Trevor growing up

Since Trevor was born he has always used one of these except his was a pale beige color. 

This is the paci he received from the hospital.  I never really tried a different type because I kept thinking he wouldn't really use it, but oh well.  Thankfully, he only used it at night to go to sleep.  I really never had to go and find it in the middle of the night to give it back to him.  As he got older he liked to hold onto it as he slept or bite on it.  The poor thing looked pretty pitiful - it had lost it suction because there were holes in it, so it was time to say goodbye.

I am thankful to say as of the beginning of December we no longer have any pacfiers and they were pretty easy to get rid of.  I never really wanted my kids to use pacifiers because I've heard it can be pretty difficult to break them of the habit.  Yeah, for no more paci's!!!

Decorating at the Singley's

You never know how much 2 boys will get into decorating trees, so we are always in for a surprise.  In the boys' playroom, I have set up a small tree on top of a ledge for all of their ornaments.  They were so excited to open up each ornament and put it on the tree.  I let them put them on and kept telling myself I would keep them exactly where they put them.  But I just couldn't once I put the tree on the ledge and some of the ornaments were in the back - so at least I only moved those.

We were then off to decorate our family tree.   A few years ago when Brody was younger we decorated the tree at night so he didn't see us touching the tree - we were hoping that he wouldn't mess with it since he never saw us touching it - AND actually that worked.  This year I just knew Trevor would mess with the ornaments but I said I'll just go with it.  Brody LOVED pulling out the ornaments and putting them on the tree.  He really was a huge help. 

Trevor wanted to help too and hung a few ornaments himself - but I think his kept falling so we had to redo them.  Lately, he is into taking his shirt off which is why he is shirtless while he decorates the tree.

I'm happy to say that Trevor did not play with the ornaments on the tree and didn't even touch the presents under it except for the occasional falling into them.

The perfect tree

Our annual tradition is for all of us to go pick out our tree together.  We have always had a real tree and I love the tradition of going together to pick it out, however there are times when I wished we had a fake tree.  Because of Brody's birthday party and him not feeling so good, we had to wait a couple of days to get our tree.

The boys were pretty excited to be going to pick it out - even though I don't think Trevor had any idea what was going on - he just likes to repeat whatever Brody says.  We were off - trying to corral 2 boys around a bunch of trees - sounds like fun right?  Well, they weren't too bad just the typical hiding behind trees and chasing each other a little. 

On the search for the perfect tree

They actually got to step on the pedal to shake the tree.

We picked out the "perfect" tree and were off to the house to decorate - or at least get it in the house.

Christmas Pics 2011

As our yearly tradition goes, we went several weeks ago to get our Christmas pictures taken for Christmas cards.  Jeff and Jennifer Walker were our photographers - I actually graduated with Jeff "small world".  It's always such an ordeal to get all 4 of us to coordinate in some way.  I was pretty happy with the outcome though.

This is Trevor's sweet smile.  When you tell him to smile he does he scrunched nose look like above, so we tell him to do a sweet smile and we get below.

This one cracks me up - look at Trevor's face.

Operation Christmas child

We have been doing Operation Christmas child for several years now, but this year we decided to pack 2 shoe boxes - one for each of our boys.  The tradition I really enjoy about this is that we all go as a family to the store to pack the shoe boxes.  It is a great way to teach the boys about giving to others who don't have as much.

Brody enjoyed picking out the stuff for the boxes.  Now don't get me wrong we had to reel him in several times that this was stuff for someone else not him.  It was a great learning experience and it is something that we are able to talk about to help him remember about others less fortunate than we are.

One more Monday night

A couple of weeks ago, we had our last Monday night football game of the season.  I really love these games.  There is something about a football game at night and I really enjoy hanging out with our fellow season ticket holders.  For this game we decided to downscale it a little so we just bought pizza.  It was so easy and of course very good.

In the last few weeks, we have had a lot of changes with our Jaguar team.  We have fired our headcoach and we sold our team to a new owner.  Well, to help bring on this new change, the guys decided to dress the part.

Our new owner Shahid Kahn sports a huge mustache so a lot of the fans were sporting big mustaches that night.  Well, we didn't win that night - this really isn't our season - which is an understatement, but as always we have lots of fun.  Maybe next year will be our year.

Singing in church - the sick way

The Sunday after Brody's birthday party, he was to sing in church with the children's choir.  He seemed to be feeling ok so we thought we were ok.  He looked miserable on stage.  People actually thought he wasn't a morning person because he looked like he didn't want to be up there.

Well, when he came off the stage I was taking him to children's church and he was having a break down and did feel a little hot.  The great thing about my parents and I going to the same church is we always have a 2nd form of transportation.  I grabbed the keys from my dad and took Brody home to rest.

He also had his buddy Dominic's camping birthday party that afternoon so he was really hoping to feel better.  Thankfully he got a little rest and was able to go to the party.  They had the camper set up and all the food was under it.  The kids did a little scavenger hunt to search for little bugs for their jars - they had a blast.

Brody and Walker playing in one of the tents.

Needless to say when he got home he crashed.  He had one busy weekend.

Whew, what a busy Saturday

Saturday, Dec 3 we had Brody's birthday party AND the Callahan Christmas parade was that morning.   We met up with Stephanie, Adam and Ava to watch the parade.  The boys enjoyed it all except for the many firetrucks with the loud sirens.  All 3 of the kids would head out into the street to get the candy that was thrown.  We were at the beginning of the parade route so there was still lots of candy - not that we needed anymore in our house.

Trevor hitching a ride with his friend Ava and she was so sweet to accommodate.

Ava telling Trevor secrets or maybe just hiding from the camera.

I was trying not to stress too much about the party that afternoon so thankfully most everything was done - cake and food.  The party started at 3:30 and we were actually able to get Brody down for a nap and when he woke up he was ready to go and jump.  We couldn't have asked for any better weather - absolutely beautiful.

The birthday boy

The kids jumped and slid and had so much fun.  The adults sat around and watched football.  That's the great thing about Brody's birthday party - it will usually fall on the SEC championship game day so there will always be a tv on.

Dominic

The adults enjoying some football

The kids moved to the playground as well - Caleb and Brody

Sweet Ava was the only girl at the party - she didn't seem to mind too much though.

Sweet Tucker

 The Ards with the birthday boy

The guys had to exert some energy with basketball.

It was a transformer birthday this year - for those of you who don't know this is the autobot symbol and they are the good guys.

 All of his buddies

Brody did not like the candles - he was kind of freaking out when Jason was lighting them.

Present time

One of Brody's favorite gifts.

Nana and Poppy

Popo

Nini & Papa

I had totally forgotten about the pinata until one of Brody's friends had something - I guess Brody had mentioned it to him and really wanted to do it.  Some of Brody's friends had already left so there weren't many there.  This year's pinata wasn't that much fun because it was a pull string type where every kid gets to pull a string and one of the strings unlatches the trap door - well none of them worked so we just had to tear into it - oh well they still got lots of candy.

It was a very busy Saturday, but lots of fun.