Belated Christmas Party

We celebrated Christmas with the Hansen family on Sunday (and I forgot my camera there so I wasn't able to post earlier). It was so much fun this year with the kids running all over the place and playing together. Heath had just bought Trent Kota the dinosaur. If you haven't seen it - it is huge! But what a lot of fun..... the kids weren't into it too much (kind of intimidating with it's size compared to them) but I have a feeling it will be the toy that they all want someday! Lauryn got a race track for cars and the boys were definitely into playing with the cars for that. So now Christmas has finally ended for us:) We definitely don't have a lack of toys right now... Jackson is an extremely blessed child!

Baby Easton!!!!

My brother Eric and his wife Becky have added another boy to the family! Easton James was born on Friday morning weighing in at 7 pounds, 15 ounces. He looks EXACTLY like Cohen did as a baby. We compared their baby pictures and you can’t tell which one is which! Becky is doing fantastic and they’re all anxious to get home with Easton.

When we were there on Friday evening, Cohen and Jackson were more excited about the balloons than the baby. But Cohen is adjusting extremely well so far – he will touch Easton’s face and give him kisses. He’s going to be a great big brother!

Jackson and the McCarty Twins

On Saturday night, Missy and Ryan came over with the twins. It was the first time that Jackson was able to see the twins in person. He was all excited before they even got here because we had gotten out his baby swing and bouncy seat. Of course he wanted to be a “baby” and kept crawling into the swing and bouncy seat. When they got here Jackson peered into their carseats and was immediately enthralled with them. I can’t believe how big the two have gotten – Luke is weighing in at a hefty 10 pounds and Mia isn’t lagging too far behind at 9 pounds. Of course Luke (Hansen) thought Luke (McCarty) was something special because they both share the same first and middle name.

Sleepover with Cohen

Cohen came over on New Year’s Eve for a sleep over with Jackson. Jackson followed Cohen around the whole time and you can tell how much he looks up to Cohen already. It went great having the two boys together for the evening. Of course having the DeVissers, Holly and Sara here also helped because the boys got tons of attention!

Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa VanderZwaag

We celebrated with my parents on the 26th because Sara had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas. When we arrived, both Jackson and Cohen were whinning and crabby. I was definitely worried about how the evening would go with Jackson like that. Anyways, once we started opening presents the boys cheered up. At first Jackson enjoyed helping Grandpa by throwing the wrapping paper away. Later he discovered that many of the presents had boxes so he had to put them on his head, climb in them and put items in them.

Aunt Sara had bought the boys matching Batman pajamas so we put those on and I can’t even begin to explain how cute it was watching the boys run into the living room with their capes flying!

Santa

Santa came to our Christmas party at my parents house. I was anxious to see how Jackson would do – last year he tried to pull Santa’s beard off. Well, when Santa knocked at the door Jackson ran to see who it was. When Santa walked around the corner, Jackson started screaming with fright! He clung to me and just stared at Santa. Hopefully next year he’ll enjoy Santa a bit more.

Christmas Morning

Christmas was definitely different for us this year versus last year. Last year Jackson was just starting to sit up and didn’t really understand what was all going on. This year was a different story! On Christmas morning we had Jackson open up a balloon and he was ecstatic when he opened it. It reminded me of how all those little things amaze him at this point. He didn’t want to open any more presents because he was so busy playing with the balloon.