Merry Christmas

A wonderful, snowing white and blessed Christmas happened for the boys this year!

We spent Christmas Eve at the Godparents house enjoying a seafood extravaganza and Jackson made a new friend named Tyler. Tyler is 5 years old and he and Jackson spent the evening chasing each other and laughing all night long! Dispite the snowy and icy weather we made it home safe and sound and the boys promptly crashed out from exhaustion.

Christmas morning Jackson awoke around his usual 8:30 while Jacob saw fit to wake up quite a bit earlier (much appreciation to Ben who let Stephanie sleep in with Jack!). When Jackson woke up MaaMaa was more than happy to hand him his Elmo stocking filled with all kinds of chocolates and treats! It certainly didn't take Jackson very long to figure out how to open his tasty treats!

Jacob enjoyed his graham crackers, gerber peach cobbler and arrowroot cookies as a tasty morning treat while everyone else enjoyed Stephanie's made from scratch blueberry crumble cobbler (yummy!)

The boys made out like bandits for gifts, really too many to list here but the big hits were an Elmo PJ bag and rocking horse from MaaMaa, a new book from Nana in Florida and a guitar from Grandpa and Grandma Jeda! Jacob loves his new "blub blub" crib entertainment system and the tons of new rattles and chewies that he got for Christmas.

Stephanie was blessed with an ove-glove for all the cooking she's been doing as well as a new Neil Diamond CD (yes!!!) and the 10th season of Fraiser which means she now has the complete set of 11 seasons! Woo Hoo!

Ben received a new ring as well as tickets to an upcoming Chinese New Year Celebration in January.

For Christmas dinner we ordered a ridiculous amount of chinese food which Jackson enjoyed while Jacob took a bottle followed by carrots. The evening ended with Shrek 2 from Nana in Florida (thank you, Jackson loves it!)

The pictures above are just a few teasers - feel free to visit http://picasaweb.google.com/Stephanie.M.Richards/Christmas2008 to check out the whole set.

Merry Christmas all!

Cousin Olin Thomas!

The boys are getting a new cousin - a baby boy cousin!

Congratulations Brian and Katy! We love you!

It's begining to look alot like Christmas

It's snowing! I mean, it's really snowing!

We took Jacob out in the snow for the first time today (and yes, that is a Huskies outfit!) and this is the second time Jack has seen snow. The boys had such a good time and we took too many pictures to post on our blog so feel free to click on this link to see more... www.picasaweb.google.com/stephanie.m.richards and select December 2008.

There are a few teaser shots above...

Happy days!

Stephanie

December pics of boys

Just a few pics of my growing boys!

Elmo Live!

Jackson's grandma and I took Jack to Elmo Live in Eugene this weekend. Jackson had so much fun! I was sure that his favorite character was going to be Elmo but it turned out that The Count was his favorite! Ever time Count came on stage Jackson would clap and start saying "ha ha ha" just like the count!

We also stayed at the Hilton Hotel downtown and Jack loves hotels! He had so much fun in the pool, the elevator and in the workout room where they had giant balls for him to play with. Above are a couple of pics from this weekend.

Munch, Munch, Munch

Today we attempted to give Jacob his first solids and he did really well! I fed him pears this morning and he had no problem learning how to open his mouth and then swallow.

This evening Ben came home and I was able to get some pictures of him feeding Jake. I've also included a picture of the group from Church that went to retreat earlier this month.

Happy days and growing babes!

Sugar Bean

I've been on a candy making spree lately - trying to get ready for the holidays and sending tasty treats to family and friends. This evening I focused on chocolate almond toffee and two different types of chocolate peppermint bark. I'm never sure exactly how it'll turn out but luckily I had my chief taster in the house and he pronouced my toffee yummy!

Sink Baby!

Jaker-doodle taking a quick bath in the sink

I don't know if it's a good thing but Jackson thought this was the funniest scene in Lethal Weapon today. Maybe it's not a good idea that he's watching this but he's so stinkin' entertained.

The boys have been so cute lately - lovin' on each other and smiling all of the time. I just had to post a few pics of them :-)

Church Retreat

The family Richards went to Rockaway beach this weekend for retreat. The trip was a marked improvement over last year - both in time spent with friends and in sleeping quarters.

Jackson had a really good time with the other kiddos and Jacob was happily passed from one set of arms to another set. As the only "out of womb" baby, he was quite popular.

On the way out we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory - unfortuantley both boys were a bit tired and neither seemed very impressed with the free cheese (although, Ben and I ate it with glee).

