New Year's Cocktails - Family Style!

So as I mentioned in yesterday's post, we chose the somewhat lame route for New Year's Eve. After a very low key day, we made a special dinner at home. Steaks with parsley potatoes and sauteed spinach for the adults.....and fish sticks and tater tots for the little man. This is quite the treat for him and he relished the opportunity.....4 fish sticks and several servings of tater tots later, Paul was pretty happy. The big treat of the night was a special dessert.....Root Beer Floats!

Aside from a mistaken sip from one of our sodas a while back, Paul has never had soda before. We weren't sure how he would react to the carbonation. Overall, he seemed to enjoy it. I must admit that little things like rootbeer floats are so much more fun through the eyes of a 2 year old.


Family style cocktails times 3.......


First sips captured on video.....




Giving his cup the stink eye....had to check it all out!

Slurp, slurp, slurp.....

Big bite of ice cream........

Earlier today we gave Paul a new pair of slippers.....Lightening McQueen of course. He was digging them for sure!

Hi Lightening!

And because life is not always quite as rosy as our blog pictures typically portray.....our little man looking a little ticked off. Not sure why and I am sure that he recovered quickly - but this is proof that we DO have our moments.

As we look back over the year that was 2010, we experienced LOTS of life changes. We are blessed to be healthy and happy and love the fact that we are all together. Here's hoping that 2011 brings us a referral for Baby Sister and lots of other happy times. We wish much love and happiness to all of our friends and family. Special happy wishes to Paul's foster family in Korea.

The Eve of New Year's Eve

I have a confession.....we are lame, lame people and we dislike going out for New Year's Eve. It's not that we don't like to have fun, but the crazies that go out on New Year's are quite the deterrent for us. Soooo, instead we decided to go out tonight. I know, lame....but we had lots of fun.

We took Paul to a hibachi restaurant - he was mesmerized by the show that was the chef cooking our food. The fire seemed to scare him a little, but who can blame him!
He LOVED the dipping sauce and chopsticks are always a hit with him.

After dinner, it was off to the ice cream shop for a sweet treat. Paul and daddy were goofing around while we waited to order.

Paul wanted "pink" ice cream - so he got strawberry with sprinkles.

BIG BITE with a little help from big daddy!

The look of determination as he gets a spoonful.

YUM!

Isn't this how everyone gets the last little drop of ice cream out of the bowl?

All of the pictures and videos in this post were taken on my new phone....Jason redeemed himself with a super fun gift after a very practical birthday gift this fall. The phone rocks and the camera is much, much better than my previous phone. Overall, the quality is decent and certainly easy to use in a pinch. We'll still use our normal camera for most of our picture taking needs, but the phone is a nice alternative.

I have a few random videos from earlier this week that I just have to share. On Monday, Jason and Paul picked me up from work and took me to lunch. Paul ate insane amounts of pasta at the restaurant - one noodle dipped in sauce at a time!

Paul seems to be singing constantly these days. It's cute to see him remember all the words. One of his favorites right now is singing his ABCs. I caught him on video singing and while it isn't the clearest of his versions, it is darn cute to see his head bobbles along with the song!

We awoke this morning to a very loud rendition of Jingle Bells....it was spot on and VERY loud. No video of it, but Jason and I were both laughing pretty hard. We'll see what tune provides our wakeup amusement tomorrow!

The magic of Christmas - 2010!

After all of the anticipation over the last month or so, the day finally arrived. What a glorious day to celebrate the birth of Christ. We had a great day today just spending time with the 3 of us. After a fun-filled and jam packed weekend last weekend to celebrate with our families, it was a nice change of pace to spend some quiet time together. We stayed in our pj's all day long....love that.



Here is the calm before the storm. Santa brought Paul a new racetrack with battery powered cars.



This is a long video, but for you die-hards I know you will enjoy it.







Someone was pretty excited about his new toy! He didn't even know where to start.

Checking out his stocking.....

What else is in there?!?

Santa's Little Helper was having fun opening his gifts.....

