Jolly Old St. Nick

 Moses' face when he saw Santa!

The first time we went to the brunch with Santa, I knew I would never set foot in a mall again to meet him!  The State Club does such a great job!  This year the entire family came.  Moses is so aware this year and his face says it all when he first saw the big guy!  Sutton was a little unsure, but he generally likes everyone!

 Can you see the extreme adoration here?  He couldn't even talk he was so excited.  This guy is just like his mommy when he gets excited.  Doesn't eat and gets a nervous tummy!  Santa went around the room and spoke to every table and then went to his big chair in the foyer.  I love that special touch!

 Moses voted that Sutton would go first.  We snapped a few pictures with him and then quickly moved Moses in and that's went Sutton...

 looked up and realized...

 that this was not for him!

After that Moses just wanted to give him a hug and get his special cookie.  We went back to the table and ate dessert.  Afterwards, we went on a sleigh ride around the property.  Love it!  Just the looks on those boy's faces was priceless and pure joy.  Things are starting to get real now!  Christmas is only a few days away!

Cold rides

It's starting to get a little cold here. I think I am over doing it a bit with the layers!

OH Christmas Tree!

Oh Christmas tree....not like the song...as in DARN YOU Tree!

This tree my children are decorating, is not the current tree in my house.  The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we went to Food Lion and purchased a tree.  We've done this in years past and had not problems at all.  We took the tree home, cut off the bottom and placed it in a large bucket of water for twenty four hours.  Put the tree up and decorated it.  Moses loved it!  He was so excited.

A week went by, and the tree never drank any water.  Brett took all the decorations off, cut off the bottom again, and drilled a hole in it.  Two more days go by and still no drinking.  At this point if you looked at this tree wrong it would shed its needles!  Brett went to Food Lion and told them what happened.  They offered him a refund or a new tree.  After checking out what was leftover he took his money and left!

After all of that, we went to the farmer's market where our sob story landed us a discount on the most beautiful Christmas tree we've ever had.  Before Brett could go to the ATM and get the man his cash, he had cut off the bottom and tied it to our truck.  I'm a farmer's market tree buyer FOR LIFE!  Now, anytime anyone mentions our tree, Moses will ask me to tell them the story of our two trees.  Yes sweet boys, we loved you so much that we decorated two trees for you this year!

Eight Months Old!

My nudie cutie is eight months old!  SO much has been going on in the last month and as per usual I'm about a week late writing this!  This guy is still my peanut!  He is weighing in at 17lbs.  They did not take his height the last sick appointment we had, so I am not sure about that.  He is very sturdy though.  Check out those thigh muscles!  My little bug is all over the place as far as clothes.  Some 3-6 months, some six months, and some 9 months!  He is still wearing size two diapers.

Sutton is crawling like a mad man on all fours.  If you really want to see him move, just open the back door and he will make really good time trying to get out!  He is also much sturdier standing when he has pulled up.  He lets go with one had and some times with two.  He is not afraid to try to pull up on anything!  We've moved the coffee table out of the den, but he still gets a really good bump or two every day.

Sutton has also started babbling.  Lots of dadas, babas, bubas, and a mama thrown in too.  I swear he is saying his name sometimes.  My favorite thing he is doing now is "dancing" when he hears any music. He sits and bops along and holds out his hands.  I think he is trying to clap too.

As far as food goes, he is getting four bottles a day (sometimes five).  An eight ounce in the morning and six ounces for the others.  We have also started real solids.  I so hate baby food so we are weaning off as soon as possible!  So far he has tried green beans, carrots, cheerios, and toast.  The only one he did not care for was the toast.  It has helped that the bottom teeth are completely in and the top ones have broken through and are hopefully almost done coming down.

