Spending Christmas Day at the Hospital

As I said in the last post, we went to see my sister in the hospital with the rest of Christmas Day. I'm sorry for the mixture of pictures. I took one picture with my camera on the way over and forgot it in the car once we got over there. So, I used the pictures that were taken with Ashley's camera. Jud, Wesley and my Dad went to sleep on the way over, while Mom drove and I stayed up with her! Here is Wesley asleep! My sweet, sweet boy.

Here is Wesley with Jud playing with the train that went around the base of her Christmas tree!
And, here is PopPop helping Wesley open his present from Aunt Ashley!
Here is Ashley, Wes and I. She's the one that was in the hospital and I'm the one that looks bad!
Here is Wesley dressed in the Christmas spirit sitting with Nana!
And, Wesley giving PopPop sugars!
This is around the time that Ashley found out that she was expecting!!! She found out that her due date was August 13, 2010, but was told that she would have the baby early due to her Cystic Fibrosis. I will write about the outcome later!(It was a wonderful outcome with a very rocky path.) We stayed with her until later in the evening, then stopped at IHOP for our Christmas dinner. It turned out to be a Merry Christmas under the circumstances!

Christmas Morning 2009

Christmas morning was a lot of fun! Due to Ashley (my little sister) being in the hospital, Wesley's Nana and PopPop came over in the morning to help and watch Wes open his presents before heading to Shreveport to the hospital to see Ashley. Here are PopPop and Wesley right after Nana and PopPop arrived at the house.

This picture is of all of the presents that Wesley, Jud and I were given from Jud's family and my parents!
And, these were all the gifts that were under the tree left to be opened by Wesley, Jud and I from Santa Clause and each other!
A close-up of some of the presents!
Jud opening one of his gifts.
PopPop even helped Wesley open his Christmas presents!
Here is Wesley (giving Mom that "No more pictures, Mom" look) playing at his new Cars (dry erase) table with his two tractors (one hidden behind the other).
Daddy putting Wesley's table/easel together with PopPop's "help!" I think PopPop was watching TV more than helping!
And, our little mini-cop riding his new Police motor-bike! It has lights and sirens, and Jud loves it!
He would climb on and off of it!
Wesley had lots of fun opening presents with Nana and PopPop! I would have included pictures of Nana, but she would have gotten mad at me because she didn't put makeup to come over! After we finished with presents, Nana and PopPop went home to get ready. We picked them up a little while later to go see my sister, Ashley, in the hospital.

Christmas Eve 2009

We spent Christmas Eve at Jud's Dad's house with his siblings and nieces. If I haven't said it before, I love Jud's family. I enjoy spending time with the whole group! Especially these kiddos! This is Wesley and his cousins, Gracie and Ella! (If you only knew how many pictures it took to get one picture that turned out good!) Aren't they precious?

And, our sweet little boy!

And, here is Ella with her mom, Jennifer, my sister-in-law. Ella was playing with the drum set from Wesley!Wesley and his Uncle JoJo had the Christmas spirit!!Wesley and Ella love each other so much!Look at these sweet babies!Gracie, Ella and Wesley really loved this tree that had a train running through it! (Ordered from Avon.)Jud's oldest brother, Jody (or JoJo) in the recliner with Jud's middle brother, JimEd (Jennifer's husband) in the back!Jennifer and Jud's Dad were watching Ella, Gracie and Wesley play together!
Can you tell the love between sister and brother never changes? Jud pretending to hit his twin sister, Jamye!Jamye's husband, Michael with the kids!Wesley sitting with his PopPop!
I truly enjoy spending time with Jud's family!!

Run, Ladybug, Run! (Should have been a December post!)

Seriously, run, Ladybug! Wesley is all boy, meaning he likes to play with bugs!!

Wesley found him a ladybug in the changing table to his Pack n' Play!

And, he ended up thinking it was a fun, new toy!
Daddy tried to teach him to be gentle with the ladybug!

But, it didn't work to well! Wesley ended up getting it knocked into one of the little grooves!
Jud finally got the ladybug and let her loose outside away from little hands! Fly away, Ladybug!!

Santa and Santaland

In the post "Wonderland of Lights," I mentioned that Wesley and Jud have a special relationship with our local Santa. Jud grew up knowing "Santa," but hadn't talked to the man in a long time until the day that Wesley was born. Jud called "Santa" that day to tell him the news. We actually have pictures from the Christmas Parade 2008 with this "Santa." So, here's Wesley and Santa!

And, Jud and Santa.
And, the whole family with Santa.
Then, we took Wesley to Tyler to Santaland! This was lots of fun!! (Don't worry. Wesley stayed in his car seat until we got heading up the drive to Santaland.) Then, he helped Dad drive up to the entrance!

At that point, he sat in my lap going through all of it. Then, after wards, we went to the gift shop and he went back into his car seat for the ride home!!

Love,
Amanda

Attempted Christmas Pictures 2009

Are you loving all this talk about Christmas and snow in this 90 degree weather in July as much as I am?? So, here are our attempts for Christmas pictures! We had waited until the last minute, so we couldn't get an appointment any where around here. So, we brought my Nikon D40 over to my parents house to get my Mom to take some pictures for us. (My mom has this really beautiful tree!) But, Wesley was not interested in any of it!



We decided to give Wesley a break and take a couple of just Jud and I.

Wesley giving Mommy a kiss!Wesley playing with one of Mom's Santa Clause figures!

And, here was the final (and best) picture that we ended up with!!
We had a time fighting with Wes to get a good picture!! We ended up having to stand up with me holding Wes! But, I think this picture turned out pretty good!

Love,
Amanda

Wonderland of Lights!

If I haven't mentioned it before on here, my parents are great!! I don't always get along with them or even agree with them, but they are amazing parents and even better grand-parents. They are two people that I know will always love and back Jud, Wesley and I. We absolutely love them! And, they are always fun to do things with! For one of our numerous holiday outings, they decided that they wanted my younger sister, Jud, Wesley and I to go to Marshall with them for the Wonderland of Lights. This is beautiful (though not properly shown in my pictures) and lots of fun! Here is Wesley all bundled up ready to look at Christmas lights!


Here is the Marshall Courthouse all lit up! Isn't it beautiful with the horse drawn carriage out front?
This is the ice skating rink! I wanted to try it sooo bad, but I haven't been ice skating in years!!
One of the statues outside the courthouse!A fitness group dancing outside the courthouse. They were actually pretty great!


This was lots of fun! But, it was pretty cold! (Though, I'm kind of missing the cold now!) Santa Clause did make a visit out there, but there was such a line to see him that we chose to visit Santa when he came to our town! Plus, Wesley (and Jud) have a special relationship with our local Santa!! But, if you're ever in East Texas near Christmas, you should definitely go to Marshall to see the Wonderland of Lights!