December 25 - Jingle Bells

Merry Christmas everyone! Grammy and Uncle Chad flew in town on Thursday and it was fabulous having them here. They both had fun playing with Julia and snuggling with Luke, especially Grammy! I really appreciated having an extra pair of hands in the house to help out-it almost felt like vacation for me. I usually lay him down to do stuff around the house and listen to the poor guy scream, so it was nice doing chores in peace. Before I dive into our fantastic Christmas, let's rewind to Christmas eve. A big Christmas eve dinner is a tradition in the Yamo family so J.D. put together a fabulous meal. We had ham (my favorite meat..yum), carrots, potatoes, green beans and pumpkin cheesecake. It was fabulous! Before bed that night, we left cookies and milk for Santa (we planned to leave carrots for the reindeer but discovered Julia and Amelia ate them all). Julia drew a special picture for Santa but didn't want to leave it for him next to the fireplace. She kept saying "No! That's mine." We convinced her to leave it with the cookies and Santa was kind enough to leave it for her in the morning with a special message thanking her for the delicious snack. Julia was very excited for Santa to come and kept singing Jingle Bells..over...and over...and over again.

On Christmas morning, Julia was so excited when she saw all the gifts under the tree that she did a dance-it was beyond adorable!! Check out all those gifts...hmm, I think it's safe to say she is a tad spoiled (90% of those gifts were for her). It took us almost 5h to open all the gifts because Julia wanted to play with everything she opened. It was adorable. There are too many gifts and people to thank individually so I'd just like to say thank you to everyone for thinking of our family and helping making our day special! Julia is having a ball playing with her new kitchen set, dolls, makeup and books.

Here are some great holiday photos, enjoy!

Smiley Luke

The Fam


Daddy & Luke Snoozin' After Opening Gifts


Grammy & the Kids

Uncle Chad & Julia

Julia Playing with her new kitchen [in her Halloween costume which she wears all the time now]

Mommy & Her Babies

December 14 - Lucky Seven

Happy Birthday 2 month birthday Luke. We went to the doctor today and he is one healthy baby. Here are his latest stats:
*10lb 15oz (25th-50th percentile)
*22.5" (50th percentile)
*100% adorable
(I recently downloaded pictures from J.D.'s phone and here is actually Luke's first ever photo - how cute is our little guy?

As dedicated Bean followers are aware, Luke is not a great sleeper. The good news is that we determined that he CAN sleep on his own. How you ask? First-we must double swaddle him tightly. Next-we must rock him asleep in our arms and hold him for a minimum of an hour. Then- we gingerly lay him down and hope for the best. We've had mixed results over the last few weeks but great success over the weekend. He slept Saturday night from 9pm to 4am (10pm-4am in the pack 'n play) and Sunday night from 9pm to 3am (10pm-3am in the pack 'n play). I wish I could say I slept too but Julia woke me up Saturday night and Amelia barked for an hour Sunday night which didn't facilitate a good night sleep for me (luckily, the kids slept through her barking. I think she saw a cat or raccoon in our backyard although I didn't see anything. She rarely barks like that). Last night he slept from about 9:30pm to 1am..not horrible but not as good as the previous 2 nights. Hopefully tonight goes well.

In other fun news, Luke rolled over on Sunday!! He's been able to roll onto his shoulders for a couple weeks now but now he can go all the way over. I was pretty shocked. Otherwise, we had a great weekend. Our neighbors Girl Scout troop had a Christmas part of sorts in our cul-de-sac on Friday night. There were approx. 50 people singing Christmas carols. They also had hot cocoa and cookies. Then on Saturday we went to Emma and Sarah's house for a playdate. The girls were so adorable together-playing dress up and having tea parties. Amelia came too and Sarah played with her for quite a while (Amelia was so pooped when we got home she passed out snoring under the Christmas tree!). We went to the Radford's on Sunday where Julia and Hannah had fun playing with a kitchen set making me and "sandwiches" and "cookies." Overall-great weekend!

To cap off this post, here are some fun things Julia has said recently:
*I have pretty princess hair mommy.
*I listen. This is not a joke. (I realize when I reprimand her for not listening I tell her 'this is not a joke.')
*When she asks for something I say to her "What is the magic word?" She'll smile and say "Magic word!" then will say "Please."

(and that is our little Julia bean "swaddled" in her favorite afghan, she is so cute!)

December 7 - It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Christmas is just around the corner and our little Julia bean is getting very excited. Our Christmas tree is up and it looks fab! J.D. usually puts the lights on (he wraps every strand with lights and it takes hours, not too mention about 20 strands) but he's out of town this week so I did it myself. I'm proud to say I finished the lights (I think I used 6 or 7 strands) and decorations in a few hours and it looks beautiful (J.D. saw a picture and said it looks gorgeous but it needs more lights, hehe). I still need his help to put the angel on top (not sure if you can tell in this photo but it isn't actually on the top of the tree). We upgraded our stocking hangers from "JOY" to "PEACE" to accommodate our growing family and I love that I can finally hang them off a mantle (we didn't have anywhere to really hang them in our Gainesville house). Of course, being a klutz I've broken the hanger on the "C" twice already (note to self: take the stocking off the hanger before putting anything in it) so we always have superglue on hand.

We usually celebrate Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with J.D.'s. This year his mom and brother Chad are flying to Houston and we are all super excited to celebrate with them. Julia tells me every day that 'Grammy and Uncle Chad are coming on an airplane' and she can't wait to play with them! She also wants to go to the zoo again. There is a new exhibit opening this month but all she can talk about are the elephants.

In other fun holiday news, we went to a children Christmas party at J.D.'s work this past weekend and had a good time. It was geared toward older kids but I enjoyed making crafts with Julia (homemade ornaments). I think she'll really enjoy it when she is 4 or 5. She did get to meet Santa and received her first Christmas gift (the little stinker tried to take more than one present!). We didn't get a photo with Luke because he was sleeping and we didn't want to disturb him, but I'm sure we'll get a great Santa shot with him next year. Julia also LOVES LOVES LOVES looking at outdoor holiday lights. Every day after school we drive around the neighborhood looking at lights and she gets super excited. It is adorable!

Making Holiday Ornaments
Our Little Elf [Luke's party outfit]
My Favorite Photo of Luke-I am in love with him!

Happy Holidays everyone! If you are having trouble getting into the holiday spirit, I recommend listening to the Christmas music station (it rocks!) on the radio or check out the one on Pandora. I'm also a huge fan of lighting some fun candles (I'm a huge fan of pumpkin, cinnamon and the pine scented ones). Just under three weeks to Christmas.....!!

December 6 - Fun Photos!

Hello peeps-here are some fun photos for your viewing pleasure:

Julia holding hands with Luke

Fun with Daddy
Fun with Mommy
Jules loves Uncle Bryan!
Uncle Greg, J.D. and the girls at the zoo


The girls checking out the beautiful fish at the zoo