This morning Adam came up to me wearing a colander on his head and told me to go make mac and cheese.

Yeah, I didn’t – but nice try buddy.

The day before Thanksgiving Luke started sitting unassisted. He can’t get in to that position by himself (yet) but it didn’t take him long to master the whole not toppling over thing (most of the time).

He’s also been showing signs of trying to crawl. He will get up on his hands and knees and rock, but hasn’t shown any controlled movement yet.

I am not pleased. He was not supposed to grow up so fast.

Last week while listening to the radio in the car I came across a station playing nothing but Christmas music, I quickly changed it.

This past weekend I complained to Dave that a good portion of the homes in our neighborhood not only already have their houses decorated for Christmas, but have also been turning their lights on nightly.

It seems like we barely get past Halloween and the stores start playing Christmas carols and advertising holiday sales. It’s much too soon for my taste.

However, that didn’t stop us from going to the mall Monday night to get the boys’ picture taken with Santa. I rationalized it by telling myself we’d avoid the lines and I’d have more time to get copies of the photo to include with our Christmas cards. But truthfully I was like a little kid at, well, Christmas, and couldn’t wait.

I honestly wasn’t expecting Adam to want anything to do with The Claus. He approached him hesitantly, told him his name and that he was a good boy and wanted a Hot Dog (Mickey Mouse) toy and some new bathtub crayons. Then he even gave Santa a high five.

We asked Adam if he would sit on Santa’s lap. We could tell he wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but he did it without complaint. Luke stole the show by charming all the ladies in a 15 foot radius and giving the biggest smiles.

We bought a CD with the picture on it, and when we got home from our trip I popped the disc in to the computer and was not pleased when I realized it was blank. I tried calling the mall, but the Santa station had closed half an hour earlier.

I called again the next morning and left a message with someone in customer service at the mall, and then ended up driving out there anyway. I was afraid they’d delete the photo from their system and knew there was no way that Adam would pose with Santa again.

Thankfully they still had the pictures they took and burned all three of them (instead of just the one I paid for) to the disc and gave me some printed out wallets of our favorite photo as well to help make up for the inconvenience.

As soon as we got close to Santa Adam laid down and hid in the stroller. He wouldn’t even give the jolly old soul a wave. The Duke really digs the man in red though and didn’t complain at all when he asked to hold him. It took them about ten minutes to get everything sorted out and at one point Luke put his head down against the furry part of Santa’s jacket and started to fall asleep. It was adorable. I asked if I could take a quick picture with my cell phone (which is not normally allowed) and they said it was fine. Unfortunately Santa shifted and Luke popped his head back up.

I have a feeling both boys are on Santa’s “Nice List” this year. I know they’re on mine.

I call this “Self Portrait of a Two Year Old”

Both boy are pretty much healthy now. They both still have a little bit of a cough, but that’s all thankfully. At least now I won’t worry about taking them to the childcare at the YACD or to the indoor playground and having them infect the other children.

Other than that, not much to report on my end. We had our first big snow of the year last night and today. Everything outside looks so pretty. Adam was very concerned about his turtle sandbox. He kept looking out the window saying, “Sea turtle, where are you?” I guess we should have done our outside winterizing sooner. It’s supposed to get up to 50° tomorrow so hopefully we’ll be able to get sea turtle relocated to his new home in the shed this weekend.

Day Three of Quarantine: The small natives show no signs of relinquishing the germs that have invaded their bodies. It is only a matter of time before I become infected myself. I fear I may never see the outside world again…

For the past couple days both boys have been sick. Nothing too bad, just stuffy/runny noses, on and off low grade fevers, and coughs. It seems like Adam is mostly back to normal and hopefully Luke will be healthy soon too. He gets pretty crabby when his nose is all stuffed and he wants his pacifier – mainly because of that whole needing to breath thing. Poor little guy. We’ve all got a little bit of cabin fever though, so the sooner we can get back in to our normal routine, the better.

This morning before leaving for work, Dave got Adam all set up in his new “choo choo train”.

Adam was thrilled with his new toy and liked it even more when I had him bring me the crayons so we could decorate it. We added wheels to each side, some graffiti on the back (Adam’s Choo Choo) and a face on the front.

After I drew the face he told me the choo choo needed hair. So I added some bangs to the train’s forehead. After I’d colored in the hair Adam pointed again and said “clolor hair right here mommy”. I looked to where he was pointing and it was right below the nose. It took me a little bit to figure out what he wanted, but when I asked Adam if the choo choo needed hair like Papa and Grandpa he emphatically said yes.

He was very happy with the final product and while not everyone can pull the look off, Adam’s choo choo looks pretty good with a purple mustache.

My morning started at 6:30 when Adam woke up. I laid in bed for another 10 minutes, hoping he would just fall back asleep. He didn’t.

Luke woke up a little after eight, which is early for him. He normally sleeps until after nine. I left Adam downstairs watching cartoons while I got Luke up, made a him a bottle, and changed his diaper. In the middle of the diaper change Adam came upstairs. He had taken off everything – and I mean everything – and told me he was going to take a bath.

I got the littlest dude situated with his bottle (he’s pretty close to being able to hold it on his own), told the bigger dude to wait in the bathroom, and ran downstairs to grab Adam’s clothes and check for damages – sure enough, he had peed on the floor. So Adam and I had a chat about where it is appropriate to go potty (it’s a short list – hopefully he’ll be able to remember it) and I gave him a bath.

Afterwards while getting Adam dressed he insisted on wearing a “choo choo” shirt. No problem, he has a train tee shirt, that’s an easy request to meet. Then he demanded choo choo pants too. When I told him he didn’t have any choo choo pants he told me to “Go to the store, buy choo choo pants”.  After I’d informed the little dictator that I wasn’t going to go shopping for choo choo pants he went to his closet and pulled out a pair of train pajamas – a compromise we were both happy with.

Before I got Luke dressed for the day (he’s much less opinionated) I wanted to try to get a couple of pictures of him in his baptism outfit since I forgot to on Saturday. I managed to get a couple cute ones – despite Adam trying to steal the blanket out from under Luke.

Ignore the wrinkles please. Luke wore the same outfit that Adam wore when he was baptized, and according to my brother he looked like a giant marshmallow.

Cutest marshmallow ever.

The white blanket was a gift from Great Grandma Rose. She gave one to Adam for his baptism as well. They are really beautiful and super soft too.

I say cheese!

Cheeeeeeeeeeeese!!!!

Luke was baptized yesterday. In addition to the family members that came from all over our state, we also had relatives from Illinois, Florida, Massachusetts, and Connecticut join us on his special day.

But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God’” (Luke 18:16)

Thank you to everyone that traveled, near or far, to be there as Luke received his first sacrament in the Catholic Church. He is certainly a very blessed little boy to have so many people that care so much about him.

Thank you especially to Amanda and Rob for agreeing to be Luke’s godparents. You guys are awesome.

We had Story Time at the library on Wednesday and while I was getting Luke ready to go Adam decided to grab a quick snack for the road. So he got a little green cup and filled it full of “circles”.

I guess I should just be thankful it wasn’t worse.