Jelly

John loves peanut butter sandwiches and, this past summer, he discovered PBJs.  My best friend  Kelsey's parents sent us two jars of their homemade grape jelly this summer and it was fantastic.  Every time we would make a PBJ I would mention to John that the jelly was from the Gleasons.  I didn't even realize how much John liked the jelly until one day when I made a sandwich with another kind of jelly.  "Not this jelly!!! I want the Gleason jelly!"  He was very upset when I told him it was all gone.  But, never to fear, the Gleasons are here and they sent me two more jars.

This really is the best jelly.

Thank you for the Gleason jelly!  We just love it.

Guess Who

Awhile ago, I asked my mom for drawings of the boys as infants.  She drew a picture of me as a baby years ago and I have it hanging in the boys room.  I had forgotten about the drawings since I know my mom is really busy, but we were completely surprised this year by her amazing work.  These are now all framed and hanging in our living room.  I find myself looking at them all the time...in awe.


Now I want you to tell me who is who....I had some good guesses.  Now I've put the names below.

1.  Katie

2. John

3.  August

4.  Hans

My mom is such a perfectionist that she redid the original drawing.  My dad is holding me...I love this picture.

Christmas

Hans and I have been in a constant battle over when the best time is to open presents.  He comes from a Christmas Eve family and I come from a Christmas Day family.  After 4 years you would have thought this discussion would be over, but it isn't.  For now, we rotate years and this year was a Christmas Day opening year.  Maybe someday one of us will give in...but I don't think so.

This was after the Christmas Eve service, so I had two tired boys.

We let John open one present on Christmas Eve...his Great Grandma Jamas.  He just loves these pajamas.

This year John got into the Santa thing.  He was excited to put out milk and cookies.  He actually remembered the next morning to look and see if Santa ate them.

Our stockings...can you guess which two people just happen to have the biggest ones?  Grandma says they are made from the same pattern...

This thing right here is like a little PDA, so your kid can learn how to text.  John doesn't know that feature yet, but he loves hearing the sounds of all the letters and playing the games with Scout the Dog.  Thanks, Aunt Nancy, Uncle Greg, Harrison and Allie.

What a mess.  At this point we have already taken out a couple bags of trash and we still have presents to open.

Whew!  That was a lot of presents.  Time for a nap!

My parents came the day after Christmas.  They were supposed to get here in the afternoon, but ran into some bad weather in Texas so they didn't arrive until around 8:30 in the evening.  This didn't deter Hans from wanting to having our Christmas with them right then.

Grandpa and Gus

Everything goes in Gus' mouth.

Pausing for a moment to play with wrapping supplies and read a book.

Another Thomas toy.  We have a huge track set up in our family room now. Poor John has to try to play with everything as quickly as he can before August takes it apart.

Hans got lots of things but the best way to his heart is through gadgets that cook neat food.  This is an ebelskiver and Hans made these great creations for the next 3 or 4 days.

As long as this post is, I still have more...but that is for another post.