Boy vs. Girl

I've been noticing a big difference in Jeter and Jerzi lately. I can't decide if it's just their personality, or if it's because one's a boy and one's a girl. Anyway, it inspired me to post some of the differences between boys and girls that I think are so fun, well... sometimes.

GIRLS

My little Jerzi girl can cast a mean glare!

(Ignore me and my non make-up'd face)

I love that I have a little girl that loves to clean!
Each time I change her diaper, she has to have a wipe for herself so she can go around cleaning up after............Jete and Had. :)
(I can't wait till she gets a little older and I can give her more jobs)

I get to do her hair lots of different ways.
Here's a couple of the latest

STRAIGHTENED

(LOTS OF FUN TWISTS)

She sits there and lets me teach her how to play the piano.
Ok, ok, I don't really teach her yet, but she likes to play, and looks like a natural up to the piano, with better posture than me.

I don't really love this HUGE difference between them. Jerzi throws major fits all the time. She'll throw herself out of your arms if you're not ready for it. She slams her head into things (walls, floors, couches, chairs, etc.) when she's mad and then looks at you when it hurts like you did it to her. She is sooo full of emotion. You can definitely tell if this girl is happy, sad, mad, shy etc.

(JETER NEVER REALLY THREW ANY TANTRUMS AT ALL, SO THIS IS VERY NEW TO US!)

One of my favorite things about girls.....
There's so many cute clothes and accessories for girls,

and I love to dress her up!

BOYS
Jeter has been so boy that it's ridiculous. He loves all things boy-ish.

Had was gone to Texas for just about 2 weeks for interviews. While he was gone, the big BCS National Championship football game was played. I was really sad that Had wasn't going to be here to watch it with me. It's just not as fun to watch a big game by yourself! Especially, when the Oregon Ducks, who I've grown accustom to like, thanks to Had's fam, are finally in it.

Luckily I have a little boy, that was very excited to have a "football party" with his mommy.

Together we made a football field with coconut, food coloring, and frosting. We got some of his little toy men to be the football players, and some football oreo cookies to be the ball.

Before the game started I said to him, "Oh man, I almost forgot to put on my Ducks shirt!" So I ran upstairs and put it on, and when I came down he said,"So now do we gotta start quackin?"

I laughed and said, "sure do".

So we went around the room quacking until the kickoff, then settled down to watch the game and ate our football oreos, drank some sparkling cider (because that has come to be the "party drink" in our house), and played a little football with our handmade football game.

I love that Jete loves sports!

There was a fumble on the field!



Jeter loves electronics. And as much as I don't really like him playing them, it's funny how young they learn to love them.





Jete loves cars, trucks, monster trucks, BIG pick ups, and motorcycles.
Here he is having what he calls
"The HUGE huge, biggest race of all". These big races happen quite often and I am always invited to come to the HUGE race.




Ok, so it's no lie,
I really do like dressing up this kid too.

There's so much more but it would take me forever to write about all of them so I'll just say that it is so much fun having a boy and a girl, and seeing how different they are, and how different you act with them.

We feel so lucky to be able to have one of each!

Partyin It Up

Some of our friends were having a New Year's Eve party and asked us to come. We thought about it, and wanted to real bad, but we didn't know what to do with our kids.....well, Jerzi anyway. She goes to bed at 8. And she's not much fun after that. Jete would stay up as long as we let him.

We didn't want to just sit around and do nothing though. So we decided to put a party together at the last minute and have people come over to our house so we could still put Jerzi to bed. :)

Genius, I know.

We all made appetizers and desserts that were all t-totally scrumptious and ate like crazy.

At my family's last big get together (Fuller Fest) this summer, they played a bunch of "Minute To Win It" games. Well, me and Had didn't get to go to the big Fest. After I saw their pictures from it and how much fun they had, I was so sad I missed it. I've been wanting to do them ever since.

New Year's Eve party= perfect opportunity!

The Bag Game

(not a minute to win it game, but super fun)

(I don't really know what this game is called, but one end of the table is lifted up.)

We ate, talked, played games, and laughed like crazy. Jerzi ate with us and then went to bed at 8. Jeter and some of his little friends played some of the games with us, then they watched a movie, while we kept on keepin on. It was tons of fun! We sat and waited for the ball to drop,with our drinks of sparkling ciders. We waited, and counted down, cheered, kissed, and then realized we were watching the wrong channel. We didn't actually watch the ball drop, just counted down with some other peeps, in a different city.

Everyone left around 1, and me, Had, and Jete went to bed around 2!

Such a fun night. Thanks to everyone that came.

We had tons of fun with you!!!

To have fun or to not have fun?

That's the question I asked myself when we got Christmas packages in the mail.

I must have had a Christmas Spirit mood goin on, cuz I chose FUN!!!
Jeter and Jerzi played with this box full of styrofoam forever, way longer than any present anyone could ever give them.

"It's snowing!"

That's right baby, run!

Yep, he dumped the whole box out.

