Happy New Year!

Its hard to believe 2008 is over (or almost). What a whirlwind year it has been for us. The day after Christmas in 2007, I got a late gift--a positive pregnancy test! 50% of life this past year has revolved around that baby, and the other 50% has revolved around Garrett. 2009 should prove to be very entertaining, as both of these amazing kids grow.

Highlights of 2008: Garrett's vocabulary got crazy, and so did he; Potty training; Summer and her amazing, amazing birth; going through all the baby things again; Summer's amazing sleep habits; just Summer and Garrett in general; finally getting a reliable 2nd car.

Lowlights: The terrible 2s have not been kind to us; Garrett's horrible sleep habits; a rough final trimester of my pregnancy; the 2008 presidential election (sorry liberal friends and family, lol!)

I'm feeling extra nostalgic, maybe because of how big Garrett has gotten, or because we just celebrated our anniversary. The moment I heard Brad Paisley's song "It Did," I immediately loved it because that is just how life has been for us--we've been truly blessed in more ways than I can begin to count. So enjoy the below montoge not just of 2008, but of things so far in the world of Utter Chaos. Its a bit slow in the beginning--digital cameras were just catching on, after all!

Almost Wordless Wednesday - Just up from a nap

I can't post these pictures without venting my frustration--I can NOT get a picture of this little girl's smile. I went in to get her from her nap and she was all grins and coos. I came back with the camera and this is the best I got. She has these big, wonderful smiles, but she doesn't seem to want to share them on film!! We're to the point that the barettes are almost a necessity--her hair is getting so long!

6 Years and Counting. . .

Because of the end-of-December chaos, I missed posting about our anniversary (such as it was). December 28th marked the sixth anniversary of our marriage. It seems like we've always been together. We didn't do anything special--in fact, Brad spent the day assisting with Helo training ops with the CG Auxiliary (of course he loved that). And yeah, I forgot. How horrible is that?

The thing that amazed me most, though, was thinking about all that had happened in the past six years, where we will be in another six. In six years, our kids will be six and eight. That blows my mind. Life is going by so very quickly . . . but I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like if we hadn't said "I do" on that perfect day 6 years ago.

And so faith, hope, love abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13:13

Christmas 2008!

Christmas keeps getting better and better . . . last year it took us all day to open presents because Garrett wanted to play with everything he opened for ages. This year, he wanted to open EVERYTHING and played with it for a while. He was so excited by the entire thing. He opened everyone's presents. Pardon the pull-up and Mr. No-Pants. Nothing was keeping him from getting under that tree ASAP! He had been so patient though--he had been opening one present since the 12th (Thanks to my mom and her great 12 days of Christmas idea!), so that helped him a lot, I think.

He was so intent on his "Compuger," he couldn't wait for it to come out of the box.

Shake N Go Lightening McQueen = a big hit!

Reading his new Thomas book
(Note Daddy removing another gift from the packaging. This is all we did while Garrett opened presents!)

Summer and one of her dollies . . .

A Christmas kiss for Sister

Driving the Hotwheels Santa brought on his new rug

Pretty girl's first Christmas

Handyman Garrett has his own tool bench now!

We had a very nice relaxing day, and then headed over to the Shumans for dinner . . . this has become a Holiday tradition since we got to know them 2 years ago at our very first POA Party. We had such a blast, as always!

The spread

The babies who are no longer babies: Logan and Gracie

Xander swiping M&Ms with a pathetic look (keep in mind he skipped dinner to play)

Garrett among the mess he, X and the other kiddos created.

As 2008 winds down, we hope that everyone has had a wonderful and joyous holiday season.

Our best present is our kids--we chose this for our Christmas cards: "Count your blessings, count them one by one. Count your blessings, and see what God has done." God has truly, truly blessed us, with love, health, family, friends and two wonderful kids.

"And the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord."

So belated Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Christmas Eve

The plan for Christmas Eve was to spend a little while at our friend Spirit's party, go to Christmas Eve service and then look at Christmas lights. "The Plan" only lasted about 10 minutes--the time it took for Pastor to inform us that there was no child care for Christmas Eve service. One tired toddler + one tired baby does not equal Silent Night, Holy Night, All is Calm, All is Bright. The Compton family exited from the stratigically chosen rear pew within 5 minutes of the service starting, when it sunk in that this was NOT going to work out without the entire congregation being disrupted.

But MAN did the kids look cute:
We did get to drive around and look at the lights though. Garrett loved it for about 20 minutes, but then was too tired to care about much of anything but insisting he was NOT sleepy. He did stay awake long enough to set out milk and cookies for Santa though!

Poor Summer, her brother loves her a bit much some times:

Sweet little boy was just trying to give a kiss

But boys just never seem to master where to place their hands :-)

"Don't cry Summer, I sorry!"

