Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve in Ft Collins with the Nichols. James had fun playing with Taylor and all of the wrapping paper and boxes. He didn't care as much about what was in the packages as much as he liked throwing around the wrapping paper and climbing on the boxes.
Here is James and Taylor looking thrilled to be dressed in their Christmas Eve finest.And of course, they had to have matching Christmas jammies to wear while unwrapping presents. Getting the two of them to sit still for a picture is increasingly difficult. Here they are sitting on top of the box that Katie's favorite present, her microwave, came in.

Wrapping Presents

James is a huge helper when it comes to wrapping presents this year.  All of our packages look pretty awesome thanks to his expertise.  

Showing off his latest skill-standing unassisted for a few seconds at a time.

Zoo Lights!

Last night we braved the cold and bundled up James and took him to Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo.  At 30 degrees, it was much warmer than the predicted high of 12 degrees for this weekend, so we decided to go for it.   We had never been before, and we had a good time. Holland and Kris were there with Riley, so we met up and walked around together.  The babies liked looking at all of the lights and managed to stay warm in many layers of clothing and blankets.  We had James in his stroller most of the time with loads of blankets on top of him, so I think he was easily the warmest person at the zoo.  I think this will be a fun thing to do with him every year around the holidays!

Why Jax is Obese, Reason #612

Today when I got home from Target (what else is there to do on such a cold day?) I gave James a box of crackers to help occupy him while I unloaded the bags.  A minute later, I hear James crying about as hard as he has ever cried in his life, and I turn around to see this:

Yes, that is right, the fat schnoodle had shoved his head so far into the cracker box that it got stuck on his head.  I am not sure if James was mad that Jax took away his crackers, or sad that the dog had a box stuck on his head.  
But either way, I thought it was the most hilarious thing I had seen in weeks.  Luckily my camera was sitting on the kitchen table so I was able to take the pictures really quick before I helped either one of them.  Bad mom?  Maybe.  But I was quick, and the story would just not be as funny without the pictures, don't you agree?

Eating/Signing/Modeling

James will now do the signs for hungry, more, all done, and dog.  Not surprising since his two major loves in life are anything to do with dogs and food.  James loves to hold a spoon while eating.  Note that he does not really use the spoon, but he insists on holding it while shoveling food into his mouth as quickly as he can with his free hand.  Here he is signing for "more" (and yes, those are spaghettios, but they are organic so that makes it a little less white trash).  He signs more about 376 times a day.  More daddy, more dog, more books, more nursing, more food.  He definitely has it down (although he did invent his own sign and does not do the real sign for "more," but we know what he means).

Here he is signing, "all done!" which he also does after he poops on the toilet in the morning, and when he is ready to get out of the bath tub.

And here he is looking all prepped out in his big kid clothes.  How cute is he?

Here is an awesome picture of James and Tim that shows off ALL of James' teeth and their fabulous spacing.

Christmas Parade

Old Town Longmont had their Christmas Parade of Lights tonight.  It was beyond cute.  There were actually way more floats than we were expecting, as well as horses, marching bands, fire trucks etc.  James loved seeing all of the lights-despite the look on his face in most of these pictures.  After the parade, everyone walked to Roosevelt Park, which is pretty close to our house and there was free pizza, hot cocoa, and treats, train rides, a light show set to music in the rose gardens, an ice skating rink, and fireworks!  Seriously, Longmont knows how to celebrate.  This morning they had Santa Claus parachute into Roosevelt Park and then meet with all of the kids, but after James' less than enthusiastic reaction to him last weekend, we passed on that this year.  They have had events all week, and tomorrow night we are going to a candlelight Christmas concert!  We love all of the family friendly events that are in Old Town, now we just to need to make some friends here!James did not seem to mind Santa as long as he kept his distance.
In front of Longmont's Christmas Tree on Main Street-we went to the tree lighting last weekend.

James' Tree

James loves to look at our tree, it has not lost it's novelty yet. He especially loves it when we turn all of the lights off in the room except for the tree lights. He makes little gasping noises and points to all of the ornaments. So cute.

Santa Baby!

