Our Christmas

William with Great-Grandma Hogan
Henry and Gabe "playing" video games with Uncle Cory (and Cory's friend)

Henry opening presents at my Dad and Sandi's house-Grandma and Papa Bug as he calls them
My Dad always reads the Christmas story before we open presents. When my Dad took out his Bible to read, Henry sat down next to him and said, "close that". Oops. We did end up making it through..and then he closed it. :-)
Henry playing with his new HUGE tractor on Christmas Eve. My Dad is holding Caleb

Gabe playing on Christmas Eve
Henry, William and their other cousin Caleb
Caleb absolutely loves holding William. Henry with his new chainsaw and safety goggles from Grandma and Papa Bug

It's always bittersweet when Christmas is over. It feels like so much time is spent planning and preparing and wrapping and getting ready for it and then all of a sudden, everything is just done. I always feel like it's a little bit of a letdown when it's over. Not in the sense that things weren't all that I would want them to be, just in the sense that it's really just another day and there's only 24 hours. I do really love the whole Christmas season too and feel a little sad when it's over. It seems like the next few months of winter are longer than the first ones leading up to Christmas. I am really looking forward to having things back to normal again....taking down the tree, putting away decorations, less crowded stores and parking lots. It is always nice after the busyness of the holidays to have things quiet down a bit.

Anyway, I've really just digressed. We had a good Christmas. It was such a blessing to watch our boys and to see the excitement and joy in Henry's eyes and the contentment in William's. They are the greatest gift I have.

Marry Christmas?

Tonight at dinner Henry was noticing Patrick's wedding ring and asked him about it. Here's the conversation that followed:

Henry: Daddy, what's that? (pointing to his ring)
Patrick: It's my wedding ring, it means I'm married to mommy. Mommy has one too.
Henry: Mommy has one?
Me: Yeah, here's mine. Mommy is married to Daddy. Who do you want to marry?
Henry: Marry Christmas

It's hilarious what a difference one vowel can make to the meaning of a word! He's obviously been hearing people say "Merry Christmas". I just thought this was a hilarious translation.

Whoa Oma!

Henry is wearing my mom's (Oma's) hat and scarf in the picture above. I didn't get a picture of her wearing it, but when Henry first saw her put it on we were sitting in her car and he looked up at her and exclaimed "WHOA Oma!" Ah, a child's honesty. It was hilarious. Oma came to visit us and help out a couple of weeks ago. We had lots of fun while she was here...we went to the museum, out to eat a couple of times (always a treat and something I haven't attempted alone with the boys), and to the mall where Henry got to see Santa. No, he didn't sit on his lap--he didn't want to get that close. But after a few strolls by, he was waving to him and talking to him from behind the ropes. His very favorite thing: riding the escalator with Oma-up and down-4 times...doing his excited face and literally shaking with excitement every time!

More Fun With Cousin Gabe

I was hoping to put these pictures into a slideshow---I read something on the blogger homepage about a new slideshow functionality...but I can't really figure it out. Ok, so I really haven't super tried, but I just decided it would be easier to just post some pics. So here's a few more pictures of Henry playing with his cousin Gabe a few weekends ago. I should note that Henry ADORES Gabe. He followed him around non-stop and had to do everything that Gabe was doing. It's really sweet to watch them playing together and being friends!!




Nope--they won't look at the camera at the same time. It was worth a try!

My Big Little Baby

Henry will sometimes try to include William in whatever he's playing. William is definitely fascinated with him and is really starting to look at him and watch him.


Here's how Henry played with William this morning, he put the little shaker right on top of him in the swing!

It's official...I have big babies. They come out seemingly small, trying to trick me into thinking I have a tiny little baby. However, just a couple of months goes by and bam...they get big, fast.

William was 2 months old on Wednesday. If you read my blog you are undoubtedly tired of reading how fast I think time goes by, but I have to say it again, here it goes: Time is just flying. I can't believe it's already been 2 months. He had his 2-month check up today. He weighs 12 lbs 13 oz (75%) and is 23 inches long (30%). The doctor told me how much Tylenol that I'd be allowed to give William and commented that he could have that dosage since he's "such a big boy". He had to get 5 vaccines (3 in one leg and 2 in the other) and 1 oral vaccine. It never gets easier watching your babies have their shots, does it? It breaks my heart knowing what is going to happen and watching my sweet, content baby laying there realizing that he doesn't know anything that is about to happen. We made it through the appointment (I had Henry with me, too, and he was completely sweet and even talkative with our dr which is hilarious because he was only being so friendly because it wasn't his turn!). William fell asleep in the car but woke up once we got home and was perfectly content and even happy--cooing and smiling. He's been napping now for a couple of hours, but that's really normal for him.

