Christmas 2010

Tim was lucky enough to have Christmas eve and day off this year, so we spent Christmas eve with his family at our house and day with my family. We worked on prepping Adella for Santa all month so she was thrilled to come down Christmas morning to see all the presents, and snow, that Santa left. It has been a busy week with all of our family in town , we are all exhausted but it was so fun. And what would a holiday be without a cold making its rounds in the house!? Tim was so sick that he ended up spending most of Christmas day away from the madness and in bed... hmmm....

She even thought it was cold...

We plan to get Olivia a drum set next year.

already fighting... over an Escalade.

4 Months

I am behind on the blogging lately, as it's been crazy with visitors and the holiday. But here is Nolan's 4 month photo, a little over due, but still so cute! He can now roll over and is probably the happiest baby I have ever seen. He is always smiling and giggling, his laugh is similar to Adella's deep belly laughs. The only thing we're struggling with is sleeping... the boy doesn't sleep. But he is happy... all the time! We plan to start him on solids sooner than Adella did, to hopefully help with sleeping at night. uhg. Also, for those of you that we're familiar with my struggle with a nasty staph infection, I am happy to announce that after 4 long months I am cured! And still nursing! Look at that bebe.

"uh oh where'd my woo go?"

Is all I have been hearing since woo left :(. Lauren (aka "Woo") and I have been friends since 3rd grade, I won't mention the number of years that is because it kind of freaks me out that we are getting so old. Anyway, she came out for a last minute surprise visit for a few days this past week and we had so much fun running around and playing with the kids. Woo is attending grad school at Harvard, my girl is wicked smaht, and she brought the kids some cute Harvard gear and books, pics to follow... It was SO great to see her as we are both so busy now, these special visit are hard to come by. Now if only the rainy weather we've been having and my adorable babes can convince her to move out...

Bjorn

Nolan is usually in the Bjorn a good part of the day, thank god for it. This is the second time he has ever fallen asleep in it... and he still manages to keep a good grip!

The hunt for the perfect tree

We are VERY particular about picking out the perfect Christmas tree every year. We would never go with a fake, and still don't understand why anyone would, even if it is "eco-friendly". It's just not the same with a fake one. But I would like to have 2 tree's, a kid tree and a fancy one that I can go crazy with. So maybe at the end of the season we'll pick up an obnoxious fake one for the front living room next year. Speaking of "eco-friendly", there is a new service that I heard about recently, where you can rent a living tree that's potted. They will deliver it for you and you can even get the same tree each year! I think it's only for people in the LA area, but maybe next year someone in OC will pick up on the trend. That would be pretty cool to have the same tree each year. There are a few places that you can cut your own, but we end up going to the same lot every year, where the tree's are brought down from Oregon and the workers are shipped in from the midwest..... not sure about other area's but they are like carnies around here. Anyway, here are a few pictures from the hunt. I still haven't had a chance to finish decorating, so those pictures will come later.

Adella wanted the "baby" one...

Circle of Neglect

... has been introduced! Hopefully it will bring Nolan the same joy that it did Adella when she was around the same age. Check out his initial reaction below.

Santa's Message to Adella

Got this e-mail today from Santa for Adella... because Santa sends e-mails now! We had to watch it 34342678934 times.

click here!

Our Maple Tree

A little piece of New England in our front yard. It's finally starting to turn colors, and that's about all we need!

The Bath

Bath time is a fun but daunting task each night. Nolan likes to relieve himself a number of times and we have to be careful not be in the landing zone, sometimes it gets really messy. But there is nothing cuter than two little kids in the tub. Enjoy!

Elf

The elf is on the shelf. I couldn't wait till Adella was old enough to start this tradition, and we we're lucky enough to be given a copy of "The Elf on the Shelf" from my parents next door neighbor. For those of you not familiar with the book, the elf is basically Santa's spy and watches to make sure the kids are behaving. Each night the elf returns to the north pole to update Santa, and in the morning comes back home to a new spot in the house. So each morning the kids have to look for the elf around the house. Oh, and you "adopt" him when you first get the book and need to give him a name, which Adella decided should be "presents". So we are formally introducing our family elf... Presents.

Ohdeedoh

I submitted pictures of Tutu's playroom to Apartment Therapy's sister site "Ohdeedoh" and they decided to feature a post on it!! You can check it out by clicking here!

Pink

Adella got to decorate this lovely pink tree at pops & tutu's house... notice the ornament placement, so creative!

