White Christmas

We had a white Christmas!  It started snowing during lunch in Grand Prairie.  It kept snowing all afternoon, with accumulation on the grass, roofs, etc.  What a beautiful sight.  Wyatt enjoyed going out in the snow when it first started to take some pictures.  Once he woke up from his nap late in the afternoon it had stopped snowing - so we didn't go back out to play in the snow until the next morning.  Wyatt and I were home alone while Justin was at work, but we got all bundled up and I let him check out the accumulated snow in the back yard.  I took a couple of pictures of him, we ran around a minute, then went back inside to warm up. Below I have listed the various Christmas gatherings we had this year.

McGilvray Christmas - One Saturday before Christmas - I think it was December 15 this year, we had the McGilvray Christmas.  We met at Jan and Billy's house, ate a yummy lunch, and had a Chinese gift exchange. It was good to see the family.  We got to take Pemberly and Cordie with us this year, and they seemed to have a good time as well.

Parker family: The Saturday before Christmas (December 22) we went to Sulphur Springs to see Grandmother and Grandaddy (the "Greats").  Wyatt enjoyed playing with Grandmother and cousin Mandy.  We had a good time and were sad that we were only able to stay for the day.  Staci and Will went Friday night and Mom and Dad stayed Saturday night - but we just went for the day.  Wyatt still asks about Great-Grandmother every so often.  I know he enjoyed playing with her.  For Christmas Wyatt got a fun musical instrument set from Grandmother and Grandaddy (which has been a big hit) and a cowboy hat and stick horse from Aunt Julie and cousin Mandy.  He loves the cowboy gear!  I have tried so many times to get a good picture or video of him riding it around the house, but haven't had much luck.  The only one I could find is below - sorry he is just in his undies.  We didn't get to see Uncle Phil and his family, but they sent Wyatt a "w" book and some bath toys.  He likes his book a lot, and went through one week where we read it multiple times a day every day.

Christmas Eve: We spent Christmas eve with my family.  We opened lots of presents and had a yummy lasagna lunch.  The most exciting part was when Staci and Will announced their pregnancy.  After all the other presents had been opened they handed each of us a gift to open simultaneously.  When I read the note about my shirt (One cool aunt) that had not yet arrived I was thrilled!  It was funny to see everyone realize why they were getting shirts for being Granny, Grandaddy, aunt, and uncles.  We are so excited for Staci and Will, and very much looking forward to August.

Christmas Eve Night:  I saw an idea on pinterest to get everyone new pajamas and a family Christmas movie each year to open and watch on Christmas Eve.  I decided to get Wyatt the pajamas (to wear for pics in the morning) and a Christmas book for his bedtime story.  Then I got Justin a Christmas movie that he really likes that we watched after putting Bubba to bed for the evening.

His Christmas book - The Night Before Christmas

Christmas morning:  Wyatt has been very interested in Santa Clause this year (once he stopped calling him Noah).  He is, however, too scared of him to sit in his lap.  He had two different opportunities, and was very interested, but when we tried to get closer  he just clung to Mama or Daddy.  I explained to him that Santa would come to his house on Christmas Eve to bring presents.  I didn't think he understood at all.  To my surprise on Christmas morning, (a week or two after that explanation) when he woke up and I said, "Merry Christmas" Wyatt said, "He came to my house?!?"  He was so excited to open his Christmas presents.  He had fun pulling all the things out of his stocking, and unwrapping his presents and helping everyone else unwrap their presents too.

New pajamas from our wonderful neighbors Mr. Ron and Mrs. Geri.

His own camera so he would stop wanting to use Mama's (he still wants to use Mama's - but at least I can redirect him to his own)

Stocking presents - I think he is holding little finger puppets.

Daddy and Wyatt coming in to find what Santa brought.

His first "sword" little toys from his stocking.

