New Years Eve

This year we were going to go out and grab Chinese food as a family for New Years Eve but when Pat unexpectedly got State tickets at the last minute, our plans changed. Pat took Fin for the game and Cole and I hit up Target for returns. I know, we clearly are the life of the party. It was nice to spend one on one with my littlest though.
After Target, Cole and I decided Qdoba was in order. Homeboy can house some Black beans. I'm pretty sure it's because he thinks they are chocolate which I can relate to. At 16, when I saw a pot of black beans for breakfast on a missions trip to Guatemala, I thought I was in Willy Wonka's factory. I was quickly disappointed.


Black Bean Face


Fin at the game. He thinks it is the BIGGEST treat to get a gatorade. Easily pleased.


When the boys got home from the game, we did a New Years Eve toast with sparkling grape juice. In our house 7:30 basically equals midnight.


Funny note: 2 seconds after this photo was taken, Cole yelled "Cheers!" and karate chopped Fin and my's wine glasses and Fin and I were soaking wet. We couldn't stop laughing.


After we excused Cole for bed due to him melting down over a cup of "fresh water", Fin, Pat and I sat by the fire and talked about resolutions and how we could better be the people that God wants us to be. Fin said he resolved to not paint on walls anymore (much appreciated after a November incident I'm still scarred from) and he said he was going to try not to argue with Annie when she comes over. Pat and I tried to keep straight faces. Fin also suggested Pat take up learning how to paint this year as one way to be a better person. I seconded this and said I would GLADLY provide the canvases and paint brushes if he would take up watercoloring :o)

Honestly, I'm so relieved to be at the age where it's not expected to have plans for New Years. I'm not a late night person, I'm a big fan of jammies after 7, and sparkling grape juice taste better then any other drink anyways.

Here's to a new year of having a daughter and loving others better!

Keegan Progressive Dinner

Tonight we did our second Keegan Family Progressive dinner. We did this 3 years ago when everyone happened to move into new homes and we brought it back again the year to see everyone's latest home improvements. Instead of 5 homes though, we just did 3 since we see my parents home all the time and Kiersten was sick and couldn't participate :o( It was much caravaning and much "check out each bed at each house by jumping on it" on the part of the boys.

We started out at Nicole and Rob's house. Rob just made beautiful built in book shelves that are amazing. Also, I hadn't seen their house since the day they moved into it a little while back so I was excited to see where they put all the things that were in the cardboard boxes. Crazy to think I'll have a little niece or nephew in one of their rooms come June. 

We took a group pic at each house.

After Nicole's house where we had salad, we headed to SJ's for mellow mushroom pizza. My boys LOVE Sarah's house, always have. I'm 100% confident it's because she has stairs they can run up and down. What can I say, we don't get out much.

Sarah's house is what I hope my house would look like if I didn't have small children that would break or tear a million things. *Sigh* so pretty and no small plastic parts laying around. 

Sarah and pops deep in thought, ha!

Finley on his beloved stairs. Uncle Will is probably chasing him and I'm probably yelling, "Let's caaaaalm it down" for the 80th time.

Love this of Nicole teasing Cole. She considers him her namesake :o)

We landed at our house for dessert where everyone could see our new hardwood floors. The boys were a big fan of cake past bedtime and Uncle Rob turned into Uncle Wob and dressed up all goofy and made Fin hysterical laugh with his accent/Fin might have nightmares tonight :o)

Uncle Wob being intense...

Such a fun night which I count as a success with no meltdowns and my house is now deep cleaned from preparing for company. Win-Win.

Christmas Day 2012

Christmas morning started with a bang. And by a bang I mean Fin came in at 5:30!! We set an app for him on my phone every morning for 6:20 and I had done so the night before but I'm pretty sure Santa intervened b/c his app was telling him he could get up, and I KNOW Fin doesn't know how to change my phone. So we made him lie next to us in bed until 6 which he was very good and patient about.
At 6am, we dragged (Fin bounced) out of bed and went out to see if Santa had come. Fin was sooo soo excited and I actually love that every year since Cole's been born, the boys have gotten up at different times so we can give them all of our attention as they open each gift slowly, instead of it being mass chaos. So we chilled with Fin and watched his excitement and then Cole got up  at 7:15 ( a time that God has blessed) and we did it all over with him.

Hugging his beloved Dreamlight he's been asking for for months. Cole tries to sneak it out of Fin's room every night since saying, "I put it in my room".

I feel badly I didn't get more pics of Cole opening gifts but he's all about his mama nowadays and was perched firmly in what is left of my lap while he opened presents.

Stocking Time. Fin got work gloves so he can work outside with his Daddy :o)

Cole with his "Batman to the rescue" ramp. 

Each boy got a ninja turtle hat. Fin thought it was a mask.

Playing Playdough at their new spiderman table that Grandma got them while Daddy cooks breakfast.

It was such a chill nice morning where the boys played with their toys, Pat read ESPN magazines on the bed, and I attempted to take a relaxing bath with my new bath salts which lasted 5 minutes until Cole threw himself in there with me. "Come as a team, leave as a team" seems to be his motto.

