Holiday Brunch, Christmas and New Years Eve

Whew - and I thought we wouldn't make it to the last third of December. But here goes.

On Sunday the 21st, Kel, Sage and I opened the house to friends and family to have a little brunch. Of course, silly me, had the camera in the diaper bag and it kind of stayed there. Picture an immaculate house with beautiful children, spirited adults and gleeful holiday cheer.

In all reality it was a lot of fun, food and friends - the house wasn't really all that immaculate.

To get into the spirit the whole thing, we actually had a fire in the fireplace. After everyone left, we continued the fire and had some naked baby time there. Keep in mind that I was in shorts, we opened windows and the heat still didn't kick on for the duration of the night.

On Christmas Eve morn, we went to New Bern to see the North Carolina Grandparents. The little munchin opened his Christmas outfit that night. The front says - All mommy wants for Christmas is a silent night (didn't happen), the back....Shhhhhh!

Great Aunt Jeannen and Cousin Hanners joined us for the wonders of Christmas morning - here is the little man turning the corner to see everyone. He didn't even need help with the presents - The toughest part was keeping the tissue and wrapping paper out of his mouth - by the end of the day, after playing with the boys, that shirt was pink and muddy!

Hanners and Sage had matching stockings:
The day after Christmas, we were able to see the Oklahoma gang - Great Aunt Carolyn and Great Uncle Dale, and Cousin Jake - then on Saturday before leaving family friend Trudy stuck her head in for brunch. Luckily we have been timing these naps pretty well and he has been lasting the whole trip back to Cary.

The rest of Saturday was laid back. We had some family time and got a few things done.

And then came Sunday - What is the difference between this picture and the one before? The infant in this picture has a tooth!!!

Overall it wasn't too bad (not like days and days of agonizing pain), but there was fussiness. Bouncing, playing, bathing, and hugs didn't really help. Then a little bit of searching and a hefty dose of tylenol (a whopping 1.2ml), brought us to a not so rough night (one extra feeding and another dose of tylenol).What do you do when you have a tooth? You eat - that Tuesday was Sage's first meal of Rice Cereal. Yum? He took a couple of bites, but I can't really say that he was enthused. He seemed to enjoy using the spoons. One for each hand please. Later in the week, we went to Brian and Tarin's for New Years Eve. We timed it so he would nap in the car on the way there, and then we would feed him and come when he started cranking out. The kid lasted longer than we did, and we started home at about 1 (in the morning, really, he brought in the new year, with the adults). Again, good mom, the camera was in the diaper bag. Here is a filler picture that looks kind of New Yearsy (insert half empty bottle of champange in about 20 years and you got NYE down, punky):A camera would have been particularly helpful in catching the s'more incident on film.
The s'more incident you ask? Well, let's just put it this way - don't try to time your infant's lunges at food with your trying to eat the food. The kid won, marshmallow EVERYWHERE. Both of Kel's hands, his jacket, both of Sage's hands, hair and shirt. Maybe this would've been a better plan of attack.

That sums up the end of December 2008. Onto 2009, but first a quick side note. Taggies. The kid likes to eat tags. In a big way - to the point where he probably wasn't the first one. That is why they have an entire line of toys for that single purpose:
This set has exactly 37 tags to eat on. 37. Which one does my son like? The one that is the real tag for the toy (top, right). Tag snob.