rise, philip, and becky's visit

rise, becky, and philip came to visit us and jimmy for christmas and to meet charlie. we had a lot of fun! jack really had a lot of fun and loved philip :)

we went to botanical gardens to let jack kick a ball around and just to get out of the house.

johnny can't stand to sit around the house. so guess where we went along with the rest of birmingham...the galleria! it was crazy! jack liked riding the carousel.

we played in the backyard and iced cookies

we went to zoolight safari and had a blast!
jack was soooo excited about all the lights. it was seriously cute watching how excited he was :)

the top left picture is charlie watching the lightshow
the bottom right picture is jack with the talking snowman...he thought it was really cool!

after zoolight safari we ate a crockpot meal and then opened presents. jack got a happy feet book that rise, becky, and philip recorded their voices reading to him.

charlie got an ornament with his birthdate on it


we went to panera the morning they left for breakfast...i forgot how much i like that place and their bagels!!

jack's class party

jack had his class party on the 19th. johnny was off that day so he got to go with me!

saying the prayer...jack is so cute saying the prayer. he is always about 2 seconds behind everybody else :)

attacking the cookie!

the kids got to decorate a gingerbread house...they loved it...probably because they were eating the candy as they put it on the house

making reindeer food

the little boy next to jack is banks. jack always talks about banks. they have similar shirts :)

the kids had a book gift exchange. jack just happened to get banks' book.

by our tree

jack said that charlie was heavy and was squishing him :)

christmas cookies

we baked cookies a couple of weeks ago and i am just now posting about it. we have been pretty busy in the ross house!

rolling out the dough with him was a little stressful to me. we started a little too late (right at bedtime) so he was a little demanding and didn't listen very well. it was still lots of fun and a great memory. i told johnny that i hope he still wants to decorate cookies with me when he is older.

andrea told me about a great way to let kids decorate cookies. you just mix up egg whites and food coloring...i also added some water to it. then jack got to paint the cookie dough. he thought it was pretty cool :)

he was super proud of the timer that came with the cookie cutters

rice cereal

we gave charlie rice cereal on the 16th. he did surprisingly well with it! johnny thought that he would not do very well because he doesn't like a bottle. he actually ate about half of the bowl and then lost interest. we haven't tried since then because...well...we've been busy. we will try again tonight.

don't you just love that face!

ho ho ho

we had our mama and me christmas party today...it was lots of fun! anyway, as we were leaving the house jack decided that he needed to wear his santa hat and what he called mittens (my socks)!
once we got there, he took everything off...i guess he was either embarrassed or hot (it is 72 degrees outside today!! 10 days till christmas and it is 72 degrees outside...i LOVE it!!)

we love harry!

harry our elf brought jack a box to put his pacies and a letter. when we got up this morning he noticed where harry was and what he had beside him. johnny got up before me and read the letter to him. then when i got up i read it to him again and before i could say "love, harry" jack said "and he said love harry at the bottom!" he thought it was so cool to get something from harry!

so far so good!!

hopefully this will work for us. he has become a bit obsessed with them lately. we hope this will encourage him to sleep without one too!!