Christmas 2011

Our family of 4...so blessed to celebrate this Christmas season with our two beautiful boys!
This sums up our Christmas weekend at my parents...Luke & daddy needed a nap come Monday afternoon! Luke doesn't miss a beat when he is at Bop and Nannie's, especially when the house is filled with all of his aunts and uncles. As for daddy...lots of late nights playing games and enjoying some Christmas cheer! What a perfect way to spend an afternoon!

Our annual "self-timer" family photo! Our family grew by two this year and we are overjoyed to have my sister-in-law Debbie join us this year to celebrate this year, as well as our sweet baby Ben!

Luke with his Godmama "Tate" and Uncle "Brynan" (aka Kate & Bryan)

Bop & Nannie with their two grandsons

The "kids" picture that keeps happily growing!

The "guys" picture...I am so bummed we didn't get our "girls" picture this year, mom was busy cleaning up the kitchen and Ben was getting inpatient so we wanted to get on with opening gifts.

With my three brothers

Luke at the head of the table and he couldn't wait for Prime Rib dinner

Luke hanging with his godmama

Ben with his godparents, Debbie and Mitch

I love this picture of Ben looking up at his Uncle Nate

Luke and Daddy enjoying Christmas morning. We headed up to my parents for Christmas Eve mass and celebrated my dad and Debbie's birthdays. Christmas morning we spent the morning enjoying the boys, Luke and Sean played outside, and we got a wonderful visit from one of my best friends Dana!

Ben enjoyed his first Christmas, even though he was sick with his 2nd ear infection and cold. He was a trooper and loved all the extra love and attention from his aunts, uncles, and grandparents

Our first handmade gift from Luke! He made us an ornament at Ms. A's last week, the best gift!

We had our family Christmas on Christmas eve morning. Sean was surprised with some new camo from the boys.

Luke really enjoyed opening presents this year and was so excited with each one

Little Benny is all smiles on his 1st Christmas celebration

Luke got a Blue tractor from Santa and he was thrilled. Saturday morning Luke woke up around 630, I went up to get him but tried to keep him from noticing the presents under the tree becauase we wanted to wait for Ben to wake up. So we took Luke into our room until Ben woke. Once Ben woke we asked Luke who came to our house last night? He said, ho, ho, ho, so we told him to go check and see if Santa drank all his milk he left him. Luke spotted the gifts on the floor and the first one he grabbed was the tractor. When he opened it, his reaction was priceless, he screamed "Holy Moly"! Luke took his tractor straight to his toy room and played for a good 20 minutes before he decided to come check out the rest of the gifts. We had so much fun with Luke this year as we prepared for Santa to come and then that morning watching his excitement just brought a whole new meaning to opening gifts.

Santa came!!!

Friday night we enjoyed our family Christmas dinner and got ready for Santa to come. Luke set out milk and two pieces of fudge, along with a letter to Santa.

Snuggling with my boys by the fire before bedtime

Luke and daddy enjoying a cozy fire

The boys all ready for Santa to come while they sleep

Luke making silly faces

Friday morning Miss Judi surprised the boys with this wonderful herky the hawkeye bench

Our mantle lined with stockings

The boys visiting with Santa at the mall

Luke talking to Santa about tractors and wagons

We had Miss Judi over for dinner to celebrate Christmas, we are so blessed to have her spend the days at our home with the boys while Sean and I work. She is wonderful and the boys love her so much!

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from our family to each of yours. Our year has been greatly blessed by the great gift of our sweet Ben and ever so growing boy Luke. These two boys light up our lives and make each day one worth smiling about. We cherish this Christmas season as we share it with our two beautiful, healthy boys, and our growing family. We look forward to gathering with family to share and celebrate the reason for the season, the birth of our Savior. While Luke is learning pretty quick that if he is good, Santa will come to our house and bring him toys, we also have enjoyed sharing with him the Christmas Story and the birth of baby Jesus. We want to make sure he understands what Christmas is truly about. Both of our boys are a little under the weather now, so we are hoping that a quick recovery is in store for them to enjoy the weekend with our family. Luke is overjoyed to see all of his Einck aunts & uncles, he has been talking about each one all week! We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy, healthy New Year!

