Merry Christmas in the Feisty house

Christmas was such a wonderful experience this year.  Santa visited the very good S boys, bring A exactly what he asked him for, "A fixed Buzz Lightyear."  He brought E this fun caterpillar--your press down on him and he scoots across the floor.

We went to Church on Christmas morning, and A kept asking when we would have cupcakes and sing happy birthday to Jesus.  We didn't last through the WHOLE Mass, since A got fidgety and E wasn't super happy either, but we did stay through Communion.

The whole family came over for Christmas--Grammi and Grampy, Bepah, Mom Mom, and Aunt Karen were here.  A had a lot of fun handing out everyone's presents, but especially liked opening presents.  His excitement about the day was so exciting to watch and be a part of.

We had a very wonderful holiday around here!

Height

There are a lot of factors by which I measure A's height.  The amount of belly showing tells me he's grown out of his shirts, for example.  Today, he showed us that he can turn a standard light switch on and off.  Without a stool, or the little lightswitch doohickey I bought. 

Long time, no post!

Nearly a month with no posts around here.  Anyway, things are going very well around here as we speed our way into the holidays.

E turns 8 months old today!!  His sleeping habits continue to vary pretty much by day, but today was the first time I was able to transfer him from the car (during his daily daycare run nap) to the crib.  I was shocked, and was on edge the entire time, just waiting for him to wake up, but he slept almost 2 full hours.  This kid LOVES to eat, and there still hasn't been a food he hasn't liked.  He loves to stick out his tongue, and I think this is a signal that he's happy.

He adores his Mommy and brother best, but Daddy gets giggles ALL the time now.  E also adores the cats; taking him to see them will end pretty much any random crying spell.  He's getting very interested in reaching for things--placemats and shoes are his favorites.  E is also getting more and more adept at going from sitting to belly.  Still just the two teeth. 

We now bathe the two boys together in the same bathtub, and it's really funny how different they are in the tub.  A HATES to have water on his head and still SCREAMS when it's time to wash his head.  E, however, is unfazed, even when it goes in his eyes or whatever.  We can squirt him with the toys and he has no problem.  His favorite bath toy is this duck, named Bob:

He loves to hold it and chew on the parts that stick out.

As for Mr. A, he continues to relish the Big Brother role:

We do have some tough times around here with tantrums, and some days take way longer to get out of the house than others, but for the most part, he is a very good listener, is helpful with his brother and around the house, and is a whole bundle of fun. 

We've noticed he is getting so much better with coloring--he holds the crayon nearly perfectly, and is much more controlled than he used to be.  He even is able to color inside the lines.

He is taking karate at school, which seems to have resulted in a love for sliding across floors on his knees.  This is a little bit of a problem at his SOCCER class, when this is his preferred method of going after the ball.  He doesn't really TELL us what happened at karate, but he says he has fun there.

Now that fencing season is here again, we are alone more often than not.  A, of course, really misses Daddy, but we spend E's naptime baking cookies!

He's really into Santa, which means he's always looking for him this holiday season.  He keeps wanting to know if Santa is coming tonight.  He wasn't really into talking to Santa at the mall, and neither boy really got a big smile, but we got a picture with no one screaming so I was happy enough.  This is from Santa's visit to A's school.

This kid is pretty musical.  Play a song once or twice, and he'll be singing along with the chorus.  In fact, he can now sing the University of Delaware fight song.  (I've sung it more times in the two months since homecoming than in the previous 10 years...maybe in the previous 30 years even).