsils and adenoids removed and started his allergy medications, he's only been sick once and that was when he had pneumonia. That was not a fun week, but since then he's been well! He's also been sleeping good. Every morning when he wakes up, one of the very first things out of his mouth is "Mama/Dada, I sleep good." Bless his heart. Wilson and I really think that this is the best he's felt in his 2 years of life. Thank the Lord that he is finally feeling well and sleeping at night.

The fall has been full of lots of activities and fun. These are a few things that I have missed in previous posts...

• Making Turkey cookies for "school". Andrew LOVES going to "school". He is so active and loves going to play with his friends. He's also starting to really enjoy helping me in the kitchen. He was all about the sprinkles for these cookies!
  

• Playing in the leaves! Our sweet neighbor, Caroline, came over to play with us one afternoon. She showed Andrew how to gather the leaves and throw them in the air. Forrest loved watching what they were doing and playing with the leaves himself.
  

• Freedom Fest. We love Madison and the great things it offers for families. Every October we enjoy Freedom Fest. It was fun to watch Andrew enjoy more activities this year. His favorite was definitely the pony ride. He was thrilled to ride the pony and cried when he had to get off! He also loved walking around with John Keil. We saw our friend Lemly there, too!