At Least I Should Do Christmas

I was actually inspired to post a nice little reminscent look back at my sweet little boy, Greyson, yetserday evening only to discover that my entire stock of pictures and video from the last 4 years have been lost to a faulty external hard drive. While I work desperately to recover everything older than 2 months I guess I should at least post something about our fabulous Christmas.

We kept our regular Shelton family tradtions and had breakfast for dinner on Christmas Eve. We make Great Grandpa Robert's special homemade waffles, and we serve them on Grandma Shelton's Christmas china. It's a nice way to include them in our holiday memories. We want to make sure our kids know James' side of the family, and it's important that we find a way to honor them throughout the year. We open one gift on Christmas Eve which is always our special Christmas jammies that we wear to bed so we have fashionable ensembles for Christmas morning pictures ;-).
Of course we have lots of little helping hands to open our presents, too :-)!

Christmas morning was a blast, and the kids were ecstatic about all of the wonderful things Santa brought for them.
They were quite the unwrapping professionals. Hannah just kept going from box to box opening as fast as she could. It's funny to see how different the our kids can be. Greyson was very careful and slow at this age with gift opening. He wanted to play with each toy before moving onto the next.
The first thing Greyson asked about when he came out was "Stinky the Garbage Truck." Santa usually doesn't wrap things, but I guess he got extra ambitious this time around and decided he would wrap it.
Hannah jumped right into feeding her new baby, and she was in heaven!
After opening gifts and eating some homeade doughnuts, we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the Christmas feast and round two of gifts. It was chaotic and crazy, and the kids had SO much fun! Hannah was especially proud of her "Princess Dress" that she twirled around anytime someone showed an interest. I just love that girl!
She helped put the finishing touches on the tree before we opened gifts. It was such a wonderful day, and it's so fun to watch the kids get more into the Christmas spirit each year. We attended a New Year's Eve service (briefly as the kids were not really wanting to sit), and we want to make that an annual tradition. We hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and Happy New Year!

Forget Catching Up

Just because...I'm still going to publish this post. This is the night that I decided I wanted to travel back in time to Greyson as a baby and the night that I figured out that I couldn't due to my hard drive failure. I still want to share even if I don't have my pics...

Forget the catching up, forget the apologies. I just feel like reminiscing for some reason about my little baby boy that once was so tiny and seems so very big all of the sudden. I don't know if it's the impending birthdays, the beginning of a new year, or just how big he has been acting lately, but I miss my little baby. He seems like such a grown up big kid. I can feel the toddler and preschool days flying by, and I'm not ready for what's next. I know it's inevitable -- I want him to grow up and be independent -- but things are going WAY too fast. I see Hannah at this age, and I remember back to Greyson at that age. We were snuggling away on the couch while Mommy was on bedrest waiting for his little sister to arrive. He was barely talking, and he was just a big ball of hugs and kisses. Hannah is definitely not the non-talker, but this post is not about her. In honor of my flashback to Greyson as a little boy I feel I should put some growing up shots of him on here. I started this after Hannah was born so there's not documentation of Greyson as a baby except in his baby albums. Enjoy the ride! I know I will...

Fall is Fabulous!

I know it comes as a shock, but you may not have noticed that it's been like a thousand years since I have been on here. I don't know what is wrong with me, but I take 100% responsibility for my absolute lack of enthusiasm for posting. This was supposed to be a sacred keepsake of baby book type memories for my kids where I could put cherished pics and cute stories. I won't promise that I'll get better or that I'll be more diligent, because it hasn't worked out too well for me so far. I will say that here is a post, and hopefully I'll get caught up soon. We have been on a whirlwind of fun Fall outings since school has started. Here is a small glimpse with more to follow somewhere in the future. Enjoy!

James and I decided we wanted to take the kids bowling for the first time at Main Event here in Lewisville, and it was HUGE hit. They had this great ramp which pretty much made everyone a perfect bowler so YAY Main Event :-).


Even Hannah had to get in on the action

As we progress (ever so slightly) in gymnastics, Hannah felt that she needed a special outfit to enjoy her bouncing, tumbling, and such. She showed off for Daddy the night before her next class.
She is quite the bouncer. She LOVES the bars, but she has gotten SO much better on the trampoline during our short time at ASI. It's so fun to watch!


Scarlett and Hannah had to have matching outfits of course, and one of their favorite parts is getting stamps on their feet after class. It's the little things that make life so fun, huh?

I left the room one day only to return to Daddy and Hannah having a tea party in the living room. I'm sure this is the first of MANY in our future.We made our annual trip to the Garland Labor Day parade this year, and the kids had a BLAST. It's the perfect size parade for this age, and they LOVE getting beads and candy.



We took our first trip to Sandy Lake Amusement Park with the kids. James remembers going there a lot as a child, and he swears that they have the EXACT same rides. That's a bit scary to think about. Hannah wanted to ride EVERYTHING, and we had a fabulous time!

