Cousins!

We had a great time visiting with the entire Eichele family! Derrick, Annie, Ryan and Madeline all came to Arizona after Christmas to celebrate Christmas. It was a great visit. Aiden and Ryan are six days apart and both full of enegry and fun toddlers. They had a great time playing together. Madi is 15 months and adorable, she was walking around and just as calm as could be. Total opposite of the boys! After the kids went to bed each night, we stayed up to play Wii and talk. It was nice to see how Derrick is doing in medical school and how Annie manages teaching Western Civ online. I really hope we will be able to met up with them more often. I don't know who had more fun, the kids or me?

Christmas Morning

Santa was good to us this year! Hope everyone was as blessed as we were this Christmas.

Christmas in Arizona

We went to Arizona this year for Christmas to spend it with my mom and Dirk. Nicole and Dominick joined us on Christmas Eve. It was great to get down to Arizona, it has been about a year since Aiden and my last visit, it has been a couple of years for Asa. Mom and Dirk bought a new playset to put in the backyard and the kids have had a great time playing on it.

Our little family has a tradition on Christmas Eve to open one gift - our Christmas jammies! Asa and I decided to start this tradition our first year we had Aiden because we wanted to start something that was special to our brood. We have had fun going out and looking for those perfect jammies each year.

Visit from Aunt Amber, Uncle JT and Jonathon

We had a great visit from Asa's sister Amber, her husband JT and their son, Jonathon. It was great to see them for the short visit. The boys had a great time playing together and getting to know each other. Hopefully, we will be able to visit each other more often in the future.

The Best Way to Get a Baby to Sleep

Learning to Sit Up

Mitchell has been very slow to acheive any milestones. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen him rollover. He hates tummy time, so we have been trying to get him to sit up and hopes that encourages him to be a little more active. He has the strength to sit up and does well, but he is still working on balance. At least he has his brothers lap to fall into!

Santa's Workshop

This Christmas season is turning out to be such a special time. I am enjoying the holiday through the eyes of a two year old and it is the most amazing way to experince them. We went to Santa's Workshop down by Colorado Springs to get a picture of the boys with Santa and also to have a great day with family. We had last gone for Aiden's first Christmas and while that was a good time, this was the first year he could go on rides. Since most of the rides are designed for little kids, he could go on almost anything. And he went on every ride he could! We all went on the train, Aiden sat with his Pappy. He rode the farris wheel with daddy. He rode the candy cane coaster with Grammy and a second time with daddy. He went down the candy cane slide with Grammy a couple of times and once with mommy. He rode the Christmas tree and the care with Uncle Dom. He even went on a ride that took you in the air and went in circles with mommy (and she was dizzy half way through) with Aunt Lauren and Haleigh in the seat behind us. Haleigh rode on the motorcycle with Aiden. Aunt Nicole took care of Mitchell and just loved him to pieces since he is still too young to ride the rides. And that is not even the complete list for this kid! The joy on his face that day was priceless and I think his enthusiasm sparked the little kid in all of us that day.

Early Christmas

We celebrated an early Christmas with Pappy, Grammy, Aunt Lauren, Haleigh, Aunt Nicole and Uncle Dom after a great day at Santa's Workshop. This is the first year that Aiden was really into opening presents and could not get enough! I think he opened all his own presents, helped Mitchell with his and opened most of mine as well. Mitchell's favorite present was the wrapping paper. He just loved to put it in his hands and crunching the paper all up. The boys got lots of great toys this year. Thank you to everyone who gave the boys such wonderful gifts. They will be enjoyed for a long time!

One tradition I have had for the past four Christmases was to make my nieces and nephews their Christmas gift. Over the years I have become more ambitious. I started off with a simple drawstring bag, then I made pocket pillows, followed by fleece blankets. This year I decided to make footie pajama bottoms. I started out with making three gifts and I am up to ten! I hope that the kids will appreciate the gifts and the love that is poured into each one as the years go on. They are definitely gifts from the heart, what Christmas is all about!

Mitchell After Bathtime

Too Much Cuteness!

Aiden and Mitchell's first bath together

Note to self** The bumbo is buoyant and floats in the water despite the addition of a 16 lbs baby boy.

Mitchell is not quite able to sit up on his own, so we decided to put him in the bumbo in the tub with Aiden. Thought this would make bathtime so much more efficient. Not the best idea as it turned out and Asa held the bumbo and Mitchell in place for the entire bath.

But the boys had a great time playing with each other during bath time. It was so much fun for everyone! Next time we will just put Mitchell's baby bath in the bathtub with Aiden. I think that will be much more effective!

St. Nick's Day

The look on Aiden's face coming down the stairs was awesome! I love to see his expressions!

It is even better when you can use daddy's big boots. In hindsight, we should have grabbed daddy's fire boots.

St. Nicks was so special this year because Aiden is finally old enough to be excited about it!

For those who did not grow up with the tradition, I have copied this description from Wikipedia:

In Germany, Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside the front door on the night of December 5 to December 6. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch (Rute) in their boots instead. Sometimes a disguised Nikolaus also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), and handing out presents on a per-behavior basis. This has become more lenient in recent decades.

I think Aiden was more excited about the chocolate than anything else in his boot. And, of course, he loved Mitchell's toy more than his own. I guess that is par for the course. Mommy had cookie cutters in her boot, so we spent the rest of the day making sugar cookies. Daddy had some Everclear in his boot - we used it to make a new batch of apple pie moonshine to help him with those rough days!

Tummy Time

Mitchell hates tummy time, but the time has come for him to think about being on his tummy so he can start working out how to crawl. I have been putting him on his tummy more and more and he is doing pretty well. Aiden likes to get down and get on his tummy to show Mitchell how it is done.

We were having a great day playing on the floor and I managed to get lots of smiles from Mitchell. I am amazed at how fast Mitchell is growing up. He is already six months old...can you believe it? I am loving watching him grow and his sweet personality shining through.

Teether

Asa discovered that Mitchell loves to chew on spatulas. His favorite teether. He is perfectly content playing with and chewing on his spatula at any time. It is a great way to entertain him when we are busy cleaning up the kitchen or making dinner.

Bubbles

We went to the Denver aquarium to visit with my best friend Allison and her husband Sammy. Outside the aquarium, they have a booth that shoots out bubbles. Aiden had so much fun running around in the bubbles. I wanted to get a picture of his face, but he was having such a good time that he would not slow down to pose for me. I love Aiden at this age of enjoying everything to the albsolute fullest! We are blessed to live in the city where we have so many new things and new experinces to take Aiden to see. Even when we see stuff over and over again, Aiden finds something new and exciting to love and just jump for joy about. I am excited to see Mitchell when he is this age and can share in the excitement with Aiden. I don't think there is a camera available that will be able to contain all the cuteness!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with at my dad and Patty's house this year. We had a great time this year and managed to get a few games of squeak in between football games. We also played some games with Aiden and Mitchell was loved by all and took a great nap on Daffeny's shoulder. The food was great, wonderful company. A great day to share with family. I feel very blessed to have so much family so close and who love and cherish my husband and my boys.

Our two boys