On the 8th Day of Christmas...

Milwaukee!  

A huge chunk of Ryan's family live in Milwaukee - on both sides of the family - so Carol had a great idea of inviting them all to come see US at her house since we were only there for one full day!

It was so wonderful to visit with everyone! We're thankful they took the time to come see us!

Our first family visitors were from Aunt Lisa, Aunt Pam, Aunt Corky and Uncle Barry.  Jackson bonded very fast with Uncle Barry and unlike anything I've ever seen J do before, he followed instructions, to the letter while Uncle Barry told him which item to place on which to make a very fun tall and ultra crazy tower.  They did this for over an hour and made a pretty impressive sight!  Jackson's sense of balance and coordination was either super lucky or super strong.  Either way, he loved it - "Uncle Barry, now what!?  Uncle Barry, now what do I put on top!?"

 Aunt Pam, Aunt Lisa and Jackson.... Adding Ethan didn't turn out too well.  :)

 Aunt Corky and Uncle Barry and Jackson.

 

Look who's in charge now!?

 

Ryan's dad's side of the family came over around 300p. I didn't get pictures of everyone like we'd like but we did manage to take a bunch of pics... I'll have a crazy awesome Shutterfly "Milwaukee" book to make this year! Anyway, here are some good ones!

 Ryan's Grandma Stearle, aka GGma with the boys.

 

Jackson was infactuated by Jason - Ryan's cousin.  He would not leave him alone!  I think he was impressed with Jason's height.  :)  Or maybe he just remembers that he was at Jason's wedding when he was only a month old!  :)

 Jackson and Ethan with Grandma and Grandpa Stearle (GGma and GGpa).  Grandpa Stearle is their only living Great-Grandpa, so we really enjoying visiting with him! I always smile when he tells me he's been reading my blog!  Hi GGpa!  Love you!

Ryan's cousin Kara and aunt Sharon drove all the way up north from Chicago to come visit us with their whole clan! We always love seeing all of them!  The last time we saw Uncle Alex was when I was pregnant with Ethan and he let us shack up in his room in Rio De Janeiro! The last time we had seen Kara was at Jason and Danielle's wedding when J was only a month old! Kara and Colin have 4 kiddos - Karina, Scott, Liam and Lucas.  Lucas and Jackson are only a month apart, but J is about 2 inches shorter!  Seriously, with all these kids, this was the best pic of about 15!  Almost impossible to get them all to look at the camera!

 Me, Kara and Danielle

 Jackson and Jason... big time buddies.

 Muscles and Funny Faces!

On the 5th/6th/7th Days of Christmas....

After Christmas, I had just 48 hours to get organized for our big trip up north.  Ryan was off on Monday after Christmas, and after he did a few things he needed to do that morning, he took both boys and ran errands for about 3.5 hours!  I was home alone to pack, clean, straighten up and get ready!  I told Ryan - he has no, and I mean NOOOOO, idea how much that helped me!  This makes Jackson's 5th Trip to Milwaukee, and Ethan's 2nd Trip... so we've done this a few times but every time it's always so extremely stressful for me... probably because I'm juggling the kids under my feet while trying to do everything (and remember) too.  Just those 3.5 hours - awh.... probably the most productive time of my life.  So on Tuesday, I did some last minute stuff, laundry and cleaning and then on Tuesday night, we went to bed early and woke up at 4am on Wednesday to load the car and we were on the road at 530am!  The kids did amazing on the way there - we arrived around 445pm.  Once we got there, the boys got to play with grandma for a few hours and then they got to bed at 700p!  That's the way to do it!

Kisses for Brother, and Playtime with Grandma - happy to not be in the car anymore.  :)

On the 4th Day of Christmas...