Santa Claus is coming to town

Luke & Ben met Santa last night! Ben was content and Luke was as social as we would expect! We prepped him quite a bit, walking by Santa and waving for the past several weeks and then finally getting to sit on his lap was a total treat for Luke! It helped that Santa new he wanted trains and tractors!

Merrick Family Christmas 2011

We kicked off our Christmas 2011 festivities this past weekend. We had a work party Friday night and spent Sunday in Pekin celebrating with Sean's family. Luke had a lot of fun playing with his cousin Connor and Ben loved that he was held mostly all day! He spent a lot of time hanging with daddy watching football. The weather was gorgeous, almost 50 degrees so Sean, his dad, uncle, and cousin took the boys outside for an afternoon game of football.
It feels like Christmas around our house, minus the snow on the ground. I am not a huge fan of snow, but I certainly love having a white Christmas. It doesn't look like its in the forecast. I love getting the mail everyday and seeing all the beautiful Christmas cards from family and friends! I have them all hanging in our dining room! We are looking forward to doing a progressive Christmas dinner with friends tonight, and celebrating this weekend with my family in Waukon.

Ben and Daddy hanging out watching football
Luke & Connor sitting still for just a few seconds for a picture

Luke opening his presents

Roller

We have a roller....both ways! Ben started rolling from his tummy to his back several weeks ago, and this morning the little guy went from back to tummy three times! He is one strong little boy! He loves to spend time on his tummy and I have a feeling when he can sleep on his tummy he will be one happy little boy. Ben's fist is permanently in his mouth...wondering if he will soon discover his thumb or if he just likes the whole thing! I am also happy to share that Mr. B is back to his normal sleep habits....Thank you Lord! I am wondering if it was a growth spurt or just a little extended weekend party session!
Pretty quick post today but just wanted to highlight our little roller for our blog book!

Around the clock

"Yes mom, I do like to hang out just the two of us, at all hours of the night"

Growing up way too fast

The boys are keeping us going all around the clock, literally! Luke is a sponge, busy as ever, vocabulary expanding by the minute, and has the funniest personality. He is into making us laugh and then he will continue doing whatever it is and he has the most obnoxious fake laugh to accompany his funny behavior. He has really picked up on "Thank you mommy, Thank you daddy, No thank you". So much in fact, when it is time to change his diaper he will politely say, "No thank you mommy"! Lately when he really wants something he will say "Please please please please" he thinks the more he says "Please" the more likely he will get what he is asking for. We are working on keeping him in bed until 6:30 a.m, that is when his 'alarm clock' turns green. So each night when I lay him in bed I remind him wake up happy and when your light turns green you can call for me nicely. So each morning when he gets up, if his clock is not green, we will sit with him until it turns green before he can leave his room. He is getting better about waiting for it to turn green. The past several days he has been sleeping in until 6:45!!!! Wow, did I just say, sleeping in until 6:45 and I even got excited about it:)

Ben is growing leaps and bounds, I swear the little guy stretched out overnight, he is barely fitting into his 3 month onesie PJ's because he is getting so long. He is a very happy, talkative little boy, that likes to party all night long! The past few nights, I am not sure what has been going on, but he has been waking around midnight or so and doesn't want to go back to sleep, he wants to hang out with mama! Last night around 3 a.m, I asked him what it was that he wanted and he just smiled at me and babbeled. As frusterated as I was, I couldn't help but laugh, seriously Ben, you want to have a conversation with me at 3 in the morning!!!! ahhhhh! He finally went back to bed at 330, in his swing:( I was desperate. I am hoping this is a minor phase because just a couple of weeks ago he started sleeping through the night! His early evening nap is critical and has been boycotting that a bit because there is just too much action going on in our crazy house and he doesn't want to miss a beat! He is going to have fun keeping up with his big brother. For now, I am trying to remind myself this is just a phase and before I know it I won't get to rock with him, literally, in the wee hours of the night. As much as I want and need sleep, I will keep reminding myself of this. Until then, we just keep moving around the clock to the beat of our boys and their energy gets us through!

