Merry Christmas

This year was London's first Christmas. We started with a great church service on Thursday night at Sea Coast Grace Church. The music was incredible. There was a beautiful rendition of the Wexford Carol, along with Stevie's annual "O Holy Night" that always gives me the chills.

We celebrated with the Van Leeuwen side of the family on Christmas Eve. We had a delicious lasagna dinner, family time and lots of gifts! The kids all had a great time opening presents. London was sleeping at 7, so I opened hers. :) We came home around 10 and left cookies and milk for Santa.

On Christmas Day, we stayed home. We did our gift exchange with the kids in the morning, and then Gramma Joan came over a little later. Brandon took care of our meal, and it was amazing! Roasted lamb shanks with herb butter and mire poir, leeks with bacon, and brussel sprout & red potato hash. For dessert we had Gramma's pumpkin cheesecake and my German Chocolate cake (Jesus' birthday cake that Hudson and I had made the day before). We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and Hudson blew out the candles. (A fun tradition we have done twice now.)

•   •   •   •   •

Late Thursday night, we got some sad news that Grammy Bobbie had passed away.  She had lived 95 wonderful years and was in great health for the most part. We had just celebrated Christmas with her last Sunday at Aunt Thelma's house with all the cousins. What a blessing that we had one last celebration with her. While we are sad for our loss, we are happy to know she is in Heaven and had the best Christmas this year with Jesus!

H is for Hudson. L is for London.

I am happy to report that Hudson is finally... (dare I say it?)... potty-trained! And when I say finally, I mean a-year-and-a-half-and-3-attempts-later, finally, potty-trained. My sister came over a few weeks ago and told Hudson that once he was potty-trained, he could spend the night at her house with Brody and she would take them to Chuck E. Cheese. Unfortunately, about an hour after she left, he was back to his old ways so I didn't think that was going to work. But for the last 2+ weeks, he has been going potty in the toilet every time! And he says, "I have to tell Auntie Danielle!" Whatever the reason, we are SO relieved that he has gotten the hang of it! Today is his first day back at school in undies, so I'm hoping for a good report back.

London is almost 8 months old now. Where the heck did the time go? She got tooth #3 last week, which was a surprise because she hadn't been fussy at all! But I see 2-3 more teeth about to pop through, and she has been really fussy over the last few days. I'm not sure what's worse... teething or potty-training?

Family Photos - 2011

A couple months ago we had some family photos taken by Rachel Lee Photography. We went to Santiago Oaks Regional Park and took pictures in the orange groves. It was so beautiful!

7 months

I'm a little behind, but here's London's 7 month pics. She can (finally) sit unassisted and she's pretty good at getting around, although she's not technically crawling. She's eating solids 3 times a day (6-8 oz each time) and we've now transitioned to formula. And she's back to being a great sleeper. In fact, putting her down at night is really easy and only takes about 10 minutes (4 oz bottle, song & lay her down with her little blankies).

That can't be comfortable...

How is it that kids can fall asleep like this? I just kept looking back and feeling so bad for him!