Christmas day: We spent Christmas day with Justin's family at David and Gena's house.  The whole extended Naylor family came over for lunch (potluck Italian theme) and had the annual man and woman's gift exchanges.  Due to the snow people cleared out earlier than usual, but we stayed over until Wyatt's bedtime.    Justin's friend Carrie and her husband and daughter came over there in the evening to visit (they live in Utah) so it was good to see them.

New Year's Day: We always celebrate Christmas with the Naylor family on New Year's Day due to Josh and Marla traveling to Mexico for Christmas every year.  This year we didn't play a sport like has been tradition, but we had a lovely lunch and visit with everyone.  We did play a game as an alternative to a sporting event.  If you have ever heard of telestrations we played that, but just using pencils and paper.  If you aren't familiar, what you do is everyone writes down a sentence.  Then you pass your paper to the next person, read the sentence you are given, and illustrate it.  Then you cover up the sentence, and pass your illustration.  You then look at the picture you are given and write what you think the sentence was, based only on the picture.  Cover up the picture  pass the sentence, and continue until it has been all the way around the circle.  When you get your paper back it is so funny to see how things changed.  It is like "telephone" but with pictures.  We adults had fun playing that game and the kiddos enjoyed opening their presents.  We did a different kind of gift exchange with the adults this year.  We had the word, NOEL, and each family had one of the letters.  Justin and I had the letter E.  All the presents for everyone had to begin with your letter.  Justin and I made "earth friendly" presents for everyone.  I made homemade cleaning products and bath products and Justin made planter boxes out of old pallets.  We really enjoyed making everything and it was nice to be so "green."  It was pretty funny to see how some people really stretched their letter to try and fit the gifts they bought.  All in all was a great Christmas season.

Since I'm Two

Wyatt continues to say and do the funniest things.  Well, at least I find them amusing - and if you bother to read my blog then you probably do too :)

When told he can't have something Wyatt used to say, "But I want it."  Now he says, "But I need it."

The day before Thanksgiving we had our good friends the Farmer's over the celebrate.  When they were getting ready to leave their little 3 year old Cordie asked Wyatt for a kiss.  He proceeded to get up on his tiptoes in order to plant one right on her lips!  It was a first kiss for both of them.  So funny!  Right after he kissed her Wyatt ran to me in shyness when everyone laughed.

Wyatt used to randomly tell me - I'll be right back - when he would leave the room. 

Wyatt has started to enjoy riding his riding toy a lot more.  Here is a picture of him and my cousin riding it on Thanksgiving.

Well, when he rides on his toy he will tell me he is "Going to work" and then will ride off into another room.  The other day he told me he was "going to school." 

Wyatt isn't shy at all - well sometimes he pretends to be shy, but for the most part he is super friendly to everyone.  He talks to the cashiers in stores.  He recently decided to sing his ABCs all the way through for a couple of families.  They obligingly stopped, listened, and cheered for him.  Such a ham!

Awhile back Wyatt enjoyed saying "knock knock" and "who's there?"  I don't know if he heard someone telling knock knock jokes or what - but it was funny to hear him say that (and only that).

Last week Wyatt came up with a new game.  He likes to "ride the train."  We sit on the bench from our table and pretend to ride on a train.  He likes to give his "ticket" to the conductor.  So much fun to see him starting to understand pretend play.  This morning he told me the bus was here and we needed to ride the bus.  I told him we could ride the bus after breakfast - but by the time we finished eating that had been forgotten.

Wyatt likes to talk on the phone.  We sometimes talk to Justin or to Granny on the real phone.  I gave him an old phone to play with in the car the other day.  He sat back there and talked to all kinds of people.  He was telling them he was riding in the car, daddy was driving, mommy was riding, etc.  He would also say "uhhuh," and "ok" and "bye bye."  He even called his friend Parker! 

