Meeting Ady!

We finally made it over to Matt & Jenn's to meet little Ady!  She is already 5 weeks old, but still very much a cuddly newborn, so I was able to get in my fix for a while.  :-)  As expected, Kate was fascinated and wanted to be with the her the entire time.  Well, except when her fascination turned to the cats who kept eluding her with their stealth-like moves.  We talked about it, and realized that Kate had never been around a cat like that before.  She'd seen cats, but definitely not inside cats.  She was quite intrigued.

Back to Ady...  Kate wanted to hold her as soon as we got there, but thanks to me startling her a bit, she wasn't really having it.  But once Ady was settled, Kate was quick to remind me that she wanted to 'hold baby'.  She absolutely loved every minute of it and loved even more that we were taking her picture with the baby!

































Even when I held Ady, Kate was right there with me, keeping a very close eye on her.

















Of course it took some convincing to get Jackson to get in the picture with us.  When I told him he didn't even have to take his eyes off of The Incredibles, he somewhat agreed.

















Sean had his turn with sweet Ady, too.  She seemed quite comfy napping with him!

















It was so good to finally meet the little angel!  We're starting to have quite a team of babies in our circle of friends.  Let the good times continue!

Christmas Adventures - Part 3

We were all on Santa's nice list this year -- even though some in this house may have been closer to borderline naughty than others.  Since it was a busy couple of days, it was no surprise that Jackson was a little sleepyhead Christmas morning.  But once Kate woke up, we all went in to his room and it didn't take long for him to be racing down the stairs to see all the loot Santa left behind! 

Jackson needed about 3 and a half minutes before all his presents were opened and he was surrounded by a mountain of torn wrapping paper.  

Kate, on the other hand, needed a few minutes to enjoy each gift before moving on to the next.  She was so excited about her coloring table and would've been happy spending the rest of the morning with a coloring book and some markers!

Jackson got a Playmobil police station along with a few other Playmobil pieces, including fire and rescue teams.  According to Jackson, Santa was 'AWESOME!'.

No, these aren't pictures from Halloween.  They just couldn't wait to try on their new dress-up clothes!

Jackson was super excited about the gift he picked out for Sean.  It was village-type figurine for him to put with the train set under the tree of a man on a riding lawn mower!  He was so proud of his gift!

And Kate gave him a little girl building a snowman -- she was pretty proud, too!

Jackson and Kate gave me a squirrel feeder.  We love watching the birds out back every morning and now we can watch the squirrels, too!

By mid-morning, Kate still had unopened presents.  Maybe that was her strategy -- extend the unwrapping so she can enjoy the fun for longer!

And then it was finally time for stockings, which to Jackson meant the possibility of some CANDY!

Chocolate!  Oh yeah!  Just what he was looking for!

Kate was pretty stoked about some candy, too, but I think she was equally excited about her new toothbrush and toothpaste.  Hey, I'm not complaining - the kids may love candy, but they also love brushing their teeth.  I'll take it!

So, that was about all the celebrating we did on Christmas Day.  For the first time in my 30 years, I missed Christmas lunch with my Grandma.  It was a very hard decision to make, but my sweet Kate was still not back to herself and we needed to give her some much needed rest.  I know we did the right thing, but it was still tough not being there to celebrate with the Jackson crowd!