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
Welcome back bean followers-I'm just now waking up from a turkey coma...we've had A LOT of turkey over the last 2 weeks. We celebrated our first annual Houston 'Friendsgiving' last Saturday and it was delish. The Radford's and Hargraves came over and it was fun for all. The girls had a fabulous time playing (I'm not exaggerating when I say they pulled out every toy we own and they were all over the house) and we all enjoyed an amazing meal. The next night I took the kids to Braven's superbowl game. He is my friend Tammy's 9-year old son and wow-when people say football is "big" in Texas they aren't joking. The game was held at a high school stadium that rivals most college fields. 
There was an announcer, cheerleaders and hundreds of people in the stands. Luke slept through the whole game but Julia really got into it. By the end, she was cheering and didn't want to leave. She loves football now, which J.D. is thrilled about!
Between Tuesday and Wednesday, J.D. and I made a few trips to the airport to pick up the NC Cook's, Jason, Bryan, Brian, Craig and Grandpa. We had an AMAZING time with everyone and are so happy everyone made the trip out to celebrate with us. Julia and Victoria played well together (amazingly, there were no outbursts) and they both had a fun time playing with their uncles (I'm pretty sure Jason's arms are still sore from throwing them in the air). Andrew tried to keep up with the girls while Luke spent a lot of time snuggling with different relatives. 
We feasted on a tasty Thanksgiving meal that included 2 different turkeys, stuffing, glazed carrots, green beans, spinach, corn bread, corn casserole and cranberry sauce. Dessert was also fab with apple pie, pecan pie, pumpkin ice cream pie and chocolate cake. As if that wasn't enough, we also had a huge tin of gourmet cookies from Craig's mom. I think we all gained a few pounds over the last few days! And as everyone knows, no family holiday is complete without some serious gaming. We had fun playing Cranium, Wits and Wages, poker and a few other board games (a lot of football was watched too).
Overall-it was an amazing Thanksgiving and I cannot think of a more fun time with my family in recent years. I'd like to thank everyone again for traveling out here to see us and special thanks for the following:
*Brian: explaining the rules of the game...over and over....and making me laugh harder than I have in recent years with your charades
*Craig: helping with all the cooking, multiple trips to the grocery store & playing with Amelia
*Grandpa: all the stories & playing with Amelia
*Jason: for making the kids a special Thanksgiving book ('The Four That Saved Thanksgiving' plus a coloring book) and holding Luke during his fussy periods
*Bryan: flipping the girls over and being a great game partner
*Greg: waking up with the kids every morning & being a fab Cranium partner
*Jill: you are a superstar, thank you for helping to clean up the kitchen and toys every night!
Thank you everyone and I cannot wait until our next family Thanksgiving! And to those family members and bean followers who we didn't celebrate with-I hope you had a great time too!
Now....the countdown for Christmas begins!
"Hey little man!" "Good morning little man!" "I want to hold the baby." "It's okay baby, don't cry." "Hi baby Luke!" We are thrilled that our little Julia bean is bonding with our baby Luke bean. She is so adorable interacting with him-her new thing is to throw out his diapers when I'm changing him. She'll throw the dirty diaper into the trash and say "Thank you Julia, you're welcome."
In other news, Luke (or "Master Luke" as almost all his cards and gifts arrive addressed too) is doing fab (he's actually wearing a Star Wars onesie in the top right photo, but the blanket covers up the words). He's a hearty eater and still loves to snuggle, snuggle, snuggle. Getting him to sleep on his back continues to be a challenge (he is super gassy, poor guy), so we have a routine that is working out decently: I feed him around 10pm, hand him off to J.D. and immediately go to bed. J.D. brings him to me when he wakes up (usually around 1am and a few times we've gotten lucky and he's slept until 3am). 
So..J.D. sleeps from 1am/3am to 6am (when Julia wakes up full of energy announcing "I want milk and cheerios!") while I sleep from 10pm-1am/3am. Obviously, we need to get him sleeping on his back...on his own...in his room...all in good time! The pediatrician said we shouldn't let him cry more than 20min at this age and we keep trying with him...no luck so far. I'll keep you all posted. Let's see, OH-big news!! J.D. was promoted at work to Lead Engineer for the software group in his lab. Congrats babe! Work is going well for him and he is still enjoying it. I'm currently on maternity leave and will start back up again part-time in December. Which is amazingly in just under 3 weeks! Time flies with a newborn, toddler, hubby and furry baby!
