White Christmas in Georgia!!

Sorry for the super posting delay...been busy lately but here it is for anyone that is still checking on us!

It's been 128 years but Georgia finally got a White Christmas!!

It snowed late afternoon and night on Christmas and it was so pretty! We got about an inch at Brigette's parents' house and got about 2 inches at our house. Snow stayed on the ground for several days, but didn't cause too many problems, so that was nice. We got MORE snow at the start of 2011...but more about that in another post!

Christmas Fun:




Santa:
Colton visited Santa twice this year. I wonder when they start noticing that Santa is in multiple places and doesn't look the same? The first visit was a lovely Santa at a Christmas Tree farm. He was very nice and was available for free pictures, which was even better! We asked Colton all day if he wanted to go see Santa, and he nodded yes (as he does usually whenever you ask him if he wants to do anything), so that was cute and he did very well sitting with Santa.


This poor Santa, he apparently doesn't know how to smile...he didn't smile last year either. Perhaps it was due to being at the daycare with so many kids? Colton obviously is concerned about sitting with this non-jolly Santa (though Colton actually did better in the photo shoot than any of his classmates!).


We cut down our first Christmas tree this year!! We had a great time playing outside and this farm also had a small animal area, which Colton loved and we got to hear him say GOBBLE GOBBLE again with the turkeys there!! :-)




This is the one!


Poppa gets some help to make sure he is doing it right!



The Y men carrying our Christmas tree! Colton is a good helper!


Hmm, maybe you should do this by yourself Poppa.


Colton really loved the Christmas tree and here he was laying down on the tree skirt and looking up and the pretty lights before we decorated. He did pretty good with not touching the tree for the most part, although the day we decorated it with ornaments he was sleeping and when he woke up it was decorated and he went to touch one and I nicely said, no we don't touch, just look and he cried so hard you would have thought someone hit the poor child!


He LOVED when we turned the lights on and would softly say, "WOW!" when we turned them on. That is one of his new things to say and it is SO cute! He enjoyed looking at the lights in the neighborhood at night on the houses and would be grinning ear to ear and saying, "WOW!" in amazement. Adoorable!


Celebrating Christmas with the Y family




There was mass hysteria with all the kids opening gifts at the same time. Colton spent a lot of time tearing up tissue paper. :-)




Why did we get toys when it was such fun to tear paper and get inside empty boxes?


He also enjoyed playing with the toys the other children got, thought not everyone wanted to share their new toys! This is little Charlotte's toy, she is too tiny to protest on Colton taking it!

Cousin Charlotte's First Christmas!!

Christmas with the L family!

The annual reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas:

Toys? Who needs toys when I can wear Papa's shoes?

Colton's pile of loot, which he did play with in addition to the boxes!


Just hanging out...



Dance with me Uncle Eric!


Christmas Cuteness!!



Uncle Eric gave Colton this cool fishing boat for the bathtub. Colton enjoyed playing with it but also enjoy its use as...


...a drinking device? He has done this numerous times since then...crazy kid!!


New wheels!!


Again with the boxes!!


Colton thinks he is hiding here


Cold day in Athens at Christmas concert!
Colton LOVED the concert and did great for the first HOUR but then it was too much to sit on someone's lap. He seemed amazed by the music and singing, pointing excitedly and then clapping with joy. He thought it was super cool when the other people around us would also clap and would laugh out loud with his sweet toddler joy.


Styling!!


Tubing fun!!


No, we didn't get that much snow. :-) Justin, Brigette and Brigette's brother, Eric, went snow tubing at Snow Mountain at Stone Mountain Park. It was great and going early in the morning allowed us to get in more runs than the lazy folks that came later in the day. :-) We'll take Colton next year so he can play in the kids' snow area.



Hope you are all having a great start to your New Year!!

Greatly Missed

Colton's Great Nana R passed away right before Christmas. Unfortunately, Colton did not get to meet her before she passed. She will be greatly missed by her 10 children, oodles of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We know she is now home where she belongs with Papa R and her parents in Heaven. Scooby-dooby-do!!

Gobble Gobble!

Hee Hee! This is STILL cracking us up!!

Thanksgiving
We stayed at Brigette's aunt's home in NC over Thanksgiving and had a relaxing time together. We even got to go on a date night and see the new Harry Potter flick, which was great!



Fun under the coffee table:


Aside from most of us being sick, we enjoyed the cool weather and despite wishing for snow, we missed it by a few days. Colton could have done without the 5-6 hour car ride...but so could we!

Check out these crossed feet! Relaxing and reading..for a minute at least!


Colton really enjoyed his little table. Eating there was fun but he also enjoyed pushing it and the chairs all over the place.


Funny stuff

Colton has been walking around with his hands behind his back at his waist. You can almost hear him saying, "I'm not doing anything....yet!" It is even funnier when he does it walking backward!

Here are a few pictures of him running after Brigette:



Colton enjoys showing you he knows where his body parts are: Hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, belly, feet, piggie toes. He likes to show you where your's are too! Except for the random eye poking, it is very cute. We are working on arms, legs, and head now.

NO MORE PACIFIER!! We gave up the pacifier over the past few weeks and we are pretty sure it is gone for good. He only used it at nap time or if he was really upset, so it wasn't very often but I'm glad we didn't really have to battle over it. There was a time he would NOT nap without it, but I think "peer pressure" at naptime at school when everyone goes down a the same time has helped him. He normally sleeps 1.5-2 hours at daycare but doesn't always nap like that at home (peer pressure again). One day while we were in NC he went all day without napping and poor thing was SO overtired and cried and hollered...but survived. :-)

If you say anything about shoes, Colton thinks he is going to get to go outside and will run for the front door and either point to or try to pick up his shoes. He will sit down for you to put his shoes on and is so excited. Adorable! He loves to do art at school and the teacher can't believe what a good helper he is (ex. she tried to get the class to help put toys away and no one but Colton seemed to have a clue what she was talking about. He walked around with her and picked up toys and put them in the toy box.) but we know he is usually good about putting stuff back when asked (unless he still wants it, then he runs). When we got home from NC, we had a few groceries we didn't put away and of course, Colton got into the bag the next day. He pulled out a bag of croutons and we watched him walk over to the pantry, open the door and put the bag on the shelf with the other crouton bags!! So crazy!!! Maybe he can help us be more organized!



TMI--we have weaned down to one nursing session per day, night time only. Brigette is determined to stop before the end of the year...but it is really hard to figure out how to do it!! So funny that it was such a hard road getting it going to start with, now I'm trying to figure out how to stop!!

Colton is really enjoying testing boundaries now, especially in regards to getting around the fireplace. We are about to start having some fires and have been trying to keep him away from the fireplace all year but he knows you don't want him to go there and will go back again and again...oh, the fun to come I'm sure!!

(Has anyone noticed how Brigette goes back and forth on the blog between first and third person? Sorry about that, can't ever decide what perspective I'm talking from: us or me!)

We're gearing up for Christmas...hopefully we will pick out a tree this weekend and decorate the house. We are looking forward to enjoying Colton at Christmas and know he will be entertained by the boxes and ribbons and not so much the toys, but he'll get those anyhow!

Wait til you see the awesome hats Colton has for the winter!! Poor kid, at least he is a good sport since hats mean we are going OUTSIDE!! Colton's favorite thing to do!

Brigette and Colton's shadow's