My sweet boy also had another ear infection last Friday.  Two days before his tube surgery!  Luckily they still go ahead with the surgery, even if there is an infection.  So, bright and early Monday morning, we took Sutton to a surgical center and checked in.  Sutton was happy in the waiting room and content for the most part in preop.  He started to get fussy as time went on, so I held him tight and he fell asleep.  Dr. Boice came in and spoke to us softly so Sutton wouldn't wake up.  Then he asked if he could pray with us before they took him back.  I nearly boohooed right there!  I was grateful he was our surgeon!  We prayed and he gently took Sutton in his arms (still asleep) and walked him back to surgery.  We returned to the waiting room and in five minutes they called us back to recovery.  He was fussing when we got back there, but within a few minutes calmed down and drank his bottle.  Apparently, he never woke from his nap until post surgery!  We brought him home and he was fine!  If you are ever in need of an ENT I really recommend Raleigh ENT.  Everyone but Moses in our family has been a patient there!

Sutton bug we are gearing up for your first Christmas.  You are very interested in all the decorations and excitement.  You pretty much slept through Thanksgiving, but I have a feeling you will be much more involved for this holiday.  I can't wait!

Photo Comparison

 Here are my boys around the same ages.  Sutton is SO my little peanut.  I love that for the most part he is right at or just a few weeks behind what Moses was doing at his age.  The funny part is, he is so much smaller so it is amazing to me that he is strong enough to do these things!  There is no slowing him down!

Thanksgiving and Cuteness

 Mommy fail.  I did not take a single photo on Thanksgiving day.  So I will post these completely unrelated cute photos of my children.  We did have a nice Thanksgiving.  Everyone came to us and we had a relaxing meal.  Moses went home for the weekend with his Nana and Pops and the rest of us participated in some Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping.  I think everyone really enjoyed it!

We ended up taking Sutton with us to the football game on Saturday and he was an ANGEL.  He slept the first half and watched the crowd during the second half.  He literally lasted the entire game and did not cry once!  One thing is for certain, he missed his big brother!  I loved how excited he was to have him home.  Moses would probably not tell you, but he missed his brother too!

Sutton at Seven Months

Watch out world!  Here he comes!  Whew, what a difference a month makes.  Sutton went from barely being able to sit up to pushing himself up to a sitting position, army crawling like a mad man and pulling himself up to his knees.  Apparently sitting up and seeing what was out there was all of the inspiration he needed to take off.  He is crazy mobile!  Brett and are taking over under bets on if he will be walking with out assistance at Christmas.  (For the record he will be 9 1/2 months, around the same age Moses was when he took his first steps).

Sutton is also getting three solid meals a day.  Veggies are really not his favorite.  He makes the worst faces and gags when I feed them to him.  He has become tolerable of sweet potatoes and green peas are growing on him.  He will finish a stage 2 container of fruit or breakfast blend and 1/2 to 1/3 when I give him veggies.  His favorites are bananas, apples or pears.

Sleeping is getting better.  The time change threw us off some, but typically he will go down for the night around 6:30.  He might wake up between 4am-5am and want his morning bottle but he will go back to sleep until brother wakes up or sometime after.  He takes a morning nap around 9:30am.  The afternoon naps are trickier but he will usually take one after lunch as well (sometimes two if they are short).  We are trying to drop the "pre dinner" 5pm nap, but sometimes he's so unhappy he needs that 30 minutes to compose himself!  Moses never took this nap, but it's great because it gives me a chance to work on dinner.

Everyone comments on how happy Sutton is.  He is always smiling and so sweet.  His laughs and giggles are heard all day!  And what do we see when he grins?  His two new bottom teeth!  Sutton spends most of the day crawling around seeing what he can find.  We have to make sure Moses' toys are on the coffee table when he is playing on the floor.  Sutton is currently obsessed with shoes.  He loves to untie them and play with laces or put them in his mouth.

Health wise, we are getting thing straightened out.  Sutton's tummy troubles are a distant memory.
We are planning on having tubes put in in December.  He constantly has fluid in is ears and hopefully this will solve that issue.

Our little Sutton-bug is growing so fast!  Let's see what another month will bring!