Merry Christmas (Part One)!

It's been a while since I've updated, so I wanted to catch up on a few things we've been up to lately, and then I'll get to our Christmas stuff.

When we were getting ready to go somewhere recently, Carter dressed himself. I should have predicted the outcome, since he is Alan's son :) Like father, like son!

Charlie has experienced a few firsts over the past couple of weeks... He started drinking out of a sippy cup (when I remember, that is!). We started Carter on a sippy cup at 6 months, per doctor's orders (and a nurse that worked at his daycare), so I wanted to do the same with Charlie. Because we started so early, we had no problems whatsoever in taking the bottle away before 1 year (around 10 months, I think) - that's a rule of mine, and I hear some parents say they have had problems with the bottle becoming a comfort. Well, Charlie doesn't really take a bottle too much, so I guess that won't be a big deal anyway... We'll just switch him over to goat or regular milk in a sippy cup like we did with Carter. Well, he doesn't really LOVE the sippy cup or the juice in it like we had hoped. We'll keep trying, though! For now, it's something new to hold...

He also started sitting in his walker for the first time, and like Carter did, he figured out how to go backwards, but I'm sure the forwards will come later :)

Speaking of Charlie, he is still sick... I had to take him BACK to the doctor to get a 2nd kind of antibiotics because he now has bronchitis. He also has a viral rash, and has had some large hives on his face, neck and legs. My poor, poor baby! He feels terrible and has an awful cough, and looks like he has the measles! He only has 2 days left on this antibiotic, so I certainly hope we see improvement soon - we were up a few times last night to treat his fever and just generally help him cope with being miserable.

The Christmas festivities began for us a few days early. We had our "large" family party last Saturday evening at my cousin Donna's house. It's always so good to see family that we don't get to see very often, and it doesn't hurt to include delicious food to go along with it too :)

That day, my great aunt flew in from Savannah (Statesboro, actually) to stay with my grandmother for the week. On Tuesday, we were supposed to have a "girls only" lunch - my grandmother, great aunt, mom, aunt, and me. However, our power was out that morning so I brought Charlie along with me and Alan took Carter to the movies. Who knew that the power would come back on 20 minutes after I left the house?!? The power company had told us it would be much later... It was a fun lunch, and also very yummy - we went to the Bright Star restaurant!

If you're counting on me to be completely chronological, you should know me better by now :) I'm going to skip a few things and come back to them once I have the pictures from my other camera.

Santa Claus came to visit us - I guess at least some of us had been good this year! Carter still talks about the fact that Santa didn't finish his cookies... I guess he had too many toys to put out and didn't have time! At least we have this proof that he was here!

Santa goofed with one of the gifts - it's a really good thing that Alan and I got up around midnight to see what Santa had brought! Too bad, this was going to be one of the big favorites (it's the Rescue Pack set from Diego). I'm guessing there is a little Jose out there somewhere with an English only version. Sorry, Jose!

This is a glimpse of what Santa left... I couldn't fit everything into the camera frame, and this picture doesn't even BEGIN to do it justice. How embarassing! It's sad that Santa had to categorize things... The game section, the Diego section, the craft section, truck/tractor/car section, etc. Also sad - the only things Carter asked him for were a dump truck and a race car. Carter didn't even open the dump truck until 2 days later (he kept saying he didn't want to open it yet). However, when I asked him what his favorite Santa toy was, he always replied, "the dump truck!" Ha! As you can see, Santa left most things for Carter, but Charlie also got his own little section on the couch (also that big toy at the far left, sitting next to the couch). A Christmas morning kiss - how sweet! Notice Alan is wearing his new cap that the boys gave him - just call him Minnie Pearl!This was the hit of the morning. Santa - you done good with this racetrack, yesirree ;)Another hit was the big truck that came with all the cars inside. Ingenious!

Playing with the fishing Wii game that Santa left.

Look at that huge bass Carter caught! Thanks for the easel, Mommy and Daddy!Another favorite gift from Mommy and Daddy. Long story, but this was actually supposed to be from Santa. Santa didn't have room on his sleigh and asked us to store it for him. Well, Carter happened to see it, and Santa wanted all of his gifts to be surprises. So, we decided to buy it off him to give to Carter. No harm done, except that Santa had to do some unexpected toymaking/shopping!Christmas Day evening, we went to my grandmother's house. Here are Carter and Charlie with "the girls." Not sure why Carter was making this face - he LOVES playing with Haley, Susanna, and Caroline Grace (particularly Caroline!).

My aunt Vivian reading The Redneck Night Before Christmas. It was a hoot - made even funnier by the fact that she's a retired English teacher and would never actually speak that way!
Right after the reading of this book and then a printout of "The Politically Correct Night Before Christmas," we had quite the excitement! Some candles that were burning above the stove somehow caught the cabinet and a picture on fire. I stayed in another room with Charlie and Carter, but I hear there was quite the fire brigade carrying lots of glasses of water! The picture and back of the cabinet were casualties, but luckily everything else was ok.

My cousin Donna, husband Terry, and their beautiful girls - what a cute family picture!
That's all for now... But stay tuned, because there is oh-so-much-more to come! I can't wait to share the rest!