After early naps we headed over to my parents to exchange gifts and eat a delicious meal with the Haighs. I accidentally left my phone at home so I have no pictures from there which I'm really sad about but the highlights for the boys were Fin's Captain America costume that Nanny found for him and Cole's magnetic buggy puzzle from Aunt Sarah that he played with for Oh, I'd say around 4 hours...or whenever we cut him off. The boy did not get those genes from me, this much I know.

We put the boys down early that night and I made Santa rub my feet while we sat on the couch semi-comatose. 

It was a perfect day.

Christmas Eve

I think this year was the best Christmas Eve we have had as a family. Christmas Eve is a marathon for us starting with brunch with my family, stopping off at a friends Christmas party and ending with Stephenson family Christmas. Don't worry, there was still time for naps squeezed in there. I made sure.
A few snapshots of Keegan Brunch...

For dinner Denise cooked the biggest spread, she totally outdid herself this year. I wish I had taken pictures of the food because to me, pics of food are up there with pics of cute kids. Can never get enough.

Sammy, our nephew now 16 and so old, will always be Samster the Hamster to us :o)

Sean was VERY excited about Santa coming.

Sweet Em opening gifts.

Once Grandma pulls out the Buzz Lightyear dart gun, children gather round.

Fin playing with one of Denise' pinterest gift creations.

Dennis opening our gift to him. The beloved family dog Larry passed away last month so I found an ornament I could put his picture in. We miss Larry!

Blurry but hilarious. The funniest gift of the night was Denise gave Emma and Fin horse costumes and cowboy hats and they wore those costumes and chased each other around the apartment for an hour. They looked so stinkin funny and took turns being the bad guy. Cole was in tears to "Wear a horsey" which was pretty comical too.

We ended the night with tired boys opening one present each (new jammies...shocker every year) and setting out Santa food.

Pat and I died laughing because Fin helped me set out Santa and Reindeer food and Cole watched this and yelled, "I get it for Santa..." and ran to open the fridge. Fin helped him open the fridge and Cole without hesitation grabbed the bottle of Vanilla Rum and toddled over to put it next to Santa's food for Santa. Pat assured him Santa was very appreciative.

There was much intensity from Cole over eyeballing Santa's cookies. I felt so bad we forgot to bake Santa cookies that day but I pitched it to the boys that Santa actually LOOOVES stale gingersnaps from our pantry. What a coincidence.

The boys conked out right away and we got everything set up for the morning and collapsed ourselves. Pat fell asleep fully clothed on our bed if that tells you anything about how tired we were.

Christmas goodness

O this season has been amazing. SO magical, so much excitement over every inflated Santa and every dancing Snoopy toy in a store wearing a Santa hat. It's just a great reason to totally become a kid again. Fine, twist my arm. We've tried to do something Christmassy everyday and here are some of our  happenings...

Christmas shopping for Daddy quickly turned into modeling sunglasses. Also...My hatred of Walmart increases tenfold at Christmas. I truly believe there is one employee assigned to assist the entire store of customers.

We celebrated Uncle Will being out for Christmas break by hitting up a park.

Will and Fin on the bridge over US1. All three boys were entranced :o)

Cole was content to lay back in the stroller and point out all the big trucks to me.

Today we did massive amounts of Christmas baking. I was holding off on baking until I had my glucose test at the doctors. Knowing my willpower I knew I would end up eating 12 hershey kiss cookies and then fail my diabetes test while I feigned surprise. We made hershey kiss cookies, M&M pretzels, and Chocolate bark.

Negligent mom turns "ooops I forgot to buy Christmas colored M&M's" into a sorting preschool lesson. Find the red and green ones! 

Cole "helping" me place the Hershey kisses on the pretzels. The ratio of mouth to pretzel was one to one I'm pretty sure based on the fact of him doing laps around the house at naptime.

"I eat it?" as he eats it.

Sweet little elves.

Some of the finished products. Had to quickly give it away to neighbors before we ate ourselves into sugar comas ;o)

Savoring everyday until Christmas and counting the days until Pat's off of work!

For Lilah...

All semester in Awanas Fin has said a memory verse every week, worn his vest, gotten there on time, etc. to earn Awana bucks to spend at the Christmas store. The sweet leaders at Awanas set up this store with little toys that the kids could go into and buy a few things for themselves with their "bucks". Fin has been so excited about this and it is the ONLY reason that we hauled our exhausted selves out to Briar Creek straight from the airport on Sunday.
When Fin got into the car after Awanas he excitedly shouted, "I got bows for Lilah!". Sweet boy told me he went into the Awanas store, picked out a yo-yo and then saw "beautiful bows that Lilah can wear". He took the bows to check out where his teacher said he might be confused and might not enjoy bows but that he could go back and pick something else out if he wanted. Fin told me he said, "No Mr. Caleb you don't understand, I'm having a baby sister soon and she needs these".
Ok...exahaustion+hearing the sweetest thing I've ever heard= many a tear shed. I was just so touched that he  without a thought wanted to use his money he had earned all semester to get his baby sister some bows.
One of my prayers for Fin is that he will never lose his tender heart that he has shown from the beginning. He tunes in and empathizes very well, I really believe it's one of the gifts God has given him and I pray that he doesn't lose that as he gets older.
If my smothering him has anything to do with it, he'll be fine :o)
So now Lilah has bows from her big brother...cross it off the list.

