Two!

Heath is two.  Time does fly.  He was just 5 months when we moved to Maine, and now we realize he's lived most of his life here. Those of you who keep up with the blog will find it no surprise that he weighed in at 35lbs at his two year doctors appointment.  Finn is also 35lbs and almost 2 years older.  He's still on track to be our hockey player - although he's yet to be on skates.

He's still very active and vocal.  He loves boats and trains. His new thing is to run full speed across the room and bowl you over with a big hug.  It's very cute, but if you don't know it's coming, his 35lbs of freight train can also bowl you over!

For his birthday, the cake making tradition continued and Patrick made Heath a boat cake.  You'll note two cakes in the pictures as I decided at midnight the night before to make use of the leftover cake and make my own boat cake.  You'll see there's a reason that Patrick does the cake making in the family.

We spent Heath's birthday celebrating with Trish (our nanny) and Kevin (her husband).  It was a perfect evening with Trish's homemade lasagna (Heath's favorite food) and good friends that have grown to become  just like family.

Patrick's speed boat...

Patrick referred to my boat as a tugboat (sad)

Heath seeing the cakes for the first time! "Doot cake!"

Trish, Kev and the family

I couldn't resist, but to pull some pics to highlights Heath's changes over the past year. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Heath Bar! We love You!

Catching up - A Perfect New Year's Eve

We stayed up all the way until the New Year for the second year in a row!  Sad, but true.  That's not a given for us these days.  We had the perfect New Year's eves with great friends, good food and games. Pretty much the same for New Year's Day, but add in an outdoor run (my first in months), and snowman building! Fun, fun.  We are looking forward to a fantastic 2011. 

Finn hanging with sweet Blue.  We think he might have been a dog in his past life...

A snowman in the making...

Look Ma, I look just like the snowman.

Stretching it Out

Wouldn't it be nice if Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's weren't all squeezed in together in 5 weeks?  I'm thinking it would be great if Thanksgiving was in Nov, Christmas in Jan, and New Year's in March.  What do you think?  That way, it wouldn't all be a whirlwind of activity and then nothing...  This goes in the same bucket as my idea to have 36 hour days (so, yes, spinning the world a bit slower), where we legally could not work a longer day.  I know, your wondering where I get such fabulous and very realistic ideas.

I started thinking about spacing the holidays out as we took down the Christmas decorations the other day. There should be special elves that come by and take down the Christmas decorations.  It's just too depressing somehow, right?  Does anyone have a way of getting through all the clean-up without feeling bummed?

A Mixed Farewell to 2010

Some fabulous things I remember from 2010:

• Tons of great times with the Holsten/Gilbert Clan

• Getting to spend some great and very needed Summer time fun with my kids and exploring Maine

 

• Getting a new, local (so much better) job
• Running two half marathons with a dear friend and getting back to the pre-kid fitter Sura (and losing some lbs along the way)

• A fun girls reunion/40th get together with my Colby gals in Vegas!

• A vacation with our good friends on the Cape

 

In 2010 we lost:

• Gigi Funari (our kids great grandmother and Patrick's grandmother)
• Our dog, Sweet Alabama

Me miss them both dearly and talk about them often.

For the first time in awhile I am thinking about New Year's resolutions.  It's a big year for me as I turn 40 this month.  I'm feeling like setting some goals will be a good way to make sure the year is a good as I hope.

Have you made any New Year's resolutions yet?  Want to inspire me?

A little Laughter Along the Way

Perhaps a good New Year's resolution for me would be to do a better job at keeping up with the blog. We'll see how that pans out. For now, I'll do the best I can and provide with you tidbits along the way.

Heath's pronunciation of "Truck" (Fuc#) has progressed. His new favorite phrase is "Dumb Fuc#" (dump truck). Something about the third kid, but we just laugh out loud instead of trying to correct him. You can imagine how this ensues...

He says it, we laugh.
He says it again, we laugh harder.
The kids start to laugh too.
It's a mess and truly poor parenting, but sometimes I think we need some raw humor around here and giggles are good for the soul.

Knowing When You're Done

If you ask other couples how they knew when they were done having kids, everyone has their own reason.  What was yours?  Ours?  Well, there really isn't room enough under the tree for more presents, so we're going to stop at three. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Never Enough Time

The entire family took a quick pre-Christmas trip back to Chicago to visit with friends and family for a couple days. We had a blast visiting with the Collins family, Nana, Uncle Shane, Aunt Sunny and cousin Freddie, The Mellman clan, and the High School crew families + Kim--a lot in a short time.  We're sad we didn't get to see everyone else who's so important to us.  Next time hopefully! I didn't capture most of the visit on camera as I spent most of the time catching up with everyone.

Hattie and Heath

Lex adores Hattie

Love these two - serious and then giggles

Love this girl

Finn joining the camera fun

Nana snuggling with Hattie while Finn and Bea focus on the Christmas Charlie Brown Show

The "big" kids saw their first live show while we were there - Pinkalicious.  All in all, it was the perfect first show for them and everyone enjoyed it.

Lexi and Beatrice on stage after the show.

All Things Christmas

Gingerbread houses and Santa are happenings the kids now eagerly anticipate.  This year our gingerbread house decorating efforts vastly improved as my resident artist took great pride in placing the candy in specific locations around the house and telling me explicitly where to put the frosting "glue". There was also a lot more eating going on then decorating, but isn't that why we decorate gingerbread houses in the first place?

Another visit to Santa shows that with the passing of a year in age, the kids had even more anticipation and excitement to see Santa.  Both Finny and Lex practiced what they would tell Santa and both actually told him verbatim what they'd practiced. Heath didn't want anything to do with Santa (or the gingerbread house).

  Waiting to see Santa

Pre-Santa tough guy look.  You can see Finn's shiner if you look closely. We're not sure exactly how he got it sadly.

 

 

Just Yesterday

Seems like it was just yesterday that we were tromping through the snow in search of last year's perfect Christmas tree. It truly is amazing how fast time sometimes passes.

We embarked on our journey for the perfect tree the first weekend in December in chilly weather, but with no snow in sight. This year Maine might have been the last place snow reached. We returned to the same tree farm as last year and had to do a little more "tree hunting" this time to find the "right" tree. For those of you have good memories, this might look a little like the picture from last year, without the slushy mess.

Lexi poses to show-off just how cool the tree farm is.

Lexi believes she's found the perfect tree...

 Team Lennon falling in line after dad in search of the tree.  Heath turns to make sure I'm still in tow.

 

Heath grinning about the idea of cutting down our tree.

No joke - dad shows off his manly skills as he cuts down the tree.

Success.  The one thing I do have to share about freshly cut trees is that they last forever, no needles fall off = a happy mom since there's less to clean up.  It makes you wonder how old the trees we bought from the lots all those years really were.