Week in review

We survived...this week I had my first overnight travel for work since returning from maternity leave, my first nights away from Ben...AND Sean was gone too! We called in reinforcements, my mom, aka Nannie! What would we do without Nannie and Miss Judi?!!? I had to travel to Memphis for work and Sean had to be in Omaha for meetings, so my mom stayed with the boys, Miss Judi was here during the days, and Uncle Mitch and his girlfriend Kolbi came to visit and help out during the evenings! I had a big sense of relief knowing my mom was with the boys, but it is always hard being away, especially when Ben was just 13 weeks old. I had a very hard time being away and staying focused, but I survived and so did everyone else. When Thursday came and I could hug both of my boys, it felt oh so good! They had fun with Nannie and Luke was so sad when he woke up from his nap and Nannie wasn't there, boy, does he love his Grandma. Ben brought back the sleepless nights to my mom...unfortunately he didn't sleep so hot one of the nights for her. We are still trying to figure out what works best for him, about every third night he will sleep through the night from 730pm-530am, but those other nights, it is hard saying if he will be up at midnight or 4 a.m??? One of these days we will get it down. It is amazing how much little Ben changed in the three days I didn't see him, I felt like he was bigger when I came home. He is laughing a lot, having longer alert periods throughout the day, and absolutely loves to be talked to. The other day I was in the toy room with the boys and Luke was pretending to shoot bucks and does, I would ask Luke what he shot, he would tell me and I would relay to Ben, "Luke shot a buck" and he would just giggle! Luke got a kick out of it too, he loves to make Ben smile and laugh. Friday night Sean and I had an Ugly Christmas Sweater party to attend. I am so bummed, I never got our picture but I will describe, Sean wore a women's mock turtleneck sweater in red with white snowflakes. I, on the other hand, sported a red and white striped collard shirt with small santas on it and a red cardigan sweater with green holly. I could have passed for a waitress from Happy Joes! It was so much fun with our wonderful friends, we are so thankful for! The rest of our weekend spent lounging in front of the fire, listening to Christmas music, playing lots of hoops and football, baking Christmas cookies, and making smores over the fire. We enjoyed our weekend at home with the boys and cherish these special times. Tonight we let Luke stay up a little late to watch the Polar Express, he loved it! We have been talking about Christmas a lot, even though I think he might be a little young to understand it all. We are enjoying this holiday season and getting into the Christmas spirit with our two sweet boys!

Getting bigger everyday
Last weekend we visited "Camp Bop & Nannie" so Sean could deer hunt with my dad. Luke wanted to hunt too, so he hunted from the comfort of the warm living room! He loves to stand at these windows and watch all the excitement on the farm.

"mom, Luke go to gym"

This picture is funny to me because Luke actually goes to the gym more than I do!!!! Monday night as I was getting everything ready before my trip to Memphis Luke was walking around in my gym shoes and hat saying "gym, bye-bye"

off to the gym

Cutie Pie, just hanging out watching all the excitement

My two boys "playing"

This is funny to me...this was my four paged typed notes for my mom and Miss Judi while I was gone! I might be a bit over the top...but it made me feel better

Does it get any cuter than Mr. Ben?!

This was Luke tonight, apparently he thought my cabinets needed to be reorganized. Or he was just bored from being cooped up in the house all weekend?

Sean had a fire going all weekend and it felt so cozy!

I love Christmas time and having our trees lite up. It just makes our house feel so warm and comfy!

Capped off the weekend with smores! Sean making our first round of smores for the season on the fire.