Ho, ho, ho!

What a very merry Christmas we had! Gaga and Papa are/were here, there was snow on the ground (it was the first white Christmas in Dallas in 80 years!), presents under the tree, and more food than I care to admit.

The festivities began on Tuesday when we went to look at Christmas lights. It was so much fun to pile into the car, drink hot chocolate, and look at the most impressive light displays I have ever seen. And the best part was watching Ellie get so excited. She liked pointing out the "'nowman" and "Cole, cole, cole" (Santa, who she gets confused with Old King Cole from her nursery rhyme book). Damian got Ellie out of the car for a closer look a few times and she loved checking out the animated displays. One house had music playing and she stood on the sidewalk dancing for ages. It was really warm so most people were driving around with their windows down; as the cars passed Ellie, we heard several people cry "look at the little baby!" So cute.

On Wednesday, we went to a Christmas Eve eve service at church that was wonderful. We met the Adams family there and Jackson and Ellie had a great time running around after the service. Charlie enjoyed listening to the music and looking at all of the lights and candles. Just what we needed to get into the Christmas spirit! I didn't get pictures of Ellie in her Christmas dress, but here's a picture of Charlie in his finest:

On Christmas Eve, we enjoyed a big meal and got to bed early -- we didn't want to be awake when Santa came, of course!

Gaga and Charlie (see, he really does like the Bumbo!)

Miss Ellie did NOT want to be photographed, but Charlie didn't mind the attention:

We didn't get a picture of the entire spread, but this is the dish/dessert I was most proud of -- a chocolate (and cherry) yule log. And behind it is Damian's awesome centerpiece, which he made from clippings that he got out of our yard -- I had never even noticed that we had any pretty plants around!

On Christmas morning, we woke up to two miracles...Charlie had slept for 8 straight hours (yippee!) and there was snow on the ground! We braved the cold and took the kiddos out for a rare photo opportunity:

Ellie was spoiled rotten with more gifts that she knew what to do with! She opened her first gift (one of the many great books that Papa and Gaga got her) and spent at least 20 minutes "reading" it, without any interest in opening another gift. We finally talked her into checking out a few more gifts, but in the end, it took her two full days to open all of her gifts! I'm sure that next year, when we're dodging flying bows and paper as she tears her way through the pile of gifts without paying any attention to what she's opened, we'll look back on this year's pace with fondness and longing. ;-)

She did eventually notice the super-cool wagon that Shiny Grandpa and Meme gave her and enjoyed climbing in and out of it (and in and out of it, and in and out of it) and opening other gifts from her perch:

A classic Ellie expression:

That night, we had another big meal. Ellie wasn't interested in much of the food (other than the ham), but she loved the crown from her Christmas cracker:
Charlie enjoyed sitting at the table and watching all of the action:

All of the civilized, sophisticated action, that is:

The prince and princess:

Papa and Ellie watching TV:

The finale of the Christmas meal was the flaming Christmas pudding.

Thank you, Gaga and Papa, for spending Christmas with us and making it so special. We would have ended up having Taco Cabana for Christmas dinner if you weren't here entertaining the kids, helping us shop, and doing so much cleaning!

That's the way he rolls

A couple days ago, Charlie started rolling from his back to his tummy! Normally, he just rolls all the way over on his side but then gets stuck when he can't figure out how to roll over his arm. He's still swaddled at night so it makes it a lot easier to get that arm tucked under him and he made his first complete roll at 2:00 a.m., which I discovered when I found him face down in the crib. Very exciting...but slightly less so at that hour. Today, he rolled twice from his tummy to his back, but Gaga is fairly certain that it was luck (I didn't see it) -- we'll see if/when it happens again!

How do they compare?

I took Charlie to the doc today (he has two ear infections) and had him weighed and measured because I've been so curious to see how he's growing. They didn't do the "official" weigh-in (where they strip him down to just a dry diaper), but fully clothed and in a not-totally-dry diaper, he weighs 15 lbs., 10 oz. and he's 25.5 inches long. They didn't tell me what percentile that puts him in, but according to one website, he's in the 25-50th percentile on weight and 50-75th on length, which seemed low until I dug out Ellie's stats; at four months, she weighed 16 lbs., 15 oz. (in just a dry diaper) and was 27 inches long. Guess Charlie has some catching up to do!

I can't find a picture of Ellie at 4 months (I know there are millions of them out there, I just don't have them on my computer for some reason), but here's a comparison of Charlie at 3 months and Ellie at 2.5 months.

