Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful Christmas this year with all of our family. All of us were very blessed with lots of great gifts and fun times with the people we love the most. Here are a ton of pictures of George enjoying Christmas.
We built George's wonderful gift from my parents a couple days ago and he found it in our storage room so we had to get it out a night early. That's okay - he LOVES his new kitchen and I think it is about as cute as it gets.

On Christmas Eve we headed to Kelly and Joe's to celebrate Wigilia (our yummy meatless meal tradition). With George, the triplets, and their cousin Willa, we had quite the line-up of one year olds for dinner!

George loved the food - he ate a ton of mushroom soup (unlike me) and scarfed down a perogi or two.

Santa's elves brought all the kids matching PJs. This is Ryan and George checking out the DVD we got the trio. George really wanted it for himself.

Modeling his PJs and new Chicago Cubs crocs!

Playing ring around the rosy with Willa and Caitlin.

On Christmas morning, George was way more spoiled than a kid who won't remember this day ever should be! He got a customized Illini basketball hoop...

Great new books in his stocking...

Checking out the tunnel of his new tent from his Nana and Pa...

A toy that is made to be hit with a hammer? Genius...

His cleaning set from his aunt Laura...

George got to stay up late both nights. The first night was no big deal, he just played until 9:00 when we went home. Last night, he was much more unhappy and we had to leave in a hurry to stop the wailing. Oh well. We had a wonderful Christmas with everyone and we hope you all did, too! Thanks to everyone for our great gifts and wonderful company!

15 Months Old!

Yesterday George turned 15 months old! He is such a little boy now, the baby in him seems to be very hard to find anymore. There are still some nights that he likes to be rocked to sleep, and as I hold his snuggly little body, I hug him a little tighter knowing that our snuggle sessions won't last a whole lot longer.

Today we had G's 15 month doctor's appointment and here's what we learned:

• He weighs 24 lbs, 4 oz, which is the 47th percentile.
• He is 31 1/8 inches tall, which is the 51st percentile.
• His head is 18 5/8 inches, which is the 72nd percentile.
• There's a good chance that he's allergic to peanuts, which is kind of a bummer. He's had peanut butter three times now, and each time his face breaks out in a blotchy red rash. The doctor said to avoid peanuts completely until he's two, when he can do more tests.
• Even though he isn't saying anything yet, George met all his developmental milestones. He also gave the poor nurse a very hard time, crying from the second she walked in until after she left. He was not a fan of that mean lady with the needles!

It is so much fun to see George's personality develop. I've made a list of my predictions of what Goerge might be when he grows up based on his personality at age 15 months. Here goes...
1. A handyman. This one is pretty obvious since Sean is always downstairs with cool tools that George loves to play with. His favorites are the drill and the little scraper. He also loves the paint roller.
2. A janitor. George loves the vacuum, he loves to swiffer, sweep, and wipe off tables, doors, and walls with a dust cloth. Of course, he is usually the source of the mess that he's cleaning up, but that isn't important.
3. The host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I tried to think of a job where you need a very loud voice and you get to yell the whole time. I figured that Ty Pennington can't be the host forever, and George's big voice could fill that spot very well.
4. A hairdresser. George spends about 30 minutes a day either brushing his own hair or mine. He also loves to watch me blow-dry my hair and will pretend to blow-dry his own.
5. An architect. Lately he is very into stacking things. He stacks his blocks, tupperware, pots and pans, cups, and toys. I figure he's designing a large building of the future.
6. A NASCAR driver. Not only because he loves cars, but more because he loves to have stickers all over his clothes! There are many days that George's clothes are covered with our return address labels, since those are the only stickers we have in the house!

George really is a wonderful little boy. I feel so lucky that he's ours!

It's a Christmas Miracle!

The basement is carpeted!! I can't believe how nice it looks down there. Here are a few pictures to show off our (almost) finished basement. Our camera seems to have some spots showing up, they aren't flaws in the paint :-)George checking out how well the new couch does as a highway. The best seat in the house...

Katy and James came by to check out the basement. James loved the new couch - he ran back and forth about 50 times and collected quite the build-up of static. He loved touching Katy's finger and feeling the shock and then his hair would lay flat again!

I think the couch looks so great!

George is a pretty big fan of the basement already.

There are still a few things that need to be done this weekend for the basement to really be considered finished. The big one is that Sean has to build the hand rail for the staircase so that we can have the inspector sign off on things on Monday. But for the most part, the basement is looking better than I ever pictured and I am so ridiculously impressed by and proud of Sean for over two years of hard work. We also owe a huge thank you to my dad who put in so much time working downstairs on the electrical and plumbing - we couldn't have done it without his help! Once the inspection is cleared, we can move our TV downstairs and all of G's toys and take advantage of our beautiful new basement!

The Strong Silent Type

While George isn't exactly silent, he still doesn't really have any words. Even the "da-da"s that we used to hear are pretty few and far between. I really thought I would have heard a mama by now, but that's okay. We have George's 15 month appointment in a week and a half and I'm sure the doctor will ask us about his language. I'm pretty sure I remember him saying last time that he has until 18 months to have 6 words, so George had better step it up!

In the meantime, I have started to teach George some sign language to help him let us know what he wants. I had been doing simple signs when he was younger, but I fell out of the habit. It's actually kind of nice now because he's been picking up the signs really quickly. He can sign more, eat, all done, please, water, and I'm trying to get him to sign mama just for my own selfish desires. Here's a very short video of him signing, "more please." I think it's adorable that he changes the signs a bit. "Please" is only supposed to be one hand that you rub in a circle on your chest. George decided he should use both hands and I think it's pretty darn cute.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Today we started to get into the Christmas spirit around the house. First, we strung lights on the tree this morning. George's favorite part was that I let him climb the step ladder to get a closer look. He went up and down that step ladder about 50 times! After his nap, we headed over to South Pearl Street where they were having a Winterfest celebration. There was music, some booths with food and gifts, and the big guy himself... Santa! This was George's third visit with Santa this year and by now, he was completely comfortable with him. He strolled right up and even let Santa pick him up and put him on his lap.

Isabelle and Michelle joined us - how cute are these two kids?!

It's too bad it was so cold today, because they were also going to be doing some ice sculptures and hay rides but we had to go home to get back where it was warm. When we got back, we put our ornaments on the tree. George helped. Two ornaments broke. I don't think they'll be the last this season.

We had a great day together and I know that each year Christmas will just get more and more fun with our G.