Wyatt continues to love to sing!  We sing kids songs.  He really likes Big Big Box, my God is so Big, and Roll the Gospel Chariot.  He is particularly fond of a song we sing in our small group (I think someone in the group may have made it up) called the "Hi-yah song"  (I have no idea how to spell it, but "hi-yah" like you say in karate).  He still loves Shout Hallelujah and requests it frequently.  His other favorite grown up praise song he calls "Oh My Soul."  It is the Matt Redman song that goes, "Bless the Lord oh my soul, oh my soul, worship his holy name.  Sing like never before, oh my soul, worship his holy name."  One day it came on the radio and Justin and I both started singing along.  Wyatt joined in on the chorus in the back seat.  Now he often wants me to sing it.  Unfortunately I can't remember the words to the verses very well and I don't have a recording.  I guess I need to get the CD so I can learn the song better and/or play it for him.

We have a lot of fun with this little guy.  Wyatt is just crazy about his daddy and loves spending time with him on the weekends and in the evenings.  They sure have fun playing together.  Other favorite activities include going next door to say hi to Mr. Ron and Mrs. Geri (our elderly neighbors who just adore him), going to the zoo, playing outside, and shooting baskets with his new basketball goal.

Our little monkey in his Halloween costume

He will probably hate me for this one later - but it is so funny to see him go around in his undies and a fleece hat.

Birthday Party!

Wyatt and Granny

Wyatt playing in the sandbox with Brady, Theresa, and Nolan

Sliding down the bounce house slide with Jaxon

Wyatt waiting for another turn to hit the pinata

Autry pulling Wyatt in the wagon

The ride didn't last long

Wyatt loved whacking the pinata

Sitting with Grandaddy opening presents

Wyatt with his pumpkin muffin and candles while we sang Happy Birthday

Kiddos grabbing the loot from the pinata

Wyatt playing with his "golf ball club"

Painting clay pots

Riding the "tractor"

Setting up the photo opp before the party

Cute picture of my cousin Audrea and her two girls

Brady in the bounce house

Gianna

Macy and Max

Max and Emory doing the sticker pages

Sam and Ben

Gianna again - she is so photogenic!

Wyatt's birthday party was a lot of fun.  The theme was tractor/farm.  We had our John Deere "tractor" (riding lawn mower) set up for photo ops.  Wyatt spent much of the party sitting on the tractor pretending to drive it.  We also had parent powered wagon rides, his sandbox, a bounce house (thanks to Ashley and Bernd for letting us borrow theirs), a pinata, farm scene sticker pages, and clay pots for painting.  There were farm animal tattoos, but I don't think anyone applied those during the party.  I had Wyatt's farm toys and books in the living room for the kids to play with , and we had lots of balloons (after all what is a party without balloons).  The party was from 9-11am so instead of birthday cake we had birthday pumpkin bread muffins and miniature pumpkin pies.  There were also other goodies like hummus, crackers, cheese, tomatoes, apples, and carrots.  Yummy!  We had coffee and apple cider to drink - and the weather was perfect.  Great day for a fall themed party.  Thanks to my sister, Staci, for taking all the pictures.  Wyatt sure had fun.  Thanks to all of you who came and helped make it a special day for him!

I have an almost 2 year old

I have been writing down things that Wyatt does on the white board in our kitchen.  (The white board I put up for my chore list thinking I would start doing more house cleaning...lol)  Just looking at what I needed to blog about made me realize how fast he is changing. 

One thing I wrote down was that he could fill in parts of "Jesus Loves Me" when we sing it and stop to let him sing the next part.  Well, he can do that, yes, but now he can do that with almost any song he has heard (even just once or twice) and can "sing" entire songs by himself.  He can sing the ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star all by himself.  He has gotten to where he will sing along with me now too, instead of only singing if I stop for him to take a turn.  That boy loves music!  One day awhile back he took the little wooden chair in his room, dragged it over in front of the chest of drawers, climbed up on the chair, and then pushed buttons on the cd player until his music started playing.  If he wants music he will go turn it on now, and he has learned songs that I don't even really know well because they play on his kids cds.  One he liked a couple of weeks ago was "Hot Cross Buns."  I know this song, but the cd had an extra bridge part that says, "If you have no daughters, if you have no daughters, if you have no daughters then give them to your sons."  Wyatt really liked this part and would sing "No daughters, no daughters, no daughters" when we were in the car.