New York, New York

Just got back from the most amazing trip to New York. The boys went to Nanny and Pops' from Thursday-Sunday (after many a hormonal tear was shed), and Pat and I jetted off with these jokers...

We seriously had the best time with Jamie and David. I've never traveled with another couple before but they were the perfect companions. We would hang together, then split up some for one on one couple time, then meet back up and everyone was so easy going. I think we all had the common goals of restaurants with no high chairs, sleeping, relaxing, and seeing as much of the city as we could while stuffing our faces at every opportunity. 

After traveling all day Thursday we stayed in a hotel right by Times Square. The view was incredible. (Note: Anytime you see us giving thumbs up, it's because Fin asked us to take pictures with our thumbs up when we liked something and send them to him).

We headed out to Little Italy that night and ate at a restaurant that seemed Mafia-approved so we knew it was authentic. This was also our first taste of "holy cow New York food is expensive but o well". 

After dinner we decided to be spontaneous and took the Subway out to Rockefeller Center to see the tree. It was gorgeous and so Christmassy everywhere. This was my favorite night of the trip.

There was a Lego Store right in the square and they had a mini set up of Rockefeller Center made completely out of Legos. I looked at it through the eyes of a four year old and died.

This series makes me hysterical laugh everytime...

1) Pat bumps into Super Mario, get's excited, asks to take a picture.

2) They pose for a picture while Super Mario whispers to Pat, "You owe me 2 bucks". Hence Pat's totally confused expression.

3) Pat says, "Jokes on you, I only have one dollar".

Pretty night life way past my bedtime.

Friday I woke up beat after traveling the day before and not sleeping well that night. We packed up and headed to the condo of family friends who were so generous to let us stay there for three days. We walked in the front door and DIED...The place was gorgeous and decorated for Christmas and more comfortable then my own home (which for a homebody is saying a LOT!). 

Panoramic view

I could gush on and on about the condo but let me just sum it up in a few words: Electric, heated toilets. People...it was life changing for all four of us. From this pregnant lady who gets up three times a night, it was a definite trip highlight.

We ate at a cute diner for lunch and then all took naps, bliss! 

That night Pat and I braved the subway by ourselves (hilarious) and went to a Nets game. It was my first Pro-ball game and I really enjoyed it. The stadium was amazing and our seats made me feel very close to God :o)

Saturday morning we all walked down 5th ave. where Jamie and I died at the window displays and we popped in and out of stores like Tiffany's, the Plaza, FAO Shwartz, and the 2 story Apple Store.

We sent the boys pics of us playing in the toystore.

Pat-sized Batman made completely out of legos. We drooled.

You know, me being totally inconspicuous in Tiffany's telling Pat to take my pic in the spinning door.

By the gorgeous tree in the condo.

That night we grabbed a nice dinner at a small pub in Times Square and walked around Broadway until it was time for our play to start. 

If I look totally creeped out here it's because Pooh put his arm around me and was hissing/clucking at me in a total creepy way. Apparently Pooh did not notice the straining buttons on my pea coat. I'm knocked up Pooh, and taken...Find your honey elsewhere.

Pat's dreams came true by finding all of his favorite pals in one place. Cookie Monster, Iron man and Spiderman.

Jamie won the award for best dinner that night. She ordered a fruit and cheese plate the size of our table and put all of our burgers to shame.

We all experienced our first Broadway play that night and went to see Mary Poppins. Some of us (Pat) probably would have been content going our whole lives without seeing a play but we needed culture in our lives :o) The play and sets were amazing, although the theater seats were not designed for the obesity in America.

Pats' beer came in a Mary Poppins sippy cup which was hilarious. Is it wrong we washed it out and gave it to the boys as a present from our trip?

Sunday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed reluctantly and packed for home. We were all excited to see our kids but no one wanted to leave our new swanky lifestyle :o)

I wanted a pic of me and Lilah to show her one day how she came to New York with us.

One last pic of our new favorite home. Don't make us goooooo....

I firmly believe any good trip should end with a Cinnabon, as does Jamie. As my dad always said, "End on a high note". 

 We were so blessed by everyone who watched our kids so we could go as well as the Petrones providing us with an amazing place to stay. It was such a great time for Pat and I to really reconnect and have fun together before having #3. One thing I knew when I was dating Pat was I would ALWAYS enjoy myself when hanging out with him. We just have a great time together and it was nice to have the time to do that.
Note: We are willing and actively looking to make friends with someone who has a place in the tropical islands for our next vacay :o) We are even willing to do a trade. We'll go there, and you can come stay in bunk beds in Holly Springs. What a steal!