"Mom look, I'm a snowman!"

I was questioning my decision making skills after we were still cleaning up styrofoam the next day. The important thing here...we, I mean they, had fun.

Our own little Christmas

For the first time since we've been married, we actually stayed at our own place for Christmas this year. At first I was really sad that we weren't gonna be able to come home, but as it sank into my head a little more each day, and as we convinced ourselves that it would be fun to be out here by ourselves, we actually got pretty excited for it. Me and Had went shopping for the kids together, and picked out presents that we were sure they would go crazy over. This alone, got us very excited. We were like 2 little kids that couldn't wait till Christmas morning either. We talked with Jete about it every day and reminded him that he had to be a good boy so he wouldn't be on the naughty list. It usually worked.....for the next five minutes. Then he would forget and go back to tackling, teasing, kicking Jerzi, or doing some sort of punkishness. My sister that lives in Egypt made us this cute advent calendar and filled it with presents from there. Jete loved it and first thing every morning (and sometimes after naps) he would ask if he could open another present. He was super excited for Christmas to come and sometimes he would start crying. When we asked him what was wrong he would say "I just want to open some presents".

Don't worry, we also talked to him about the real meaning of Christmas, and taught him about the Christmas story. He was excited to celebrate Jesus' birthday and asked if we could make a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Ok, so a typical Christmas Eve in Idaho usually consists of me going into town a few times to get the last odds and ends and that I've forgotten, or that others have forgotten. Had is usually out in the woodshop finishing up the homemade gift that "we" have to make one of my siblings each year. Then we usually have a couple Christmas Eve parties to go to later in the day. I usually love the craziness and excitement of this day, but it is tiring and busy. This year was SO different. For starters, I had my Christmas shopping done a few weeks before Christmas. (I know, you people that know me well aren't believing me, but it's true.) I made my sister's present this year, and got it sent to her so she got it before Christmas. (Shocking, I know!) We spent Christmas Eve at our house, hanging out with each other. I made home made rolls, and the whole family made candy cane cookies. Then that night, we went to our friend's house for a delicious Christmas Eve dinner. We stuffed ourselves, Jete tried to play in the snow, and we came home and put the kids to bed early and me and Had cuddled on the couch and watched a movie. It felt so weird and fun and like...our own little Christmas.

CHRISTMAS DAY

What we would have been doing Christmas Day in Idaho: We would have stayed with one of our parents, woke up our kids too early for them to be excited about anything, opened presents, and then rush over to the next parents house, opened presents, and then over to the next parents house. Then we usually repeat that process throughout the day (minus the opening presents part) because we didn't actually get to spend time seeing or visiting with anyone earlier. Jete and Jerzi probs would have skipped their naps that day, and maybe a meal or two because there's no time when you're running from house to house. Jete and Jerzi wouldn't have got to actually play with any of their presents because we have to ship it back out to Ohio. And when there's a ton of other neices and nephews around, all their toys either get mixed up, taken, broken or lost before they even know it's gone. At the end of the day, we're all glad its over.

Instead our Christmas Day went a little like this: We slept in until Jerzi woke up, around 8ish. We played with her in our bed until Jete woke up about 15 minutes later. He came and crawled in with us and we laughed and played for a little. Then Had said to Jete, "Jete should we go check and see if Santa came last night?" Jete's eyes lit up (he had totally forgotten that it was Christmas Day) as he realized what had happened that night and he dashed out of our room to head downstairs. We went and opened presents, ate stocking candy, played with presents, then ate breakfast. We lounged around all morning, playing with ALL the fun new toys and games, then ate lunch, and we all took a nap. We hung out in our pj's all day, tried watching the Lakes but gave up on them, our house was a disaster, and we all just loved it. We ate leftovers from our Christmas Eve dinner and watched our new movie "Despicable Me" together. It was such a fun relaxing day!

Here's Jerzi, loving her presents. (She really was excited about those boots. She wouldn't put them down.)

Here she is playing with her new doggie and wearing those cute little shoes. She is obessesed with shoes and wore them all morning. She loved her new babies too. They were giving her kisses in this picture.




So Jete asked Santa for 2 things for Christmas. A real dirt bike and a monster truck. Santa left the monster truck and 2 little dirt bikes sitting out on the couch, and Jete didn't even notice them. Instead he went right over to the bike and said, "I see a big bike.... that has training wheels! I think I can ride that." Then he went over to Jerzi's present that Santa left her and said, "Oh man, I really wanted Jerzi to get this for Christmas." Either he's very thoughtful, or he wanted to play with it himself. I'm not really sure which it was. Either way, it was funny to me.



Here's Jete, loving his presents.

And here's our giant mess!

Turns out having our own little Christmas wasn't too shabby after all.

(The next week though was super boring and uneventful. Had was back at work, and I was at home with the kids, just doing what we do. Meanwhile, our families were all at home, getting together and having fun. We wished we were back home for that week.) We love and missed you all!