Christmas Card Photo Shoot

Why is it so hard to take a good picture of two children at the same time? This was the result of our photo shoot. I should have waited for Dane to be home to help me, but I got anxious and wanted to get it done. Below is a sampling of my quest for the perfect picture. I settled for less than perfect when I lost the crowd. You will just have to wait until they are sent to see the winner!

Trains at Union Station

Last weekend, we went down to Union Station with some friends of ours to see the model trains. Each holiday season, they build this huge display of model trains. Our friends have two kids as well. Aidan is about 4 months younger than Liam and they just had a baby girl over the summer, Maeve. It is nice to have friends with kids to hang out with. Liam and Aidan get along so well and they (of course) both  LOVE trains.

Liam and his friend Aidan looking at model trains down at Union Station. It was so cute they were so excited and walked around holding hands. There was so much to see, they just kept pointing things out to each other.

This was our attempt to take a nice family picture for our Christmas card...as you can see the boys were less than thrilled.

Gavin 11 months!

Dane telling Gavin about the trains

There was even a tree with Thomas ornaments all over it. The boys were jealous that it was not in their houses.

Christmas Decorations and First Snow

Liam entranced with a music box

Gavin seeing snow for the first time (that he remembers)

Pretty exciting stuff

My boys and the Christmas tree

Liam with Santa at the Luminary Walk

Who needs toys when there is tupperware?

We haven't posted in a couple of weeks. Not too much to catch up on. I worked on Thanksgiving so Dane spent it at home with the boys. It was a crazy day at work and needless to say it wasn't hard to come up with a million things to be thankful for, with #1 being that my children were not in the ICU. 

To make up for Dane and the boys missing Thanksgiving, I made a full turkey dinner, stuffing and all, the weekend following. It was a nice night. The boys ate it up and afterwards, we went to the Overland Park Arboretum for a Luminary walk. It was a mile walk through the arboretum which was candlelit. Very nice. There were also lots of christmas lights and decorations. There were carolers and bonfires. We had a great time despite the freezing rain. Liam even got a quick visit with Santa. I wasn't sure how he would do, be he was thrilled to jump on the jolly guy's lap and tell him all of the things that he wanted for Christmas. 

The boys have been doing well. Liam is just hilarious. He is so excited about Christmas coming. Everything is just generic Christmas...."mommy, there is christmas in there. Look at the christmas over there, etc." He talks about Santa everyday. I am sure that some of it is coming from daycare. We are working on potty training with him. It is tedious. He has his good days and his bad. I am working the Santa angle and told him that Santa wants his diapers and that he would bring him underwear in their place. He was excited and then asked if he could have Dora underwear...hmmm don't know how I can pull that off. I am pretty sure that they don't make Dora briefs for little boys. It is a work in progress. Not too much is new with him.

Then there is Gavin. Oh, Gavin is so lucky that he is cute. That poor baby has now had 8 ear infections. The most recent is being extremely stubborn for which he is on his 4th antibiotic in 5 weeks to try to treat. I think that he is going to get tubes. Our life (and his) is consumed with these ear infections, He is miserable, not sleeping and missing day care (which equals missed work/clinicals). He is such a happy guy until it is bedtime. He screams. He screams for 1-2 hrs sometimes. It is heartbreaking. We try to rock him, give him Motrin, rub his back, turn on his music. Nothing works. If you let him cry too long, he bangs on the wall....seriously. When you go in his room, he begs to be held and points to his doorway. What he ultimately wants is to come into our room/bed. We are not letting him. It will only breed bad habits that we do not want to start. So, we are letting him cry it out. We actually turned off the monitor the other night and we fell asleep to him screaming. Once we get rid of infection #8, I plan to seek an appt with ENT to discuss tubes. It is not a perfect science, there are risks, it may not work, but it is all that we have. I feel like we owe it to Gavin to make him more comfortable.  He is close to walking. He takes more steps everyday. Maybe he will be a walker by his birthday...which is just around the corner. I can't believe that he is going to be ONE! It has been a fast year.  

Dane and I are hanging in there. I just ended my semester and have a million things on my to-do list for my break. (what else is new). Dane is just as happy that my semester is over as I am, so he can try to get some serious work done. I have Christmas off so we will hopefully get to see lots of family. I think it will be such a fun year with the boys! Here are some recent pictures:

Gavin on his 1st Thanksgiving

One of Gavin's favorite pastimes is hanging out by the dishwasher. You never know what you are going to find in there. Unfortunately, not only does he have access to the dirty dishes, he has a tendency to go for the knives. 

I don't remember Liam ever playing in the kitchen cabinets. He just wasn't one of those babies. He actually played with toys. Gavin would be happy to live in the tupperware cabinet. He does not require toys to be happy. Because of his love of tupperware, it is as is Liam is reliving his infancy and enjoys spending time in the cabinets with his baby brother. They are pretty funny together these days. 

Maybe this should have been the Christmas card!