Christmas 2010

Christmas is my by far my favorite holiday. I love the decorations, the yummy goodies I get to bake (and, of course, consume), the giving and receiving, the laughter, happiness and time spent with family! I also love that Jacob was old enough this year to start to learn about the REAL reason for the season. Of course, I know that he probably doesn't really "get it", but in my opinion it is never too early to start talking about the birth of Jesus!

As I spoke about in this post, he loves playing with the Little People Nativity Set & Inn at Bethlehem and he really got into reading the story of Jesus's Birth in his children's bible. He also loved when we would light the advent candles every night (and even asked to light them at breakfast & lunch too! "Candles...Candles").

This year, we decided to start a tradition and spend Christmas morning at home. We want Jacob to be able to wake up on Christmas morning at his own house and open his presents before we go to visit with family. We also may have started a new tradition on Christmas Eve this year as we had the Arnold family come over for dinner. Christmas Eve is also my nephew, Pierce's birthday so it was nice to all be together to celebrate!

On Christmas morning, Jacob woke up to see lots of presents under the tree. Santa had made a visit and we had also set out gifts that Keith's mom, aunt & uncle and cousins had sent. So many gifts for one little boy!!

Jacob also got some fun treats in his stocking - matchbox cars & a little stuffed Elmo. It was really cute watching him pull out all the cars once he realized what was in there!

Opening presents with Jacob this year was definitely different than last year, but it was still a loooooong process. It is hard to explain to an 18 month old that he needs to put that fun toy that he just opened aside because he has five other presents to open. After awhile, Jake finally finished upwrapping (with help from Daddy) and he took a break playing with his new toys to watch "Elmo's World Happy Holidays" while I made blueberry waffles for brunch. [Note: "Happy Holidays" became an instant favorite for Jake and even now, on January 15th - he still wants to watch it.]

After eating and more playtime, Jacob took a nap and Keith and I packed the car for our trip to Richmond. When Jake woke up, we headed to my parents' house. Originally, we were supposed to be celebrating Christmas with my entire family on the 26th, but because of the potential snowstorm that was to arrive on that day, everyone actually arrived at my parents' on the evening of Christmas Day. My grandparents flew in from Rochester and my siblings, their spouses and all the kiddos were there - 17 of us in all. We had dinner and then we let the kiddos open a few presents before bedtime. It was a bit chaotic, but it's fun to all be together. Here is a picture I took (while standing on a kitchen chair) of the "fun". Everyone except my niece Chyler (who was already sleeping) is in the picture.

Once the kiddos were all in bed, we did the adult present opening. It is a much more organized process and we go from oldest to youngest, each opening a gift one at a time. It usually seems to take forever, but this year it didn't seem to take as long. We were TRULY blessed to receive wonderful gifts and I really enjoyed watching my family members open up the presents that we bought. Sometimes I think giving is so much more fun than receiving!

Once again, it was great to have my grandparents with us on Christmas Day! They have been flying here from Rochester for the past few years and it is wonderful to get to spend time with them. I loved watching Jacob interact with them and was glad that he warmed up to them so quickly.

Jacob and "Nana"

Jacob and "Papa G"

The day after Christmas, my sister Katie and her family went back home, but the rest of us hung around. Some of us got all bundled up and went out to play in the snow that had fallen on Christmas Day & the day after. It was Jacob's first time walking around and playing in the snow and he seemed to enjoy it. It was fun to see him in the snow, but I am REALLY glad that we don't live in an area where it snows a lot. It takes a lot of effort to get a little kid all bundled up for just a few minutes of outside play time!!

Here is a video that I took of Jacob and my niece, Sierra playing in the snow:

On Monday the 27th, Keith came back home since he had to work December 28th-30th. Jake and I stayed at my parents' house and enjoyed time with my parents & grandparents. My brother & sister-in-law also recently moved in with my parents for a short while, so we were able to visit with them also. It was great to get to spend so much time together although it was bit rough at times since Jacob is going through a "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" phase (as in, Mommy must be able to be seen or heard at all times or he completely loses it - even with people he knows like my parents!). This meant that even though I had people around who could help me do things like bath or bedtime, he wouldn't allow it. Even so, it was still like a mini-vacation for me because I didn't need to worry about cleaning the house, doing laundry or cooking meals. I always feel a bit spoiled when I am at my parents' house and this time was no different!