So Miss Ellie was definitely a bit more fluffy and, in general, I don't think they look very much alike. It will be fun to see in what ways they end up looking similar and in what ways they look different.

Big boy Charlie

Charlie is getting so big! He sits in the exercauser and the bumbo; not for long, but he's getting stronger. And he really does like it...really.

Ellie's Christmas program

Miss Ellie had her Christmas program at school today. Her class "sang" Jingle Bells at the very beginning and then left -- the teachers wisely figured that they couldn't sit still for an hour! You can see Jackson on the right -- so handsome in his suit!

Not surprisingly, Ellie made a run for it as soon as the teachers were distracted:

We tried desperately to get a good picture of Ellie in her dress, but she wasn't in the mood to stand still. This is as good as it gets. Thanks, Gaga and Papa, for the cute dress!

Charlie was perfectly behaved -- he slept through the entire performance!

Videos, videos, and more videos!

Here are just a few of the videos that we took while in the UK:

The cousins burning off a little energy on the top bunk. Amazingly, none of them fell off!

Ellie giving Grandad a little love:

Ellie discovering that your breath looks like "moko" (smoke) when it's really cold outside:

We went up to York one night and they had a cute fun fair for kiddos. Ellie was so excited to ride all of the rides but once she was on them, she got very still and very quiet...very unusual!

On the carousel -- hope it doesn't make you dizzy!

Charlie demonstrating the "never turn your back on an unfamiliar dog" rule:

Ellie demonstrating the "never turn your back on an unfamiliar appliance" rule:

Video of Ellie's discovery of sugary breakfast cereal:

We didn't take pictures of the shops all decorated for Christmas, but this clip shows a few of them:

The cousins being crazy at Granddad and Grandma Sue's:

Charlie's standard greeting -- all smiles and spit-up!

We also went to a very cool park that had several Christmas-y attractions. We walked through the "Enchanted Woods," which had lots of pretty light displays...and an occasional ogre (guess it's also a Halloween attraction). Ellie really enjoyed making her own soundtrack:

Visiting the Brits

We're back from visiting the Hirst side of the family in a very cold, but very Christmas-y Leeds. We were there for two weeks. The visit was great, but the actual traveling was an absolute nightmare. The flight over was the biggest beating of a transatlantic flight ever (Ellie slept for maybe 2.5 hours total) and the drive from London wasn't much better (instead of taking 3.5 hours, it took SEVEN, which felt like 20 since both Charlie and Ellie cried most of the time). The transatlantic flight on the way back was much better than we expected -- we ended up with lots of extra seats and Ellie even took a little nap -- but it all went downhill when we got to Chicago. Our flight ended up leaving about four hours late, which meant we didn't get home until about 10:30 p.m....nearly 24 hours after leaving Leeds! Given what they had been through, the kids did very well, but Damian and I were ready to drop!

Luckily, the visit was much better than the traveling. We stayed at Nana's house, so we were very well cared for...and we ate like kings! Since her house isn't Ellie-proofed, I was really nervous about being there alone with the kids (Damian had to work everyday), but I only ended up being on my own a couple days. Granddad and Sarah both came over and helped me out -- I don't know what I would have done without them!

This should really be divided into about 5 posts, but since I didn't post anything during the trip, I'm taking the easy way out and just doing one post with a ton of pictures.

Look at those cute siblings:

Ellie loved Nana's phone -- it's the first one that she's ever seen with a cord and dial tone! Her face in this picture cracks me up -- clearly Daddy interrupted an important conversation when he took the picture. I bet we'll see a lot of this expression in about 10 years!

Both kiddos got pink eye while we were there. It was pretty scary to wake up and see that Charlie's eye was swollen shut. He looked like he had been in a fist fight.

Ellie being extra charming in an attempt to avoid going to bed:

One morning, Damian put our breakfast on the table and then went back in the kitchen to work on Ellie's breakfast. When he went back into the dining room, this is what he saw:

Cousin Joseph LOVES his Superman costume and insisted on wearing it for Sunday lunch:

Ellie and Joseph are about 6 months apart, but they acted like twins -- they played well together and they fought well too. At one point, they were watching a DVD and they kept pushing each other out of the way to get closer to the TV. It's pretty funny to watch. Here's a picture of the two...and Ellie's yucky pink eye:

Cousins Thomas and Joseph, Uncle Brian, Granddad, Grandma Sue, and me at Sunday lunch. Now can you see why I wasn't worried about missing Thanksgiving dinner? Lesley makes the equivalent almost every Sunday!

