Merry Christmas!

December has flown by.  Here is a quick photo update of our Christmas celebrations.

We started out the Christmas season by picking out a Christmas tree.  We found one pretty quickly and would have home in no time if our keys hadn't gotten locked inside the minivan.  Its still up for debate on whose fault it was, but luckily my sister lives less than 5 minutes from there and came to rescue us until a locksmith could come and open the door.  We finally made it home several hours later and started to decorate that night. We decided after Ethan pulled off a few ornaments and knocked the tree over twice, to only decorate the top half.

We also took our family photo for our Christmas card (which I finally mailed out on the 23rd!) It was impossible to get a good shot of both of them, when we finally got Ethan to cooperate, Lilly had fallen asleep!

One of the many adorable Christmas outfits we were given.

 Lilly all bundled up. She had a hard time sleeping anywhere and we happy to see she would sleep in the bean bag

 On Christmas eve we went over to my grandparents' (Ita and Ito) house.  Ethan loves to hold her.

Grandma with her grand-daughters Cindy and Lilly

Grandma and Grandpa with all their grandchildren Cindy, Lilly, Jack and Ethan. 

On Christmas morning Ryan and I received the best present ever, Lilly slept 10 hours straight and Ethan slept until almost 9 am.  That allowed us to finish packing for Maryland since we had stayed up the night before setting up the train set Santa had brought him. He loved the train set and we had a hard time getting him to open the rest of the presents.  Ryan also surprised me with a pandora bracelet after we decided not to get each other gifts and buy a new TV instead!  I love it and will have to thank his students if I ever visit because they were the ones who suggested it after chastising him when he told him he wasn't getting me a gift.

After we headed out for a six hour drive to Maryland to be with Ryan's family. The drive went much better than I thought it would.  We only stopped two times.  Ethan did okay but towards the end was done with being in his seat.  I'm glad we have a minivan because I ended up sitting in the 3rd row entertaining Ethan (he is still rear-racing) and Lilly.

We drove straight to Ryan's grandparents house where everyone was meeting for Christmas dinner. Ethan had a lot of fun playing catch on the stairs. While Ethan was very happy to be out of the car, it was too much for Lilly and she was not a very happy little girl that night.

Uncle Nate with Lilly. We were glad Nate and Ashley we able to hang out with us for two days and can't wait to go back in February when their little boy will be arriving!

Daddy and Lilly before the gift exchange. You can see how excited she was to open more gifts.  We had to wait until Ethan was napping to open them because on Christmas he threw himself on Great-Grandma's pile of presents. It probably didn't help that everyone laughed, because he kept doing it.

Brittany, Melissa, Brittany and Josh playing rummikub after the gift exchange

Rock band is a Fisher tradition

They played a lot of rock band.  We did take a break to take Ethan to the pet store one day. He loved the "nake" and "ish" especially "momo" (Nemo) We also took a trip to the mall to the little playground and a different pet store.  Ethan will never have a pet snake no matter how much he loved looking at them!

Lilly needed a break from all the music and Grandma was happy to rock her

When Ethan got up from his nap, he wanted to join in on rock band.

Aunt Brittany with her boyfriend Josh getting some Lilly time

Ethan had no shortage of people willing to play with him and convinced Aunt Melissa to watch him do a puzzle.

Ethan finally got his chance to play the drums.

Lilly sleeping during yet another rock band session

Ethan loved swinging on the treadmill like a monkey or a"oo ah" as he calls them.

Before we left we went to visit Ryan's grandparents again and Great-Grandma Fisher finally got some Lilly time as she was much calmer than on Christmas.

Aunt Melissa with Lilly one last time before we made the drive back home

We decided to drive home at night this time. Lilly did much better and practically slept the whole way. We actually had to wake her to nurse her when we stopped for gas. Ethan needed help settling down a few times but for the most part slept the whole way too.

We enjoyed our Christmas, we hope you did too!

He's starting early

Ethan likes the newspaper, especially Sunday's. Here's what he does with it.

He found the toy catalogs a couple of weeks ago. The copies are now well worn. Ethan has found and shown us every train, dinosaur and fish in them, including Nemo on the cover of a teeny tiny DVD.

