Merry Christmas 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We stayed at home and tried to play as much as we could (even though we passed around colds/coughs/etc the whole time). Nanny came out to play for several days and Raegan was able to take a little time off. The kids appreciated it so much. Anden even decided it would be better for me to go to work and Daddy to stay at home so that they could spend all day (every day) playing their new Wii games. I tried to not get too offended by this request. :) Here are some of the things that happened:

We got a decent family photo that we considered using for next year's Christmas card (cough, cough--yes, I realize that it probably won't happen since we haven't sent out cards in years). Then, we noticed that we were missing a kid in the picture: Graysen slept in well past present-opening time on Christmas morning and missed the photo op. Oops!

No worries. He got his own present-opening attention all by himself later that morning. In fact, his siblings were quite mesmerized by his handful of baby toys and wouldn't let him play with them much. The joys of being the youngest.

Anden lost his third tooth. It was hanging on for dear life almost the entire break and made me cringe every time I saw it swinging. Ugh. Raegan finally helped it along the night before he went back to school. Good riddance! Oh, and while Anden lost a tooth, Graysen has several more. His 6th is just about to pop through the gums. Can I just say that we have had so much lost sleep over these pearly whites--I don't remember this much drama with the other kids' teething.

Finley taught us the proper way to eat a banana. Raegan claims she's been eating bananas like this for ages. Ummm, this was a first for me. I will admit that she's done it every time since I noticed, though. Such a goose!

Graysen is a sitting up champ and scoots all over the floor now. He is slowly beginning to realize that using his arms/hands might help him get to where he wants to be much faster than rocking on his knees and catapulting himself forward. Oh, we think he's going to have dark eyes (still not 100% sure if they will be hazel, but they look closer to my eye color than the others--definitely not blue like Mckay or Finley). His hair is growing in quickly, too--light brown.

Mckay spent the break building, building and more building. Magnatiles, Legos, Bloco toys, Geotrax, you name it. Very determined, focused and creative. He loved having Anden home from school...and hated having Anden home from school. I think Anden felt the same way. :)

I can now put Graysen down on the floor and let him play with toys for a while. Unfortunately, the other kids don't like to leave him alone and I find myself telling them to get away from him (or off of him) every other minute. Plus, he's now starting to explore and scoot, which means I can't be too far away.

Graysen's big Christmas present was being fed solids (finally!)...I really didn't want to start until later, but we decided to go ahead since he was so curious about our food. He was really excited and has happily eaten everything we've given him so far. He's had a bit of an eczema flair up since then, though--which I'm hoping can be attributed to weather since we can't seem to pinpoint what it might be if it's food related.

Plenty of other stuff going on, but don't have any pictures to share. While running errands the afternoon before Anden started back to school, I was in a car accident (rear ended while driving Raegan's car--he had the kids, thankfully). No injuries and 100% not my fault...just have to deal with the hassle of car repairs now. Then, about 1.5 hours after the accident, I managed to lock the keys in the car while picking up stuff at the library. I thought it was funny until Raegan reminded me that we don't have a spare key for his car. Yes--you read that correctly. We DO NOT have a spare key and the locksmith was about 45 minutes away. So, I got to walk home from the library carrying 200 books/dvds (only a slight exaggeration) in cold weather while the stinking car keys were sitting on the driver's seat (taunting me) next to a bunch of groceries. At least it was only a half mile walk and I needed the fresh air. :) It was a swell day and made me that much more determined that 2011 will be amazing!