More sibling love:

I tried convincing Ellie that wearing a cozy vest did not mean that she could skip the pants, but she didn't agree:

Nana knitted an adorable sweater and hat (I don't have a picture of it, but it's in one of the videos that I'll post later) for Charlie:

Charlie took dozens of naps on Nana's couch. He was so good -- for the most part, he went right to sleep once he was swaddled, had his pacifier, and his little lovie blanket:

Grandad and Charlie:

Ellie modeling the gorgeous hat and scarf that Nana knitted for her (and Charlie's pacifier):

Nana couldn't stand the hair in Ellie's eyes so she gave her a mid-dinner haircut:

Charlie's first laugh!

In the midst of running around in a pre-flight, last minute packing frenzy, Charlie just gave me the most wonderful stress-relieving gift...his first laugh! He had previously uttered some happy grunts that sounded a bit like a giggle, but this was the first real laugh. So cute! He's definitely ticklish...unlike Ellie who didn't really get ticklish until she was old enough to understand that it was fun to be tickled; and even now, she's sort of selectively ticklish -- if she's not in the mood to laugh, you can tickle her until you're blue in the face and she won't even crack a smile. I don't think Charlie will have the same self control!

Happy boy!

Despite being sick for over three weeks now and continuing to struggle with reflux, Charlie has turned into such a happy little boy! For the most part, he cries only when he's done nursing (he doesn't subscribe to the theory that you can have too much of a good thing) and when he's tired. Other than that, he's full of smiles and coo's.

Ellie loves, loves her baby brother. She likes to keep him company when he's doing tummy time and show him the features of his bouncer. We're still working on what "gentle" and "soft" mean, but we're making progress!

The day the world changed

Just when we were getting comfortable with our routine, it all changed in an instant. I had put Ellie down for a nap and was nursing Charlie as I listened to her chatting away on the monitor. She started to cry at one point, but wasn't terribly upset and I frankly didn't think much of it because she often cries when she's finally about to fall asleep. After a couple minutes of fussing, she went back to chatting away and I finished feeding Charlie. Then I heard a bang and thought someone was trying to break into the house. I raced to the landing and saw no evidence of a break in and found Gracie snoozing away on the stairs -- since she wasn't growling or anything, I thought I had imagined the noise. Almost as an afterthought, I checked Ellie's monitor only to find an empty crib! I put Charlie down, ran into her room and found her sitting on the floor, pacifier in mouth, checking out the contents of her changing table (which she had emptied). I guess she had climbed out of her crib and, judging from the bit of blood on her nose and tooth-shaped mark on her tongue, bit her tongue on the way down, which explains the crying (don't' worry, I feel sufficiently guilty for not checking the monitor when I heard her crying). She clearly got over the pain when she realized that she had free reign in her room!

After checking her from head to toe and explaining that she was not allowed to climb out of her crib because it was very dangerous, I put her back in the crib and told her to lay down and take a nap. I then closed the door, sprinted back to my bedroom and checked the monitor, just in time to see her hook her leg over the top of the crib and start scaling it again! I ran back to her room and told her to lay down again and stay in her crib. Closed the door, checked the monitor and saw her climbing out again! We repeated this cycle about 10 times before she finally gave up and went to sleep. Now I have the volume on the monitor turned all the way up, listening for the first sign that she's awake...and ready to start climbing again!

So much for leaving Ellie in her crib in the morning while we snooze. And what about naps?! She very rarely falls asleep right away -- she normally lays in her crib and sings, talks, etc. until she falls asleep. I have a feeling, that won't happen anymore! Agh!

Dinosaur smoke

Miss Ellie and Prince Charlie have had nasty colds/coughs for the last two weeks so I finally took them to the doctor yesterday. Charlie has an ear infection, but amazingly, his lungs are clear (he sounds horrible!). Ellie, on the other hand, has bronchiolitis/reactive airway disease and has to be on breathing treatments and antibiotics (I'm just glad she doesn't have pneumonia -- they were concerned that's what it was after listening to her lungs, but her oxygen levels are high and she's responding well to the breathing treatments, so they're pretty sure it isn't pneumonia). The little mask for her breathing treatments has a dinosaur face on it so during her breathing treatments, we tell her it's dinosaur smoke -- she's big into smoke right now because Daddy has been teaching her how to blow out candles (practicing for her birthday, I guess).

Daddy held his breath for an impressive 15 minutes to avoid inhaling the leaking "smoke"

Charlie meets Papa

Gaga and Papa are here on their way to Cozumel and we're all enjoying their visit. As always, we're doing a horrible job of taking pictures, but here are a few of Charlie meeting Papa: