Christmas Day

A rundown of our Christmas morning festivities....
We always do Christmas with just our immediate family on Christmas morning, then meet up with the Grubbs to do breakfast and exchange presents with them. Eli was sick, so he didn't even make it to breakfast. He was up for about an hour and then took a 3 hour nap!




Ethan picked out this car toy for Eli....
Eli got Ethan two books of BOY stickers - trains, cars, dinosaurs, etc....

We got Ethan got a big truck that holds a lot of little cars...

Jammies, a Christmas book, and a toy for Eli from Aunt Nicole and fam...

A cool make-your-own stuffed dinosaur and an Elmo game for Ethan from Aunt Nicole and fam...

And THE present from Santa - A TRAIN SET!!!!! This has got to be the best present ever (for all of us!) We've spent HOURS playing with it over the past few days. I think I love it as much as Ethan. It's so fun!

A hammer toy for Ethan from the Grubbs (like the one at Aunt Debbie's!)

...and a Cars backpack from the Grubbs...

We got Caden a few books...

...and Keira too...

I bought a train table from a friend a few weeks ago. (since I had heard that Santa may be bringing Ethan a train table) We've spent so much time around that table! And not just for trains....we play cars on it, we color on it - it's fabulous! The other day when Eli was sick and I had sent Ethan to daycare so I could focus on Eli, I cleared it off and threw a ton of 'baby toys' on top and Eli just walked around the table all day playing!

A fun farm book for Eli from Aunt Debbie...

A cool workbench toy for Eli - he's a Lamp, afterall; he's gotta learn how to use those tools!

This last picture is actually from the Lamp get together the day after Christmas. I unfortunately only got one picture before my camera battery died. Grrrrr... But we had lots of fun and Shad, Dustin, and Grandma and Grandpa spoiled the boys! They got books, puzzles, balls, clothes, a remote control car, and a dump truck.

Merry Christmas from the Lamps!

Christmas Eve

Christmas has been sooooo fun this year! What a difference a year makes. Ethan understands the whole Santa thing (for the most part), LOVES Christmas music, loves Christmas lights, is in love with his Christmas tree, and knows that we're celebrating Jesus' birthday and can tell you about it.

On Christmas Eve we made cookies for Santa, wrote him a note, and left him some milk, along with carrots for the reindeer...

As Ethan was about to go to bed, Lonnie had gone to the garage to grab something, and when Ethan heard the door shut, he said, "Is that Santa????"

And as soon as he woke up in the morning, he said, "Is Santa here????"

Too cute! Christmas morning pictures to come soon...

Christmas Bowling

Lonnie got off work early on Thursday since it was the day before a holiday (woohoo!) so we decided to take the kids bowling with the Grubbs.

Loooooove the little alligator/crocodile/dinosaur thingy that kids can use for bowling. It was so easy for Ethan!

Wow....a picture of Lonnie and I! That just never happens anymore!

Afterwards we hit the arcade area and let Ethan play a few games....

By the way...Rachel- how did you manage to not get in ANY pictures?????

A Few Faves...

Nothing big here, just a few cute pictures from the last couple of weeks.


Mark this one in history....a good picture of me! The kids aren't smiling, but too bad for them!


I love these PJ's - Tigger on the booty and it has Eli's name on the front...

Ethan is very into hugging his little tree...

Future architect? He can point out where is room is on our house plans...

Our Christmas card picture - they're just too cute!!!

And I love outtakes - Eli looks like Popeye!

Again, hugging the tree. He loves to hug it, then he says, "Take a picture for me!"

Mr. Fuzzyhead...

Have a great day!

Have you heard?

I don't know if you heard the official news or not, but Rachel and I are THE BEST WIVES IN THE WORLD! Hahaha... But for real, we did do good! For Father's Day this year, we got our hubbies tickets to THE BIG GAME. Ohio State vs. Michigan. Lonnie and Curt have talked for YEARS about wanting to go, but it was pretty much just talk. Once I looked it up though, I found out the game was the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Columbus, which is not far from my grandparents' house, so it would work out great for us to go up there for Thanksgiving and the guys could go to the game. They had a blast! Maybe Lonnie more than Curt, since Lonnie's team won and Curt was surrounded by Ohio State fans that taunted him relentlessly throughout the game. Ha! *And I'm proud of the guys actually taking pictures like we told them to. :)

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For real???

