Santa's coming to town

A few weeks ago we all got a chance to visit with Santa. Andy didn't want to sit on Santa's lap, but he was happy to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas! (a ship for his Star Wars guys) It was kind of an unplanned trip, as you can see we weren't really dressed up for it. But we took advantage of the good moods of the boys and the short line!

A fun St. Nick's Weekend

We had lots of things going on this weekend. We started off with St. Nick's on Friday night. St. Nick rang our doorbell at 6:30, while Chris was just finished getting Andy into his jammies. Andy came running down to see who (or what) was at our door. A bag of presents for Jack and Andy! YEAH! Andy graciously helped Jack open his first, and then Andy went to work on his own. Andy was so excited about his first one (a little M&M guy fan with M&M's in the bottom) that we almost couldn't even convince him to open his second one. Once he finally did open it, he was very happy about the Star Wars guys he got too. After Jack went to bed, Andy and I made some yummy frosted sugar cookies. Andy helped a lot - he used the cookie cutters to cut out lots of the shapes (and eat the left over dough edges) and he frosted a couple of cookies very well - probably eating more frosting than he used though!

Saturday morning started off with a big trip to the grocery store, where Jack sat up in the cart for the first time (unfortunately falling asleep halfway through - I was missing the infant carrier then!). We had all planned on going to the Neenah Christmas Festival after that, but it was WAY too cold and windy for Jack to be out there, especially since he has a little bit of a cold. So, Andy and I repeated last year's tradition as a special Mommy & Andy activity. We rode on the back of a hay wagon being pulled by two horses (Dot and Dee). Andy got pretty chilly, even though I had him bundled up like crazy AND had a blanket over us. He was asking to go find Santa halfway through the ride. But we made it through, I got some hot chocolate at the end, and then we went to the next stop. We saw Santa and Mrs. Claus - Andy just said hi quickly. He was very excited for our next event where we went to meet some real reindeer. Rudolf and Comet were very nice and quite large. Andy said hello and had a nice little talk with them. We also went to go see people carving some ice sculptures which was pretty cool. Andy loved the drills that they were using.

When we got back to the house, Grandma Reinsel and Uncle Dave were arriving at the same time! We spent the afternoon with them and Dave got to meet Jack for the first time. Andy was wearing the airplane sweatshirt that Dave had gotten him and had lots of fun playing with Dave and Grandma. So much fun, that there was no way we were going to get him to nap! Jack doesn't have the luxury of nap skipping , so he took a nice long late afternoon snooze.

On Sunday morning, Grandma and Grandpa came up for a quick visit. We opened up a couple more St. Nick's gifts, played some more, and watched the first half of the Packer's game. Andy had a great time playing toys with grandma and grandpa! He got most of the attention, because Jack napped for quite a bit of the time they were here. Too much excitement for Jack in 1 weekend!

All in all, a busy and very fun weekend. We were so happy to have family come see us - and they got to see our Christmas tree too! St. Nick's weekend was so much fun, we just can't wait until CHRISTMAS!!!

Bath Time Just Got Better!

First of all, as a recap of last weekend, we had a great Thanksgiving in Madison! Andy and Jack played a lot with Grandma Reinsel, we had a delicious turkey dinner, and we got to do some special Madison activities. Andy got to go to a UW Volleyball game with Chris and I where he met Bucky again - he had so much fun! He was very brave and went in one of those big bouncy houses, but got a little freaked out and crawled out pretty quickly. Also, Andy and Jack both went with us to the Madison Zoo. Andy's favorite animals were the seals, but we also really liked the snakes & turtles. We did a little Christmas shopping at REI, where Andy enjoyed crawling into some tents and test driving a sled :) We also loved Riley, Grandma Reinsel's new dog. Bailey was a little less than thrilled with the new addition, but he will grow to love him! Unfortunately, we forgot our digital camera and did not get any pictures - so sad :(

And, to finally get to the title of my blog, today was the first time that the boys went in the same bath! Up until now, Jack has been using his blue baby tub, but he has quickly outgrown it. Because he is sitting up so well, I decided to try him solo in the big tub first. He was so sturdy in there and having so much fun, that I thought Andy could join him. Andy was an AWESOME big brother. So nice to his baby brother, sharing his bath toys and not bumping or splashing him once. In fact, after 20 minutes when Jack was getting cold and I took Jack out to get jammies on, Andy started crying saying "I want my Jack back in here with me!" Some of the pics have a weird yellow hue, but they're still cute...

Andy decided that he wanted to wear his construction worker goggles in the bath so that he could swim...

This was just a cool one of the water drops in front of Jack
Plenty of toys to chew on in the big bathtub!

Handsome guys...

Jack always finds the wet washcloths to chew on - they can't taste very good because I'm sure they're a little bit soapy...

Happy boy who has more space to roam - no more baby tub! You can also kind of see his two bottom teeth in this pic if you look very closely.

Andy with the goggles...
Peek a boo! One without...

Bath time = happy time!

After bath, Andy wanted Jack to lay down in his bed with him. Andy gave Jack a little blanket and covered him up - saying "I love my Jack! It's alright, Andy's here!"

In Matching PJ's

Unfortunately, I'm having technical difficulties and am unable to get our early Graham Family Thanksgiving pictures posted off of the site that my mom uploaded them to. I will definitely get those on the blog as soon as I can - we had a great weekend! Andy, Jack, and Ben got along extremely well! And we were able to visit and play some board games with Brad, Karissa, Marianne, and Ryan which was lots of fun. We had a delicious meal, and the boys had so much fun with everyone.

We were hanging out tonight after Jack and Andy got done with their baths. I got some cute pictures - and in matching PJ's, which doesn't happen too often :)

Jack is sitting up and really reaching for toys and interacting with them. He laughs whenever he gets a toy to play music...

Andy's got a great imagination - in the picture below, he is driving his helicopter (the keyboard is where the controls are (including a laser) and the dragon on the stick is his shifter. He's the pilot and we're all passengers if we sit on the trunk next to him or behind on the bed.

Jack is very comfortable around Bailey, and Bailey is extremely tolerant!

Jack is really grabbing at his feet now. When his socks are off, he usually tries to stick his toes in his mouth - and succeeds. I still have to get a picture of that.

I actually got Andy to smile for a posed picture here. He said "I'm smiling nice!"

Here's a serious one - looking a little bit sleepy
And finally, Jack with Andy on the bench together. Andy wasn't too fond of sharing the keyboard with Jack, but Jack got to push a few buttons under the radar...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!