Most of our car trips involve music now.  I got tired of having to sing the same songs over and over the entire trip so I put one of his kids cds in the car.  I still do a lot of singing, but can sometimes just "Put musak on" for him to listen to.  The funny thing is trying to figure out what song he is wanting to hear.  He doesn't know them by their titles, but will just say part of the words to the song or something that is in the song (like duck song, frog song, fish song, etc).  If he happens to say the beginning words I can usually figure it out, or if he says some words that happen to be the title (like Jesus Loves Me) then I'm good.  Occasionally though, I have no idea what song he is talking about.  I can do better if he has just heard the song and then he requests it again, because it is fresh on my mind.  Out of context though he asks for things like "the tree song" (it has been weeks and I still haven't figured that one out) or "cow and moon song" (Hey Diddle Diddle) or "Heart Where?" (I've got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart).  I'm so glad he loves music already.

A few weeks ago Wyatt's favorite song was probably "Jesus Loves Me."  We would sing it every night before bed.  He especially liked the "He is strong" part where he flexes his muscles.  Now he doesn't want Jesus Loves Me before bed anymore.  He usually requests "Jesus Loves the Little Children" which he calls "children of the world song."  Two weeks ago we went to a singing at North Tarrant church of Christ.  Wyatt seemed to enjoy the singing, sitting in Grandaddy's lap for quite awhile at the beginning.  He liked "Days of Elijah" because after it was over he asked to "sing song again."  His favorite for the night though, was "Shout Hallelujah."  Now for those of you who know how much I like that song, I didn't influence him in any way, he just loved the song!  He started to kind of try to sing with it towards the very end of the song, and then kept saying, "Shout Hallelujah" (I can't think how to phonetically write how he says hallelujah, but it is cute, and surprisingly close to the actual word) after each song.  Mr. Larry Watkins (who was trading off leading singing with his son Daniel) heard Wyatt saying that and thought it was pretty funny.  I thought he kept saying, "Shout Hallelujah" over and over because of all the attention he had received.  I was wrong though, he continued to say it over and over in the car on the way home and still requests to sing that song.  What can I say, he knows a good song when he hears it!

Wyatt loves to play with his Daddy.  After dinner each night Wyatt usually requests "Daddy fall down" so Justin will lay on the floor and wrestle with him.  They will play baseball too.  Justin will throw him the ball and if he hits it Wyatt will say, "Go go go," and run around the circle from living room to kitchen to study back to living room.   Then he will fall down onto his knees and say, "Safe!"  It is adorable.  One night Justin was playing his guitar for Wyatt to dance to.  For some reason all Wyatt's dancing also involves this running sequence.  Justin made up a song with words like "Wyatt is a silly goose, running around the house hanging loose."  Wyatt loved it, so anytime Justin picks up his guitar Wyatt will request the "silly goose song." 

I mentioned Wyatt climbing up on the chair to turn on his cd player.  Well, he climbs on everything.  He moves around the tall stools that go to our little kitchen "island" then climbs on them to get into trouble.  One day I heard he had done that while I was still finishing lunch at the table.  I waited a minute then went to check and he had pulled over the knife block, with several knives lying out on the cabinet.  That was terrifying!  I had recently moved it to a place where he couldn't come even close to reaching it standing on the ground, but he climbed on the stool then onto the cabinet in order to get to it.  I made a big deal out of it and told him how he can't touch the knives.  Since then he has gotten into all kinds of things in the kitchen - but he has not gone near those knives.  Hopefully it won't happen again - because the only places I could put it out of his reach would be equally out of my reach - and I use those knives all the time!  He keeps me on my toes.  He usually only climbs around in the kitchen when I am in there thankfully.  He usually likes to be in the same room as me.

