Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day...My lucky parents are in Mexico right now, so I am trying my best to keep in touch with them and everyone else at the same time. Hope you are having a great time! Christmas so far has been an adventure! It began with Alana waking up at 1am, then both little ones waking up around 3am, Lucas waking up again at 3:30 and us bribing him to stay in his room if he gets his Christmas lights back. Then both little ones getting up around 7am (not bad...) and hearing Lucas scream to keep the lights off when James turns on the dining room light. It didn't help when Lucas attempted to turn off the light, but couln't quite reach it yet, which frustrated him even more. Needless to say, it was a picture perfect start to Christmas Day, but it's beginning to get quite a bit better since Lucas is filling his tummy with red, green and white pancakes! Unfortunately, between Lucas's mood swings this morning and trying to get Alana to open presents, we took absolutey NO pictures! Unbelieveable! James did get some video footage and we'll try to take some pics throughout the day.

Alana's favorite present is the learning cell phone that we got for Lucas (which he hasn't even taken a second look at!) as well as the blanket I made her. Very cute.

Lucas's favorite present at first was the Thomas train barn that Grandma and Grandpa Castleberry got for him...after about 30 minutes he suddenly packed it up madly, insisted he didn't want it anymore and put it on the counter where it is still sitting. Right now, his favorites are the medium-sized lego blocks James got for him as well as the bath boat that Grandma and Grandpa Castleberry got for Alana. We are lucky a lot of these toys can be enjoyed by both kids!

Katie's favorite present is a star wars comic pack with a couple figures as well as the many toe socks she recieved from both us and Dan and Becky (my parents). Also, part of Christmas this year is James and I taking Katie to Disney World in March, which we are combining with a visit to James' parents and other family members. Lucas and Alana will get to spend 3 fun-filled days with Grandma and Grandpa Castleberry while the 3 of us are enjoying a little vacation to Disney World, MGM Studios and Epcot. The day before we leave, we will all be visiting Sea World (we get in free!!! Military rocks!) and enjoy some of the sights and sounds for a few hours or however long the little ones can manage to hang in there.

This year, the Morgan family (i.e. mom, dad, kerri, sunny, james, katie) decided to draw names and make a present for the person we drew. Dad made James these BEAUTIFUL poor-boy sticks! Dad, you are amazing! Dad should definitely start a poor-boy stick-making business! I'll be happy to join in and make some as well :) Mom made me some great cards for me to use! The maker is always more critical than the gift-reciever and I LOVE them! I think they are great, Mom! She also made me a cute pair of earrings. Katie is still waiting to recieve hers (hint, hint, hint). But I can't exactly talk because Dad and Mom won't recieve theirs until they return from Mexico...

Today, we are looking forward to ending the day with a Christmas Calzone/Pizza evening with some friends here at the house. We made homemade Calzones/Pizzas last year and we liked it so much that we've decided we are going to make it a family tradition!

Alana Update

So....I didn't really keep my promise of keeping up the blog very well...obviously. What can I say? So, here are a couple videos of the two little ones. The video of Alana in the snow is TOO CUTE! She loves to be outside walking around. This was taken of our first time in the snow with her at about 0 degrees. It was fun and Alana really enjoyed it.

Alana in the Snow


Alana is now in her crib in Lucas's room, i.e. their room. She goes to bed SO easily now...she has some milk at bedtime and once she is done we put her in her crib with some music and leave the room, door shut behind us! How different it was with Lucas...He always HAD to be rocked to sleep...She does still get up about once per night to have more milk, but goes right back to bed after that. Sometimes Lucas and Alana wake up and talk to each other...so cute! We'll go in after a few minutes and Lucas will yell out with the biggest smile "We are talkin' Mommy [Daddy]!"

Below is a video of Lucas and Alana sliding on the slide we have downstairs...one of James' band buddies gave us that and it saved us last winter! And it is saving us again this winter! Lucas and Alana love to climb and slide on it every few days or so...so nice when it's dark out most of the time we are home with them. During the weekends when it gets light out in the middle of the day, Lucas will tell us it's time to go shopping because it is light out...very funny.

Lucas and Alana sliding on the slide


So we are trying a new strategy with Lucas...every time I get on the phone with my mom she always gets to hear of Lucas's latest whining or yelling or hitting or screaming fit or...you get the picture...So I've finally picked up a book. At the beginning I thought I was at least doing some things right...well, according to the Love and Logic books, I sort of was...there was more I was doing not right, though. So we've put some of the ideas into action last night and this morning and so far, so good! For example, Lucas decided to whine and wipe his peaches off the plate I put them on onto the table and insisted on wanting to put them on a pink plate rather than the blue plate I asked him to put it on. I instantly scooped him up stating (with lots of empathy) that it was so sad that he would have to have some room time and not get to eat lunch yet. So I put him in his room not saying another word and stood outside his door for about 15 minutes before he calmed down. I then opened his door (yes, he did try to come out but I just held the door shut...), gave him a big hug, told him I loved him and asked if he was ready to eat at the table (earlier he insisted on eating in the living room). I said nothing more, no lectures, nothing. Lucas came calmly out of the room, immediately picked up his peaches and put them onto the blue plate and proceeded to eat his lunch without another incident!!! I was absolutely shocked, pleasantly surprised, and very pleased.

Bull moose we had right outside our house the other night! It actually walked within an arms-length away while he was standing in the doorway with the cameras!!! Scary, but so cool!


We'll be putting a video of Katie's latest main part in her Christmas play shortly. She did great on her Math final ALL ON HER OWN! Without any help she got an A on her math final! We were amazed and she was pleased. Overall, she got 3 A's and 3 B's and we'll be going to a report card movie during the break. She always enjoys those.

More to come...Lucas's b-day pics..he is 3 years old! And more miscellaneous pics as well. Love to all!