Homeward bound we stopped our favorite vineyard and continued our annual tradition of picking out Christmas ornaments and a new bottle of wine. This year featured a strawberry ornament in honor of Jackson's love of home-grown strawberries, a baby's first Christmas for Jacob and a red heart for Ben and I.

Here's a few pics of the boys at retreat. We didn't take a ton because we were running around having a good time but never the less...

Bad to the Bone!

We just had to post some pictures of Jacob having a blast in his exersaucer. These smiles are what makes the tough times totally worth it.

Jacob Update!

Jacob prefers to sleep on his tummy and so today I put him down to sleep in the middle of my mom's bed on his little belly. I came back in a while later to check on him and shock of shocks he had rolled over and was on his back, kicking his little feet and having a grand ol' time.

Wow - what a strong kiddo! Most kiddos cannot roll over from belly to back until they are at least 6 months old and here is Jacob pulling it off at 4 months.

He's always been a "speedy" little guy :-)

So now it looks like we are back to pillow fortresses and bed rails to make sure he doesn't accidently land on the floor.

Halloween was so much fun with the boys this year! Jacob and Jackson both dressed up as Tigger and had an all day candy filled fest.

First thing in the morning - right around 11:00 (we slept in just a bit) we made our way to my work where both boys proceeded to shine and smile their way into everyone's hearts. Jackson was especially charming once he figured out how to spin the prize wheel to get free candy.

Around noon we meandered over to my friend Lina's house where Jacob took a bottle and a nap and Jackson ran around like a mad sugar high fiend. He was playing rather loudly with Lina's little boy Joshua and overloaded on spaghetti. After Lina's we loaded up into the car and went to Lina's son Daniel's school for an afternnon Halloween fair. Jack had so much fun running up and down the hallways of Daniel's school and I found myself thinking that in a short time he'll be leaving me during the day for school and I got a little bit sad. They grow so fast.

After the Halloween Fair we went to Washington Square Mall where Jackson learned very quickly how to trick-or-treat the stores. He ate so much candy that we had to take him to the play area to run off some of his sugar. I'd love to say that Jacob had just as much fun but he slept most of the time in his baby pack, happy as a little clam to be sleeping on Mommy's chest.

Halloween evening Ben came home from work early and we went trick-or-treating with MaaMaa (Grandma). Jackson had a blast - especially once he figured out that every door meant more candy in his little bucket. Dispite having little legs he hit up quite the few houses and had a grand ol' time.

Happy Halloween!!!

The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers

Today was the 4th annual Intel Halloween Trick-or-Treat Party. Jacob wasn't feeling quite up to snuff so he spent an evening with Grandma while Ben and I took Jackson to the party.

The party was a bit overwhelming and quite unorganized. They had large tables of candy that the kids were throwing themselves at rather than individual trick-or-treat stops. Consequently, the smaller kids were getting trampled. We had to stand back and let Ben rush in to grab the candy for Jackson otherwise he might have gotten clobbered.

Once Jackson had a full candy basket he was a happy camper and we found a quiet place to take some pictures and let him attack his stash. He was most interested in the suckers but was pretty pleased to have a full basket all to himself.

Included in this post are some pics of the boys just wrestling around (actually - it's Jackson giving his brother hugs but it looks a little violent) and a few pics of Jackson from tonight's Halloween party.

Enjoy.

Growin' Boys

This week has been a good week for the boys - filled with lots of activities and more to come..

On Sunday we had lunch at our house with the Lawsons (Jack and Jake's Godparents) we haven't seen them in a while and it was really nice to have the opportunity to just hang out with them and catch up. Amy (http://www.funkywonder.com/) came over in the afternoon and we had some family pictures done. I've gotten a few teaser shots from her that are adorable and we should have the rest of the photos to share in a week or two.

On Monday Jack and Jake went to playgroup at the Indoor Playground. They had an absolute blast and Ben was pleased to report that both boys took nice long naps in the afternoon.

New Jackson Events: Jackson is starting to string together sentances and how cute - his first intelligible one (Ben caught it) was "thats my baby brother Jacob" of course, it came out more like "hats I other ache-ob" but you get the idea. Jackson is so good to his baby brother and is always giving him kisses and hugs.

New Jacob Events: It's solids time! We've started Jacob out on pears much like we started Jackson. It's a bit slow going with more ending up on his shirt front then in his mouth but it's certainly an adventure. He's also able to roll up onto his side and is activly grabbing objects and manipulating them - lucky for us he's really starting to self entertain. Such a sweet boy!