Holland, Kris and Riley hosted an amazing Santa Baby party tonight that James and I went to. Their house was decorated beautifully, there was awesome food and drinks, and Santa was there! James was having a great time at the party, being very social and talkative to everyone. Until Santa showed up. From the second that Santa walked into the house until he left about a half hour later, James screamed his head off. I am not exaggerating, he was not a fan at all. Did that stop me from putting him on Santa's lap? Um, of course not! Here is James' inital reaction of just looking at Santa:And it just seemed to get worse when he actually had to sit on Santa's lap:Don't worry, as soon as Santa left, James was a happy camper again and he and Alec had fun banging on a pot lid and checking out all of Riley's toys.James and Riley called each other ahead of time to coordiante their outfits:
Thanks for a great party Nelson family, we had fun!

First Christmas Present!

James got to open his first Christmas present today, a wooden shopping cart from Grandma and Grandpa Fererro. It combines two of his favorite activities; pushing things around and putting his toys inside of something, so it is already a huge hit. He got started right away and walked all around the house, adding things to the basket as he went. When we finally stopped him to get him ready for bed, he had several books, a ball, a truck, all of Jax's toys, and a few magnets from the fridge in his cart-a successful first shopping trip! Thanks Mom and Dad, he loves it and will get a lot of entertainment out of it for years to come!

Snow Baby!

Today we finally got our first real snowfall. Don't get me wrong, the world's longest fall was great, but the snow makes it feel much more Christmas-y. I bundled up James after lunch and he got to play out in the snow for the first time! He loved it, so much so that when I brought him inside, he had one of his biggest tantrums to date. I haven't been able to find any water proof mittens or boots small enough for him, but after seeing how much fun he had in the snow today, I think I need to start looking harder! I tied plastic bags over his shoes today, and it not only made him look kind of ghetto, they fell off pretty quickly. He liked picking up and throwing handfulls of the snow, eating the snow and swinging in the snow. I think he will enjoy this winter!

Recovering from his, "I wanted to stay outside all day tantrum." Look at those rosy cheeks!

Decorating/Christmas Traditions

We love decorating for Christmas, so we did not waste anytime this year and got our tree up this past weekend! Our plan was to go cut down our own tree this year, but after driving by a local farm on Sunday, we could not wait and pulled over and bought one! James is beyond enthralled and impressed with all of the decorations, especially the tree. With his love of pulling himself up on things and his passion for cords, we were pretty sure that the tree+James would be a complete disaster. But so far, James has been satisfied with admiring the tree from afar. Everytime we walk into the living room, he points to the tree and does his pterodactyl screech that he has not used in months. He likes it when we walk by it when we are holding him and points out all of the ornaments that he likes. His favorite is a Grinch one that lights up and sings.

My favorite decorations from growing up were the Santa, Mrs. Claus, and Rudolph that my mom made. I am now the proud owner of them, and so far James seems to enjoy them just as much as I do!

I have always loved Christmas, but having James makes me even more excited because we get to share all of our favorite traditions with him now. One of my favorite traditions is a Nichols' family tradition. Tim's mom gives us a bell every Christmas Eve with the year engraved on it and then the most special event from that year. She and Dave have a bell for every year that they have been married that Dave's mom started for them, and she now shares the tradition with us and Steve and Amberly. We have 3 bells, 1 for each year that we have been married. Our 2005 bell has our wedding date on it, our 2006 bell has Tim Nichols, DDS on it, and our 2007 bell has James' name and birthday on it. We always have fun speculating what the bells will say each year and look forward to opening them on Christmas Eve. I can't wait to collect these bells as our family grows, and then continue the tradition with James and any other kids that we have and their future familes.

The other tradition that we started last year with James' first Christmas is something that I shamelessly stole from the Roulier family and have been waiting to do since I was probably in 6th or 7th grade and first saw it at my friend Erin's house at Christmas time. So shout out to Georgie Roulier who inspired this tradition-I am so excited to do it now that I have my own family! We cut off the bottom 2 inches or so from our Christmas tree each year and put a picture of the family/child in front of the tree on one side and burn in the date on the other side. We put the bells and Christmas logs on our mantle along with some other holiday flair that we got at a cute store in Old Town Longmont. So our living room is our nicely decorated room, and we will save our tacky decorations for the basement. Stay tuned for pictures of our vintage plastic light up figurines-loves it!

More from the mountains....

I had to post a few more from this weekend at the cabin I just got off my camera. Naked baby on the loose!And this one looks like the picture Jenny just posted of Z staring out the window at the Christmas lights. James was so excited to see all the snow, he kept standing against the door pounding his hands against the glass.