A Holiday

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (a little late)

We've had quite an adventure of a holiday! First off, can I just tell you how much I love this little guy! (see pic below) He's such a sweet boy- and super cute too.

So, we planned to leave for VA on the Saturday before Christmas but changed plans because of the big snow storm and left Friday afternoon instead. But, we didn't quite make it. We got stuck in Charlottesville, just an hour outside my parents home in Lynchburg, for 2 nights. I'm not sure that the area even owned a snow plow or maybe they didn't know how to use it. Luckily a grocery store opened for a couple hours and the snowed in residents of the hotel were able to stock up on food. We made the best of it though, and had fun!!

This is James standing in the window of our hotel :)

This was Christmas morning. James has a huge, happy smile on his face because there was an ambulance with lights and sound in his stocking. He was so happy and excited about everything.

You can tell the difference in James' real smile and his "cheese" smile below. I missed getting his face when he actually opened this firetruck, so this was after the fact. In any case, he loves it -and even got a matching one from the other grandparents :) He likes pretending they are the ones outside our window, and parking them in the station side by side.

We took it easy with Christmas this year. Didn't buy a lot of gifts for each other or for James. We got him one thing and stuff for his stocking and TRIED to limit grandparents to one gift, but of course they didn't listen exactly as planned. My parents house was a little crazy too. My dad has been sick for a while, ended up in the hospital the weekend after Christmas and is still there getting better. A 24 hour stomach bug went around and at least 7 people were sick all at different times. We left the day after Christmas and headed to WV to stay with Jay's parents until after New Years.

This is James and his 2nd cousin, Allie. They are 3 or 4 months apart, so cute together!

We stopped in a little antique store and saw this little fire truck. He was so excited- even though that's his "cheese" smile- where he actually says cheese. If our apartment wasn't so small and this thing wouldn't take up half the living space we might have gotten it for him.

The holiday's are always fun. I love Christmas, I love seeing family, and baking and wrapping- but I also love coming home. We had a day of rest after we returned Saturday night and now it's back to reality.

Part of that reality for us is figuring out why James doesn't sleep well, or soundly I guess I should say. He wakes throughout the night and spends 20 to 30 minutes crying and fighting to go back to sleep. He doesn't want to be picked up necessarily and I'm not sure that he's really fully awake even. It's difficult and of course makes for a long night and a long day for us. Along with that he's not interested in eating much, sometimes hardly anything. Those two things together make some parts of my day a little frustrating. I love him to death, but I do wish those two things were easier :)