We've been working sooooo hard the last few weeks to get our house packed up and ready to be out next weekend. We just had some friends over on Saturday to get everything out except for the few things we need for the last week - couch, TV, fridge, mattresses on the floor, and that's about it.
Then we get a call today that the lady who 'bought' our house is backing out. WHAT????? On top of the fact that that means we aren't moving out, moving in with Lonnie's parents, and building our house, it means we have to now move ALL OUR STUFF OUT OF STORAGE AND BACK INTO OUR HOUSE. Well, not all, but we have to make our house look 'show worthy' again, meaning we can't show it with mattresses on the floor and nothing but nails on the walls.
So we're back to square one. We're so disappointed. We had our little pity party, and now we're moving on. We'll start moving stuff back in tomorrow and get it back on the market and pray for someone to come buy it soon!
We've had to remind ourselves that when God shut a door, He opens a window. So I look forward to seeing what God has in store for us!



And look at all the fun we had while packing!

Thanksgiving

I've been trying for weeks to put pictures up from Thanksgiving, but Blogger wouldn't cooperate, so I finally gave in and did a Smilebox.

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The Boys

I feel bad that I haven't kept up with the cute, fun things the boys have been up to lately. Here's my attempt to remember everything from the last month...

Eli
Eli turned 9 months old yesterday! He weighs exactly 19 pounds. Still no teeth and I don't even think he's close to getting any. Eli started pulling up about 2 weeks ago. He's pretty fast at it now; he'll crawl from one spot to the next and is standing up before you can blink. He hasn't attempted to let go and stand on his own yet. Eli is very interested in anything that's NOT a baby toy... boxes, bubble wrap, plastic bags (his obsession!), tape, remotes, keys, Ethan's potty. His hair is still as blond as can be, which blows my mind. It's starting to fill in and get fluffy, and even hang over his ears. Which means Lonnie says it's time for a haircut. No way. :) Eli still isn't talking, or even making any consonant sounds. I guess Ethan does all the talking around here and Eli can't ever get a word in. He's an awesome traveler; he did so well on our two long trips recently. I think he has a high tolerance for pain; he's such a trooper about putting in his eye drops right now and never cries about it. He barely cries when he gets shots.

He is still the happiest baby I've ever seen - full of smiles all day long.

Ethan
Ethan will be three in just two months. I can't believe it! To really describe Ethan well, we have to talk about him in two parts: Ethan at home and Ethan in public. Because they are COMPLETE OPPOSITES!
Ethan in public is SHY, reserved, and basically doesn't want to talk to anyone that he doesn't really know. (You can't blame him; I'm the SAME way!)
Ethan at home is HYSTERICAL, outgoing, loud, playful, silly, and very very entertaining. He LOVES to sing. I really think he might be talented musically. He knows the words to tons of songs, and is really into Christmas music right now. His favorites are Jingle Bells and Up on the Housetop. They say at school he sings himself to sleep at naptime and is constantly singing throughout the day. Ethan still loves to read. He can read a few words (Ethan, Eli, Mom, Dad) and loves to spell his name aloud. For a while he kept saying he didn't like the h, though. Funny. He's a typical boy....loves cars, trains, dinosaurs, blocks anything sports related. He's really hoping Santa brings him a train set for Christmas. ;) His favorite phrases are 'I'm not doing anything' (which he says if you ask him what he's doing or where he's going), and "hey guys,...". He's starting stuttering! It's especially bad when he starts a sentence with 'you.' I think he says 'you' about 10 times before moving on to the rest of his sentence. Ugh! Ethan's finally stopped crying when we take him to school in the mornings. Hallelujah!!!! He's just like his Momma and loves cereal. His favorites are "Yucky Charms" and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Mmmmmm! (No we don't let him only eat sugary cereal all the time, but these are the special cereal choices he gets on Fridays at school. It's regular cereal the other days: Life, Cheerios, Kix) Ethan's a GREAT big brother and really likes to play with Eli; they are so cute together! They both just want to wrestle each other all the time. He's still a big fan of picking his nose; sometimes he eats it, sometimes he wipes it on the carpet. I'm so proud. Ethan is NOT a good traveler, to say the least. Ethan still loves Elmo, but is on a really big Little Einsteins kick right now.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. I'll probably add to this over the next few days as I think of more.

Blogging Absence

Wow. It's been over a MONTH since I've last blogged. That's horrible! I guess you could say a lot has happened in the last month.....

After 4 months on the market, we finally sold our house about a week before Thanksgiving. Woohoo! Oh, the chaos of moving, though! We have 4 weeks to be out of our house. Then we traveled to Indiana to be with my family for Thanksgiving. LOOOOOVE going to Indiana, but everyone knows how traveling with children can be. We were utterly exhausted after this trip. As soon as we got back, we were in full packing the house mode. Enter December and all the 'fun' that comes with that... buying presents, decorating, school Christmas stuff (making ornaments for parents, planning Christmas party, wrapping up first semester), etc, etc, etc.
Then on Dec. 7 we got the phone call that my Grandma passed away. She was an amazing woman and I miss her so much. I am so thankful we were able to spend Thanksgiving weekend with her and made great memories to remember her by. We left that Friday for Indiana and got to see the family again. It was definitely a hard, emotional weekend, on top of the sheer physical exhaustion that comes with traveling. I think we counted spending 25 hours in the car over a 3-day stretch.
When we got back home it was back into packing mode. And here we are. December 18. We have about a week left to pack up our entire life and shove it into a storage unit. We have LOTS done and are having friends over today to get pretty much everything out that we don't need for the next week. We'll be moving into the basement at Lonnie's parents house while we are building our new home. Our house is scheduled to be done June 15.

And somewhere in there throw in a minor fender bender for Lonnie and pink eye for Eli.


So there you have it. Our life in a nutshell for now. I like to think that Lonnie and I lead a pretty calm, uneventful, low-stress life. Some would call it boring. I love it. So for us, it's been a whirlwind! I'm hoping after Christmas, once we're settled at Lonnie's parents' house, things will calm down and we can start to feel somewhat normal again.

And I hope that means doing better at blogging....

Thanksgiving Day PowWow

Sorry for my blogging absence. I dropped the camera a few weeks ago and broke the flash, so it only works when we're outside. Needless to say, I haven't taken many pictures.

Rachel let me borrow her camera yesterday so I could take pictures at Ethan's PowWow at school. Ethan moved up to the 3 year old class on Monday, and he handled it way better than I thought he would. While he's still pretty reserved at school, he didn't cry and scream in his new class. They said he cried for about 3 minutes the first day, and it was less every day after that. Yea! He LOVES the new playground! It has a huge play set, with a track around it with BIKES!

Back to the PowWow...
Let's see... he wouldn't wear his hat, he kept pulling at his costume, he didn't sing a word, he didn't pay attention, and sometimes just picked his nose. That's my boy!

And of course, wouldn't smile for the camera...

But boy, do I love that kid! It cracks me up how different he is at home. He talks NON-STOP at home! He is silly, fun, and active. He'll come out of his shell eventually. It only took me about 20 years!

Happy Halloween!!!!

Halloween has been a total blast this year!!!! Last year was, well, torture in my book. Ethan wouldn't wear a costume, and he was just too young to really do anything with. This year is the total opposite!
Yesterday we went trick-or-treating at Lonnie's work and Ethan did a phenomenal job, considering how shy he usually is. For one, he actually walked the whole time! He usually wants to be carried everywhere we go, especially if there are lots of people around. And he actually went up to people and took the candy from them, and sometimes even reached in the bowl and got it himself. Huge for him! Eli just loved looking around at everything and everyone. Oops, though, no pictures.

Tonight we went to the Benders for a Halloween party, which was a blast. We got great pictures and Ethan loved playing with his buddies. On the way home we stopped at a church's Trunk-or-Treat and got some extra candy, too.

Enjoy our cute boys!

Caden and Keira look like giants in this picture!

Hello? Anyone there???

This picture got out of place and Blogger won't let me fix it, but this is our 'spooky treat.' Rachel saw this graveyard cake on the Today Show and wanted to try it. Rachel requested Lonnie's mad cake-decorating skills, and together they put together the AWESOME treat! Even won the best spooky treat award!

This is just too funny....Lonnie looks great, Eli's trying to eat the banana, and Ethan's distracted by who knows what...

Tomorrow we're excited to actually trick or treat for real in our neighborhood - another first. It'll be fun!!!!