Birthday celebrating begins

This year, Jake opted out of having a birthday party to instead take two of his favorite people, Cohen and Nicolas, to a UT basketball game.  Because of this plan, we requested that our families celebrate his birthday while we were visiting over the holiday break.  At my parents', he got his very own cool ocean sealife cake.  Here's the candle blow-out...

and the noise maker blowing.  No birthday is complete without some fun noisemakers!

More Christmas fun

The day after Christmas we headed to my parents' for our Christmastime with them.  Jake arrived to a lot of Christmas gifts and surprises.  Here's just a little peek of the cool new things he got. Here he is rocking out on his new guitar equipped with cool shades and a mic...

He's definitely ready for music and performance time because he also got this cool microphone...

And here he is combining the two for the perfect sound...

Christmas Day 2012

Christmas Day 2012 brought us a wonderful white Christmas.  The kids started the morning seeing what Santa brought.  Jake got just what he asked for from Santa: "a blue kitchen"...

We ate breakfast, opened presents, and the kids spent the morning playing with all their new goodies.  One of Channing's surprises from Santa was her very own Hello Kitty hair dryer.  Here she is trying it out...

About mid-morning the snow started falling.  It kept falling, and falling, and falling, until finally later in the afternoon it stopped and the kids were able to go out exploring in the Winter Wonderland.  Here are the boys all bundled up...

And here's Channning (Campbell stayed safely and smartly in someone's arms on the porch)...

Within 3 minutes of being outside, Channing plopped on the ground and began making a snow angel.  It was so unexpected and super cute.  Cassy immediately wondered how she knew to do that; I guess Channing has a snow angel instinct...

Here's our handsome and happy boy enjoying the white Christmas...

And here are the guys in the midst of the snow...

Unfortunately, the snow kept us from enjoying the next family gathering we call Barr Christmas, but instead it allowed us a nice, relaxing day and night together all to ourselves.  All together a great Christmas Day!

Getting started on family fun

We headed to Gainesville first to start the family fun.  There's a couple of Christmas family gatherings on Kevin's family's side that we only sometimes get to attend, so it's fun when we are able to make it.  One is a Christmas Eve brunch with extended family on Carla's side of the family.  Brunch might be my favorite meal (if it actually counts as one), so I'm always excited for the food and the family.  Here's a picture of our family...

And here's a picture of most everyone who attended; four generations of family represented...

Later on that day we had some relaxing time, Jake and his cousins got to play, and we did family stockings.  I had to take this next picture because Jake's reaction was priceless.  He was opening up the stocking and was SO excited to get these underwear.  He literally pumped his arm and exclaimed "Yessss!!"  I've never seen such a reaction when it comes to underwear, especially when it's in the midst of other fun toys, but I'm happy Jake seems to still like the simpler things...

Here's Jake and Cohen with their matching bears that also came from Lawson stocking stuffers.  Jake especially liked his and slept with it that night...

It was then time for pj's and bedtime in preparation for Santa.  Here are these two handsome boys in their Christmas pjs...

Here are 3 of the 4 cousins getting Santa's milk and cookies ready (Campbell was already asleep by this point)...

And finally the four parents (Chad, Cassy, Kevin and I) took turns reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" before the kids headed to bed.

Another fun thing we did in Christmas Eve evening was have a Christmas story children's play.  I really wish I had pictures, because it was ADORABLE, but I was one of the "directors", so I didn't have a chance.  We dressed the kids up and they acted out the story of Jesus' birth while it was being read.  Jake was Joseph, Campbell was Mary, Cohen was a wiseman, and Channing was the angel.  They did surprisingly well being that there wasn'tr really any practice due to limited attention spans.  Jake was a specially good Joseph and did great tending to the baby doll Jesus.  It was a fun activity and an important reminder of what this time is really about.

Our own little celebration

Before we headed out of town to visit our families, we spent a day enjoying the Christmas holiday with just the 3 of us.  The day started with a special Christmas breakfast; Christmas tree french toast...

Here's a close-up.  I'm just a little proud of my creation...

We all headed to Main Event to enjoy some family bowling and glow golf.  Here's Jake with his ball....he's quite the bowler, even though this shot makes his ball look gigantic...

After eating at a favorite of Jake's, Double Dave's, and heading home for a little afternoon rest, we opened presents.  Here's Jake's big present, although it doesn't look too big in the picture.  We decided to surprise him with a swing set for the backyard.  I think it's great timing before the baby comes to have something to keep him entertained outside without us always having to go into the front.  Now, it's just a matter of both the weather and Kevin's schedule cooperating so it can be built...

We all love looking at Christmas lights, so after dinner we loaded up to see all the wonderful displays.  We're fortunate to have many great ones nearby.  It was a really nice night, and we got out of the car several times to get a better look at all the decor.  Here's Jake  in front of a couple displays.  These are examples of his goofy grin while trying desparately to keep his eyes open.  His eyes are SUPER sensitive to the camera flash, so it's really hard to capture a good picture of him if the lighting requires a flash.  He's a trooper and does his best to keep them open...

Finally, Jake and Daddy.  It was a wonderful, fun family day and a great way to start of our Christmas celebrations!

Silly Christmas Fun

 First of all, thank you, Amanda, for making the simple suggestion of switching to Firefox from Internet Explorer.  What a simple solution I didn't even try.  Now we're back in business!  The last week of preschool before Christmas break Jake brought home lots of Christmas goodies.  He loved bringing everything home, dumping it all out and seeing what special treats he got.  He also loved taking one of the bags, wearing it as a hat, and being a super silly boy.  Here's the silly guy...

An unwanted delay

We had a great Christmas and New Years, and I diligently went through all my pictures, picked my favorites, and decided on blog post titles .  I was super excited to get caught upon my blog, then I went to upload the pictures and the drop-down box to locate the jpg files isn't coming up on blogger.  I have no idea why or what to do, so I'm delayed in getting my posts out.  If anyone has any helpful suggestions, I welcome them.  Otherwise, I'm waiting for the drop-down to magically reappear.  Hope to re-enter blogging soon.  Happy New Year!