January in a nut-shell

John has had to travel twice during the month of January for work. I have learned first-hand that parenthood is not meant to be tackled alone. Dean was a champ (mostly) and we did have a lot of help from John's family playing with him (thank you!!!), but at the end of the day, I was sooooo happy to put him to bed. :) Dean has also decided that he wants to do pretty much everything by himself that he possibly can. He will get all of his things ready for his bath (set out clothes, diaper,etc), turn on the water, put his hand under the faucet to feel the temperature, try to climb into the bath tup to plug the drain, then turn the water off. He is really our Mr. Independent and loves his freedom. I have also discovered the joy of asking when he's grumpy "Are you ready to take a nap?". If he is, he shakes his head yes, grabs his duckie, and bolts for his door. It has made nap time soooo much better now that he chooses when it's time to sleep. He is learning so much and constantly saying "Oh!" and "Uh-Oh!" We are anxiously counting down the days until nursery.

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas in Texas! We were there for a week and loved spending time with my parents. Dean loved getting to know Nana and Papa better and they loved getting to know our sweet, little Dean. Dean was sick basically the entire time we were there, but he was still a champ. He didn't do very well on the plane ride home, but who can blame him? Since we had all of my family together, we took the opportunity to take a new family photo. Please enjoy a picture of all of the grandkids and the adults trying to keep them smiling and entertained.... We took a lot of pictures, so I'll just let them do the talking. We miss being in Texas already.