Christmas Day!!  J woke up and called out on the monitor... "Mommy! Daddy!  My light is green - it's wake up time!  Is Santa still here!?" Sweet boy.  He was disappointed that he didn't get to say hi to Santa when he came but he was delighted to discover some eaten cookies and empty glass of milk.  He was also pretty stoked about more presents.  So he kindly waited on his brother and then jumped in.  He doesn't recall this but a few months ago when we started talking about Santa, he told me he was going to ask Santa for Mavis and Diesel 10.  He said this for about a month!  So silly me - that's exactly what he got. But when he actually TALKED to Santa - even after some "reminding" - he asked Santa for Belle and Flynn.  Hmm.... Those two trains were both purchased by Mimi and Nana so... what's a mom to do?  She's to ignore it and happily watch the expression on his face when he opens Mavis and Diesel 10.  :)  He never questioned it and I didn't bring it up.  :)  That morning, Ryan tried out his now waffle maker (yum!) and later my dad and Grandma Ima came by to see the boys.  Later that day, after naps, we had dinner at my aunt/uncle's house.  GREAT Christmas!!!

On the 3rd Day of Christmas..

December 24th!  We had a big day planned!  Ryan and I got up and got busy!  After a 330p Christmas service at church, we hosted our 3rd Annual "Chinese Christmas" party at our house.  My mom, dad, grandma, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin all came over to have dinner of Chicken Parmesan, red potatoes, fried okra, salad and lots of desserts.  We drew numbers and started our game!  After our game, my aunt presented my uncle with his 60 inch Sansung flat screen 3-D TV and 3-D Player.  So needless to say, the boys were distracted after that... Jackson and Ethan stayed up super late again... I'm learning to 'relax' when it comes to their schedules - which is not natural for me, but by 10p, they were both ready for bed and so were Ryan and I!  I hope we keep our Chinese Christmas tradition going for a long time!

 Birthday Twins!  Ethan and Tyler.

 That night, we left some cookies and milk for Santa.  J was all about wanting Santa to wake him up when he arrived.  We had to explain that Santa has so many houses that he just doesn't have time to visit.  He seemed ok with that as long as there were presents when he woke up.  haha.

On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

On the 2nd day of Christmas (Friday, Dec 23), we arrived home from Little Rock and got unpacked, etc and my mom/dad/brother/grandma came over for our family Christmas.  We had a very very relaxing time - which was so nice!  We had yummy pizza and chocolate pie... and then we all opened presents!  My mom/dad went WAY overboard on the boys' Christmas presents, as usual.  J was in present-opening heaven.  E was much more excited about the boxes and the paper and what his brother was playing with - until the Thomas ride-on came out!  Then, he was distracted by everything else after that!  My dad got some cool gifts too - including an Ipad!  Ryan was stoked about his gifts, especially his Belgian double waffle maker (which I was excited about too!).  

FUN TIMES and GREAT MEMORIES!  :)

On the 1st Day Of Christmas....

Because we get to celebrate Christmas so many times with so many amazing family members, I decided to break up our Christmas adventures by the 12 days of Christmas.  :) So here goes #1.  On the first day of Christmas (December 22) - we drove to Little Rock to visit Ryan's dad Darryl and Debbie.  Darryl is a auto salesman at Bale Chevrolet (so if you want a new ride and you're in LR, go see him!) and so we made our first stop a visit to see him.  The boys went for a ride in his golf cart - and J thought that was pretty fun!  Then we headed over to see Debbie at the house and my good buddy Darcy stopped by and let me hug on that beautiful baby girl of hers - Rylee.  We had such a great Christmas with them!  Both boys stayed up later than ever - 900p for Ethan and 945p for Jackson - both slept great.  E slept until 10am while J woke up at 630am.  Go figure.  :) Ethan LOVED Isabelle just as J always did at that age too. Both boys got super duper spoiled with all the awesome Christmas gifts.  J woke to a life-like Santa standing in the entry way... kind of scared me (and me!) - as you can see, it's pretty big.  J told me "mommy, there's a Santa out there - but it's not the REAL santa."  Good point J - but it's still pretty cool looking.  :)

Such a good time!