New Years 2011

What a difference a year makes....

2010

2011

Wishing everyone a very healthy and happy 2012! I am looking very forward to putting 2011 to bed.. But it has been a year that has taught us a lot and for that I am thankful.

 Cheers to 2012!

Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas 2011

I hope everyone had as great of a Christmas as we did! It is still hard for me to believe that this is Ben's second Christmas. What a difference a year makes...we had a tiny 6 week old who pretty much slept through the entire holiday and this year we had a never sitting still 13 month old. We decided that it would be easier to take Ben to the least amount of stops possible so we decided to go to Christmas Eve mass at St Thomas More at 5 pm and then head to Vince's Uncle Stan's for Christmas Eve dinner and the annual gift exchange. We weren't quite sure how late we could push Ben but he made it to about 8:00pm before the melting started. And once it started it just kept going so that was our cue to head home. We got home and poor Ben was so exhausted that I had to put his milk & cookies out for Santa.

Christmas morning Ben woke up a tad before 8am. We got him his milk and then it was time for presents! Ben got his first 4 Wheeler. He seems to really like it and even figured out how to drive it by the end of the afternoon. We are still working on the steering but he is only 13 months old! Vince spoiled me rotten as usual. I asked for a kindle and got an iPad! I am having so much fun with it (and so is Ben)!

Once we got done with our Christmas morning we headed over to my parents for Christmas morning part 2! Santa had come to GG & Grandpa McCormack's house too! Such a lucky boy! Ben made it about half way though presents before he needed to go upstairs and take him morning snoozer. He had so much fun opening his presents as well as other people presents!

Vince & I had decided that other than going to my parents on Christmas morning we were going to spend the rest of the day at home. That way Ben was in his own element and could take a nap and go to bed at his normal times and play with all his new toys. We invited Vince's Mom & Jimmy since we has spent Christmas Eve with the Rupp side. And invited my family as well. We ended up with a 3 bonus guests...Carrie,  Mark & Taylor who decided to come up to KC a few days early for Christmas! I asked Vince what he wanted me to make and he thought lasagna would be perfect. So we made meat balls, Italian sausage and lasagna. Everyone else chipped in and brought appetizer's, salad and wine. Perfect! We had a great time with everyone! Sadly I was busy cooking and being a hostess so I don't have a lot of pictures.

Holiday Gatherings

Last Sunday we had the first of two family holiday gatherings. First up was a Holiday Brunch at J & Stef's house. It was a great brunch with great food and family! Ben had so much fun playing with his cousins Paige and Sierra!

Next up was the annual McCormack/Thornhill Christmas dinner. I love this yearly tradition! As long as I can remember we have been doing this annual dinner. We got a big surprise...Joie made us artichokes! Yum Yum! I love her artichokes so much! Mom made a great salmon dinner that left us all stuffed! Ben got spoiled rotten by his Aunt Joie & Uncle Rich with all his presents!

Holiday Traditions

Traditions...I love them! I love all the new and old traditions that we are sharing with Ben! And Christmas cookie baking is one of my favorites! It reminds me of my Grandma Smith and all her yummy goodies she would make every year. This year my mom let each of us 3 kids pick which cookie we wanted her to make. I must have caught her in a good mood because when I asked is her sugar cookies were one of my options she said YES! I know what a pain and how much work they are to make and decorate but they are so so so good! So I said that was my cookie choice for this year. I decided that it wasn't fair to make the poor woman bake and decorate them all by herself so I took Ben over to "help" decorate. The last time she made them for us Ben was only 4 months old and just sat on the table in his bumbo watching us all decorate. I knew he wouldn't really be much help this go around either but it was more important to me for him to be part of this family tradition. Ben wasn't so sure at first but once he figured out he could eat the cookie & frosting he had a blast.

