Today I am waiting on my Christmas present from Chase to show up (an amazing basketball hoop for our new house!) so I had a little free time to write.  The boys are with Susie today while I cleaned house and wait for the hoop.

Drake

Mr. Drake is now 5 months old and SO SMILEY!!!!  Seriously, he smiles ALL the time.  He loves to laugh and rarely cries - only for a few minutes before he conks out or while waiting to eat.  He is a great nurser (sorry if TMI, guys!). I ran out of stored milk, so family members and Susie have just started using formula when I am not around.  We have started using the jumper, which he really enjoys.  Susie has one at her house, too.  Drake is reaching for things a lot and changing toys from hand to hand with ease.  Of course everything goes in his mouth and he loves to pull my hair.  And I mean LOVES it, he laughs and laughs while I try and get untangled from his slobbery hands.  For several weeks, you have been able to see the two bottom teeth right underneath his gums.  They just won't pop through and give him trouble every now and then.  The thing he loves the most is getting kisses (from mommy?).  Anytime he gets a kiss he smiles.  The best times are when he smiles, gently closes his eyes, coos, and just looks like he is in heaven from getting a kiss.  I just want to eat him up he is so cute!! :)  Maybe I'm biased....  Oh, I think kisses and his brother might be in a tie for his favorite thing.  Man does Drakers love his brother Caedon!  He watches him, laughs at him, and talks to him.  Maybe his favorite thing is kisses from Caedon haha.

Caedon

Mr. Caedon is almost 3 years old :(  He is getting too big!!  He can dress himself now and actually gets mad if you try to help him.

He always wants to do his, "workbook."  We have several books where we learn things - money, graphs/tallying, counting, etc.  One day he actually cried because I told him we needed to put the workbook away.  Caedon knows lots of numbers and can usually count to 50 without stopping.  He can count by 10's to 100.  And he can add +1 to everything.  For example, he knows 8+1=9, 14+1=15, etc. We have been working lately on "which thing is bigger, biggest, smaller, smallest."  We got him a cash register for Christmas, so hopefully we can have some math fun with that.  He knows some of the coins all the time (penny and nickle) but has a hard time remembering quarter and dime.  Caedon likes to have us flip the coin and then tell us if it is heads or tails.

He knows several sight words, including: be, I, a, so, on, no, to, go, stop, are, you, me, my, he, of, for, and run.  That's all I can think of for now. That has been REALLY fun for me - reading books with him and learning to read.  When we read, he points at each word (he insists on this and gets mad if we don't).  When he points to a word he knows, I don't say it and wait for him to say it.  He loves doing that!

Caedon loves donuts with his Grandpa Weirather (really the only time he gets them).  A few months back, there was this story:

Mom: "What did you draw, buddy?"

Caedon: "a donut!"

Mom: "Oh, that is very nice!"

Caedon: "I want a donut."
Mom: "I don't have any donuts here right now."

Caedon: "Let's get a donut. Donuts are at Casey's house."

Mom: hahahahaha

Today there is this story:

Cadeon: I want oatmeal for breakfast.

Mommy: I don't have any oatmeal here. We ran out.  We will have to go grocery shopping and get some.

Caedon: at Hyvee.

Mommy: How do you know about Hyvee?  (We always go to WalMart since it is closest).

Caedon: Donuts are at Hyvee.

Mommy: Who told you that? Let me guess, Grandpa!

About a month ago, I was working the night shift and on my way to drop off the kids at Susie's.  I told Caedon, "Ok buddy, when you get there it will be nap time, so you need to be quiet and lay down like Susie asks you to."  He replied, "We'll see what Susie says."  Ok, I guess Susie is in charge now!! (LOVE her!)

Yesterday, Caedon came home with jingle bells tied to his shoes and sang a little song for us.  Speaking of songs, in the car he always asks to listen to BINGO, If you're happy and you know it, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. Now I have the Christmas CD in and he always wants to listen to Jingle Bells and All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.  He will say (because he is quoting me exactly), "Hey mommy! Guess what?  It's kinda hard to say Merry Christmas if you don't have your two front teeth!"  And, "I will lose my teeth when I am five years old."

The other day, while he was showing Grandma Newton about opposites, he told her, "I really know my stuff!"

Chase

Chase is getting busier every day.  A few times this week he saw more patients than the other established physicians in the clinic.  He always has a second nurse now.  I think he got really lucky and got some of the top nurses assigned to him.  I love that we are both in the medical field because we can ask questions of each other to help our patients.  He will sometimes ask me dosing questions and I will ask him diagnostic questions.  We have started to hang out with Chase's clinic manager and his wife (our age).  Chase's Cyclones have had a great year for football, but not so much for the Chiefs :(  He is also looking forward to basketball season. Tonight he is going to meet a bunch of people to watch the Iowa/ISU bball game on T.V. after we watch my dad's 7th ranked girls basketball team play the 3rd ranked Notre Dame team.  Fun!!

Sara

Not much new in my life besides taking care of the boys.  I still go to bed at midnight when Drake finally passes out, get up at 3 to feed him, and then again at 6.  That could change any day and I would be a very happy lady!  We are working on finishing up our kitchen design, picking out showerheads etc., and placement of outlets.  That pretty much takes up all of my time (boys, work, house, sleep).  Work is crazy - I guess the flu is expected to be bad this year, so we just started having a ton of people come in asking for their shot (after the local news ran a story on it).  Thankfully we just finished up helping seniors to pick their Medicare Part D plans, so that should free up some time. 

Looking forward to the Holidays!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Oh yea, if you want to come see us at the Argyle Presbyterian Church on December 19th at 7:00p Chase and I are playing Joseph and Mary and Drake is playing Jesus.  Caedon will be singing songs, too!