Christmas Eve

This year things were a little different....with Grandpa and Grandma in Montana, Uncle Josh's family in Denver and Aunt Tami's family at her in-law's. But Aunt Jennifer and Mommy made the most of it and got together for our Weststeyn Family Christmas Eve get-together. We even followed tradition and had just appetizers/finger foods for dinner. In addition to the lack of bodies, we moved our location to Chad's house since Jennifer didn't put a tree up at her place.

Weston really loved playing with the train....especially since we didn't put ours up this year (note that Weston had theirs de-railed in a matter of seconds).

The future Mr. and Mrs. DeJong...Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Chad!

Week in California

Our trip to California for Christmas started out fairly low key. The boys did great on the way down, sleeping for most of it and only having to stop three times when Tyge needed to be fed. We spent the first couple of days visiting friends and family. Tyge and Weston got to meet their cousin Kash, born just two weeks before Tyge, but half the size of him.He also got to meet his Great Grandma Weststeyn.

And Great Grandpa Weststeyn got to meet him and Kash too.Although it was rainy most of the week, we also spent a little bit of time visiting the cows and calves on Avo's dairy.

Pictures I like...

Mid-December

Weston has become quite the entertainer and helper....he is always interested in what Tyge is doing, and thinks Tyge should be interested in what he is doing. Weston also got an earlier Christmas present from Darlene. She knows him well and he was really excited about his new work bench. The morning after we put it together I heard him in his room....instead of the usual get out of bed and come find mommy, he started playing with his tools.

He also thought his tools would be helpful to Daddy when fixing a leak under the kitchen sink.

Second annual family picture session

On Weston's birthday we had some pictures taken of the boys and our family. Just like when Weston turned one, we headed down the road to our neighbor's place to take advantage of the beautiful outdoors.

Yes, we even included Flo!

Two weeks and two years...

Today both boys had their check-ups with the doctor. Unfortunately both of them had to get poked, but they are healthy and doing great.

Tyge is up to 10 pounds, 3 1/2 ounces and grew by an inch and a half. Weston weighs in at 29 pounds, 6 ounces and is 33 inches tall. I had thought that Weston had really shot up in the last couple months, but as compared to his previous visit six months ago his height had actually leveled off some. I hope this isn't a sign that he is taking after both of his grandmothers sides of the family (Rocha and Barnes). I was kinda wishing our kids would get a little bit of height from their Avo and Grandpa.

Birthday Boy!

I can't believe that it's been two years since Weston was born. Time goes by so fast. To celebrate the big day we had a pizza party with good friends and family.

The celebration started the previous morning with a good dose of cake batter...and a large booger if you look closely.We spent the morning of his birthday getting ready for Christmas. First we went to see Santa who was visiting Brownsville. The visit didn't yield any pictures since Weston wouldn't get within ten feet of him. Next we headed to pick out our Christmas tree. Overall he wasn't real interested in this experience either, and we had a screaming fit when the chain saw started up to cut the tree. But we made it through the day and Weston finally got to pull the trains off of his cake. Note - this was my first attempt at cake decorating and although slightly pathetic looking to most of us, anyone under the age of five would be impressed. Also, the cake got a little roughed up, surviving an earthquake and a flood (cracks were due to rough handling when being moved to a different counter top and some pink lemonade was spilled and splashed all over it). So, as I was saying, Weston was thrilled with his cake until we lit the candles...lots of screaming and crying.After the trauma of the candle lighting we moved on to open up gifts. Weston would open one gift, and then go play with his trains. Then we would coax him back over, where he would open the next gift, and then go back to his trains. The girls tried their best to keep him on track, while the boys sat on the other sides of the room playing with whatever he had just opened.

Grandma helped him open up some new cars from his Avo'.

The next morning he loved playing with all of his new Mr. Potato Head parts.Tyge got the pleasure of sleeping thru most all of it!

Settling In.

We brought Tyge home from the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. He got to wear a special fall outfit that was originally purchased for his brother, who was supposed to arrive before Thanksgiving two years ago.

The copy cat that he is, Weston was excited to start taking some pictures of Tyge just like everyone else.

I think he is starting to like his baby brother and does things like pointing out his hands, hair, nose, etc. Although we have had our fair share of frustrations with mom not being able to be at his beck and call.

Welcome Baby Boy!

Tyge Januario Meneses was born Wednesday, November 24th at 4:02am. He weighed in at 9 pounds, 2 ounces, was 20 inches and healthy!

Weston was really quiet for the first 30 minutes of his visit, but eventually he got curious. And he says "Baby Ty" really well! We finally got him to give his new brother a kiss.
First family photo as a foursome (I know, not the greatest picture....but we'll work on that).

Machado Family Visit

I lied...one more pre-baby post. So glad the baby didn't arrive this weekend because we had so much fun hanging out with our god-daughter Lucy and her whole family. Mike and Andrea purchased some bulls in McMinnville, so they got to come and stay the night with us after picking them up. Weston had so much fun playing with them the last two days....he is going to be disspointed when he wakes up from his nap and finds the house is empty and they headed back to California.

Weston even gave up his booster seat at dinner and let Lucy sit in his spot.

Weston and Lucy shared breakfast together.

Playing in the mud with Ashlynn and Newt.

Maybe to much playing in the mud....

And here's Lucy on the bouncy horse, which got lots of riding time this weekend.

One of the best parts of the weekend came late this afternoon when Newt was practicing his roping skills. He found out Weston doesn't have his own rope yet and so he gave him one of his (because he always carries two with him). Guess we have to buy a roping dummy soon!

Last pre-baby blog post?

The end is drawing near. Today marks eleven days until the official due date arrives, but something tells me this one will come early. I've had a feeling about it for over a month now, but in the last week, the painful random contractions have confirmed it (in my mind anyway). Doctor says it looks like baby #2 will come on it's own, which I'm excited yet disappointed about...even though Wes was two weeks late, I liked driving to the hospital at a relaxed speed, walking in still feeling great, and cheerfully settling down into a hospital bed to get induced.

So, one last picture of Weston before he becomes a big brother and his world gets turned upside down. Right now he thinks he is king and rules the house. Ok, I'll admit, in a lot of ways he does rule this place.

Today's lesson: making the bed. I like clean sheets, Weston has yet to learn an appreciation for them. If you walk out of the room to go get your comforter out of the dryer you will come back to a tractor on top of your bed. And please note that said tractor was out in the dirt that same morning. Thank you Weston, for yet another mess that I have to clean up, but am still laughing about.

Happy Halloween

Weston was pleased with the aftermath of his Halloween adventure. CANDY. Getting to this point was not so easy. The afternoon trial run: 1) attempt to put puppy costume on child, 2) child runs screaming, 3) force puppy costume onto child's body, 4) child continues to scream, kick, flail arms, etc., 5) put child down for nap and hope for a better result later.

So, later that day Weston would not come near the puppy costume and we moved to the alternative....a train engineer costume that was too big. A few safety pins and rolling the pant legs about five times did the trick. We had crying again, but made the trek to town anyway hoping that having other kids around would put a smile on our little man's face.

And that it did....once Hannah and J. showed Weston how it's done, he was all over it....even leading the pack down the street to the next house. Needless to say, CANDY will nearly always solve your kid's problem.