He also likes to look at the Sunday comics during breakfast. 

Last week we went to visit my grandma for lunch. She'll be 93 on Christmas and she's still doing great. Lilly got lots of attention from her great-grandma while we were there. Ethan did good and didn't cause too much of a mess but I'm glad my dad came along to help rein him in when I needed to take care of Lilly.

Family Photo and Shutterfly

Today we took a family photo for our Christmas cards.  We are running behind this year because I’ve been busy caring for Lilly while trying to make sure Ethan doesn’t destroy the house.  Today we finally made a point to do it and it was not easy getting a toddler and a newborn to both look decent in the same picture. Luckily Ethan was thrilled with pushing the button for the remote control for the camera and it at least kept him in the picture!     

Since I don’t have the time this year to design our own card, I’m glad that Shutterfly has over 800 options to choose from.  They have ones with multiple photos like this one:

Which I probably should have done rather than try to get all four of us in one picture!

They also have great folded cards. 

I like this one, the picture is adorable, hmmm…maybe I should rethink our card, Ethan loves to give Lilly kisses.

So many choices, I’m going to have a hard time deciding which one to do!

If you haven’t procrastinated like me and already finished your Christmas cards, Shutterfly has other great products. Here are my favorite ones:

  Photo calendar

Birthday cards

Are you a blogger?  You can get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly.com.  Learn how here!

Ethan is one smart little boy

Ethan has learned a lot of new things while I am nursing Lilly.  He learned to knock over the gates so he can get anywhere in the house.  He learned how to push a chair up to the fish tank to play in the water. He learned to open the fridge to get his leche.  After putting a latch on the fridge, he learned to open the latch to get out the full brita water pitcher and dump it on the floor.  He learned how to start the washing machine. He learned how to turn on the computer and then climb up onto the desk to turn on the speakers because he wants to watch pbskids.org. What he will learn next?

He loves to line up his cars and trucks and then clap when he is done.

Our sweet Lilly

Wide awake and actually content in the bouncer.  She wants to be held 24/7.  Good thing I have a mei tai to carry her in during the day.

Nice and comfy on the beanbag while Ethan and I read some books.  Ethan even tried to show her the books.

Ethan loves to give Lilly kisses.  Unfortunately he usually tries to sit on her when giving the kisses

He also likes to hold her hand.  I've been surprised at how gentle he has been when holding her hand.

Grandpa and Grandma Fisher come to visit

We were excited to have Grandma and Grandpa Fisher come to visit and meet Lilly. We spent most of the time relaxing.  The weather was beautiful and we did go out one day to walk around Collinsville. We also went to my parents' house for dinner and to show Susan the beautiful kitchen Mark did this summer.  We appreciate all the help they provided while they were here including dinners and what was supposed to be an easy replace the bathroom faucet job that ended up taking all day.  Thanks again and we can't wait to see you at Christmas!

Though Lilly didn't get to see any of the walk, she was warm and content for most of it.  We did have to rush home when she got hungry.

Watching How to Train Your Dragon with Grandpa and Grandma

Ethan kept requesting fish pictures on the laptop

Daddy getting some snuggling time with little Lilly

Grandma holding her one last time before they leave

While they were here, Ryan pulled up the last of his garden crop, carrots!  They are yummy!

Lillian Sophia is here!

Our sweet Lilly was born on November 3, 2010 and 6:36pm.  This birth experience was much better in that she was born the same day I arrived at the hospital for the induction. There was a great nurse who came in to check on me while my assigned nurse was eating dinner and asked "do you want to have a baby now?"  3 pushes and roughly 15 minutes later Lillian was here!  She was a healthy 8 lbs 3 oz and 20 inches long. Just like Ethan she was born with a full head of dark hair! Ryan was again able to take off 2 weeks.  Ethan has loved his one on one time with Daddy and I am glad that I get to focus on Lilly. Ethan has already learned to say her name "Yeye" and every morning comes running into our room to look for her.  He loves to give her kisses.  He's done really well around her, only trying to pick her up a couple of times and hasn't been aggressive towards her yet. We love her and think she is the perfect addition to our family. 

Get ready for a photo overload!