He is still the sweetest thing. I love that he's smiling so much now and cooing. Generally if I leave him in his swing and run into the other room, I'll come back and find him smiling at something--usually the light fixture or ceiling fan! My heart just feels absolutely full. Not in a way that it couldn't hold more, but in a way that I feel so happy and satisfied. I feel so blessed to have a wonderful husband, and two sweet sweet boys.

Christmas Lights

We took Henry to a Christmas lights display Tuesday night. It's about 20 minutes from here in a little tiny town. They decorate a park with lights and lighted Christmas creatures. We dropped William off with Patrick's brother Matt and his wife Lindsay for about an hour so that we'd be able to take Henry out and walk around the park. It was cute-there was definitely a variety of lighted things to see. Henry really loved looking at all of the different stuff, and it was just the right size for him. By the time we got back to our car he was shivering from being out in the cold. It made me wonder though...where do they plug all of this stuff in?

Henry's Snowman

Here are some pictures of Patrick and Henry and the snowman that they built together. Henry was so amazed by the process--the fact that you roll a ball and it gets bigger and bigger. Then he was loving decorating the snowman and ate bits of his buttons (pretzels) and his mouth (frosted mini wheats). In the picture of him with the snowman, he is chewing on a mini wheat that he plucked from the snowman. He just couldn't understand why we were sticking all of this perfectly good food to a big ball of snow. Oh and they used a scarf and hat of mine, so I asked Henry, "is it a girl?" and he said, "no, it's a snowman."

What would you do with $2411?

We're going to fix our car. Fortunately, insurance is covering this bill.

It has just been one of those days. Our dryer broke a few weeks ago, it's not really broken-just the switch that makes it turn on has fallen off. And then just a few days ago Patrick went downstairs while the washer was running and water was pouring out of it and wasn't draining out of the machine. It seems that our washer has broken, too! In the meantime our laundry has been piling up and now we're running out of things, so this morning I decided to take the boys out to Patrick's parents house for the day so that I could do a few loads of laundry there. On my way there, on the last country road before their country road, I hit a dog. Yes, you read that right-a dog. I was driving along probably going 55 mph and all of a sudden a dog was literally standing in front of my car. I didn't swerve or even brake-I didn't have time, I just hit it. I was shaking and so upset that I just kept driving to Patrick's parents house. Luckily Patrick was working today in a town near his parents house so he and Henry drove out separately to meet me there. Otherwise I know Henry would have said, "mommy, what was that big noise?". Uggg.

Once I got to their house, Patrick and I looked at the car and realized that not only was the front end missing some major pieces, but it was also dripping lots of fluid onto the ground. So Patrick drove the car into town and had an auto body shop look at it. They told him it had pretty extensive damage to the radiator and would need to be towed into our town for an auto body shop here to fix it. He also drove around looking for the dog and couldn't find him anywhere. But he did go door to door looking for the owner and found her to tell her the news. When he knocked on the door a little boy answered...so sad. They couldn't find the dog anywhere, so we thought maybe someone picked him up to take him to the vet. Patrick called the 2 nearby vet clinics and asked that if someone bring a dog by (and gave his description--the best that I could remember) to call and let us know.

The vet did call Patrick and tell him that someone brought in the injured dog and that they were checking him out. The auto body shop also called and let us know that our car's damages total $2400! And our car will be in the shop getting repaired for about a month. I just think it's crazy what a day can bring. It's not at all what I expected when I woke up this morning.

For all of you dog lovers, here's the real kicker. We later learned that Patrick's parents are friends with the dogs family. Patrick's dad just called us tonight and told us that the dog is PERFECTLY FINE. He has two small marks on his head from something scraping it (you think?) but other than that, no internal bleeding, no broken bones, NOTHING. Can you imagine? It's either a ghost dog or a robot dog made of steel. I'm so happy that it's fine. But I will say that I'm a little irritated that our car is so damaged from a little dog!!! Unbelievable.

How to?

Does anyone know how to clean a tie? Patrick has to wear one for work every day now and was noticing a spot on one that he wore today. I was thinking that I would just spray-n-wash the spot and then throw it in the washer (which, this is a totally different story, but ours may be on the fritz...it overflowed all over the basement yesterday because the water kept running and it wasn't draining). But then I was thinking, can you wash a tie? Or are they dry cleaned? Or what??

It's such a beautiful day here. It's funny that weather is a lot about perspective. 38 degrees and sunny today feels beautiful and dare I say "warm". It's nice for a change from the freezing cold, snowy, gloominess. Patrick and Henry just headed outside to make a snowman, I'll post some pics of that soon. This reminds me of the time that Patrick, Holly and I built a snowman outside of Patrick's college apartment and later we looked out the window and saw some foreign students posing with it and taking pictures. Too funny.

Today I pretty much finished up our Christmas shopping. I feel so relieved and accomplished. It is a crazy zoo out there. So many people, long lines, traffic...and it's a Tuesday afternoon! Henry went to play with his friend Charlie and I brought William along with me. He was such a good boy and slept most of the time, either in his carseat or when I carried him in the snugli. Now off to wrapping, which I actually love when I have the time to do it. I was just realizing that Christmas is really the one time of year that I really wrap presents. Usually throughout the year I resort to gift bags and tissue paper. It's actually fun to take the time to wrap them and embellish them with ribbon and other holiday embellishments.

Oh and one last thing...4 out of 6 batches of caramels worked. I'm happy with that. And I'm DONE making them for the year!

The Biggest Loser

Tonight is the season finale for one of my very faves....I just love this show! It's so inspiring and really is a makeover show at heart, which I have always been a sucker for since the very early days - like when they used to do makeovers on talk shows like Maury and Ricki Lake. Anyway, who do you think the winner will be? There are 3 women in the final four, Hollie, Isabeau and Julie and 1 man, Bill. A woman has never won the show, but this year it looks like one may have a chance since there's 3. I'm still sort of thinking it will be Bill. I'm anxious to find out and to see all of their results. Sometimes it's like they're unrecognizable, it's that different.

Post # 10 - Ten posts in 12 Days

So I'm a little late with my posting. It ended up taking me a few days more to get these all in. But the challenge is complete. Thanks Holly...all in all I liked this idea. It gave me a reason to post and also made me look forward to reading other people's blogs. You know they say that it takes 21 days (I think, I might have just made that up) to form a habit. If we did 21 posts in 21 days, maybe we'd all start posting like regulars. Anyone up for that challenge? Anyone, anyone? That reminds me of Bueller, Bueller?

A few random things:
1. WHOOOOO remembers our owl?? Last year we had an owl on the stoop of our front porch. Well guess whoooos back? Yes indeed, it's the owl again. Do you think it's the same one? It's just the weirdest thing because it has been months since that owl has come around. Henry is thrilled and runs to the window first thing in the morning to check and see if the owl is there. He loves watching it and is convinced that the owl is always looking at him. He'll say, "look mommy, see the owl? See the owl look at me?"


2. Look at this big grin! William is such a sweet boy! He is definitely sleeping through the night. He sleeps from about 9:00 until 5 or 5:30 in the morning. I am really feeling great getting some solid sleep again.

3. I have an appointment tonight to get my hair cut and highlighted. I am in desperate need of some freshening up of my color and I really want to do something different with my hair, too. Here's my dilemma, I don't want to cut off too much because I need to be able to have a wash-n-go style and also be able to pull it up into a ponytail on days when I don't shower. But the problem is that I don't get to style it everyday (or most days) so I always end up just pulling it up anyway, so it's almost like what's the point of keeping it long? I am looking forward to getting out for a couple of hours and just sitting there in the stylists chair.

4. Patrick has a Christmas party for work this Saturday. I'm feeling nervous about leaving William for that long (it starts at 6, but it will take us about 45 minutes to get there) because I'm really not sure how much he eats at a time, in ounces. I have some milk stored up, but I'm not sure how much to leave and how much to put in each bottle. It may sound terrible, but I'd really rather just stay home. It seems like less work.

5. My second batch of caramels didn't turn out! I think I let it get too hot on the 2nd boil. It was just not firm after a day of being in the fridge (just like last year) so I knew they weren't working. I ate a few spoonfulls and then decided that wasn't going to work for my waistline...so Henry helped me turn it into caramel corn. It turned out really tasty. I'm going to try another batch tomorrow.

Post # 9 - Kraft your dinner

A while ago, Sara posted about the Kraft website offering weekly menus. They offer a whole bunch of different weekly menus - they call it 1 bag 5 dinners. You're supposed to be able to get five dinners from just one bag of groceries. At the Vance household we were getting pretty bored with the dinner selection. I was getting really bored with making the same boring things and trying to plan a weeks worth of meals was getting impossible. So I decided to give this a shot! We started with Bag 3 - (chicken and beef) and loved it. All of the recipes were super easy and tasty and really good for a change. Also the fifth meal is always a frozen pizza, which makes for a nice break from cooking one night, and why not? So this week we're eating Bag 1 - (chicken and beef). We just ate the Crispy Baked Pesto Chicken tonight. It was really tasty. While Patrick was coming to the table tonight he said, "this is the best thing we could have done for our meals"! He was so serious, too! I guess he was getting really bored with my cooking, too.

Oh and my very favorite part that I almost forgot to mention is that each week comes with printable recipes and a shopping list complete with boxes to check off as you buy them. Love that. Thanks Sara! I'm excited about this.