Here is Jacob watching a video (probably "Elmo") with my mom on his new portable DVD player while my dad and grandpa watched an old western movie on TV.

Jacob enjoyed his daily "talks" to Daddy while we were away. He learned to say "Miss you" and "Love you" in addition to his other two favorites "Hi" and "Bye-Bye".

On New Year's Eve day, Keith came back to Richmond. I had to work my part-time job online that day, but that night, we went to my friend Trish's house for a New Years Eve party while Jake stayed with my parents. It had been a long time since I had been out on New Year's Eve and it was really fun catching up with old friends. We didn't get back to my parents' house til 2am so the next day was a bit rough, but it was worth it!

Because of our desire to be home on Christmas Day and us having to work (and Keith went to NYC for a workshop the first week in January), we decided not to make a trip to PA during the holidays. I know that Keith was disappointed that he didn't get to be with his family, but I think it was the best decision for us. We are hoping to make a trip up to visit them in February.

I am a little sad that Christmas is over. This year was definitely one of my favorites!! It seemed to get here so quickly and then it was gone in a flash. And just like last year, 2011 is already flying by - January is half over!! I am trying to enjoy every moment and take it all in because I know that before I know it, we'll be preparing for Christmas again!

Thanksgiving 2010

Please forgive me...it is a week before Christmas and I am just getting around to posting about Thanksgiving. I looked back at my post from last Thanksgiving and I was also about three weeks behind. I guess not much has changed!!

This year - like last year - we decided to go to PA and visit with Keith's family for Thanksgiving. We had decided that we wanted to spend Christmas morning at our house this year (and start our own traditions with Jacob). This meant that we would be spending Christmas with my family (since they live so close) and thought it was only fair to spend Thanksgiving with Keith's.

We had traveled to and from PA quite a few times since Jacob was born and I would not describe any of them as "happy times" in the car (for Jake or us!). This time, we decided to do something a little different! We headed up early on Wednesday morning, leaving our house before 8am. We actually woke Jake up around 7:30am, got him dressed and got the last minute things in the car. Keith and I had packed the car on Tuesday night so there were just a few things - like Jake's monitor & the things he sleeps with - to get packed up. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts for coffee & donuts and then we were off!

Jacob ate "finger foods" (animal crackers, craisins & goldfish) in the car for breakfast and he spent most of the trip watching something (usually Elmo-related) on the portable DVD player we borrowed from my parents. That thing was awesome as it kept his attention for most of the trip!! We only made one stop on both the way up and the way back - at an outdoor playset at a Burger King in Winchester, VA (which is about halfway). Jacob really enjoyed getting to run around and play on the slide.

Once again, like we have been doing for most of trips to PA lately, we stayed with Keith's mom in her apartment. Jacob warmed up to my MIL very quickly and was calling her "Gama" almost from the time that we arrived. He would often add an "s" on the end (calling her "Gamas"), mostly because I was telling him for a week or so that we were going to Grandma's house. Still now he often says "Gamas" when we are talking about her or we are on the phone with her. It's quite cute!

It really made my MIL happy that he was so comfortable around her. He did, however, experience quite a lot of anxiety during most of the trip whenever Keith or I left the room, even just to go to the bathroom. He would cry for the one of us that was "gone" and he was not happy unless we were both in the room with him. This made the trip much more exhausting and I will be very happy when he is over all of this stranger anxiety (or whatever it is!).

We decided to have some different sleeping arrangements for this trip because anyone sleeping in the same room as Jacob usually doesn't make for good sleep. Jacob got to sleep in the pack and play in Marge's bedroom, Marge slept on the couch, I slept on an air mattress in the living room and Keith slept on a sleeping bag (on top of an egg crate for extra cushion!) in the foyer area. It's hard to "spread out" in a small one-bedroom apartment, but I think we did a good job of maximizing the floor space!

For the most part, sleeping wasn't really a problem (except that an air mattress & a sleeping bag can get uncomfortable after a few nights!) There was one night when Jacob woke up crying in the middle of the night and it seemed like nothing was going to soothe him. Keith and I both went in separately to try and settle him down, and around 2am, I even tried to get him to lay down with me and go to sleep in my MIL's bed. Unfortunately, he just wanted me to keep singing songs and didn't want to close his eyes and go to sleep! Eventually, I just had to leave the room and hope that he would stop crying and not wake up the people that live on my MIL's floor! Thankfully, after a short time, he did settle down and go back to sleep and he didn't have a problem the rest of the trip.

