On Christmas Eve we went to my brother's house for a wonderful brunch with them, their kids Ian and Kora, Mom and Dad, and Becky's brother and his two kids. Becky had made 3 quiches that morning (which were delicious!) and a slew of other food and I was mighty impressed. After brunch Dad, Bill, and Bryce went outside to secure a baby crib to the roof of our RAV4 to take to Waynesboro that afternoon. You see, something like that needs to be "dogged down" really good, and Dad is a master dogger downer if ever there was one :) It took them a while but they finally got it strapped securely on the cargo roof rack. It looked as if we were driving the Clampette-mobile up I-81, but at least Brandon would have a comfy crib to sleep in while visiting Grandma and Grandpa over Christmas (Colin would be sleeping in another crib that Bill's sister used for her kids). Or at least we thought Brandon would be sleeping in a crib on Christmas Eve. After we arrived in Waynesboro that evening Bill went out to start unloading the crib and just before he started to assemble it I realized I had a major blond moment earlier in the day. After we left Bryce and Becky's we stopped by our house to finish loading up presents, baby gear, etc before continuing on to Waynesboro. Well when I went to put a bunch of stuff in the back of the RAV4 then I saw a couple of metal poles and figured they were part of the roof rack that wasn't needed, so I took them out of the RAV4 to make room for all of the other stuff....yeah, they were part of the crib :-/ I don't think Bill was very happy with me when he realized what I had done. Oops! :) It all worked out though and we came up with an alternative safe and comfortable sleeping arrangement for Brandon.
Here are some pictures taken on Christmas Day. While we had a lot of good pictures of Colin, we somehow only got a couple of pictures of Brandon. In the picture on the left Colin fell asleep on me while everybody was opening up gifts. Later in the evening though he was full of energy and enjoyed playing with one of his new toys (he is smiling at Grandma Dallas):
Colin also enjoyed playing in the exersaucer, which Aunt Kelley got for the boys at a yard sale a while back. They've been so thoughtful to buy so much baby gear to keep at their place for visits, which cuts down on all of the baby gear we have to haul up there. In the other picture Grandma Dallas is reading Colin a cute "finger book" she got them which lets you move the polar bear around with your finger.
Finally here is Bill opening a present with Brandon. Obviously this year they were pretty oblivious to the present opening, but next year will hopefully be a different story since they will be toddlers running around then!
After Christmas was the start of another work week, but it turns out that Mom could not get her vehicle out of their driveway after all of the snow and freezing rain from the weekend re-froze due to the bitter cold temps. So that Monday I stayed home with the boys...and quickly realized that I am NOT stay-at-home-mom material. In fact you couldn't pay me to stay at home with two 7-month olds on a daily basis! If it was just one baby, or a baby and a toddler, then yes, I think I could handle that. But two infants is a whole different story! I have to hand it to Mom/Grammy for watching the boys every day while Bill and I work. I believe her when she says its the hardest job she has EVER had! As long as Brandon and Colin are content and not tired and fussy they are little angels, but things get hairy (and mighty stressful) when they both get cranky and need to go down for a nap at the same time. The only way they will currently nap is by rocking them and giving them a bottle, and obviously one person can't do that for two babies at the same time. So when they both started to melt down I put Colin in the pack-n-play while I dashed down the hallway and placed Brandon in a crib in the nursery and turned the mobile on hoping that could buy me 5-10 minutes before he started screaming his lungs out. Then I ran back to the living room and snatched up Colin, who was in a crying frenzy by that point, and took him to our bedroom and rocked him while giving him a small "snack bottle." After a few minutes his eyes were getting very heavy, but he still wasn't totally out. However, I could tell by the lights jumping up and down on the monitor that Brandon was wailing away in the nursery. So I went ahead and laid Colin in the mini-crib in our room and hoped he would just fuss himself to sleep in a few minutes, then I sprinted back down the hallway with bottle in hand and grabbed Brandon who was all kinds of upset by that point. I rocked Brandon for about 5 minutes while he finished his small bottle and laid him down in his crib totally asleep. Finally I rushed back down the hallway fully prepared to hear Colin still crying, but was relieved to realize that he did indeed fuss himself to sleep. Ahhhh, two sleeping babies! And btw, that same exact scenario played out TWICE that day. My Aunt Mugsy and Uncle Bill stopped by our house while they were out and about, but unfortunately the boys were still napping when they did so they didn't get to see them :( Given what I had to go through to get them down for their naps I hope they understand why I didn't wake them! :)
Anyway we had a wonderful Christmas spent with family, and we're looking forward to 2010! I hope everybody had a great Christmas and New Year as well!
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