Ben & Santa

We finally took Ben to go see Santa last night! I seems like just yesterday we were standing in line with a sleeping 4 week old to see Santa and here we were again with a 13 month old. Time sure is flying! It felt a bit strange since it was 60 degrees out but that's KC weather for ya! We didn't have high hopes for this picture opp since Ben wasn't a fan of big or baby Jay at the KU game. But pictures with Santa is a tradition so we had to do it. The photographer suggested setting Ben in Santa's chair and then have Santa sneak up behind him to start with. Ben was in no mood to sit in the chair. He screamed and screamed. We gave him his lovey and were able to get a couple pictures until he turned around and saw Santa standing behind him...and the screaming resumed. We decided while we had come this far we had to get a screaming on Santa's lap picture. And that we did! After that traumatic experience we decided that Ben needed to experience Paddy's. This was probably his first and sadly final time at Paddy O'Quigleys. I am still so sad that they are closing next month. It was so weird being there with Ben. I felt like the Babbitt's should be walking in the door any minute, that we needed to order a tray of Brrb's and get "the big table". We had a good dinner and it was way past bedtime so we headed home. I think that is the earliest we have ever left and the shortest amount of time I have ever spent there! I kept trying to get a good pic of Ben at his first Paddy's experience but he was not in the mood but I got one while he did his "mouse face"!

13 Months

We now have a 13 month old! Ben is definitely acting like a toddler more than a baby these days. He has almost 10 teeth! 2 of those are his top molars and they have not been easy on him. I really hope they hurry up! He is down to 1 bottle a day. It started with taking the afternoon bottle away then he gave up the nighttime bottle on his own which I thought would be the hardest to take away. So now he has one first thing in the morning. The only reason I haven't taken it away yet is because it is the only time he will drink whole milk.I have tried every sippy cup we own and even bought new ones and he just flat out refuses to drink milk out of them. (we go to the doctor tomorrow for the second half of his flu shot so I am going to ask for suggestions) He loves peanut butter crackers now and mandarin oranges. He has had his first taste of sweets (besides his birthday cake)-cookies! And of course he loves cookies! We packed away the infant carrier a few weeks ago and installed his convertible car seat (and then had it inspected by the Fairway police). He wasn't very happy about it but is getting better. He is still only taking a few steps on his own-I am almost starting to think he knows he can get to where he wants to go faster by crawling. But he did walk through the store Saturday with Vince & I holding his hands. And he thought he was he was hot stuff! His vocabulary is getting bigger each week. He calls Vince Da and me Mama but he rarely says Mama. He calls my mom GG and Miles Doggie. He says up, yeah, hello and hi all the time. He has mastered pointing at what he wants and then yells as he points until you get him what he wants. I could do without the yelling. As the weeks go on he gets more and more "busy" he never stops moving. He wears me out! Thankfully he is still sleeping 13-14 hours a night and taking 2 small naps during the day.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

Saturday was the traditional McCormack KU game-this year Ben became part of the tradition! Sadly Matt couldn't get off work so he didn't get to go. It just wasn't the same without him. We headed up early to Lawrence to meet Dad, Patrick & Leah for lunch and then got to Allen Fieldhouse early so we could get good seats. We ended up scoring a whole short row! It was perfect! We really wanted to get a picture of Ben with Baby J. I had envisioned such a great picture with a big smile on Ben's face but that's not what we got. First off we saw the big Jayhawk and ran over to get a picture. I was so excited and Ben was terrified. He buried his head into my chest. Then we spied Baby J and I thought surely he would be excited since he is smaller but again I was wrong. He was trying to jump out of my arms to get away from him. Ben did great during the game he was starting to get a bit tired but once he got his bink and his lovey he just sat on Vince's lap and watched the game. One of the best parts of the game was when two different pictures of Ben  made it up on the video board during a timeout! Last year one of his pictures made it up but we weren't fast enough to get a picture but this year we were! So cool!We stayed until the last 10 minutes of the game because we could tell Ben was exhausted. He was asleep before we even got out of the parking lot! It was a great day filled with great family!