Cheese!

Random pics that make me laugh:

Ben fell asleep in the car with his hands behind his head, like a little boy might do. He wasn't pleased with the flash of the camera, however.

Jack checking out the new big boy potty but too busy to put down his phone. #Multitasking ;)

The boys were so excited about our new stroller purchase that they couldn't wait to get in and tried it out as soon as it was put together. Mommy was pretty excited, too.

Playing in the bathroom before baths - Jack thought it was hilarious to hide under his shirt and Ben was having a good old time making sock puppets and laughing at Jack. They make my heart so happy :)

At dinner: Ben said something hilarious and Jack was like, "Ohhh, goodness." ;)

Laundry-basket wrestling:

 

Regular wrestling - it's the best when a hug turns into a tackle:

I love seeing them "play" golf:

 

The boys woke up one morning and decided to put on their UT caps before breakfast, then ran directly to their train :) 

One of J&B's favorite gifts from Christmas were these singing and dancing sock monkeys that Honey had won at her holiday gift exchange at work, with the help of some of her work friends who stole them back for her - it was a funny story! Anyway, the boys loved pushing the buttons and making the monkeys dance, and they figured out that they could press the button again to make the music stop, which prompted them to say "Freeze!" each time and make jazz hands as they froze. I think it's adorable, and we have it on film somewhere, but gosh going through pictures is hard enough - I can't imagine how much time it's going to take to go through all the little iPhone videos we have!

We took so many pictures over the holidays that J&B learned to say "Cheese!" and scrunch up their faces to smile. It's super cute. Here are a couple of pics that sort of capture it:

 

Christmas is here!

We were so excited about Christmas this year with the boys - we actually started our "Elf on the Shelf" tradition this year and Ben & Jack loved looking for the elf (with prompting) each morning - they would scan each place the elf had already been before finding him, which was cute. Next year will be even more fun as I am sure our elf will expand his repertoire of elf-scapades! Haha, well I think that's funny.

Anyway, Christmas Eve was SO much fun and I had been so looking forward to it! We went to our new church - HPUMC - for an afternoon service and even though we were in overflow seating, it was lovely. We even saw President Bush on our way out! Well, some of us did. Others of us (me) passed RIGHT by him on the stairs and didn't realize the opportunity to share Christmas wishes with the president would present itself or slip right through my fingers. Alas; or as the boys would say, "Awww, maaan!"

Afterwards, we (including J's parents, Katie, & Guy) went to dinner at Pappas Bros., which was very festive!

Christmas morning the boys woke up to find their Santa gifts - a couple of tricycles and some blocks were the big hits of the morning. And notice the uber-cute Santa bags we had delivered from the North Pole, via England, as Godmother Beth & Uncle Matt put in a good word for us to have these toy delivery bags each year. We love them and should fit our "three gifts from Santa" perfectly! The boys are so cute at this age - we must have opened presents all day long because they would open one and be ready to play with that, forget about the other presents! Honey and Papa were going to join us Christmas morning but because it was raining and yucky outside, and since we were going over there for dinner anyway, we just packed up after breakfast and headed to Plano. We took their stockings along, since they didn't make it to opening those yet! 

 

When we got to J's parents, we got to relax, we opened gifts, and then it SNOWED! That was fun to play in outside, though the boys weren't really quite sure what to make of it. I love their hesitant expressions! They were ready to go in, and then we had Christmas dinner of course, which was yummy. The boys had a blast passing out gifts to everyone - they think they are so big :) 

Luckily Susie gave me a pair of gloves in my stocking, since I forgot the boys' mittens!

 

Other pictures from the day:

And finally, Ben & Jack learned that Santa Claus says "Ho, Ho, Ho!" and Ben added, "Merry, Christmas!" - I'm fairly certain that Nanny Mercedes taught them this, as I discovered it when they would see the Santa decoration in the dining room and spontaneously say "Ho, Ho, Ho!" I thought it was kind of adorable, especially when Ben started saying "Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas" - which actually got much clearer than this. Love these boys!

Early Christmas

We celebrated an early Christmas with my family in Tyler the weekend before Christmas, and got to go out for La's birthday celebration at Shogun's Hibachi with the family, which was fun. We loved our time with family and went to the park with all the boys, watched Christmas movies, and spent time at my parents' house together, which feels so rare these days.

Christmas presents were fun with everyone:

This car race track from Gigi & Poppy was one of their favorite things - the boys made us open it and put it together when we got home before they went to bed, by dragging the box around, pointing, and grunting at it, making "please" signs." How can you resist a toddler saying "Please?"

Here are a couple of the big boys together - J&B love cousin Connor :)

And some having fun:

Uncle Kris' iPad was a big hit over the weekend!

Silly Jackster! Incidentally, Ben sometimes calls him "Jackster" - which is sooooo cute :)

Since I somehow managed not to get any clear pictures of Cooper, here is their family pic from our photo shoot - my nephews are adorable! And one of us & the whole family, too, while I'm at it.

Family Photos

This was our annual Solomon family photo, taken by Aunt Andi in Plano over Thanksgiving weekend:

And these are our Irvin family photos, taken over Christmas weekend at the Rose Garden by Travis:

We love our families :)

Hanukkah

We celebrated Hanukkah with our Solomon family - the whole family! - at Susan & David's house. This was our first time to meet baby Tyce, who is adorable and slept most of the evening! The boys had a blast running around, generally being crazy, and playing with trains that Susan still has tucked away from when her boys were little. They loved the trains, and then they got a train from their great-grandparents, which they were super pumped about! They also got cute little tool belts from their grandparents and Ben wore his for the rest of the night. The boys had quite a few new gifts from their great-grandparents, grandparents, great-Aunt Andi, & Cousin Lauren for Hanukkah!

 

This is the boys the very next morning playing with their new train. It has been a huge hit - it's literally the first thing they want to do when they wake up and the last thing they play with at night before going to their room. Pretty cute, except that we are working on sharing the preferred train and teaching them that "my choo choo" is really "our choo choo."

We did have an incident, where Jack fell into an ottoman and busted his lip pretty good. I'm no good in traumatic situations, which is why it is fortunate for us that Jonathan is usually there for these kind of things. But Jack was fine - he bit his tongue and busted his lip but was okay. Here's the funny part of the story - I took him to the doctor a couple of days later for something else (fussy, thought maybe an ear infection - no, it was teething) and a different doctor in the practice examined him. Both the nurse and the doctor asked me sort of probing questions about his injury. I wasn't offended and am glad that they were doing their job, but it was sort of funny to answer their questions and mention that Carol Goldberg, their head nurse, was there when it happened, and then the questions stopped. :) 

It was a fun celebration with family and the boys loved the latkes & applesauce for dinner :)