Wyatt is pretty good at figuring out how to get things he wants.  One time I had left the fridge water dispenser unlocked and he was sticking a cup under there and getting sips of water.  I went ahead and locked it before it became a big mess.  He ran to the bathroom.  I assumed to go potty (he is pretty well potty trained now and goes without prompting most of the time at home).  Instead a moment later I heard the water turned on in the sink.  He had climbed up onto the toilet and leaned over to turn on the water at the sink to fill up his cup and get himself a drink.  It is kind of hard to know how to feel when you are proud of him for his problem solving skills and not wanting him to: 1.fall and get hurt or 2.make a mess.  He actually doesn't fall and get hurt very often - but making messes are his specialty.  He will even tell you "make a mess" as he makes one.  I spend lots of time laughing and wanting to pull out my hair both at the same time.

Oh, and really funny is to hear how often Wyatt says, "Be careful."  Anytime he is doing something that involves some kind of danger he says "Be careful."  This is actually a good alert to me.  I heard him say that from his room recently and when I went in there he had climbed up on top of his changing table.  I showed him he didn't need to be up there to reach the light switch (he likes to turn it off and on) so he hasn't really done it again.

Goodness, I can talk about Wyatt all day long.  I will quickly mention the other things I had notes about:
 - Wyatt stuffed a mini cornbread muffin in his mouth with the round part showing and then went around showing it to everyone in small group.  Justin thought it hilarious I found it embarrassing.
 - Wyatt says we are going to "make it rain" when we turn on the sprinkler.
 - Last Thursday was Wyatt's friend Parker's birthday.  I told Wyatt we were going to the zoo with Parker and Wyatt said, "I'm so excited!"
 - I said to Wyatt, "Your hands are cold."  Wyatt said, "My hands are cold!"

I'm so proud of my baby boy who is getting to be such a big boy!  Today he decided he wants to "Go to school" because we drove past the local elementary school and he wanted to go to the playground (we went to that playground yesterday afternoon).  I told him, we can't go right now because it is for the school, you have to go to school to play on the playground right now.  Well, he cried about how he wanted to go to school all the way home and again several times before nap.  Of course he doesn't know what that means - but I am no where near ready for him to actually go to school.  The time is flying already.  A week and a half and I will have a two year old on my hands!

It's a ....

The first news - It's a baby!

Still in bed - early morning happy news!

The news you've all been waiting for.  It's a GIRL!!!

Wyatt giving his baby sister a kiss.

The happy family.

 Justin wore a pink shirt this morning and I wore a gray shirt with a hot pink jacket.  When I saw what we were wearing I laughed and Justin joked that he should change into blue.  We went out to IHOP before the ultrasound (just like we did before my ultrasound with Wyatt).  They told me to drink a lot of water before hand - which I dutifully did.  Then we waited from our appointment time of 8:45 until almost 9:30 before they finally called us back.  I was pretty uncomfortable to say the least.  I was glad the tech let me use the ladies room first thing.  I still don't know why I was supposed to drink all that water.

The ultrasound place didn't have any printer paper - so we don't have any printed photos of the baby.  They did give us a cd with the entire report.  There aren't any really good shots that just look like a baby though.  Instead they are just pictures of various things they measure and check (heart, kidneys, bladder, placenta, etc).  According to the report on the cd the baby is measuring correctly for my estimated due date of March 8. (I'm currently 19 weeks and 4 days).

Wyatt has been calling the grandparents, aunts, and uncles letting them know that he is going to have a baby "sister."  He can even say her name - Helen Joy.  Helen was the name of Justin's maternal grandmother who passed away while his mom was pregnant with Justin.  Joy was the name of my Grandaddy's sister.  She never married or had any children of her own, and she passed away while I was in college.  We are very happy for the opportunity to use these special names for our sweet baby girl.

I can't wait to go shopping!  Justin is going to love that :)