On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

“a pirate treasure in a pear tree.”  This evening for family night, we sang Christmas songs.  One of Ricky’s favorites is “The 12 Days of Christmas.”  He and Billy danced and stomped around while Kevin and I sang, but we would pause and let Ricky finish off each verse with what was given on the first day.  I’m pretty sure our true love gave us a pirate treasure instead of some silly old partridge!

We were singing the Christmas songs from a book and one of the songs was “We Three Kings.”  Kevin explained to Ricky that another name for those kings was the wise men.  Ricky took that as his cue to start singing, “The wise man built his house upon the rock.  The wise man built his house upon the rock . . .”  We never did end up singing “We Three Kings.”

Last night we hosted our 3rd Annual Family Christmas Party.  Ricky gets so excited when family comes to our house that for a few moments he loses all control and runs screaming his delight.  Then he settles down and just enjoys all the attention and love.  Both boys especially love when Cousin Danny comes to play.

Aunt Suzy has to work on Christmas Day, and since we aren’t certain we’ll see her, she shared gifts last night.  Ricky had to close his eyes before she brought the present out . . .

closed-eyes

And it was worth it to get a new baby jaguar (or leopard–makes no difference to him, or to Billy who just calls it a “roar”)

closed-eyes-after

Here is Billy getting some of that uncle and cousin love (sorry about the face, Skyler) . . . please note the elephant Billy is holding.

billy-elephant

Noting the elephant was important because of this picture.  Billy decided that he was supposed to ride the elephant down the slide, over and over and over . . .

elephant-slide

Here is a quick guitar lesson from Uncle Tony.

guitar-lesson

And Billy.  Oh that boy.  He decided to climb the cat house/tower.  This isn’t a big deal and makes for a cute picture, but just moments later when he was trying to get down, Billy got stuck.  It took Grandmama a good minute to un-stuck him!

cat-house

Aunt Suzy gave all the adults emergency preparedness toilets.  They are pretty cool to have on hand should we ever need them (a bucket with a seat and all the accompanying supplies inside).  They made for a few choice Kodak Moments!  Ricky saw what it was and asked if he could use it!  I explained that we only get to use it if our house toilets aren’t working and he asked when that would be.  I had Kevin hide it in the garage so we don’t get surprised by him one day!

billy-toilet

toilet-boys

After all the excitement, the boys went to bed willingly, but Billy didn’t sleep well.  He might have had an ear ache (he does have a bit of a runny nose).  Anyway, I rocked him back to sleep and I guess my lap was cold or Billy needed some additional comfort because Hunter just couldn’t resist.  And then Kevin couldn’t resist taking a few “ahhhh” pictures.

sleeping-billy1

sleeping-billy-again

(oh and that belly has just 7 weeks left–but who’s counting)