Christmas!!

The longer it has been since the last blog post, the less I want to post one. It becomes daunting the amount of stuff you need/ want to mention in order to keep it up-to-date...

Happy New Year! Ruth here. Hope you and yours had a lovely holiday season. We certainly did. Having kids makes it so much more fun! This was the first year that Ayla was truly able to get into it. And not just Christmas day, but the whole season. She enjoyed decorating and snow and opening her advent calendar and eating (a lot) more sweets than usual, turning the christmas tree lights on and off (and on and off and on...) She also enjoyed the fact that we celebrated Christmas alone as a family and then again with the Martins and then again with the Germanns. She keeps suggesting that we have a few more Christmases. We have thoroughly enjoyed her yelling "CHRISTMAS!!" in the sweetest little squeaky voice every time we drive past a house with Christmas lights. We should all have such spirit.

Zeke in keeping with the old Christmas song, got his first tooth for Christmas... well actually two days after. Lately he is our little no-napper. Poor guy. He literally will not take a nap. At all. Ever. Unless you hold him, then he'll sleep all afternoon. You can imagine how willing we are to do that. For being a new born who was a really good sleeper, he sure is giving us a run for our money as an older baby. Still, he manages to keep his spirits up... and ours too. He is such a good natured little fellow. Always willing to give you a great big smile. He is looking more like a little boy the last few days and getting more vocal again. He says Mama to me pretty regularly, especially when something is wrong, he let's out this little whiney "ma. ma." It's very cute. He is still army crawling, faster everyday. You really gotta watch him because he gets to whatever it is he's aiming for a lot quicker than he used to. He is also standing all the time (putting weight on his legs while you hold him).

Ayla's little brain is always working hard. I have seen her trying to understand a lot of different things recently. When things don't go her ways sometimes lately she will say, That's ok. We can just _______ (fill in the blank with an alternate solution)" It's neat to see her learning the skills to adjust and accept. When she was younger she would just throw scream-fests. She also took some time this afternoon to explain to me and Jake that we have to be thankful for what we have and not just always want new things. (She really is listening!!) It was also enjoyable to get to start telling her the Christmas story and watch her start to wrap her brain around it. And when I say "start to" I mean it. the other day she came out of her room wearing princess shoes and a crown and carrying a baby doll. She says to me (referring to the baby doll), "I'm the baby Jesus' fairy god mother!!"