Hello and Merry Christmas!

What a great month we have had and we made it to and through Jeremiah’s 3rd birthday. He now can hardly wait until Christmas. I can, because there is too much left to do!

November was a busy month of preparing for everything going on. We (Jeremiah & I) ended up with colds. So that meant we had to reschedule his 3 year old pictures. Luckily they were coming in faster this year and we were able to skip going to the mall the week of Thanksgiving. We did that last year and I don’t ever care to do it again. (Most schools out here have the whole week off, so it is nuts!!)

We had a great Thanksgiving. We did nothing. Jeremiah was in pajamas all day and I was most of the day. Jeremiah helped make Chex Mix and clean veggies and make dip. He now thinks he is an expert at making Chex Mix. No one can question his abilities! We watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Giant’s Football Game later in the day. Jeremiah loved the balloons. We also called Isaac because it was his birthday. I think it was the funniest phone conversation I have ever heard. As I was telling Jeremiah to say “Happy Birthday” and to sing. Isaac would respond instead. Of course Reece was yelling for Jeremiah the whole time in the background. Absolutely hilarious!

Our tradition the weekend after Thanksgiving is to make Christmas cut-out cookies, we have been doing it for 7 or 8 years with Shannon. Jeremiah got to help cut them out (as usual) and got to frost his own cookie for the first time. He was so excited.

We then had a busy week leading up to Jeremiah’s birthday. Isaac’s birthday party was on Monday. Tuesday we did our make-up pictures. Wednesday a big group of us went to the Wild Animal Park and had a great time. Then Thursday was the usual music class. We barely had time to breath on Friday and the party was on Saturday.

Jeremiah had a great day. He went to Home Depot in the morning and made a toy wagon. Then he came to the party. It was cool at the park, but not bad until we were cleaning up and then it was freezing (ok, it was freezing for California)! He had fun playing and climbing on the play ground. We did a treasure hunt and made a pirate ship out of construction paper. Of course he was excited about the cake. Right as he was ready to blow out the candles the wind blew them out. He looked like “what happened?” but we pretended he blew them out. He loved opening up the presents. All of the kids loved playing with his new “Stomp Rocket” It was amazing how high the rocket flew! Thank you Athena! We actually had to change locations, because the other park we were planning to go to had all the shelters fill up. But it ended up being perfect. Hardly anyone was at the park and it was really nice. We made pizza for that night, Jeremiah’s choice. So our day was complete.

On his actual birthday, he came downstairs part way and just kind of hung out there. The balloons were in the way and he couldn’t see the presents. As soon as Andy said something about them he was down the stairs in a hurry! He definitely got faster at ripping open presents as the time went by. He had green eggs AND green ham for breakfast. (If I didn’t tell you the story about Green Eggs and Ham before let me know.) We went to church and then out to eat at Ruby’s Diner. Jeremiah got his own milkshake for the first time. Then they came and sang to him and gave him a hat. He was SOOOO excited. He as been wanting to be sung to for months now. It was a great day.

Monday we had his 3 year appointment. He is officially 39 in. and 41 lbs. They took his blood pressure for the first time. He thought it was funny. He was all excited about getting his vaccines, until he found out what a shot was (after the first one was done.) He pushed the nurse’s arm away before she could give him the second. Andy and I both had to hold him for that one. But everything looks good with him.

We had a nice change of weather as it rained ALL day on Monday. We are expecting more rain tonight and on and off throughout the weekend. So that will be good. We are so dry out here. However, we are hoping it doesn’t rain on Saturday as we are hoping to go to the Christmas Boat Parade. When we went last year it was too wind for the boats to go out, so hopefully we can go this year.

This coming Sunday is our “California Christmas”. Jeremiah has changed our countdown to Christmas to be countdown to Sunday. He moves the marker every morning and tries to after nap too. We leave next Thursday to go to Indiana. Jeremiah packed up his back pack yesterday. “To take on the plane to Fort Wayne”. He has quite an interesting array of things to take. It will be a challenge to convince him what he can and can’t take. He wants to take every ounce of candy in the house. We would appreciate some smooth, safe travel prayers!

So I am frantically trying to wrap everything up here before we take off. Yikes. Time flies by. I have included the picture of Jeremiah in the stocking. It won’t appear on this year’s Christmas Card because another one was better, but I thought you might like to see how he fit!

Merry Christmas! Hope you all have a terrific day!
🙂
Nichole