On Thanksgiving Day, we traveled to Keith's cousin, Suzie's house to celebrate with their family. At first, Jake was acting shy around everyone, but he soon warmed up and was having a great time! Since he is the only child there, he gets LOTS of attention! (There are actually four other "kids" but the youngest is 17!)

He instantly made friends with Molly, the family puppy. Molly loved Jacob and would follow him around. Especially when Jake had food! More than once, Molly stole pretzels right out of Jacob's hand! I think he was a little confused because he isn't used to being around a dog like that, but he didn't react negatively, he just asked for more pretzels!!

I told him that if he was going to eat, he needed to sit (instead of walking around). Of course, he didn't like that, but he obliged. Here he is eating his pretzels while sitting with "Gamas".

Three Generations of Weimers...

Jacob was napping when we ate an early Thanksgiving dinner, so he ate his by himself later in the evening. He wasn't a huge fan of turkey, but he loved the mashed potatoes and the bread.

After he ate, we all went outside for the "Grand Illumination" of Suzie & Tad's Christmas lights. Just like last year, Jacob got to "flip the switch" and turn on all of the beautiful lights.

Last year he was too little to really know what was going on, but this year he liked being outside and looking at the lights. It was a cold and rainy evening, but we stayed outside for a bit and enjoyed the glow of the lights and the "start" of the Christmas season.

We spent Friday just hanging out in Marge's apartment since it was really cold & snowy outside. On Saturday, Keith, Jake and I drove to have lunch with one of Keith's friends from college. It's always nice to see Liz and she even brought Jacob some great presents! Unfortunately, Jake wasn't super excited about sitting still in the restaurant so the visit wasn't as enjoyable as we were hoping for. Anyone with little kids knows how hard it can be to take a toddler to a restaurant. Thankfully, Liz has four (grown) kids so she just goes with the flow and totally understands what we are going through!!

On Sunday, we drove over to Keith's aunt Kay & uncle Barry's house to visit more with his family. We didn't know they were going to be there, but Keith's cousin Dave and his family came also. It was really nice to see everyone and spend more time together. We also had a great time watching the Steelers-Bills game (they are all Steelers fans and I was the lone Bills fan!). Even though the Bills lost in OT, it was fun bantering back and forth while all of us tried to figure out who was actually going to win the game!

Kay had all of her decorations up, including their Christmas tree and I was a bit worried about how Jacob would act around it. I didn't know if he would try to touch it or pull off the ornaments. Thankfully, he didn't really pay any attention to it! He was much happier playing with his matchbox cars on the floor! Aunt Kay even got down on the floor to play with him!

We tried to get a good picture of Jake in front of tree, but he didn't really want to sit still. And, since I was trying to get the lights of the tree, he ended up showing up really dark. Oh well, you can kind of make out his smiley face!

On Monday morning, we left early again (around 8am) and Jake did remarkably well in the car. More Elmo videos and a stop at the BK again for some running around and he was good to go. I'll leave you with this video that Keith took with his iPhone while we were at the BK on our way back home. As you can see, Jake was super excited to be able to stretch his legs and and he loved the crown that the BK worker gave him!



I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Bring on Christmas....

Celebrating my first Mother's Day

Anyone that knows me well knows that I have longed for many years to be a Mom. It has been one of my life-long goals for as long as I can remember. And, I have always hoped to be able to stay home with my child(ren) as my Mom did when we were growing up. She was (and still is!) such a wonderful example to me and I can never thank her enough for all the time, energy & love she has given me over the years. I always wanted to be able to be a great Mom just like she is!

Over the last ten years or so, whenever I was interviewing for a job, I would always have to stop for a moment when the interviewer would ask the popular question, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" Obviously the answer he or she was looking for goes something like this: "I am a hard worker and I will use my determination and skills to better myself and this company every day. I can see myself working for this company for many, many years in whatever capacity it needs me to."

In my head, I knew that was the "correct" answer, but it my heart I would always want to say: "Frankly I am just working in this job until the day that I am blessed to find a wonderful man to marry. Then we'll have a child and I will quit this job so that I can be a Stay At Home Mom and have the job I have dreamed about my entire life." Of course, I never said that since back then I needed a paying job!