"Seriously, Mom, what just happened??"

All I can say is you never know what to expect during a photo session with these two, especially not at 6 in the evening!

Christmas is in the air . . .

Even though it is 70-80 degrees, and the palm trees are swaying in the breeze, you can feel it. I love the way the house looks and smells at Christmas. The tree smells wonderful. I baked some cookies, so the house smells of that too. Add in a few candles and some Christmas music, and it is just divine. And the lights . . . I love our banister railing because I can decorate it the whole way up. So without further ado, here is the night-time Christmas sights in the Compton household (We decorated the outside too, but its nothing to write home about.)




Just a few more days!

Conversations

My son is growing up. Way too fast. in fact, both of my kids are.

Christmas always makes me feel nostalgic, especially when I look through my pictures and measure how much he has grown in them . . . And that I know my days with Summer being a little tiny infant are so limited. It blows my mind. In another three months, she'll be sitting up on her own and probably at least army crawling, starting solids, and doing who-knows-what-else. Part of all of it makes me sad, because I know she'll be the last time I get to experience all these things, since she is our last.

Anyway, this past weekend, Garrett and Brad had this conversation in the morning:
Garrett: Dad, can I have cake cakes for breakfast?
Brad: Yes, lets go make them
Garrett: With blueberries!
Brad: We don't have any blueberries.
Garrett: We need to go to the store. Can we have strawberries?
Brad: We don't have strawberries.
Garrett: We need to get strawberries too!

My other favorite thing is that whenever we have anything involving noodles, he will call them "Noodles from scratch!" And often sing the song (its all from a book we have . . . )

Milestone-Rolling!

Summer rolled over today for the first time . . . from her tummy to her back. She's 3 months, 3 days. I had a feeling that it was coming--she had been half-rolling off things we would prop her up on, but this is the first time on a flat surface. Garrett started rolling around 3 months as well--giving me hope that I still have a few more months of peace before she starts getting mobile. I'm just not ready for two mobile kids--Garrett is more than enough!

Another crazy weekend . . .

We had another crazy weekend around here . . . For starters, we were sick last week. Garrett started getting sick on Tuesday but was better by Wednesday afternoon. I was feeling like I had been hit by a train and Wednesday, and feeling *so so* on Thursday. Poor Brad got sick on Thursday. Thursday was also my 27th birthday, so me feeling so so + Brad being sick = crappy birthday! Thankfully we made up for it on Friday--Brad and I went to his work Christmas party. He's been working there for 4 years now, and his office is pretty small, so I feel like we know everyone fairly well (I so don't enjoy parties where I don't know anyone0 . . . We had a great time! Pictures to follow (hopefully-if Crystal is willing to share!)

I worked ALL day Saturday. And I do mean all day. As in, up at 3am, home at 11pm. It sounds insane, but a nice chunk of my time had to be spent communing with my good friend Medela . . . disadvantage of going to the office when you breastfeed. but I'll take 1 21 hour day in the office over 5 8-hour days any day of the week.

We did some things around the house on Sunday, but otherwise took it easy. I did some things for work. Garrett had a major play session with Aspen and the hedgehog--pictures of that are below. They seem to have a love-hate relationship. Garrett dislikes Aspen being in his space, but always looks for him and gives him love. Just like human siblings. Aspen just goes with the flow. He is such a wonderful, gentle dog. And so quiet--Haylee is all growls when she plays, but Aspen just silently goes for the toy and gently tries to take it away. Good dog.

The last picture is of Garrett deciding he needed to sit in Summer's walker. It DID used to be his, after all. If you're in to comparisons, click here to see just how far our little man has come!

Summer is 3 months old

Pretty girl is 3 months old today.

Too bad the light is so bad in this picture!

And here are some pictures of Garrett in the same outfit at SIX months. Summer is such a big girl (or at least Garrett was such a little man). It always amazes me how they can look so not alike (the hair, and the eyes before his changed to brown), and yet they have a lot of the same facial expressions. While Garrett is a Mini-Brad and Summer is a Mini-Me, they definately have both of us in them . . .

Mommy and Me @ the Seaquarium - Reptiles

While I am not a huge fan of the Miami Seaquarium, I LOVE their Mommy and Me program. For $12, you can go once a month to a behind-the-scenes tour and animal interaction. This month was reptiles, and Garrett LOVED getting to touch all the lizards.

Checking out a sled that is part of their Christmas decorations

Touching a bearded dragon

Iguana

Blue tongued skink (check out the tongue!!)

Garrett pets the skink (he was so good with all the animals!)

The iguana had cool eyes

Art project

We had a ton of fun, can't wait for next month!