Thanksgiving 2010

I think this year was the quietest in the Adams family history, and it was kind of weird at first. The past 2 years we spent Thanksgiving at the firehouse because Tim had to work, which is fun, but this year since everyone has moved far from SC it was just us and my parents. So we took advantage of the small crowd and veered from the usual menu to try out some new recipes. The food was made up of ingredients that were all purchased at Trader Joe's and it was sooo good! We plan to cook the same meal for Christmas, as it was by far the best spread we've ever had. We still did the usual and started cooking early while sipping on champagne, and Adella watched "fwosty" over and over again...

Not happy with the menu, typical

nothing like a cereal bar to save the day! From Trader Joe's...

Cheers!

Bum

No words.

:o)

Nolan is 3 months!

I am a little behind on the blogging lately, as all my down time (all 2 minutes of it a day) is going towards getting our Christmas cards stuffed, addressed, stamped and sent. But here is Nolan's 3 month photo! He went to the doctor the day after this photo was taken and weighed in at 16 lbs!! He is awake most of the day now, just takes a few 15-20 minute cat naps.... ay.... and insists on being held or played with all day. I will have some serious guns by the time he turns 1.

Dining Hutch

In between feedings, diaper changes, cleaning, meltdowns, play time, etc..... Tim and I have been trying to work on a few things around the house. It's a long, expensive process but we try to do a little bit here and there. We are nearly finished with the dining room hutch, Tim painted it and added hardware and I threw on some accessories. The paint color isn't quite right yet, but we managed to get in touch with the escrow company that had painted the walls and got the color of the baseboard and crown molding, so we'll repaint to match. We hope to eventually paint the kitchen cabinets which are still the blonde wood and add the same hardware, but this time hire professionals :o). Anyway, I think it's a big improvement from how it looked when we moved in....

Before After

Disney!

It was a special day last friday, our first time back to Disney in months and Nolan's very first visit to the happiest place on earth! "Unkin buck" flew down for the occasion and "teu teu" also took the day off to participate in the excitement of it all. Unfortunately Adella's favorite ride, small world, was down due to refurbishment for the holidays. But the kids still got to go on a bunch of rides and we even stayed for a bit of the parade. (Still weird to write or say "kids") The weather was warm and sunny, there were no lines and no meltdowns, can't ask for much more for a day at Disney. This time around we all got our ears too!

She just refused to put the elastic band around her head....and I would have opted for the more classic version of Minnie Mouse ears, but Adella gets what she wants at Disney.

Halloween 2010

This year Adella (and I) dressed up as cupcakes for Halloween! I thought she would be more inclined to dress up if I did too.... Adella was so excited to go trick or treating around the neighborhood, and after about 6 stops she said "ok mimi I'm all done now". So we headed home and she helped tutu hand out candy to all the neighborhood kids. Hope everyone had a happy Halloween!! Now we're going to start prepping for Christmas... yee!

**Tim had to work and Nolan was a baby ;) now I have a blow out to take care of...

Christmas Card Photo's

I hope this doesn't ruin the surprise of our Christmas cards.... but we had photo's taken (again) by our favorite photographer Ginette Sundin. I had originally thought Nolan would be born in late July early August, so we had planned on a photo session thinking he would be a bit older, but it turned out to be pretty awesome (again). Plus she is really cool to hang out with and Adella looks forward to her "yayllypops" that Ginette brings for her. You can see a sneak peek of our session by clicking here!

my babies!!!!!

Nolan is 9 weeks

Nolan is 9 weeks today! It's amazing how different he is from when Adella was the same age. Nolan is so active and loves his play gym, he goes NUTS whacking the toys around, whereas Adella never seemed to get into toys until she was much older. I guess it's just the difference between boys and girls and we are loving it! The princess of the house, who we refer to as "the Greg of the family" is keeping us busy and entertains us with all the funny things she comes up with. We'll get more into that later.... for now, here are a few of the funny faces Nolan embraces us with everyday.

2 Months

Nolan is 2 months!! We just saw the pediatrician and he weighed in at 14 lbs, and is 25 inches long. He put on 2 lbs and 2 inches in a month. She told us that he is 95th percentile for weight and off the charts for height! Nothing like a big healthy baby boy. Below is Nolan's monthly photo. I plan to take a picture of him in our chair every month for his first year (or two).

Spoooooky

Sort of... Trying not to make it too scary for Adella. I have many memories of tip toeing down the stairs past the "dead" bodies my mom used to put out every year. Not that it was a bad thing, it was awesome actually, but I continue to suffer from nightmares... (they usually involve diapers or milk) Anyway, Adella came down the stairs after her nap to all the decorations put out and she said "oooh mimi that's beauuutiful" :)