Christmas at the Trevino's

In all of the craziness of the holidays, the blog has been neglected and for that I apologize. So, here's a run down of Christmas at our house.

Here's Jonathan fully engaged in getting used to things in the outside world. He managed to find his fingers and his thumb right away. Accuracy aside, he's pretty good at eventually getting some part of his hand in his mouth.

We decided to introduce Matt to Santa this year and he has fully grasped the concept as much as he can at this age. He waves to any Santa decoration he sees in the neighborhood. He has enjoyed reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" at bedtime each night and now says "Merry Christmas" when we pass any Santa n the neighborhood. So, we decided to go for broke and try cookie decorating so we could leave Santa a treat on Christmas Eve. Here he is getting started.

I was so proud of him. He actually put a few gum drops on the cookies after I put on the icing.

Here he is trying to be sneaky about eating all the gumdrops he could before I could grab his hand and aim it at the cookie! It's a great guilty look, isn't it?

Here are the 4 cookies we managed to complete. I had to stop there since Matt wouldn't stop reaching for candies! Notice the missing piece from the left foot of the front cookie. He just couldn't resist trying one out before lunch.

Here's how Jonathan helped out with the cookie decorating!

We went out for our first family car ride to look at lights on Christmas night. Jonathan tolerated the car ride a lot better than he did the photo shoot.

We left one of the cookies out with some milk and when Matt saw the plate on Christmas morning he was so excited that Santa ate his cookie he had made him. It was adorable and we can't wait until next year!

This expression pretty much captured Matt on Christmas. He was so excited about all of the new toys. We had to do gifts in about 4 separate shifts in order to keep his interest on opening up more boxes.

Jonathan hung in there during the whole thing. What a sleeping champ! There was so much noise going on I can't believe he made it through.

One of Matt's favorite toys of the day was his new baseball game from our friends Donny & Julie. They spoil him rotten and he in turn entertains them fully! As long as we didn't expect Matt to operate the toy the way it was meant to work, he loved it. Just don't turn the sound effects on and don't you dare push the home plate and make the arm move by itself! He'll get there, but for now he's happy to make things happen on his own and use his own sound effects. We'll take it outside when the weather warms up (likely next week).

Batting lessons from Daddy!

The boys meet!

Matt came up to the hospital last night to meet his baby brother. At first he was a bit timid and just curled into my arms, then he let loose with his personality and once we put Jonathan down, he ran around the room throwing the aspirator like a ball and amusing us all. We got a few momentary pics of the boys together for their first encounter. I think they'll do great together!

I just love Matt's look in this picture. He's not quite sure what to think of the whole situation.

Here's Matt trying on his "hat" while I try to eat my dinner they brought me. He was quite a character in the room.

Here's Jonathan trying to compete with his photogenic big brother.

Matt was a bit leery of being right next to the baby, but tolerated it briefly for a few pics. My dad was able to be there for the big event, but just because Mommy wasn't the one holding the baby didn't make it any easier at first.

Welcome Jonathan Andrew!

We welcomed Jonathan Andrew Trevino into the world this morning at 11:08 am. Labor was much shorter, but more intense than with Matt, but we are all doing well and recovering from the eventful morning!

Here we are "rocking out the baby" trying to get things moving a bit faster with the labor.

He's not quite as loud as his big brother, but he made himself heard early on.

Matt hung out at home with Grandma for the big event. He'll be coming to meet his little brother after his nap this afternoon. That should prove interesting!

Jonathan came into this world at 19 1/2 inches and 8 pounds 6 ounces. He's resting well, and feeding great already.

A Morning at the Zoo

The boys were troopers this morning, waking up early and heading out for the zoo! We didn't tell Matt where we were going until we got in the parking lot. We had tried to go a couple of times recently and it hadn't worked out for one reason or another. Matt was surprised and excited when he found out where we were. It was a bit chilly to start, and many of the animals were still not out eating breakfast yet, but we got to see a lot in our short time there.

Here Matt and his daddy look out at the gibbons, swinging on the ropes and warming up their voices.

Matt was too eager to look at the giraffes and not at the camera. He tells us all about what he sees.

This is my favorite picture from this morning. There's no telling what was being said, but I couldn't pass this picture up.

Matt reluctantly left the playground and went into the petting zoo to visit all the baby goats. Many of them were snuggled up sleeping, but he managed to find a few and try to yank at their ears. They must love toddlers!

He had a good adventure at the zoo and took a bit of a catnap on the way home.

Happy Birthday, Matt!

Matt's birthday was really the 21st, but we seemed to string it out a few days between our opening gifts on his birthday to his party 3 days later. We hear rumors that there are several more gifts in the mail. I don't know what we will do come Christmas. Hopefully, he won't think his birthday lasts for a whole month! That will be quite something to live up to each year!

I tried my hand at cake decorating another year. It's really hard to find kid birthday decorations that don't have a character theme, so, we made do with the icing airplane on the cake instead. Yes, that's an airplane!


