Christmas

I hope you had a great Christmas. Despite the entire Meek family being sick, we had a wonderful holiday. My in-laws gave me the greatest gift. They printed my blog in a hardback book. Every post from the last 3 years were in it. The book makes an awesome family keepsake and it's motivated me to keep blogging. If I decide to continue making annual books of my blog I had to hold off on all posts until 1/1/2011 so they would be in 2011 book. So long story short, that's why I haven't posted anything in a while.

Getting back to Christmas....

Christmas Eve, Nonna and Papa Big (Grandma and Grandpa Fearrin) came by to open gifts with the kids.Carter loved opening presents. It's a good thing Ryan preferred watching Carter because he opened all her gifts too!

The night of Christmas Eve we headed to Uncle Todd's for dinner. We spent time playing with toys and hanging out with Aunt Lisa, Uncle Vince and cousins Morgan and Mitch.

Christmas morning they kids woke up to see the house full of gifts from Santa. Carter ripped through the packaging in a matter of minutes. He was so excited about opening presents I think he's still discovering everything he got.

After the presents were open and the toys were played with, we loaded up the car and drove to Evansville to spend the rest of Christmas with the Meek family.

There were even more toys to play with....

And even more family to play with too....The kids (and grownups) practiced their wrestling skills...

and Ryan got to wear her Christmas dress for a total of 20 minutes before we put her to bed.Kyle and I loved watching Carter and Ryan throughout the holiday season. Carter learned about the birth of Baby Jesus and who Santa Claus is. Carter seemed to love everything about Christmas. He loved outside Christmas lights and the giant blow up snowmen and Santa Clauses in almost everyone's yards. He loved Christmas music and can now sing Jingle Bells. He loved decorating the tree and would have preferred to keep it up all year. He had so much fun with his friends and family. I can only imagine how excited he will next year when he's 3. Ryan was as sweet as can be and took the holiday in stride. Although she was sick for most of the month of December she had a smile on her face. All Kyle and I wanted to Christmas were two happy little kids and we certainly got them!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

New Family Member

I want to officially "blog" welcome our newest member to the family, Gaelle Wells.Gaelle, 9 years old, was adopted in November by my sister (Colleen) and brother-in-law (Rick). She was born in Haiti and moved to the United States after the earthquake. Gaelle is a very confident child with a lot of spirit.

Gaelle and her new brothers (Yacob and Ayalkbet) spent some time this month in Indianapolis while their parents were in the process of moving from the family from Tennessee to Bloomington. We spent a couple days getting to know Gaelle and spending time with our nieces and nephews.

At my sister Lisa's house we made Christmas cookies.

Gaelle loved holding Ryan. She is very fond of babies.
We took a trip to Indianapolis to see the circle and play at Jillians.
It was a jam-packed trip full of activities and new memories. All of the cousins had a great time. Welcome to the family, Gaelle!

his and her seats

Front row seating to watch Polar Express

Carter loves that movie, but Ryan may like it even more.

Christmas Cookies

Decorating Christmas Cookies is so much fun. Be sure to get just the right amount of green frosting.
Don't forget the sprinkles!But the best part of decorating cookies is..... EATING THEM!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Let it Snow!

Let it Snow,

Let it Snow,

Let it Snow!

Hello Out There

Oh my has it been awhile. I guess when I don't have pictures to share I'm not much of a blogger. I'm back in photo action, baby! Just in time for the Christmas season.

This is a picture of Ryan sitting in the puzzle box. Kyle and I were cracking up when we walked into the toy room and saw her in there. She is one busy lady who is always on the move. She is cruising the furniture and will stand 5-10 seconds on her own.

Ryan is finally sleeping thru the night. She was waking up several times a night, see us sleeping and demand to be picked up, fed or brought into our bed. This had to stop. So, Mom and Dad have been sleeping on the couches for the last couple of weeks trying to teach her how to fall back asleep without our help. It finally worked. She's sleeping 8:00pm-5am and Mom and Dad are back in the king size bed. Hopefully we can transition her into Carter's room soon.

Carter had croup a couple of weeks ago and he is finally better. No more coughing, runny nose or medicine for his ear infection. Knock on wood our kids can stay health for some length of time this winter. Caring for sick kids is tough!

Lately Carter has been busy playing with his cars and watching the Polar Express. His all time favorite movie. Kyle and I had an impossible finding it on DVD and Carter was NOT going to wait to for us to DVR it this weekend. After checking Wal-Mart, Target and Babies-R-Us, we finally tracked it down at Best Buy (they only had 4 in stock). If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend watching it on ABC Family this weekend. It's a great Christmas movie (for all ages!).

What else, Carter finally went #2 in the potty. I know, how gross to share on the blog, but we are so excited. One step closer in the potty training process. We are ready for it to be over!

Would you like to hear the top 5 phrases around our house these days?

5. Where's baby sister? (said by Carter)

4. Carter, get off the baby/Carter, don't squeeze around the baby's neck/Carter, put the baby down. (said by Mom and Dad)

3. Look at me! (said by Carter)

2. Dad, come here! (said by Carter)

1. What happened, Mom? (by Carter)

Updates

A couple of updates.
update 1. Our beloved camera died a painful death. Yes, I dropped the darn thing and trust me it's beyond repair. Sad to say there won't be a whole lot of pictures to share on the blog for awhile.

update 2. I like to blog because I hope it gives the family and friends that we can't see often an opportunity to see what we're up to. I also use the blog to archive noteworthy things in our lives. For instance I can refer to Carter's milestones and see the similarities and differences to Ryan. It's amazing how much you forget between baby 1 and baby 2! For example Ryan had her 9 mo. check up this week. She weighs 19 lbs. 8 oz. (62%). Driving home I thought, hum, I wonder what Carter weighed at 9 months.....a whopping 23.25 lbs (83%)! He was also getting his upper teeth and was just starting to crawl at that age. Ryan hasn't popped any more teeth since 6 months (she has 2 on the bottom) but she's been crawling for months now!

update 3. After fighting with our health insurance company for 4 months, I am finally on Enbrel for my spondylitis. I was surprised to feel differences in a matter of days after taking the first injection. For at least the last 8 weeks I've had stiffness in my hand that's given me some trouble. There were mornings I couldn't make a fist or had trouble opening a cap on a water bottle. Two days after the shot all that stiffness was gone. Wild! I am slowly weening myself off the prednisone and will hopefully be steroid free in a couple of weeks. It's a little bizarre to have a stock of syringes in my refrigerator and a bio-hazard container in my kitchen. I've never been afraid of needles, but giving myself weekly injections is a little intimidating. In time I'm sure it will become old habit. I'm looking forward to getting back to a normal lifestyle. Hopefully the drug will work great and this will be the last time I blog about any of this.

update 4. Since it was nice today I let Bo out to enjoy the nice weather. Um, that darn cat hasn't come back yet. If you recall he did this last fall....stayed out overnight for two nights. I was amazed he came back. Let's hope he finds his way home again soon. Carter's been asking about him and all I can say is Bo is on a really, really long walk.