This is just one of those memories that I want to remember. Greyson LOVES taking a bath in Grandma and Grandpa's sink. It's hilarious that he still fits in this thing, but the sink is HUGE! He has been bathing in Grandma's sink since birth, but they did upgrade to a larger sink recently. I'd like to think that they did it so he could keep playing with his measuring cups while Grandma gives him a bath :-).


Greyson's second season of Blast Ball started, and it was interesting as always. Greyson loved playing in the dirt more than he liked hitting the ball so that was always a challenge.

He had his biggest fan cheering him on as always.


I had one of those days when I wanted to pull out Greyson's old Halloween costumes and give them a try. Greyson still fits in last year's costume since we got such a big size, and Hannah tried on Greyson's 1st costume when he was a skunk. Let's just say that Hannah doesn't like being a stinky animal. She was LIVID, and of course, being the excellent mother that I am, I took out the camera and got some pics before taking off the offensive item. Here is Buzz (aka Greyson) attempting to comfort the very mad stinky skunk. HILARIOUS!
I don't like this Mommy!
She does like wearing the Buzz goggles though.
Greyson decided he wanted to put on his zebra costume from when he was Hannah's age -- it totally still fits ;-)!

We traveled to our favorite pumpkin patch up in Argyle with some friends from our Mommy group. The have this great train that you ride out to the patch. It was a big hit!



Anders and Greyson loved playing on the seesaw.



This was the best shot I got of the kids together. That's pretty sad. They were NOT in the mood for posing, but this gives an excellent picture into most of my day's adventures. I am a referee 24/7.
I decided to send the kids out to the backyard on a nice day to enjoy the outdoors while I prepared dinner one day. I walked out the door to check on them (I leave the windows open so I can hear any screams so don't freak out), and this is what I found. They are such the nudists, right?
We went to another fab pumpkin patch out in Celina with the Mommy's group another afternoon. They had a petting zoo and everything! We hadn't been back to this particular patch since we went a few years ago with Cody. It was EXACTLY the same, and we had a great time!
I thought he was going to let this goat kiss him, and I seriously think he would have if I hadn't told him not to do it.
These sheep were serious!
Hannah just kept shouting, "DODDY! DODDY!" In her mind, they're all dogs!

Until next time...

End of Summer Round Up

The summer is officially over, and school has begun. It's back to reality and time to say goodbye to our swimming fun until next year :-(. We've had a blast, made some great memories, and we're ready to take on the Fall (if we actually have one this year). Here is just a small fraction of the fun things we did in the last few weeks.

Hannah is quite the Handy Mandy. I was in the shower one morning, and I came out to look for her. She was over at the tool bench doing some work. This is just HILARIOUS to me! This is what happens when you leave Hannah alone for less than 5 minutes.
Apparently she is thinking of pursuing a career in dentistry :-).




My attempt at getting the kids to craft together. It was VERY VERY VERY messy. Hannah discovered a new love of painting.
Greyson loves his baby sister, and they frequently enjoy cuddling on the couch while watching "Olivia." Hannah demands "Weah" constantly.
Her fashion sense never ceases to amaze me. She has now added Daddy's dirty socks to her favorites list.


We had some friends over for aplaydate in the backyard one hot summer day. Hannah decided she would be cool and lounge on the porch with the Moms.

Hannah's first black eye of her life. She was heartbroken, and Mommy was ticked since it was at Greyson's hand (or rather his sippy cup attached to his hand).
We went on a safari :-)


Hannah turned 18 months so I decided to be the photographer and take the pics myself. It was a billion degrees as usual, and she was not really into it. I had planned on going to this beautiful field of wild sunflowers, but when I went to take the shots the field had been plowed to build a new supermarket. We were all dressed, and I knew I had to do something so we just drove into the neighborhood and found this little area. We had Great Grandma's basket from my wedding as a prop, and we made it work!

Life got much better once we went over to the fountains. This was WAY more her style :-).


Here is Greyson's first day of school. He's such a big boy now, and he's so excited to have his friend Anders in his class.
Drop-off
Hannah insisted upon carrying his nap mat to class where she subsequently threw the biggest fit ever when I made her leave - good times!
I've been feeling bad lately as I look back on what Hannah has been able to do in her first year. I remember James and I taking Greyson to Gymboree, Baby Signs classes, music classes, etc, but we have never done anything just for Hannah. She seems to just tag along to wherever Greyson needs to go. The girl needed to do something of her own so we enrolled her in this little Mom and Tot Gymnastics class. She's taking the class with her friend Scarlett, and it's so much fun!She loves jumping on the tramp
Listening to Coach Jason while he gives out stamps and stickers :-).


I am so excited for pumpkin patches and Halloween. Yeah for Fall!