"Give the bear a hug"

Sam is so sweet and loves to give his stuffed animals and Maggie hugs. There is even a teddy bear with some fur on it in one of his books and he always bends down and puts his face on it and gives it a hug and kiss. He's a sweet lil guy :)

Sam giving a hug:

When he hugs, we say "awww". He has started giving hugs and saying "awwww" too while he is doing it.

Look at that face! Now, that's the Sam we know and love:

Taken

Congrats my my oldest and best girlfriend, BK and her soon-to-be husband, Kevin! They got engaged last night and I couldn't be happier for them!

I hope you two crazy kids have a wonderful time celebrating on your trip!!

Kevin, you done good!

Merry Christmas 2010

This was such a wonderful Christmas! As usual, we packed a million things and family gatherings into a 48 hour period.

Kick-off! Christmas Eve 3:30pm - Bleythings arrive at Holy Trinity for Christmas Eve mass with Matt's family. The boys were pretty good considering we were sitting in the general population and not the cry room. Just to be fair, I should say we did feed them the entire time. After Mass we went back to Matt's parents for an hour before heading to my Aunt Linda and Uncle Dave's for all the Christmas Eve games.


The kids take this picture in front of the alter every year. This was Ben and Sam's 1st year in the picture :) Look at that good lookin' bunch- I've got the cutest niece and nephews :)


The night...and the holiday was a little spoiled for me and almost tragic when Ben choked on a piece (actually several pieces he stuffed in his mouth) of bread. It was by far the scariest moment of my life. My little guy turned bright red and wasn't making a sound. I turned him over and started hitting his back. After a few second...I think....the bread flew out and he was crying hysterically. He has not been his usual self during meal time since then. I think he is still scared from it and I KNOW I am still shaken. If this happened to you and you can't post comments on here please email me because I would love to know it happens to other people too! I really am writing lightly about it compared to how disturbingly close we came to tragedy. We learned a lot from this experience. Let's continue and try to do the same as I did the rest of Christmas- try not to think about it!

Later on in the night, the kids opened gifts and were completely spoiled!

You can see Sam on the left checking out his new lawn mower. Ben got one too but here he is more interested in Grandpa:

Ben sneaking off and opening other people's presents:
We also ate a TON of shrimp, tamales, BBQ ribs, brisket, sides, desserts, etc! And, of course, drank our weight in pop. The fight producing games were played....white elephant and Bingo. Cousin Nick was the Bingo caller and pretty much took everyone's card away for being too "sassy". I won the Situation's Ab workout on DVD during the white elephant game - six pack here I come! Aunt Linda added a new game called "pass the pickle", which ended in my mom yelling at my aunt and cousin. All of this for the grand prize - a huge jar of pickles!

The boys didn't go to bed until 10:15pm - 3 hours past their bedtime!

Christmas morning was pretty calm. Santa brought Ben and Sam chairs with their names on it. Thanks Grandma Bleything for helping Santa embroider their names on them :)

Boys using chairs properly:
Sam demonstrating how they will actually be used:

Here we are opening some other gifts:

About 4 years ago we started a tradition of taking a picture of whatever our family looks like Christmas morning. Last year we are smiling by the tree...our 1 month old boys sweetly sleeping in our arms. Since we set the timer we were able to document the debacle of trying to get a half way decent family pic this year. And, yes, all of these were supposed to be "the one":


The "one":
Even though we said we weren't going to get each other anything since we bought a new TV to put on the wall so the boys couldn't pull it down on top of them, Matt surprised me with a new laptop!! I should say my 1st laptop since I've never had one before! He's so sweet and always surprises me with the best gifts!! I am doing my blog post on it right now! Thanks Mootsie!