Post #8 - The boys

We got some pictures taken this weekend with our two boys and their sweet little cousins Gabe and Caleb. Sara bought these matching shirts/outfits for the boys from Pottery Barn and had them monogrammed with their initials. They are just darling! I absolutely love that the boys are all so close in age. It makes it so fun when we're together and also is so helpful to share similar stages. Right now, it's the "no's" from our 2-year olds!

Also, I don't want to do a Christmas card spoiler, but look at the picture it will not be:

The photographer totally cut out poor William! He looks like where's waldo. Where's William? I think she may have had better luck if we were all sitting on the floor or something.

Post # 7 - Let the Christmas baking begin

As I write this post I have a batch of caramels brewing (they're not baking really) on the stove. Maybe simmering or boiling is a better word?? Anyway, Holly and Sara, you know how finicky this recipe is. I have this recipe from my mother-in-law for the most delicious homemade caramels, like melt-in-your-mouth good. But it's really finicky.
Here it is:
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup Karo light syrup
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Stir together sugar, Karo syrup and 1/2 cup cream in a saucepan and bring it to a boil at 238 degrees s-l-o-w-l-y. Once it's reached 238, add 1/2 cup cream and bring it to 238. Once that has reached 238 add the final 1/2 cup of cream and bring it to 238. Beat it with a spoon and refrigerate overnight. Cut into 1 inch square and wrap individually with wax paper.

So it's a super easy recipe, but my mother in law emphasized bringing it to 238 slowly so much that the first year we made these I think 1 batch took me 3 hours! Then last year we made them at our annual cookie baking day and for some reason none of the batches turned out. They were all too liquidy and runny even after being in the freezer overnight. So this year, I'm really taking my time, they're on the very lowest heat on the stove and I'm stirring them occasionally but doing other things while I wait for them to boil at that temp. I want them to turn out! I wish I could post the actual caramels on here for you to taste. They're so good. Keep your fingers crossed that they turn out!

Post # 6 - William

William is 7 weeks old today! Time definitely does fly. I feel like I am always saying that, but it's just so true. He continues to be a fabulous baby and things are going really well. I finally feel like I've adjusted to our new life as a family of 4 and a mother of 2. My days feel normal again. I'm able to check my email, (and blogs, of course) make dinner, do some laundry, just normal stuff that I thought I'd never have time for again after William was first born. I was just thinking of how I feel productive now just when I make it through a day with the boys. That's without even doing a single other task.

William's doing great. He started smiling this week (he adores the ceiling fan and light fixtures and just loves to look at them and will break into a huge grin). A baby smile just melts my heart. What's not to love about a big, gummy, toothless grin? It's so much fun that he's starting to interact that way. I just love it. He's also sleeping great and started sleeping through the night this week. I was nervous to jinx myself and it still may be a fluke, but he's slept until at least 4 am every day this week since Sunday. And three days he's slept until 5 or 5:30. And once I feed him, he goes right back down until 7 or 8. He is amazing me. It's been especially restful this week because Henry has been sleeping through the night. I know that seems like no big feat for a 2 year old, but he hasn't been sleeping well for the past few months. He'll wake up usually once in the night a couple of times a week. So, that being said, with both boys sleeping this week, I feel like a brand new woman! William absolutely loves to be swaddled. We have a swaddling wrap that was given to us as a gift that we absolutely love and couldn't live without. After I feed him for the last time around 9:00, I wrap him in that and he just conks out. He's also started to coo when he gets excited about something. This has really been a big week for him now that I'm writing about it. Go week 6!

Post # 5 - Henry

Ok, I fell a little bit behind with my posting, but if I do a few posts in 1 day, I'll still make 10 posts in 10 days!

Henry has just been such a character lately. He's had a super runny nose and cough that have just been hanging on for some reason. He doesn't love having his nose wiped but hasn't really minded taking medicine. However, yesterday when I brought him some Triamenic to take after his breakfast, he looked at me and said in a sad, pitiful way "No! I don't want any jello." I told him that he was in luck because I didn't have any jello for him! Too funny.


He may have been thinking about jello because a few days ago we made jello together and then used cookie cutters to make jigglers. He really loved cutting the jello with a plastic knife and making different shapes, but he didn't like to eat it. He had a small taste and that was it for him.


We also had our first snow of the season...just a small bit really, but it was enough to cover the grass and our car and deck. When Henry woke up and looked outside he exclaimed, "Look Mommy, see the dust! See it!" We went outside and made footprints and Henry shoveled a little bit. He had fun, but he hates his mittens because he can't really use his hands that well with them on. Any suggestions?


His other favorite new activity is vacuuming our living room floor. It started with him pushing his toy vacuum alongside me while I vacuumed the floor. Then he wanted to try pushing the real thing and he got hooked on that. Now he asks me if he can vacuum just for fun. It's a productive thing for him to do, and a second bonus is that William is lulled by the noise...so I usually let him do it because it's a double bonus!