Crown Candy Kitchen

Beth & David came in town for Christmas and we were lucky to get to see them two of the days they were here. We hit up Crown Candy Kitchen of course and David was super excited to go after seeing it on Man V Food, although we did NOT attempt the milkshake challenge. You have to try to drink 5 milkshakes in 30 minutes, but each milkshake fills 3 big milkshake glasses, so it's kind of like 15 milkshakes which is insane! He's still convinced he could do it though :)

They finally got to meet little Dex

They are going to be such great parents one day!

Clark showing off his drinking.from.a.cup skills

I LOVE this picture of my boys-

Here are Beth's parents. They are that couple that newlyweds hope to be one day... married for almost 40 years and still totally in love.

David and the long-awaited milkshake

Dex liked the freezing metal shake mixer because it felt good on his teething gums-

White Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! This year was so much fun!!! Clark actually understood the presents he got and was excited about opening and playing with each one of them. He's been so good he hadn't gone into time-out in almost a week which is an awesome record for him! Santa brought Dexter a new tooth (his second) which is pretty cute, and it even snowed a little so we got our white Christmas! Although it made the roads a little dangerous, one of our good friends got in a car accident that day, and we passed 9 accidents on our way to and from Marc & Lisa's house, which we went to for brunch after present-opening.

Here is Clark getting his firetruck from Grandma & Grandpa. He went right to the door and looked for "Uncle Joe" his fireman figurine that drives the truck-

I love the look Clark is giving Dex here...

He was such a good boy sharing his toys with Dex

And for some reason this is the face Clark now makes when I ask him to smile for the camera.

Dex got some puffs in his stocking from Santa. We let him try a couple, but he didn't get them quite yet. In another few weeks we'll try again-

Eating the paper was more fun than the presents.

He had wanted Henry (one of the Thomas trains) for a LONG time so we were really excited for him to open this one... Apparently so was he.

Clark was real pumped to open a container of plastic UP! friends

Christmas with Keith Obermann

The snow coming down...

Grandpa Clause

Our greatest gift from 2009

Ok, I seriously love these two pictures. Here is Clark with his new Rex toy (he has an obsession with Toy Story right now) and of course Dex is chewing on the box which makes Clark NOT happy...

Clark gets the box away from Dex and is pretty pumped to show off his new toy. Dex on the other hand...

Then after brunch we went home and put the boys down for naps. Dad came over and we hung out the rest of the night. After the boys went to bed we ate yummy Christmas Eve & chicken soup leftovers and watched The Hangover since none of us had seen it and Santa brought it to Rich... I thought it was pretty cute that the ham leftovers were a big heart-

Grandpa and Dex. So cute!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was at our house this year, which was wonderful because we still got to hang with family after Clark & Dex had to go to sleep. Thankfully the Santa tracker informed us that he was still in Brazil at about 10 and we could have one more glass of wine before having to get the kids home :) And speaking of the kids, they decorated a gingerbread house which was such a fun project! Here is Emma with one of her trees she decorated.

Clark REALLY enjoyed eating, I mean making the gingerbread house

With their handiwork

And then the kids formed a band, of course. A Lego band that is. Riley was so sweet and was singing "Little Drummer Boy" into the mic over one of the songs she didn't know. Adorable!

I love this picture of Blake rocking out.

And then... Santa came! We had a blast with that...

And we set up Clark's cool electric train Grandpa & Grandma sent up from FL... at one in the morning! He likes to eat breakfast watching the trains, although now it takes him a good half hour to eat now...

And my fun craft project for Christmas. I discovered porcelain pens, which are awesome and made us a Cookies for Santa plate...

HO! HO! HO!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!
Enjoy a few outtakes from the holiday card shoot :)

Clark was super excited that he got to eat the cookies.

Cute Boys

Dex is seriously the smiliest baby ever!

Clark was riding around in the Radio Flyer this morning with his FWEEENDS!!! as he calls them. They consist of the Gabba crew, Dug, Kevin (Kenin as Clark calls him) Alpha, Wall-E & Woody. Buzz Lightyear will be joining the ranks of the friends this Christmas. Shhhh- don't tell Clark.

Cookies and "Milk" 2009

Monday night was the annual TGG Cookie Exchange. This year it was over at our place, which of course I was excited about because I got to use our new table again :) And all 15+ girls actually fit comfortably at it, yay for the bench! Basically each girl brings a few dozen homemade cookies, and everybody swaps. We had "milk" in the form of White Russians, wine, beer and a ton of apps. We gave away awards for the most creative recipe (it went to Shannon who had cayenne pepper and sesame seeds involved, and it was still yummy!) most delicious (which went to Tracy and her amazing toffee cookies) & best presentation that went to Holly a professional baker who made a what seemed like a much yummier version of vanilla Trader JoJos. Now I have way too many cookies in the house, thankfully we're doing Christmas Eve over here and I hope the family helps get rid of the extras!

One of the girls' husbands made from-scratch flavored marshmallows and they were delish!

Holiday Hangout

Saturday night was Marc & Lisa's annual Holiday Hangout. Since most of the pictures are just tipsy versions of friends and family I'll spare all the photos. But here's a decent one of Rich & I... It was a great way to kick off all the Christmas festivities of this week!

Dad's tree-

Every year growing up, decorating the Christmas tree was a big deal. All the ornaments have special meaning or funny little stories associated with them and we would put on tunes, grab a drink and decorate. Well, Mom passed in December before the tree went up. And last year it didn't make it up either. We thought Dad might not do it again this year so the night before he came in town Marc & I went over and put it up for him as a surprise. He LOVED it and insisted on taking pictures of us in front of it on his phone. :) Here's one of them-

Santa visit 2009

Enough said.

6 month cuteness, and stats

Dex went to the pediatrician today for his 6 month check-up and did perfect. He measured in at 16lbs 12oz & 27 inches (50th percentile for weight and 65 for height.) To put that in perspective Clark was over 20lbs by the time he was 6mo. Little chunk! He got some shots, which weren't too fun, but he actually did pretty good with them. We have to go back next month for the other half of them. Other than that all is perfect :) His first tooth broke through this week and he's been a drooling machine!

Here are a couple pictures from last night. I thought it was approperate to snap a few of him here on his .5 birthday as Rich was calling it, since it's where I took his newborn pictures.