9 Months Old

Ethan turned 9 months old this past Saturday, and had his checkup this morning.  He FINALLY learned to crawl forward this past week (he has been crawling very well, but only backward, for over a month) and is ALL OVER THE PLACE now.  The unfortunate thing is that he gets so excited when he makes it all the way to the hardwood floor in the kitchen that he starts bouncing up and down and promptly falls on his face and hurts himself.  Every. single. time.

Anyway, we took him for his checkup this morning and he weighed 20 pounds even (67th percentile), which is what Gemma weighed at her TWO YEAR checkup, and was 28.75 inches long (56th percentile).  So his growth rate has actually slowed a bit, but he is still a great big boy.

And so happy and cute:

Although apparently he looks an awful lot like I did as a little kid:

December 22: Giant Twizzlers

Gemma and I are both Twizzler eating fanatics.  It's totally okay, because they're fat free.  That means they're healthy, right?

Anyway...this morning while we were braving the early morning crowds at Wal-mart and Bi-Lo, stocking up for our upcoming Christmas festivities, I spotted a bag of GIANT Twizzlers and of course, me and my girl had to have them!

I gave Gemma one in the car on the way home from Wal-mart.  It was pretty much as tall as she was, but she managed to scarf it all down long before we made it home (we live less than 5 miles from Wal-mart) and was asking for more.

I love that I snapped a picture right as she opened her mouth wide to start cramming Twizzler in.  Priceless.

December 21: Christmas with Rachel

My family had planned on coming down and doing Christmas with us this weekend.  However...my mom has been really sick with severe bronchitis that was turning into pneumonia, and then on top of that, she had an allergic reaction to one of her [multiple] medicines.  Obviously, not a fun Christmas for her, and it meant that instead of coming to visit, she would be staying at home sick in bed, doped up on Benadryl and Zyrtec and a cocktail of antibiotics.  Luckily for us though, my sister still came to visit.  She brought us some presents from my family (which Gemma tore into with a vengeance - see hilarious video below) and we had a really good time.

Ethan had fun dunking all sorts of stuff in his new basketball goal: rubber ducks, Gemma's shoes, you know...the usual.

Gemma loves her new Periwinkle (Tinker Bell's sister) doll:

Both of the kids enjoyed playing with Ethan's new Laugh and Learn workbench together:

Gemma hugging her new stuffed Pete the Cat

Rachel and I kept ourselves in the Christmas spirit by watching multiple vampire movies over the weekend.  On Thursday night (after we nearly died at Zumba Toning), we ignored the massive windstorm raging outside and stayed up late watching Vamps, which was hilarious.  And then on Friday night, we finally got to go see Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (which was also hilarious, though not always intentionally).  I had found some absolutely hideous Twilight-inspired fabric online and made Rachel a purse and pillowcase out of it for Christmas, and she totally took the purse to the movie theater with us:

I felt so bad that my mom was so sick and we weren't able to see them for Christmas, but I was really glad my sister was still able to come down and spend a fun weekend with us.

December 20: Making Funfetti Cake

Since I missed posting a photo yesterday, I chose two from today.

This one I snapped this morning, when I had both of my babies on my lap and I looked down and the little one was clutching his sister's hand, which was clutching my arm.  So sweet.  I am so blessed and thankful for those two.

This afternoon, Gemma and I put on our matching Christmas aprons from my mom and we made funfetti cake together.  This was the first time Gemma helped me cook something, and it was so much fun.  She helped me pour all the ingredients in and then when I poured the cake batter into the pan, Gemma said: "Oh, woah." 

December 18: Pizza Buffet

For about two months or so now, Cy has been dying to go to some sort of pizza buffet.  Last week, I realized there was a Cici's Pizza near the Tanger Outlets, so today we met him there for lunch.  I am not a huge fan, but it was actually pretty good.

Cy and Gemma definitely enjoyed it:

December 17: Socks

Yesterday was a pretty hectic day and I realized this morning that I didn't take an official picture for yesterday.  I wished I had managed to snap one when Gemma got her stool from the bathroom and sat on top of it on the couch so she would be taller sitting next to our [tall] friend Nate who was over having dinner with us.  It was pretty cute.

I did take a quick photo though of this:

Amazon has been ambushing me daily with their lightning deals and the other day, I got suckered into buying this gift pack of Betsey Johnson socks.  They showed up in the mail yesterday and I thought they looked even more fun the way they were arranged in the cute little box!

December 16: Christmas Card Photo Shoot

This year, like every other year, we planned to schedule a professional photography shoot and have a Christmas card printed up well in advance.  And like every other year, suddenly we realized Christmas was fast approaching and it was too late.  BUT unlike every other year, we still might manage to get some Christmas cards in the mail this year...we just had to make do with whatever picture we could get.

So I set up my camera on a timer, got everyone decked out festively, and we attempted to get the children to look in the direction of the camera.  In the end, this was the best picture we managed to get:

And of course, for that one halfway decent photo, we had about three hundred ridiculous failed shots.

Like this, in which Ethan got a great big handful of Big Sister's hair, and only half of me made it into the shot:

Or this, where Ethan gets all deer-in-the-headlights when Gemma tries to give him a kiss: