More of December

This year we not only made decorated sugar cookies. We decorated Gingerbread men. Johnnie was very particular about the placements of his candy buttons, the sprinkles & the icing. Jimmy happily let me help him & well Joey put all his decorations on just so he could eat them off. It was a fun evening & even Holly enjoyed watching her brothers decorate & create messes. And the boys were very proud & so was I.

Finishing up the Christmas Blogs

Time seems to go faster & faster but I did want to finish sharing our December moments. Christmas Cookies are a tradition in our home. Every Christmas Eve we roll out those sugar cookies, let the boys press out the shapes they want & decorate them any way they want. We always have lots of fun. And Johnnie has taken over showing the smaller boys what to do.

And once the cookie was ready for Santa the boys went outside to play in the leaves. And if you look closely you can see that it's still warm out.

5 Months & A Whole Lot Different

Our girl is 5 months old now. Crazy how fast time flies. I swear she was just born yesterday but no, in fact it has been a very quick 5 months. She is still a little baby but each day she becomes more of a little person with her own great personality. This month she found her feet

started eating solid food

finally started enjoying tummy time

watched her 1st football game with daddy

started reaching for her dangly friends

spent lots of time with her biggest brother (he's still the only one who truly enjoys her company)

& started trying to learn to drink from a sippy cup.

And the most important thing she did this month was made me realize that she is our last baby. There will be no more sleepless nights just enjoying my alone time in the quiet with her so I have to enjoy all the quiet times I get with her now. I need to spend less time worrying about the new wrinkles I have gained & how much older I look & instead just relish each moment I get to hold my baby girl (& boys when they will let me.) Happy 5 Months little one!

Ten on Tuesday- Grandparents Visit

1. What better way to share our visit with Rick's mom & stepdad better known as gramma & grandpa Joe. They arrived 5 days before Christmas & stayed for a week. We had so much fun & already miss them & look forward to our next visit.

2. We were lucky enough to have beautiful weather. Being from Connecticut the weather was a little different than they were used to at Christmas time so we took advantage & spent lots of time outside. Sitting with gramma & Holly.3. Playing on the swingset.4. This visit Johnnie spent lots of time enjoying his grandparents.5. And they also enjoyed meeting their newest granddaughter. And getting lots of cuddle time.6. Lucky for us they celebrated Christmas with us. And they helped make the holiday so special for the kids. 7. Holly felt a little under the weather & gramma with her special touch was able to soothe her to sleep sitting on her lap.8. Johnnie was really excited to show gramma his newly acquired writing skills.9. The last morning of our visit took us to Manhattan Beach to enjoy one last breakfast before gramma & grandpa Joe had to catch their plane back to the cold. I kept trying to get a photo of Rick & his mom alone but Johnnie really wanted to be in the photo & I'm so glad because I love how happy he looks here.10. And the final photo taken on their visit was Johnnie sandwiched between them which is exactly where he wanted to be. Miss you both already!