Christmas Day

I spent several months under the illusion that I could make the trip to Chattanooga for Christmas, even though I knew I was going to be over 40 weeks pregnant.  A couple weeks beforehand, I was brought to the hard reality that that would be asking way too much of me and of the boys.  Eamon was having sporadic times of bad sleep and I was waking up a lot.  Christmas is not exactly the most restful time and adding traveling onto that was just asking for trouble.  If I had gone into labor, I would have been totally worn out!

So Patrick and I made the hard decision to stay at home.  The Jemisons were all extremely understanding and I'm so grateful that they weren't upset.  We were able to Skype with them on Christmas eve and Christmas day for opening of gifts and I was glad to see all their faces.

The squirrel I made for Kevin's girlfriend, Meri.  It is in the
logo of her knitting shop.

Family figure I made for Jessica of her
sweet family.

Sarah came before Christmas to stay a night and she wore her matching jammies with the boys, a tradition I started last year and one I hope to keep doing.

Buddy #1

Buddy #2

The attempts at a group shot...

On Christmas eve, we let the boys open one present each and did a video chat with the Jemisons to exchange our ornaments, the Jemison family tradition.

Christmas leggings!  Eamon's and mine match.

Since Will and Paige went to see her family for Christmas, Mom, Sarah, and Henry decided to come to our house for Christmas morning.  We had some good food and opened our presents and stockings.

You can just hear Eamon saying "cheese."

I love this picture.

Group shots!

Henry on his new phone, his present from Mom.

French toast casserole, my own made up recipe.

Connor and Patrick playing WiiU later that day.

We later Skyped with the Jemisons to watch them open our gifts to them, which was super great, if a little loud :)  Kevin and Meri came with Marie the next day to visit and give us their gifts to us.  Somehow I didn't get any pictures of that visit!  We also went to Cracker Barrel together, and Connor fell asleep on top of me!

Connor and Eamon sleep together in
the Totoro sleeping bag that Aunt
Jessica made them.  It is super cute!
Eamon has been sleeping in it ever since.

November

These are pictures from my phone from November.

Cute nappers.

This cheesy grin! <3

Eating noodles at one of our favorite places: Mellow Mushroom

Connor loves pretzels.

Another rare Connor nap.

They love making Patrick ride them around on his back.

I don't remember why, but Patrick
felt miserable.  The boys were taking
advantage.

Everything about this picture...

what a nut!

He rarely falls asleep not in his room, but sometimes naps sneak
up on the best of us.  He was sick too.

Crazy nut at Target.

Sometimes, not a picture taking fan.

Changing out tickets at Chuck E. Cheese.
We were there for a birthday party
and will likely never return.

Eamon on the train.  He loved it,
contrary to this picture.

Eating Chuck E. Cheese pizza.

A trip with the Andersons to the Gardens.

Eamon loves "Baby Wayna."'

Eamon is getting more and more rebellious with naps and bed time.  He's too much to handle sometimes.

He managed to strip completely.
The blanket almost made it.  Patrick
got him dressed without making him up.

Cute guy.

We made these cool ornaments with glitter paper that didn't get glitter anywhere!
The weirdly colored ones were done with Connor's direction.

Thanksgiving

I looked forward to Thanksgiving this year!  First, Connor's school had a Thanksgiving feast where we brought our child's favorite foods.  The teachers made cute decorations and I brought a Chickfila platter since Connor's favorite food was "good chicken," aka fried.

For Thanksgiving, I invited my family to my house so I wouldn't have to travel.  My brothers had come to my cousin's wedding as our family gathering this year, but Myers decided to come down to our house for Thanksgiving too.  They even decided to spend a couple nights with us!.

Arthur, Eamon, and Connor LOVED being together.

Eamon saw me with the big camera and asked to use it.  He took a bunch of fun pictures, and a lot of bad ones.

Boys eating berries.

Cute Connor.

Sweet Arthur.

Eating pumpkin pie.

Cute jammie kids.

Lillian reading to the boys.

The kids played amazingly together.  The boys followed Lillian's directions and they played a long game of astronauts.  The boys sat quietly on chairs while she piloted the ship to an alien planet, after which, the went outside to explore.

Another Eamon picture.

The day after Thanksgiving, we took the Myers Carpenters to the Botanical Gardens.  It was right up Laura's alley with birds and plants galore!

Looking at the model train.

Buddies

These two could be siblings.  Both
so alike... and like me!

Silly buddies.

Thanks for visiting us Carpenters!