After the boys took a nap we went to my parents house and opened gifts with them and my sister and her boyfriend. Ben and Sam don't really open gifts but loved playing with all the toys at Grandma and Grandpas house!
A couple of elves also visited Grandma and Grandpa's house to make sure the boys liked their new toys. They kept pointing to them and saying "that!":

From my parents we went to Aunt Tracy and Uncle Bryan's house for Christmas with Matt's side of the family. The boys had a blast playing with all of their cousins and Aunts,Uncles and Grandparents! The food and drink was absolutely amazing! Tracy made THE BEST prime rib I have ever eaten! The sides and desserts were sooooo good and gourmet! Can you tell my favorite part of Christmas?
Ben and Sam especially loved the slide that Grandma and Grandpa gave them:

Aunt Allison and smiling Sam:


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

On Christmas Eve....

I can't help but think how especially blessed and lucky we have been this last year. But, I also can't help but think of those who are still trying to have a baby or have other hardships in their life. My good and wise friend was trying to having a baby at the same time we were and she now has 2, also! She wrote this in her blog and I think it was very fitting on how I feel....

"Even though these ideas are never far from my mind, this was just a clear sign to me how much things have changed so quickly, how fortunate we are, how many people are still waiting, and how they don't know what the future will bring. All I have to say to you is, things can turn around and turn around fast. We don't know the time or the place. But we can trust that He has good things in store. Thinking of you all and praying especially hard as I know the holidays can be particularly tough."

To all my wonderful friends and family who read this blog, please know I am praying for you, whatever your need may be. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and keep on keepin' on!

Love,
Jill

More holiday memories..more Santa induced PTSD

We had a really festive weekend starting on Friday night when we went to Matt's work Christmas party. Hi to everyone at his office who reads the blog! The party was at the Westin downtown. Of course, Matt and his friends were the last ones to leave...party ended at 10pm and we were outta there at 11:30pm with the party still hoppin'.

Saturday was Christmas at my Aunt Marlene and Uncle Randy's. We always have it a week early because there are so many people and it lets us enjoy each others company without having to run off to another family Christmas.

Santa made an appearance at the party and I got lots of snapshots of Sam getting his first look, since he was the one that freaked out last time:

Here is Grandpa holding Sam. Sam is still staring down Santa:

Not the ideal picture of my sweet angels reveling in Santa's presence. This was the only picture I got of them and it was quickly snapped as I was putting the camera down to catch Ben as he jumped out of Santa's lap.
Sam surprisingly made a quick recovering and enjoyed opening his gift with my cousin, Mallory:
Ben, not so much:

My Uncle Randy making him happy again:

On Sunday Matt, the boys, and I went to Crown Center. The main attraction is a Crayola exhibit and a Santa. You must think I love to torture my kids, taking them to see Santa so much when they clearly don't like the man. Anyway, the line was about 2 hours long so we, of course, skipped that party.

If you have never been to Crown Center it is the Christmas-themed mecca of KC. There was still a lot to see and do. They had a glass encased ginger bread house village and a train running through it. The boys loved the train!

They also loved the toy store! We gave them each 2 balls when we walked in and they spent the rest of the time proudly showing off and saying "ball" to everyone who walked by.

Here are the boys and I in front of the countdown to Christmas:

Even though Ben and Sam are still too young to really understand Christmas, they enjoy parts of it and that little bit is enough to make this the best holiday season ever for me! They make every part of my life exponentially more amazing everyday but the holidays have been especially wonderful this year..and I know it will just get better and better!

Ben's first haircut

Ben got his first haircut a couple of days before his birthday but so much has been going on, other pictures have taken priority. He doesn't have quite as much hair as Sam so his was looking like a variation of a mullet....patchy on the sides and long in the back.

We also took Ben to see Lindsay at Rumors and she did a wonderful job!

He wore his best "Hanz and Franz" sweatsuit for the occasion:

Mullet:

Ok, so I might have snuck a lil hair cut and blow dry in there for myself too...

My big boy -doesn't he look handsome?

Sam's hair already needs another cut pretty badly. It's starting to form into a dutch boy bob. I said that I would cut their hair from now on but am having second thoughts because they squirm so much I think I could accidently hurt them :(

One more thing...Ben is getting tubes in his ears on Thursday so please pray that it all goes well! Thanks!

Ben and Sam 0-12 in 13 pictures

To the 500 people who told me, "They grow up so fast", boy, were you right!!


Birthday: