The last of Christmas

Sadly, yesterday we had to say goodbye to everyone. Poor little Nick was so sad when I came back from the airport and Grandma Muffin was gone. But before they all left, we had to take some pictures!

It is seriously so hard to get Nick to look at the camera and actually look decent...


Before everyone left, Nick really wanted to use his new finger paints that we gave him for Christmas.
Wow it was a hot mess... what were we thinking when we bought a 2 year old finger paint?!?! Apparently, we weren't!
Regardless, he had fun and made a huge mess... which I guess is the point.

Thank you again to Grandma and Grandpa Muffin and Uncle Mark and Amy for coming out to spend Christmas with us! It was so wonderful to be able to visit with everyone!!!

Merry Christmas!

Nick was a very good boy this year and as a result Santa brought him a tent full of presents! Okay in actuality Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Mark and Aunt Amy gave him the tent (thanks!) and let us fill it will all of the goodies from Santa.

Nick sat in his tent for awhile that morning checking out all of his new toys! He wasn't that excited about the potty seat that Santa brought for him, though... I wonder why....
Nick also loved to open presents! He liked some of his presents so much that we had to stop opening more and read the new books right away.

Later that morning we got to Skype with my brother. You should feel bad for the poor soul as he has been enduring what is I'm sure a torturous holiday in Italy with his fiancée's family.
Nick as always was quite the ladies man and charmed Kate and her family.
Eric and I cooked up a huge turkey dinner with all of the trimmings. Nick had to be the first at the table to check it out.

What a wonderful Christmas with family and friends!

Christmas Eve

Nick totally loved getting to hang out with Grandpa Muffin. Christmas Eve morning they got the opportunity to just hang out and relax.

And of course, Grandpa Muffin tickled Nick and had him giggling and laughing with delight!
That night we went to church. They had the children perform and read the Christmas story and Nick loved to see all of the kids run around in the costumes.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Eve Eve

This year we were so fortunate to have my family come out to spend Christmas with us since we could not fly! So we showed them the best of NW Arkansas. The first night we were here we took them to see Lights of the Ozarks.

Earlier that afternoon (the pictures uploaded backwards) we all relaxed and hung out around the house.
Nick was showing Mark and Grandpa Muffin how to use the I-Pad. As you can imagine the adult boys were preoccupied by it all weekend.

We also took the dogs and Nick to the park. The dogs got to run around and play and Nick got to go on the swings with Grandma.

Gobble Gobble

Okay so I know that Thanksgiving was over a month ago.... but I figure it's better late than never! This year it was just the three of us at home and it was such a peaceful and relaxing Thanksgiving. It was raining, freezing cold and really nasty out that day, so it was nice not to have to leave the house at all.

Nick decided that he wanted to channel his inner Tom Cruise Risky Business style. It was absolutely adorable! And of course, he wouldn't smile for a picture.
All of us (minus Eric who is the photographer) sitting down for our delicious Thanksgiving dinner! Yummy!

Golfing!

Grandpa muffin will be really excited to know that Nick is already showing quite the interest in golf. "Four!" has taken on a whole new meaning....

Happy 2nd Birthday!!

Since Nick's birthday always falls right around Thanksgiving, we had his 2nd birthday party last weekend. While Nick was napping we decorated the dining room with a fire truck theme and of course, tons of balloons!

When Nick woke up from his nap, he was so excited to see all of the decorations and the balloons.
While he may look sweet and angelic, the entire time he was sitting in his chair he kept reaching for the cupcakes... he didn't want to wait for everyone to arrive.
He loved playing with all of the balloons while waiting for his friends to arrive.
Daddy is awesome. He arranged for a special surprise for Nick - a real life fire truck!! Because of budget cut backs the fire department no longer brings the trucks to houses, but somehow Eric managed to convince them to bring a fire truck to the park right near our house.
To our surprise, Nick was terrified by the real life fire truck! The firemen were great and were letting the kids climb on, sit in and turn on all of the lights. Poor little Nick just clung to me - he wanted nothing to do with actually going in the truck.
We did manage to get him to stand on the truck for a minute and actually get him to look sort of towards the camera...
The firemen even let the kids try on their real hats, and boy were they heavy! I had to hold it above Nick's head so it wouldn't hurt him.
After the fire engine, it was finally time for cake (and yes we managed not to eat any of it until then)!

We all sang happy birthday to Nick and without prompting, he blew out the candle all by himself!
He ate the cupcakes, as usual, frosting first. Although, he really only ate the frosting and didn't much care for the cake part.

Yummy!

More Halloween Festivities

Finally I'm back from all of my travels! So if Nick hadn't already had enough Halloween fun, we took him to my work yesterday for another party. We definitely got a lot of use out of this costume!

Nick loved doing the cake walk. Essentially there were the numbers 1 - 10 on the floor and all of the kids walked around the numbers while music was playing. When the music stopped, you stopped on a number. If your number was called you got a prize. Nick did not care at all about the prizes, he just like the music and the walking.

One day, maybe when he's about 12 he will look at the camera while simultaneously smiling...

He got his face painted for the first time and sat very still while they painted the ghost.