Christmas 2010

We had a great Christmas this year. As you saw in a previous post, Corbin and I had fun this year doing Christmas crafts. Here is another one, which was inspired by a craft that I saw in Jon's cousin's house over the holiday season. I thought it was so darling that we had to try it, too.



And Corbin had so much fun finding that Elf every day! In fact, he is still hiding in our house, spying for next year. We just haven't had the heart to stop hiding him. As soon as he bounds into the kitchen every morning, he squeals, "Let's go find the Elf!" and then he is so proud and happy when he finds him.



Christmas Eve and morning was spent in our home. We had our annual Christmas Eve traditions of Bingo and eating appetizers. We tracked Santa all day, sang karaoke Christmas tunes with Corbin & left cookies out for Santa this year (although Corbin paid no attention to that detail).







Christmas morning was fun, although Cameron woke with a fever.

Here is Corbin's reaction this year to all of the presents that Santa left him under the tree:



Here are the boys opening and enjoying some new gifts. They are so lucky!
















Here is a pic of poor Cameron that morning



After our Christmas morning, Jon and I packed up while the twins took a nap & then we headed to Toledo for the Kranz Christmas party. They all were thrilled with Grandpa Rick's main present to them: a homemade Duplo/Lego table!



Here are the kids awaiting the distribution of the great grandparents' gifts to them:



And here is Jamie, enjoying his new owl, Turner. He loves stuffed animals!



The next morning, we celebrated Christmas with Grandpa Rick, Judy & Jon's brother and sister.





Then we went to Grandma Kathy's house to celebrate with her, after the twins had their morning nap. Most of the pics from there didn't turn out for whatever reason, but here is a pic of Corbin and his cousin Ethan.



Then we went to dinner that evening to their Great Grandparent Montgomery's house. It was the year for Jon's cousins to travel to Ohio, so we got to see everyone in one spot.













Playing some piano...



Singin' in the Rain...



An adorable pic of Cam and Great-Grandpa







And before bed on Sunday evening, Corbin sat in Grandpa Rick's lap for a while playing with this writing toy. He was purposefully answering questions incorrectly & then giggling when the toy would scold him for it. LOL



Whew! I got this post in just before the new year started.

2010 was great! Here's to a very happy 2011!

Winter Wonderland

We sure did have fun this holiday season!

The twins had their first experience in the snow. They liked it, but Corbin didn't appreciate it as much as he has in winters past. This year, he was argumentative about his mittens mostly. And when they came off, well, it just wasn't pleasant anymore (just like I told him- imagine that!) We still got a few cute pics of the boys out in the snow, though.







Helping Daddy with shoveling the sidewalk:







The twins were watching some birds flying south





And here are a couple of cute pics that were sort of random.

They loved being pushed around in this empty bin, which usually holds toys.



Grandma Kathy needed Buckeye pics of the boys. We used one from early November of the twins, but Corbin needed one. So, we did a mini photo session one morning & we got two really adorable shots.





As far as kid updates, Corbin has the most news. He is starting to do much better with listening & answering questions when asked. He has also pooped on the potty four times since Christmas! It's harder to get him to pee on the potty unless it's first thing in the morning. He doesn't give me any cues yet as to when he has to pee & he doesn't really tell us when he needs to pee. So, he must not be tuned in to that sensation just yet. Anyway, we're really proud of the progress he has made in the last two weeks.

Cameron is walking about 90% of the time now & his balance is much better. He's very clingy to Jon & I right now, but we had a couple of away trips recently, and I think both of the twins had a harder time with that than was anticipated. He's due for a haircut here pretty soon- his first. He is cutting molars.

Jameson is super cute, but he is starting to throw tantrums. When he gets angry, he will ram himself into things, hit objects or people with his forearms or flail himself around until he makes his point. For the most part, these are silent tantrums- he just whines a little bit. He has most of his teeth in now. He loves to attempt to climb on everything.

We have all been sick on and off since the last posting. Right now, all of the kids have coughs and I am getting over a stomach virus on top of a sinus infection. The house is a mess, but we are surviving!

Potty Training Progress & Other Stuff

Corbin almost always wakes up dry overnight. So when he actually is ready to wear underwear, I won't have too many fears of him wetting the bed overnight. I started to work with him every morning on the potty. He seems to feel too much pressure in the bathroom with us in there. To lessen the pressure, I've put his portable potty out in the family room & planted him there when he wakes up. There, he either reads his V-Reader book or watches an episode of Dora or Blue's Clues. After about 10 minutes, he will get up & say, "Yay!" and then lay down to get another diaper put on him. Then we go flush his pee down the toilet.

The rest of the day is mostly just in his diaper. I will ask him multiple times if he needs to go potty, but he'll say no & that he needs a diaper change. Yesterday, I'd been asking him if he needed to go poop & he'd been saying no, even though I could tell it was nearly time. After a while, I gave up and got busy with something else. He came to me a little while later & said, "Need to sit on the white potty." That's his portable potty chair. So, I got it out for him and set him up just like we do every morning. I left him alone & pretty soon, he was off of the potty chair. Jon got to the potty first & I heard him exclaim, "You poopied in the potty!!" And he had! He's only poopied in the potty one other time, but this was the only time he had asked for the potty to poop. So that is exciting. He got one of his 12 days of Christmas presents early for that one. I'm going to try to really work hard with him this next week with a reward system & see if he can make even more progress. It is getting a little silly that he can demand which color diaper he wants to wear, after all.

In other news, we had a really nice family night the other night. I really wanted to take the kids to the Wildlights display at the zoo. Last year, the babies slept through it all because they were newborns. I remember it was still kind of rough for me to walk around at that point, too. That twin pregnancy really took a toll on me & it was several months before I felt normal-ish. But this year, it was so nice.

We had planned for Jon to get out of work early & then we'd dash over to that side of town before traffic got too bad, catch some fast food & get to the lights early. Everything worked out great timing wise, but once we got to Dublin, we saw a BW-3. That is one of the few restaurants that we have attempted with all three boys & it had gone fairly well the first time we ate there. So, we thought we'd give it a shot again. It was fantastic!

All three boys were angels. They were quiet, well- behaved and adorable. We had so many employees come over and praise them for how sweet and cute they all were. We were very proud of them. And we got to both enjoy a Christmas ale, too! We're thinking of possibly making this a semi-regular occurrence.

The zoo was right there, so we just hopped on over & enjoyed the lights displays- millions of them! Everyone was very good until the last 15 minutes, when the twins started to break down and complain that it was their bedtime. Here are some pics from Friday night:









We've also been doing a couple of Christmas crafts for the family from Corbin. We made salt ceramic ornaments and some foam reindeer handprints. He seems to enjoy them, so I am also going to look into some more Christmas crafts this week that he can do.







In health news, I think we are mostly well in the house finally, Jamie still has a cold, but he's not getting any worse or anything. Cam is getting his first molar in, and Jamie is getting, well, all the rest of his teeth at the same time! I will be so glad when teething is over!