Pre-Christmas in New Braunfels

We love to go to New Braunfels!  It is so different from Houston in that it has the small town feel with lots of “small town” activities!  We gathered up the kiddos and headed to New Braunfels for a pre-Christmas celebration of sorts.  Mark, Katie and Wesley were going to be there and also my “Pa” from Ohio!  We were so excited to get to see him and for him to meet Charlotte and Wesley. 

Grant has the best time at his Grammy’s house!  There are all sorts of fun places to play…and she is more than happy to allow him to it!

When we got there we helped to put up the Christmas tree and get out all the Christmas decorations.  Grant really enjoyed this part because there were lots of new Christmas books to read!

While the all the decorations were being brought out this is where Charlotte hung out!  She liked to smile at her “Papaw”!

Mark, Katie, Wesley and Pa weren’t coming in for a few days so we got a few extra days just to hang out with the family.  I dressed Grant up in his Christmas shirt and we ventured out to she mom at the University were she works to take some pictures.  I have realized that Grant is much more agreeable to my love of picture taking if there is a lolli-pop in hand!

The next day everyone else arrived and we were so excited to see them!  Pa was especially excited to meet Charlotte and Wesley.  He said it had been a long while since he had held a baby.

(This picture in now way, reflects that Charlotte did not enjoy being held by her Pa, it was nap time and she was just letting all of us know!)

Grant really enjoys hanging out with his Uncle Mark, Aunt Katie and Baby Wesley too.  (He still calls him “Baby Wesley” although he is not quite a baby anymore!)

Most of the rest of the visit was spent relaxing and playing.  It was pretty cold outside but were were still able to spend some time in the back field running around.

Recently dad got a workshop/little house in the back on some of their acreage.  It was a really nice workshop so we decided that it needed a project over the visit.  We have been wanting a “JOY” Christmas decoration for the front yard for some time now and thought this is the perfect opportunity to make one.  It turned out great!  Dad, Mark and Matt worked really hard on it and we appreciate it!

On one of our last days there Matt, Grant and I ventured into a nearby town that was having a Christmas parade.  Matt said that he had never seen a small town parade like that and we knew that Grant would enjoy the music and the floats.

 

We were right…Grant had a great time enjoying the floats and eating candy canes!

Our pre-Christmas trip to New Braunfels was great with one minor mishap.  Matt went fly fishing one morning and broke his foot.  He needed to go to the ER and came out on crutches and pain pills.  (Too bad I didn’t get any pictures!)  Other than that we had a great time with family!

 

We will leave you with a pretty picture of Charlotte in her Christmas dress.  Next Christmas she will enjoy everything so much more…this year she just enjoyed watching all the festivities and napping in family’s arms!

   

Grant is POTTY TRAINED!!!

What we thought was going to be impossible has happened!  Grant is potty trained!  The reason that we thought this was next to impossible was past experiences with him.  We tried about a month ago to work on potty training and Grant was having none of it!  He would scream and throw the biggest fit when it was time to go potty.  He even held it for 22 hours before having an accident!  So we gave up after that and claimed he wasn’t ready.

Then Friday before last Grant told me that “he would like to wear big boy under-roo today”.  Honestly I thought to myself “oh great, do I really want to do this today”  But then I realized that I need to be excited about this.  So I put Grant in “big boy under-roo” and he rocked it!  He went in the potty every time we asked him if he need to go.  We gave lots of hugs, candy and high-fives!  He also loves to “go tell everybody” that he went to the potty!  Matt took him to go pick out big boy underwear at Target and he loved it!

It has been a little over a week and he has only had 2 accidents and both of those were in a pull-up at night, so we don’t count those as accidents.  We are so proud of him!

Grant’s a big kid now!!

Charlotte is 3 months old!

A friend once told me that once you get through the first three months with a newborn baby it gets a lot easier.  Honestly, this time around with Charlotte the first 3 months were a lot easier than with Grant.  Maybe it was because I was more calm being she is our second child and I felt like I knew what I was doing more.  These first 3 months seemed to have flown by and I tried very hard to treasure each moment.  She is so wonderful and I cannot believe that 3 months has gone by already!  Here is what she has done this month:

• you are still sleeping in our room (only because I cannot seem to bear the thought of moving you to your own room) and going to bed every night between 8:00 and 9:00pm.  You are sleeping great!  And giving us about 6 to 7 hours of straight sleep a night!
• you love to look at faces and coo and smile back at them.  You are quite the talker!
• you are almost starting to giggle and laugh…you are squealing and getting very close.
• you can lift your head completely and hold it up when doing tummy time.
• you are now strictly bottle fed and loving it.  You are eating about 4 ounces every 2-3 hours.
• you love to sleep in the car…put you into the car and you are out like a light!
• you celebrated your first Christmas this month and met lots of new family.
• you still love to be held and rocked, and we love it too.

Sittin’ with Santa 2009!

This year was the first year that Grant was excited about going to see “Sana” and “sitting on his wap”!

Mommy: “Grant, what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?”

Grant: “Presents..”

Mommy: “What kind of presents, Grant?”

Grant: “Toys!”

Mommy: “Do you want girl toys or boy toys?”

Grant: “Mama, me want boy toys, me not girl…Tatoe (Charlotte) a girl!”

Charlotte: “snore…snore..”

Hahaha!  And that is how the conversation went in the line to meet Santa.  We were in line for around one hour but Grant made friends with the cutest little 5 year old girl in front of us that read books to him and played with him.  Luckily for us, Charlotte decided that she would sleep peacefully in her stroller until it was time to meet Santa.

No crying from the Crump kids this year!  Grant ran right up to Santa and practically jumped in his lap!  He got a little nervous when we (mommy and daddy) walked away from them to get out of the way of the picture and didn’t want us to leave him.  Charlotte was still half asleep so didn’t care much one way or the other.

And just for reminiscence purposes…

Sittin’ with Santa 2007

 

Sittin’ (screaming) with Santa 2008

Christmas Card 2009

One of my favorite things about Christmas time is receiving Christmas cards in the mail from our friends and family.  It is so great to hear from friends that we haven’t seen in a while and even hear from the ones we talk to often.

I always enjoy getting our family Christmas cards together every year and picking the cutest pictures of the kids.  This year we were so pleased with the ones that we got from http://www.krisevans.com/.  She captured the sweet nature of both of the kiddos.

So with further ado…Merry Christmas from the Crump Family!

Just for fun let’s see how to cards have changed over the years!

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2007

Christmas 2008

Wow how things have changed over 4 years…we are so blessed!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

One of Santa’s helpers stopped by to say “let’s get this show on the road, it’s almost Christmas time!”

Let it snow, let it snow….

Yes, you read that correctly!  It actually snowed here in Houston this year!  Although it was not enough to really stick Grant still had fun going outside and running around in the falling snowflakes!

He kept asking me when we could make a snowman.  So cute, but unfortunately there was not near enough snow for that.  Oh well, here in Houston we take what we can get!