Gage's First Christmas

Gage is to young too enjoy Christmas, but we had fun unwrapping his presents for him and letting him try out the new goods! We opened presents and then had our traditional Christmas brunch of Carmel Rolls and Breakfast Casserole, complete with chocolate milk and orange juice of course! The rest of the day was filled with movies (Christmas Story and Fred Clause) games, and more food. Growing up, Rob’s family always had meatballs and Italian Sausage, in celebration of their Italian heritage. Rob decided to continue that tradition with our family and this year the official tradition began.

I love how Gage is holding onto the Bumbo like he is ready to float the river!

Gage wasn't too sure about this contraption, we might wait a month or so and try again

Cooper opening up his present from Grandpa Hill


Gage was more interested with the pattern in his shirt then trying out the new Bumbo

Christmas Eve

We took Gage to the mall to get his picture with Santa, and apparently a lot of other people had the same idea. We waited in line for over an hour so that Gage could sit on Santa’s lap for his first Christmas picture with Santa. Gage was more entertained by watching the kids playing in line then he was with Santa (as you can see in the picture he is looking at the kids to his right), but lately Gage has become a little people watcher. We drove through Candy Cane Lane on our way home to see the Christmas lights and then came home to enjoy Rob’s pizza. We talked about our love of the season and the wonderful feeling that comes as we celebrate Christ and his birth. We are excited to teach Gage about the Savior and look forward to future memories, laughter, and love.

New Christmas Pajamas

The tradition of new Christmas Pajamas lives on! Nonna got Gage his first pair for his first Christmas. They are a little big but I am sure he will grow into them.

So hard.........

It is so hard to leave the room and let this cute little baby boy go to sleep when he does this as soon as you lay him down! Talk about pulling on the heartstrings!

Gage is still not sleeping through the night or taking consistent and long naps during the day. When he wakes up at night he thinks it is fun to stay up for awhile instead of going back to sleep. Gage likes to play “sleeping games” with Rob and I. Just as we think we finally have his sleep patterns figured out he switches them on us. Gage also doesn’t like us to get more then four-five hours of sleep in a row and he has a magical instinct of knowing exactly when we go to bed so he knows when to wake us up. Last night Gage woke up at 3:00 am. I fed him and laid him back down. Of course he began to cry. I was really tired and hoped he would go back to sleep. But Gage had other ideas in mind. I let Gage cry for about fifteen minutes and then went back upstairs to see why he was so disgruntled. As soon as I peeked over the crib he looked at me, stopped crying, and gave me the biggest smile. A smart little lad he is because of course I couldn’t resist and spent the next five minutes talking and smiling with him. I left the room and the crying resumed. Another twenty minutes goes by and I return to the room to burp him and re-swaddle him. Again, the minute he sees me he stops crying and gives a big cheesy grin. A second time I am captured by that smile. This process went on till 5:30 am!