White Family Christmas

We spent most of Christmas day with Mike's family in Kyle.  The cousins had a great time playing together.  My parents and brother joined us there too.  We had a fabulous dinner and just an overall good time being together.

 The theme of Noah's Christmas this year was dinosaurs.  He got a bucket-o-dinos, a Dinosaur Train train set, and some dino books from the Whites which was in addition to other dino toys and clothes he'd already gotten from us.

 Emily, on the other hand, just wanted to eat all her presents.  Or really anything that got near her (don't worry, she didn't really drink any beer here).  Elmo's nose and eyes were especially favorites.

 Brotherly Love?

 Annual Gingerbread House decorating

Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas!  We kicked off Christmas day with stockings and family presents in the morning.  Emily slept through most of it but Noah had no problem opening her gifts for her.  It was great to have my parents and brother share the morning excitement with us.  It's been a while since they've had little ones to wake them up early for Christmas morning!  Since Christmas was on a Sunday this year we quickly finished up presents at home and then headed to church for the morning.  After church we all loaded up and headed to Kyle to spend the rest of the day with the White side of the family (my family joined in too).  It was great to have everyone together.

Christmas Eve

Here a few pictures of the kids in their Christmas outfits.  This was just before church Christmas Eve evening.  You can see how much Noah is loving his new Buzz Lightyear.  Buzz even had to join us in our attempt to take a family photo (we weren't very succesfful in that endeavor but oh well.)

Tilton Family Christmas

 The Tilton side of our family got together to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve this year.  My parents and brother were already planning to spend Christmas with us this year.  This was a first for our family--in as long as I can remember my parents have always been in Angleton for Christmas.  Since we were all going to be at our house already, Casey and Kristi decided to come to us on the 23rd and let us have a short time together on Friday night/Saturday morning before they went to spend Christmas with Casey's family.

So we had our Tilton version of Christmas morning on Christmas Eve this year.   So fun!  We woke up and let the kids open their presents, then had breakfast (a batch of the homemade cinammon rolls that Kristi and I made over Thanksgiving), and then the grown ups got to do their gift exchange.  This is the second year all the adults have done a Secret Santa and exchanged lists to shop for each other (with a spending limit).  We all love it and seems like this tradition will continue.

 Excited and trying to wait patiently to start opening gifts

Emily's first Christmas!

Sister needs help with her presents!

Mmmm....paper!

One of Noah's big hits.  He's been asking for this "Big Buzz" ever since we saw it in Target back in March.  His reaction was priceless when he opened it.  Such excitement and "This is just what I was wanting!"

Thanks, Uncle Thomas for this super great gift!

Trying out his new remote control car from Grandma and Granddad

So for the big kid gift exchange I think it's hilarious that all three boys got a big bottle of liquor as part of their presents. 

And Dad, Kristi, and I all got new tennis shoes

 And though Mom didn't have any of the same gifts as anyone else, Casey did get her everything on her list she wanted (and even stayed in budget!) so she was happy too!

 After present time we celebrated and sang "Happy Birthday" to baby Jesus and had our birthday cake.  Yummy!

Emily 5 Months

Happy 5 Months Sweet Emily!  This was a big month for us with many small accomplishments and one HUGE accomplishment.  Yep, this marked the month that you started to sleep in your own bed at night.  All night.  With typically only one wake up time per night.  Considering you were sleeping in bed with us all night and waking us up 2-3 times per night last month, this is HUGE.  For you, for us, HUGE!  We are all sleeping better now and I think all happier now too.  Way to go big girl!  Oh, and speaking of big girl--you weighed in at 16.4 lbs this month--you are growing, growing, growing!  You are also napping in your bed for both your morning and afternoon naps and beginning to get a little more routine about the times that those occur, how long you sleep, etc.  You will learn that your Mommy thrives on routine and predictability so your growth in these areas has really been a big blessing for all of us this month. 

You are so in to everything around you these days.  You want to look at and touch everything.  And if you can get your hands on it, you want to put it in your mouth.  You are exploring your body and figuring out new things--you use your voice more and more and are very loud; you are starting to laugh more with us; you found your feet and quickly learned how to put them in your mouth; you learned to blow raspberries with your mouth and love to do this back and forth with Mommy or Daddy.  We are really having more and more fun playing with you and watching you learn and explore new things.

You like to play on your mat and spend time in the exersaucer.  You do well on both as long as someone is close by.  If we leave, you notice and let us know that you want us to come back!  You've rolled from your tummy to your back and are oh so close to rolling from your back to your tummy.  Seriously, so close--you stretch and contort your little body almost all the way around and just can't quite make it over.  Soon I know you will though.  And as you are attempting to roll you sort of scoot all over the place.  It makes me realize that we're only a short time away from you really being able to move.  Yikes!

As your schedule has gotten a little more predictable, you've also consolidated some of your sleep and awake times so you have one morning nap that lasts 1.5-2 hours, then you're awake for about 1.5-2 hours then ready for an afternoon nap that lasts 1-2 hours.  Usually you can be up another 2+ hours until bedtime after your nap though sometimes you need another short cat nap to last you till bedtime.  These bigger gaps of awake time have allowed us to go out and take you with us.  Sweet girl, for the first few months you weren't that sweet all the time and honestly after a few attempts to take you with me on errands including a trip to HEB where you cried the ENTIRE time, I was afraid to take you anywhere.  So up until now it's basically been home, daycare, church and doctor visits only for you.  It's so great to be able to take you along with us now.  Granted so far we've only ventured one dinner and one lunch outing, still that's quite the accomplishment!

You're still doing pretty well with your hearing aids.  Some days you pull them off a lot.  Other days they stay on great.  I think now that your ears have grown a little they stay on better.  I got sneaky and found a way to help keep them on with cute head bands too.  Now we accessorize for a dual purpose--to look cute and to keep your aids from falling out and getting eaten or lost (both would be bad!).   You got to go in the sound booth at UT for the first time this month.  Oh the things we are learning with you!  You did great for your first time and for now this is just to get you used to the experience.  We'll go back to the hospital next month to officially recheck your hearing to see if there have been any changes.

We look forward to celebrating your first Christmas with you in a few days and having the rest of the family around to see how much you've grown and to enjoy some of the fun things you are doing these days.  We love you so much!

"I just wanna eat this bear! Get in my mouth Mr. Bear!"

So, so close to rolling over.

You started out on the mat, so see--you've actually moved quite a bit in your attempts to roll.