Christmas

Patrick must have been a good boy this year because Santa came and brought him lots of presents!

The train table

Our family of five...can't believe there will be one more stocking next year :)

Patrick didn't wake up until 7:45 Christmas morning, which is really late for him.  Mom and dad were anxiously waiting for him to wake up! Eating breakfast before going to see what Santa brought.  Can we go see our presents already mom!?

Turk and Bailey anticipating the treats they smelled in their stockings

Patrick was crying for Michael to pick him up and take him in the playroom, but once he saw the train table he got a huge smile on his face and ran towards it!

Playing with his new toy

Turk and Bailey's turn

Patrick wasn't really interested in his stocking, so Michael dumped it out on the floor next to the train table which got his attention

After Santa, we headed over to the Mulloy's to open presents.  Patrick ran to his Thomas bubble blower and started talking to Thomas

Monster truck from Uncle Mark

Trying out Harper's walker

Nana and her grandbabies

Puzzles with Nana

Playing with Harper

We actually got a good family picture this year.  My sweet little buddy is into "cheesing" for the camera, which is much better than his no smile face.

After breakfast and presents at the Mulloys, we headed over to my grandmothers house for brunch with the extended Whitson family.  Later that afternoon we headed over to Allie and Big's house to see what Santa brought at their house.  I was too tired to take any pictures, but Patrick had a really fun time.  We joked that Patrick is going to think that Christmas is National Choo Choo day. Patrick got mostly trains and trucks for Christmas, which was right up his alley!  He was so excited to open each and every present and every present was the most fun present ever!  It was so fun to see Christmas through a child's eyes.  Maybe next year we can work on sitting still at church :)

Christmas Eve

We started out Christmas eve with a late lunch at the Mulloy's.  After lunch, we opened present's from Gigi.  Patrick wasn't sure how to unwrap presents at first, but he quickly got the hang of it!  

A Thomas book!

Uncle Matthew couldn't wait until Christmas morning for Patrick to open his present, so we let Patrick open another present.  A Thomas bubble blower!  Patrick loves bubbles and Thomas, so it was the perfect gift.

Patrick loved the present from Nana that he spotted the night before and insisted on going outside to play with Uncle Mark.  He giggled nonstop!

Cousins saying hi to each other

After lunch at the Mulloy's we headed to the children's mass.  Patrick is not into sitting still right now so  we mostly hung out outside the church with all the other little restless ones :)  Next we headed to my parents house for dinner and presents with my Mom's side of the family.

Whitson family picture

Opening more presents with Aunt Denton's help

Me and my buddy

Then home to go to sleep so we could wake up bright and early to see what Santa brought!

Baby #2- 24 Weeks

I was 24 weeks on Christmas and had my 24 week appointment today.  Everything looks wonderful with the baby!  Measuring about the same as I was with Patrick, but for some reason I feel so much bigger!  Maybe it's because I have a little one to chase around this time!  The doctor also talked to me about having an ultrasound pretty frequently towards the end with this one.  My blood pressure started to spike at 30 weeks with Patrick and was dangerously high when I went into labor with Patrick. They are going to try and monitor it a little closer this time around.  Hopefully we can keep it down!

I have been terrible about taking bump pictures with this little one.  I made Patrick be in the picture since its so awkward to take a picture by yourself.  He didn't really want to be in the picture either.  Ignore the car seat in the background.  We are cleaning out our "storage" room for the new baby and I forgot to move it!

Just for comparison, here is a picture of me at 24 weeks with Patrick

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Fun before Christmas

We went to look at Christmas lights. It wasn't really what I expected and i'm not sure we will do this particular one again. I thought you could get out and walk around, but it was just a drive-through light show.  I think Patrick's favorite part was driving through Santa's house and waving to Santa.

We also had a couple of Michael's friends over to watch the Titan's game.  Below is a sweet picture of the boys!

The night before Christmas eve we had a fun night at the Mulloy's where Patrick found one of his Christmas gifts from Nana. He had so much fun racing on the plasma cars and giggled constantly!

Patrick looks concerned in this picture, but he is actually just focused on beating Megan and Harper in the race!

Santa

We went to Opryland to see Santa this weekend, since it didn't work out to go to with either of our parents this year.  We went pretty late, around 7pm, hoping that most other children would be in bed.  We must have been right because we were the only ones in line!  We have been telling Patrick who Santa is, but he is still terrified of strangers, so he reached for me the whole time.

As soon as we walked into the little play area, Patrick saw the train and starting chanting choo choo over and over again.  He was so excited to ride the train!

Unfortunately pregnant people were not allowed to ride the train, so Michael got to ride with Patrick since he is under 2. Michael let Patrick choose where he wanted to ride and he ran right to the caboose and climbed in!  As soon as the train started Patrick got a huge smile on his face!

Patrick said momma a couple of times as they came by.  So every time they drove by me the other little boy kept saying "there's your momma."  So funny that the other little boy is waving to me in the picture.  Patrick looks upset in this picture, but he was actually having a blast!

As soon as the train stopped Patrick burst into tears.  He was having so much fun he didn't want the train ride to end! After the train we went to test out the cars. Patrick was still eyeing the train and wasn't that interested in the cars.

Afterwards we went to see the nativity scene outside.  It was really pretty!

We tried to go eat at the Rainforest cafe, but it was closed so we went to Chuey's instead.   Here's a little story, just to give you an idea of how rambunctious sweet little Patrick is...  

We sit down at the table at Chuey's and Patrick is bouncing up and down and grabbing everything in site.  The waiter (a young male) refers to Patrick the whole time as "Taz" which I assume means the tasmanian devil.  Patrick was definitely bouncing up and down, but not being rowdy or disrupting other people.  I then order Patrick a lemonade.  The waiter looks at Patrick and then back and me and says, "are you sure you want to order him a lemonade this late?  That has a lot of sugar in it.  How about a juice instead?"  I kind of laugh and say okay.  Michael chimes in and says "how about a cranberry juice?"  The waiter says "okay, ill water it down a lot." Michael and I kind of laughed after he left the table.  It was about 8:00pm, which is late for most kids, but Patrick doesn't normally go to bed until 9:00 or 9:30.  I am pretty sure the waiter thought we were terrible parents for having our young child out eating late and ordering juice. Just so everyone else out there doesn't think we are terrible parents, Patrick only gets juice about once a week.  He also has a lot of energy!  If we try to put him to sleep before 9:00 he ends up waking up in the middle of the night.  Patrick has never been a good sleeper and the doctor said it is rare, but some kids just don't require a lot of sleep!  We have definitely determined that Patrick falls into that category!  Patrick definitely has lots of energy, but I wouldn't have it any other way!  I wish I had been on my toes enough to think of a nickname for the waiter too, maybe he would have thought twice about referring to Patrick as the tasmanian devil the whole time :)