"Dollar Dollar City"

Over Thanksgiving (I know, I know...I'm way behind), we joined all of my family at the lakehouse.  While there, we made a trip into Branson to do some shopping and go to Silver Dollar City.

For some reason, Caleb insists that it is actually called "Dollar Dollar City".  We don't really correct him because we secretly love it and think it's cute.  :)

We had a great time at the lake, in Branson, and especially at "Dollar Dollar City."  We went at night to see the 8 million Christmas lights display (or something like that).  It was wonderful, as always.

Happy boy!

At Rick's Hard Luck Cafe with singing servers!

Caleb got his first serenade...

And then we literally bumped into Santa in the Christmas Store. 

Caleb was amazed.  I was too!   He was just about the best Santa I've ever seen!

Kevin, Caleb, Santa, Chris, Noah, Brad (behind Caleb's shoulder) and some creepy guy on the far right...

My sweet siblings

Silly boy!

All bundled up for a chilly evening at "Dollar Dollar City"

Sweet, content baby!

The amazing interactive Christmas tree...Caleb was quite dissapointed when our Christmas tree at home didn't play music and light up like this one!

Kevin, Caleb & Chris doing the teacups

On the elephant ride

Mom, Chris, and Noah

Noah in his new PJ's at the lakehouse.

Thanksgiving Day

My little turkey!

these boots were made for walkin'...

*My mom informed me that I shouldn't post the picture I originally had on the internet...she's probably right.  I'll try to take a different picture of Noah walking in his boots in the near future.*


Caleb and Noah both got a pair of matching boots for Christmas.  And, well, I just couldn't help myself from taking a cute baby bottom in boots picture!

This picture also goes to show what a steady walker Noah is.  I can't believe how well he is walking already!  Unlike Caleb (who must get his grace, or lack thereof, from me), Noah rarely falls down.  He can stand up by himself in the middle of a room and is as confident as can be.  It's so fun to see him tottling around...though his days of tottling are few!

Santa

Caleb was thrilled...Noah wasn't.  So I stuck a sucker in his mouth as fast as I could and we snapped the picture. Oh, and the fan that cools Santa was blowing right on Noah's hair.  Hello there, Alfalfa! 

Christmas Tree Decorating

Decorating the Christmas tree together as a family is a tradition that my family always did growing up.  Each year, my mom would buy us a new ornament significant of something in our lives from that particular year.  Even now, my mom waits to decorate the tree until we can all be there to do it together.  I love getting to hang up our ornaments that we made forever ago.  I love that my Mom would rather have an eclectic blend of ornaments on her tree (many of which were handmade and hideously ugly) rather than a fancily decorated tree.  And I secretly love that my brothers always try to do something to make my construction paper gingerbread man I made in 2nd grade somehow inappropriate.

I want to continue this tradition with our little family as well.  Caleb got a Veggie Tales ornament this year because this is the year he fell in love with Veggie Tales.  Noah got a "Noah's Ark" ornament because, well, his name is Noah and it was cute.  If I would have been thinking, I probably would have gotten him a dog ornament since he loves dogs so much.

A few weeks ago, we pulled out all the ornaments and decorated the tree with the boys.  We only had one ornament casualty...which wasn't too bad for an almost 3-year old and 1-year old heavily involved in the process.  :)

Here is my favorite picture of the night...

I guess Caleb's jeans are too big. :)

And you might notice that we have an artificial tree (yuck!).  I am very much of a real Christmas tree lover!  But we thought since Noah puts EVERYTHING in his mouth, we would be safer putting up the artificial one my mom got for us at a Black Friday sale last year.  And in fact, we planned to have a live, planted tree this year like we did for Caleb's first Christmas.  We do have a planted Christmas tree, it is just about 3 feet tall and currently residing on our front porch.  :(  We couldn't find any larger ones. 

I will admit that I love the ease of putting up an artificial tree.  No stringing lights (my least-favorite part of Christmas-tree decorating)!  Yay!  But the smell of a fresh Christmas tree will win out next year (I think).  :)

Noah playing peek-a-boo with the ornament holder lid.

The majority of our ornaments were placed at the bottom of the tree by you-know-who. 

This is his "smile" these days.

Oops.

Happy memories...and a beautiful tree (at least in my eyes).  :)

Little Firefighters

These boys are getting to be so close!  They love playing together and make eachother laugh.  Just today they both were jumping around in Noah's crib...just giggling and tackling eachother.  It is so fun to see their relationship grow!

"Here...let me help you, Noah."

"That looks good!"

And Caleb's quote for the day (after getting onto him for throwing his Little People Nativity on the floor):  "Jenae, you're stressing me out!"

Hmm...

toy boy

As I was putting Caleb down for his nap, he wanted to get some toys off of his bookshelf.  I promptly told him that he wasn't going to play with toys...he was going to take a nap.

His response, "But I'm a Toy Boy, Mom."

I love this kid!

1-Year Pictures

Here are a few pictures we had taken at Portrait Innovations on Noah's birthday (I know, I know...I'm WAY behind). 

This was the best of the two of them together!

Can't believe this guy is a year-old already!  *sniff, sniff*

Such a happy boy!

Gotta love the Michael Jordan tongue...

I would ADORE this picture if it wasn't on the horrid red backdrop.  Anyone want to photoshop it???  I need to learn to speak up during these photo sessions.

Again...love!

This was the best picture we could get of the two boys TOGETHER on the Christmas backdrop.  And...I can't figure out how to turn it the right way...so just turn your heads to the left.  :)

SO HAPPY!

Love this one...

Sweet boy (who has since had a haircut...thank goodness)

Hmmm....

One of my favorite!

My other favorite...he looks like he's up to something in this one!