Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! This year we had a wonderful time filled with lots of family, friends, food and fun! We celebrated at our house since I am in self-imposed quarantine (we want this baby born in the United States!) so our families came here.

Ronan - bright and early on Christmas morning. He was bursting with excitement, but we had to wait for Nana and Bubba to arrive before any presents were opened. Auntie Delta was already here since she had spent the night with us.

Daddy and Latham

After Nana and Bubba got to our house we had a big family breakfast (thanks to Collin for cooking) and then it was time for presents!

Of course both boys got right into the unwrapping part, and "helped" everyone open their gifts.

Collin and the new wine fridge that I got him (it has dual zones for red and white wines). I know the perfect place for it in our new house.

Lara and boyfriend, Danny, arrived later in the day and we opened presents with them too. Afterwards we had our big Christmas dinner - since I was in no position to cook a big turkey dinner, we had Freddy (Fred Meyer) do it for us.

In case your wondering - yes, I am as uncomfortable as I look in this picture. 37 weeks and counting! Approximately three weeks till Baby Bean's arrival!

Auntie Delta, Bubba and Nana. We were packed in tightly in our living room; thank goodness our next place is much bigger (three times the square footage as we have now!).

We had Christmas with the McLoughlins on Boxing Day. Papa, Auntie Teresa and Cousin Lauryn came down in the morning, and after another big family breakfast (thanks again to Collin), we opened our presents.

Latham's facial expression in this picture shows the boys' excitement perfectly.

Cousin Lauryn and her new puma shoes.

Ronan and Latham checking out Latham's new phonics toy.

Papa opening his specialty meats & cheeses gift package from Cabella's - buffalo salami, anyone?

Papa and his grandsons. I have no idea what Ronan is eating, but he looks hilarious, so I decided to include the picture in this post.

After present opening, we had another big turkey dinner (thanks again to Freddy), and had a good time visiting.

Collin, the boys and I hope you had a very Merry Christmas too!

Christmas Party!

Earlier this week we had a Christmas party to attend at our friend Carrie's house. There were lots of our friends there - both Mommies and children. The Mommies did a white elephant gift exchange and the children each brought a wrapped book to swap. After refreshments and exchanging the gifts, the doorbell rang...Santa was there to join in the festivities!

The children were in awe - they were so surprised; excited and shy at the same time!

Santa even brought his big bag of presents for the good children - of course they all qualified!

Santa handed out the goodies. Ronan was right up in there, but Latham wanted nothing to do with him.

Ronan showing off his favorite gift from Santa - his new monster truck. Monster trucks seem to be the new thing at our house - perhaps Thomas the Train is being replaced by a new obsession?!?

Baby Bump Picture - 35 weeks!

Here's the latest picture of the bump - taken last night, so you can all see how big I am. The scary thing is that the baby is now fully formed and the next few weeks he/she will be packing on weight - I guess that means I will be getting even bigger!

Most every task is now a little harder to do, and although sleeping at night is difficult, naps come easily to me at anytime of the day.

Crazy that I have five weeks left before we meet the little person. For the record, I am predicting another boy!

Our Gingerbread House

I found a seriously neat, cast-iron moulded pan at Michael's last month. It has all the components needed to construct a gingerbread house, so all you have to do is whip up a batch of gingerbread dough, press it into the pan and...voila! - the walls and roof, and a few extras are the result. A few days ago Ronan and I baked the gingerbread but waited till today to construct and decorate our architectural masterpiece.

I figured that it would be easiest to decorate the walls and roof before construction, and it worked wonderfully.

The boys with our finished gingerbread house.

The boys loved using a sifter and powdered sugar to make it look like it was snowing on our house.

I think this is the start of a new Christmas tradition!

Ronan's Preschool Christmas Program

Ever since Ronan was born, I've been looking forward to watching him in a Christmas performance. This is mainly because I remember performing myself as a young child in our church's annual Singing Christmas Tree.

This year was his first in a Christmas program. The preschool play was the story of Jesus' birth, and Ronan was a shepherd!

Ronan was excited before the performance, and very proud to wear his costume! His line was, "Let's go see the baby."

The children filing into the sanctuary - Ronan had just spotted Collin, Latham & I and was waving to us.

Perhaps getting a little anxious upon seeing the packed sanctuary?!?

Overall he did a fantastic job, although it was hard to him to stand still for the entire length of the program (about 15 minutes). He sat on the stage of a while, played with the railing behind him, and even at one point lifted his shirt up to expose his belly to the entire audience - you know, typical four-year-old behavior!

After the performance there was a dessert social in the preschool room. Ronan and Latham were in heaven - cookies, treats and sweets, all within arm's reach! Luckily, they still got to sleep at a reasonable time, given that they ate too much sugar.

It was a wonderful evening - a perfect memory of Ronan's first Christmas performance.

Another Big Boy Bed!

It occurred to me just last week that we only have six weeks left until Baby Bean is due, so we had better get a move on changing Latham over to a big boy bed from the crib so that he doesn't feel displaced when the new baby arrives.

