It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

 Last night we put John in the pack and play in the spare bedroom and as a result...I am feeling much more rested than I have in a few weeks.  He didn't sleep through the night, but the one time he did wake up was much preferable to every 90 minutes or so that we had started having.  Therefore, I'm in the mood to blog.

 It has been a few weeks since my last post.  Though, we celebrated Thanksgiving in that time...I have no pictures to share with you.  We had a wonderful time in Oklahoma and it is all documented on other cameras.  Which I forgot to get copied over before we left...But, in brief, we ate, drank, played (cards in my case, basketball in Dom's case, Farkle in Will's case, with Pepper in Molly's case, with Zachary in John's case, and darts in Eric's case), ran a 5k, ate more and drank more.  It was everything a Thanksgiving with family should be.

 We got home and proceeded to put away previous holiday decorations in order to make way for the forthcoming holiday.  The Christmas village looks wonderful.  We have since taken down the last of Dom's brackets for the year (the LA Galaxy took the MLS Cup, fyi).  And after have several brackets displayed in our living room, we have decided that from now on, Dom will need to confine his brackets to the Florida Room.  The one exception may be the NCAA tournament.  Especially if Kansas makes it through the Sweet 16. 

 The kids are very excited for Christmas, and introducing John to various traditions is high on the list.  We have three Nativity scenes and they have all enjoyed setting up the Little People version...granted, John also likes to destroy it.  Oh!  Did I mention that John started crawling last week?  And that he started pulling himself up on furniture a few days later?  Good times.

 I love how the older three always attempt to include John in their play.  Whether he wants to be included or not.  Last night, we initially put John in the kids' room per their request.  They were all so excited...until John start crying and continued to cry for 15 minutes straight (which is really nothing).  Eric eventually went in and moved him and I overheard Will discuss how hard it is to sleep when a baby is crying.  No kidding.

 In other news, and this really deserves its own post, but my track record isn't great, so I am just going to slide it in here, Eric re-did the boys dresser for me.  They have needed more space for a while (as kids get bigger, their clothes also get bigger #protip), and I found a large armoire on craigslist which fit the bill.  I had thought for a while we could re-purpose the dresser for homeschool supplies.  Though, we needed to fix the drawers and it needed a new paint job.  And by 'we', I mean 'Eric with the help of the kids'.  It turned out so well.  And now we have left over paint, so I have my eye on a few bookshelves that could use a facelift :).

 It is very easy for me to spend an entire weekend in our house, but Eric is good about making us get out.  One of our outings was to the library parking lot for the kids to race around their RC trucks.  Molly and I headed to the park for a bit, and John loved watching the trucks zoom back and forth.  He is all boy.

 Will made a ship the Florida Room and took this picture so I didn't have to walk the 50 feet to see it.  So thoughtful!

 I think I have written before about John's smile.  It is just this slow, shy smile that he will give you when he sees you.  He gives warm hugs and gets so excited over playing with his toys.  I love how his little legs kick whenever you pick him up.  Even though he isn't the best sleeper...I think we'll keep him.

 Molly is a little ham.  The picture earlier in the post was all her.  I said I wanted to take her picture and she struck that pose immediately.  She proceeded to direct me on how to pose when she took my picture.  For the record, I am not as cute as she is.  Therefore, I did not share the picture.

And here is the dresser again.  It now houses our Nativity Scene.  I think it looks lovely!