Daddy picked out some play vegetables for Paul's kitchen. These are so cool - they come with a plastic knife and the vegetables are held together with velcro so you can cut them. Our little chef LOVES this!

Here's some live action of the vegetable chopping!

After some serious play time, it was time for breakfast! We splurged and made chocolate chip pancakes, bacon and sweet rolls. Paul had to approve the chocolate chips before they went into the batter.

And then he had to approve the orange juice too......

Obviously the chocolate chip pancakes were a hit!

And then back to playing. This cool truck comes with large plastic bolts and a battery operated screwdriver so our little mechanic can take the truck apart and put it back together again.

The whole reason for this celebration is to recognize the birth of Christ. We started our tradition last year of celebrating with a birthday cake. It's a fun way for young ones to get into the real reason for the day. Paul has really enjoyed hearing the Christmas story this year and has been talking about Baby Jesus a lot. He was pretty excited about the cake and the singing of Happy Birthday.

Here's a shot of the cake before we dig in.

Paul joined us in singing Happy Birthday.....cute!








Who needs a stinkin' spoon?!?

It was a wonderful weekend filled with much laughter and fun. We are blessed to have each other and we look forward to future Christmas celebrations when we become a family of four.

'Twas the Day Before Christmas

We are officially ready for Christmas to arrive.....we had a fun Christmas Eve filled with lots of choo-choo playing, snow-filled fun and great food! Here's the family right after we returned from evening Mass.

Jason smoked spare ribs today and we had a killer dinner! After dinner, it was time to get ready for Santa and his reindeer to arrive at the house.

Paul got the celery ready for the reindeer.

And then it was time for the cookies for Santa.....he didn't even steal a cookie for himself!

And finally we knew that Santa would need some milk to go along with his cookies.

We put them right by the chimney where Santa can't miss them!

And then Paul did a somersault to celebrate!

The little man was pooped out and went right to bed - didn't even want books tonight! We got everything ready for the morning and then crashed on the couch to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We've spent the week watching all of our favorite Christmas movies.

We are really looking forward to celebrating Christmas tomorrow. We don't plan to go anywhere, so I am sure there will be a lot of play time with Paul's new toys and maybe another round of fun in the snow.

Happy Christmas Eve everyone!

Snowy Day - The Maya Version!

Maya had so much fun in the snow today, she needed her own blog post! Maya is definitely a winter dog and gets so frisky when it snows. She loves to catch snow balls in her mouth. She had a ball today!

She's the best snow loving big sister EVER!

Snowy Day - The Paul Version!

So we FINALLY got a decent amount of snow today.....and I can't imagine a better time for it to come! We will definitely have a white Christmas this year and we are so lucky because we don't have to travel anywhere this weekend. It was mid-30's and no wind so it was actually pleasant to spend some time frolicking in the snow with Maya and Paul. We spent about an hour outside just before lunch and we all had lots of fun.

Here's a shot to show you how much snow we got today.....just the right amount of the light and powdery snow!
We have the perfect hill in our backyard for a 2 year old to practice his sledding skills. Paul has never been on a sled before, but we knew he would love it. Here we are trekking up the hill to take the inaugural run. The first time down he rode with Momma and after that he was a big boy on his own.

Not sure who looks like they are having more fun.....

Here's the action shot of his first time on his own.....

Daddy got into the action too!

On his 3rd run or so, Paul took a turn at the bottom and face planted in the snow. He was totally fine but clearly didn't like the snow in his face. Daddy and I were both laughing pretty hard at the faces he was making.

After he moved on from the sledding, Paul decided he needed his play set pulled out for a little snowy sliding action. First he had to clean off his slide.....

Then he had to clean off his fort platform.....

And then he needed to haul his mower up to the platform to clean it off......it was funny to watch how methodical he was about getting that mower up the slide and onto the platform.

And then it was time for some snowballs and an attempt at a snow angel. The snowballs were fun, but someone didn't like the snow angel part.

What a fun way to kick off Christmas Eve!