Collin and I talked about it today with him and asked if he would like to change over to a big boy bed. Since Ronan has a big boy bed, Latham thought it would be a good idea to have one too. Ronan and Latham's beds are identical and can be used as bunkbeds, however, since one of them would inevitably get himself killed by falling off the top bunk while playing up there, we chose not to stack them.

Latham was excited for his first night in his new bed.

When I went to check on him, I found him completely turned around. At least he hasn't fallen out...yet. That's bound to occur, I'm sure. Ronan took quite a few tumbles when he first moved into a big boy bed.

Now I get to order a matching rocketship blanket for Latham!

Snow Day!

We received a (highly unusual) snowstorm at the end of November, so of course the boys and Collin took full advantage of it. They enjoyed sledding and playing in the snow; I had to be content watching from afar since I don't have a maternity snowsuit (do they even make such a thing?).

Latham really wanted to join Daddy and Ronan outside, but when I opened the door for him, he freaked out and started to cry. Latham hates being cold and was quite disgusted with the snow when he first felt how cold it was. We made him stay outside for a little while anyway, hoping that he would see how fun it could be. He is not happy in this picture; Ronan, on the other hand, is beaming.

Pretty soon Latham was comfortable being outside (after all, he was in a full snow suit, so there was no way he was cold), however he didn't seem to want to get off the toboggan and walk around.

While Daddy shoveled the driveway, Ronan took Latham on a sled ride. Given Latham's arm position, I can just imagine that he was yelling, "Go, go!"

Ronan absolutely loves snow!

By the time it was time to come in Latham was loving it too!

Having snow for the day was wonderful, the problem was that it stayed around for a full week!

Miscellaneous November

I transferred all the pictures from the camera to the computer today, and I noticed that we had a few random pictures of the boys throughout November that would make a good blog post.

Ronan has been in swimming lessons for the past few months, so I finally got him his own pair of goggles. He decided to test them out in the bath before bringing them to his lesson. I searched online to learn different ways of de-fogging them, but nothing is working very well.

Art time at the McLoughlin household. Latham's smile makes me smile; I love how it makes his whole face light up.

Ronan's painting technique has changed over the past few months - instead of covering the whole paper in one solid color, he is branching out and using several different ones. That's progress, in my opinion.

Bottle time for Latham (soy milk since he has a dairy sensitivity). I had to get a picture of this since very soon we are going to be done with bottles. Our goal is to have them finished before the new baby comes in January, but it makes me sad since he loves them so much. Every morning the first thing he says to me is "Boddle" and when I start to make it he giggles in anticipation.

This picture cracks me up! Ronan is dressed as a pilgrim for the Thanksgiving Feast that was held last Wednesday at his preschool. Families were invited, so Latham and I joined in.

Ronan, Latham and I enjoying the feast. Many foods that were present at the original Thanksgiving were present at the preschool Thanksgiving feast but in slightly different forms - pumpkin muffins (pumpkin), cornbread and popcorn (corn), deli cold cuts (turkey), etc.

After the meal (and a few false starts), the class sang a Turkey song. I got the song on video so that in the future we can look back and marvel at how young the boys once were. In the picture, Ronan is in the red shirt, third from the right.

Latham turns 2 years old!

On November 16th Latham turned two years old! We celebrated with two parties, a family party and a friend party. The family party was held on the 14th (the day after Collin got back from a three-week trip to Japan), and in attendance were my parents, sister Delta, and Collin's father, sister Teresa and niece Lauryn.

Auntie Delta supervised the decorating of the cupcakes. Latham wanted to eat a cupcake rather than decorate, so before adding the sprinkles to the second one he took a big bite out of it!

Ronan got in on the decorating action too - everyone knows that the sprinkles are what makes the cupcakes taste so good!

The birthday boy and Papa.

It was really special to see Latham during the party - he knew the day was just for him.

He blew out the candles like a pro and wanted them re-lit several times so that he could do it again and again.

The presents waiting to be torn in to. I added this picture because of the big belly visible on the right - I don't know if that was intentional by the photographer or not, but it makes me giggle.

Mommy helping the birthday boy open one of his gifts.

Pretty soon the present action moved to the floor where Ronan was more than willing to help.

"Ronan, you let Latham open it!"

On Wednesday the 17th we had the friend party at our house. Although there were 4 Mommies and 9 children, I didn't get any pictures of the party-goers.

I made another batch of chocolate cupcakes...

...and Latham knew what to do!
(Notice the preggo belly on the left!)

It was a pirate-themed party, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the decorations either...oops!

Latham and I had an interesting conversation one day when talking about his birthday:

Latham: Mine birfday!
Me: Yes, it's your birthday.
Latham: No, mine birfday!
Me: Yes, it's your birthday!
Latham: No, mine birfday!! (He is getting really agitated at this point)
Me: Yes, it's Latham's birthday!
Latham: (Happier now) Mine birfday!