We had several Christmas celebrations. Earlier in the month, we celebrated with Brandon's family in Fort Worth. We spent the night there too. The Christmas tree was full and very pretty. Because of Maggie and Jackson, it took us most of the day to exchange presents. Kaitlyn found a bag of marshmellows and poured them out into a nice, little pile and started helping herselft to one marshmellow at a time. That was pretty funny. The hit of the weekend was to see Maggie dedicated at their church.
We traveled just before Christmas to Kansas City this year in the snow. It snowed on the way, on the way back and some in the middle. We also found out that in Texas they put water in the winshield wiper tank. It froze up and so we couldn't wash the winshield. Thank goodness we had snow. Later, we put some antifreeze in, but it was quite comical that we weren't too prepared for the cold. We stayed with my Aunt Linda and Uncle Butch and their two kiddos - Zach and Kia. I really thought the tough part was going to be the traveling, but the hard part turned out to be naps and going to bed. Kaitlyn was so revved up from seeing cousins, a new house to explore and many more fun and exciting things, that she really had a hard time going to sleep. Jackson on the other hand was still a dream, but he didn't like the pack and play and slept with me in the bed. He took up the whole bed with pillows around him and stretching out.
Christmas Eve was a blast with little cousins running around. There were crafts and stories, too. The older girl cousins told the story of the Night Before Christmas with some special effects. We even took up some Italian traditions for Christmas since the dinner theme was Italian. There was a Christmas log and you write your worries you want to forget on paper and tie them to the log. Then toss the log into the fire to take your worries away. The little cousins exchanged presents and Jackson gave Drew a pretty cool car race track. It was the hit of the party as all of the kids played with it.
Jackson is four months today! I can't believe it. He is growing so much. He is showing signs of getting ready to roll over. He loves to move his legs and laugh with us. He is even ticklish on his sides. He can almost stick his whole fist in his mouth. He is teething already and right now looks like he is constantly hungry. I don't know how many growth spurts this kid is going to go through, ha! His new favorite toy is a green dinosaur and holds on to it a lot. So it used to be Kaitlyn's as mostly all of his toys are Kaitlyn's old toys. However, now he has a lot of new toys from Christmas to enjoy as he gets a little bigger. Yeah!
Kaitlyn just loves her baby brother. She likes to help him play and take pictures of him. She is pretty much potty trained now except that we still have to remind her to go. She still wears a pull up at night, but does wake up dry when she doesn't have anything to drink before bed. Right now, she is in a stage where she likes to cry like Jackson to get attention and we are working hard on patience. I am finding out how much of a softy I am when it comes to them.
This year we plan to get Kaitlyn in dance. We are going to first try out Ballet with her friend Zoe in late January sometime. I hope to get involved with Gymboree with Jackson like I did with Kaitlyn. Then in the spring it will be time for swimming! Yeah, we can't wait to get in the pool.