We had Matt's party at a friend's indoor playground that Matt just loves. He had a blast running around like a crazy 2 year old and playing with all of the kids. Here he is in the "car wash" with his friend Ava.

Matt played ball with Maya and Skyler for quite some time. They would toss the ball over the top and he would laugh and run to get it and throw it back out at them.

Matt was quite happy riding on top of the car, while Lindsey pushed him and her daughter Ava around. That is, he was happy until he saw "MOMMMMMMMYYYY!" That's how it goes some days around here now.

Bubble time is magical for all ages it seems!

Matt discovered slides here a few months ago and loves to go down the bouncy slides, as long as none of the older kids were coming right behind him. He got bounced and rolled out a few times, but quickly recovered and returned to run and slide.

Parachute time took some coaxing, but all of the kids seemed to enjoy it to some extent.

Matt enjoyed being pushed around in the car by his favorite playmate, his daddy!

When everyone left, they got to take a balloon with them. With all of the wind and rain, several parents opted to leave the balloons. Matt got lucky and ended up with more than planned. He punched those balloons while running around the house for a few hours that night. He was very excited all night!

When it came time to open presents, Matt was reluctant because it meant he had to stop playing with the other presents he had received earlier in his birthday week! (see below for his new tool bench his daddy got him) But, once the train set was up, he was game for that! I can't believe he let me assemble it, and kept it together for so long.

Here he is setting up his signs around the parking lot. His newest thing when we're in the car is to point out the street signs to me. His favorite is to tell me there's a circle and then tell me that it says "Do Not E e e e enter". He can't seem to get it out without stumbling every time. It's funny to listen to how many variations he comes up with on one trip to the store.

34 weeks!

6 more weeks to go, and just look at that belly! I feel huge somedays and chasing after Matt doesn't make me feel any smaller! He's having fun with the idea of the baby in my belly and even tried to feet the baby some of his macaroni and cheese tonight at dinner. It sure will be interesting when the baby is born and everything changes!

Ballunar

We decided to spend some time at NASA this morning for the Ballunar Liftoff Festival. The boys pulled over yesterday to view the hot air balloons while they were running errands, but we stopped on site to see more today. We watched a few hang gliders and some kind of flying go carts while we were there. Matt enjoyed watching all of them, but got a bit scared when they began firing rockets into the air. We stepped away and walked around at that point.

Matt walks with his daddy, proudly carrying his loot from the day. He picked the biggest inflatable prize he could have from the duck game he played. He wouldn't let us hold it for him.

Deep in thought!

Once in "Daddy's truck", he still wouldn't part with any of his goodies. He even has his blue balloon next to him. It was funny when he asked for his water on our way home. I wasn't sure what he was going to sacrifice to hold onto his cup. Amazingly, he managed to hold it all and still finish his water.

Happy Halloween!

Matt went to daycare in his costume, and wore it most of the day! He really did well with his costume, with the exception of his accessories, which you will see later.

Here he is with his friends at daycare. That's Miss Susie pushing the "Bye Bye Buggy". He loves going for rides in that thing!

The kids got out of the buggy long enough to go trick or treating at the receptionist's desk. Miss Janie gave them some treats along with some kisses as usual!

I caught up with Matt just long enough to get a picture with my little golfer! I had to hold the clubs though.

Here's Matt checking out his clubs.

I tried to snap a photo of him with his hat on, but he ripped it off before I could push the button. He's very modest, wouldn't you say?

It looks like we took the smile right off his face by trying to get a picture of him with his golf clubs. He was not happy that we were trying to add things to such a snappy ensemble.

Here's our little Bobby Jones, sans the clubs.

After a walk around the block and a seemingly pro trick or treating evening, our worn out and sweaty little golfer checked out his load of treats!

Think he slept well? He did! It was just hard to tear him away from the candy, while convincing him he couldn't have any of it.

Before he would leave his stash, he had to tell us the colors and shapes of all of the candy. He was so excited to tell us all about the candy.

More pumpkins!

With the rotting pumpkin in the garbage, we decided to go ahead with our painting job on the second pumpkin we got at the pumpkin patch. Matt proudly donned one of my painting shirts and picked out his colors.

It took him a minute or two to get the brush out of the paint and onto the pumpkin.

More paint for an already overloaded brush.

Let the finger painting begin!

Silly me, I thought he'd have fun painting the pumpkin, but it turns out that painting my shirt was more fun!

He looks at Nick, wondering why we are giving him such funny looks about painting the shirt.

With the brush thrown aside, it was time to invest the whole hand in the painting endeavor.

At one point he just started slapping the pumpkin with a hand full of paint.

Here's the only picture I could get of Matt with his pumpkins, after he went and played in the yard with all the leaves and sprinklers. He was quite a mess after everything!

Here are Matt's finished works. The little pumpkin was from his friend Abby's birthday party on Sunday. He was quite proud of his pumpkins!