Happy Tuesday everyone! Can you believe it is November? Thanksgiving is just over 3 weeks away and then Christmas is right around the corner. 2010 is flying by! J.D. left for Florida last week (shuttle launch) so Sarah and her pooch Ruby came in to help me with our little beans. Sarah had a great time snuggling with Luke and she had fun playing with Julia. Julia loved the company and had a fab time with little Ruby. As for Ruby...she came to TX never eating human food....and left after snacking on a lot of cheerios, goldfish and teddy grahams! Sorry Sarah...that is life with a toddler! Hopefully she won't become a beggar for you.
On Saturday, I took Julia to gymnastics and it was great being back in the gym with her (J.D. has been going with her the last few months). She is doing great and wants to do all the activities by herself (miss independent!). We all went to the park later that day and took advantage of the gorgeous fall weather. Julia had a great time on the swings, tire swing and slides while Luke enjoyed the fresh air (and being held). The dogs wanted to come but we left them home..maybe next time pooches!
Sunday was Halloween so we carved pumpkins and went trick or treating. Well-I took Julia trick or treating while Sarah stayed home with Luke and the dogs and handed out candy. Julia LOVED her fairy princess costume (we also painted her nails purple so they color coordinated with her outfit..I let her paint my nails as well...let's just say my hands were almost completely purple afterward) and had a fabulous time in the neighborhood. She did a great job saying "Happy Halloween!" and/or "Trick or Treat!" as well as "thank you" and "have a great night." We saw well over 100 kids in the neighborhood (which was very exciting, we barely saw any in our FL neighborhood) and she wanted to follow the big kids around. 
She literally power walked from house to house and when I finally maneuvered her back to our cul-de-sac the little stinker told me she wanted more candy and turned around and started running to more houses. I had to literally pick her up and carry her home! The next morning, she ran downstairs and looked out the front window and asked us "Where did the kids go?" We explained Halloween is just once a year. I let her try a few pieces of candy last night-she took a bite of a kit kat, then spit it out, and repeated that process for a few more pieces. That's my girl..she is not into sweets!
In Luke news, we went to the doctor last week for his 2-week check up and he is 7lb 10oz. The doctor was impressed with his weight gain! He is also almost 23". He's a growing boy, that is for sure! He is doing great, although he still wants to be held ALL THE TIME. It's cute during the day, not so cute at night. Hopefully he grows out of it. I'm totally in love with my little cuddle bug though-he is so adorable!! Julia loves him as well and still wants to hold him all the time and gives him kisses quite often. I love my life!
Greetings bean fans! Luke has been with us for just over a week and we are quickly settling into new routines. I'm happy to report that Julia loves her little brother (she loves to give him kisses and always wants to hold him) and while Amelia gave me a 'really mom? Another one?' look when we brought him home, she has given him plenty of puppy kisses. Our little man LOVES to eat and the first night we were home he ate every hour from about 10pm to 8am...no joke. He sometimes eats for 2H stretches at a time. 
I've worked diligently the last few days to get him on a 3H feeding schedule and we're pretty much there. Yeah! Sleeping continues to be a huge challenge though. Luke is super snugly and always wants to be held (his favorite position is to curl on up on my chest/stomach and pass out) so my main goal now is to get him to sleep on his own. I'll keep you posted. 
In other news, J.D. and I went to our first parent/teacher conference at Julia's school this past week. She is doing GREAT and her teacher said she socializes well with the other kids, loves to learn and is the best listener out of the whole class. Great job Jules! She is also really into bedazzling her arms lately. It is so cute, she will stick fake gemstones all over her arms, simply adorable! (you can see a few of them on her right arm in the above photo where she is holding Luke)
Oh-many of you have asked about the labor process this time around. 100% BETTER! It was a great experience compared to last time. It was just over 12H from the first labor pain to delivery and the hospital was wonderful. We literally walked in and were immediately put in a room. The nurses were fantastic and although I had back labor again (something I don't wish on anyone), the anesthesiologist did an amazing job giving me an "epidural lite" that dulled the back pain but I could still feel the contractions, move my legs, body, etc. 
Of course, dilating on my own this time was a huge bonus as well! It's funny, other moms tell you "every pregnancy and labor is different" and it is hard to imagine until you go through it-but they were all so right! With Julia, the pregnancy was easy, labor was hard, this time around it was the reverse. Oh well-the most important thing is that we have 2 healthy, amazing kids so it is all worth it in the end! I also think they are the cutest ones in the world...but I'm slightly biased!
And how cute is Luke in his red and white knit hat? We joke he is the Travelocity gnome whenever he has it on!
More pics coming soon, we have a ton already!
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.