But then, one day back in October 2004, I did meet a wonderful man. In November 2006, we got married. And, almost a year ago, on June 7th, 2009, we welcomed Jacob into this world and I became a Mom! And these days, I am thoroughly enjoying my job as a SAHM! I am very fortunate to have a husband who sees the value in me not working outside the home and we have been blessed with a beautiful & healthy little boy.

Celebrating my first Mother's Day this past weekend was great! I was able to spend quality time with Keith and Jacob the entire weekend and also had some time to myself for a few hours. On Saturday, I went to the Sycamore Day Spa and had a one-hour full body massage and a spa pedicure. It was awesome - so relaxing and rejuvenating!

I also received these beautiful flowers that were delivered on Friday

and enjoyed a yummy frozen strawberry margarita with dinner at the local Mexican restaurant last night.

After our dinner, the three of us took a walk around the neighborhood. The weather was beautiful and it was nice to enjoy the outdoors with my favorite little guy.

Then, this morning when I woke up, there were two envelopes waiting for me on Jacob's high chair. Inside were a card from him & a gift certificate to the nail salon for me to get two predicures in the coming months! (He must like it when Mommy has pretty toenails!)

I also got a beautiful card from Keith hidden in a box of my favorite Dunkin Donuts.

Wow, was I spoiled this year or what?! I'd have to say that I am one lucky girl and my first Mother's Day was definitely a day that I will never forget!

Thanksgiving 2009

I am way behind in posting about recent happenings, but I wanted to be sure to include a post about Jacob's first Thanksgiving. So here goes....

Every Thanksgiving that Keith and I have celebrated together (4 years) has been spent in Richmond with my family. This has usually happened because one (or both) of us had to work on the day after, so traveling wasn't going to work.

This year, since neither of us had work, we decided to venture up to Western PA to spend the holiday with Keith's family. We left on Monday afternoon and came back on Friday. We would have stayed through the weekend, but we had plans to meet up with friends of ours in Richmond on Saturday (Daryl & Ana who were in town from Toronto) and Sunday (Mark & Tanya who were in town from Asheville, NC). Unfortunately, the visit on Saturday didn't pan out, but we were overjoyed to see the Burdettes on Sunday!!

While we were visiting in PA, like we do many times, we stayed with Keith's aunt Kay & uncle Barry in the house that Keith grew up in. It was the first time we had taken an extended overnight trip with Jacob since September and I was worried that his schedule would get a bit messed up (which it did) and he would get overtired (which he did) and the trip would be stressful for me (which it was) because I am such a control freak when it comes to his schedule! All in all, though, I was pleased at how flexible he became and how easily he took to being around people that he doesn't see very often.

As you can see, he was quite happy hanging out with uncle Barry one morning:

And, aunt Kay got him some really fun toys to play with. She got down on the floor with him numerous times and he really enjoyed playing with her:

On Thanksgiving day, we went to Keith's cousin Susie's house and had 14 people around the dinner table. It was great to see everyone and for them to enjoy time with Jacob.

Of course, Jacob wasn't able to enjoy all of the delicious food that we had (they had turkey AND ham AND manicotti, not to mention all of the wonderful side dishes. And, the desserts were awesome!!) But, he did get to sit in his portable high chair and eat some yummy rice cereal!

He also got to experience the "Grand Illumination" of Susie & Tad's Christmas decorations. Jacob got to "hit the switch" and turn all of their outdoor lights on. Of course, at this point he was tired and probably cold (it was a bit chilly there that night), but he looked at all the lights with Daddy.

After he took his evening nap, he got to play a bit with Grandma Marge (Keith's mom) and his cousin Becca. At times, I think he wasn't sure about all of the people around but for the most part, he really relished the attention.

On Friday morning, we woke up to snow falling and Jacob got to experience his very first snowfall. It snowed for a few hours and a couple of inches accumulated on the ground. Keith and I were really excited to see snow & glad that we were able to show it to Jacob. I think he wasn't quite sure what to think about it, but he didn't cry or fuss when we took him outside in it.

We didn't keep him outside long since he didn't have super warm clothes on, but he did get to put his feet on the snowy ground.
He enjoyed being out there with Mommy & Daddy and we are hoping he gets to experience more snow when we travel north again for Christmas.