I can sit up!  Woot woot!

The holiday season has been busy busy busy here at the Hines' household.  That, along with my ever-so-slow and quickly-dying laptop, is the reason for the severe slacking on posting blogs.  I have good intentions and am often "writing" them in my head throughout the day, but these "drafts" never make it to the big screen.  

Christmas was great- we had my parents in town for a couple weeks starting in mid-December.  My mom's sister Helen also joined us for the holidays.  They left the day after Christmas and then Myke's parents arrived the following day.  We had one day "off" between guests and by the end of that day we were SO ready for the next ones to arrive!  It's so nice to have the extra sets of hands (and of course we love to see our family) around here.  I love that the boys get held more, get more one-on-one time, Chloë gets a play mate (most often Gramma or Mom-mom) to play Cars with her, and even the dog gets a walk and an extra pet.  Also, when we have guests here, our love seat couch is just that, a love seat couch.  When we don't have guests here, it is nothing more than a mountain of clean, ready-to-be-folded laundry.  You barely see the couch itself.  The moms and Aunt Helen were great about folding, folding, folding, as it is a non-stop job around here.  Folding, folding, folding and feeding, feeding, feeding.  That's the theme here!   The boys now eat solids 3 times a day and they are loving it.  They even took small bites of their first San Diego bean and cheese burrito the other day.  I was eating one and Eli was just eyeing it and drooling over it so I gave him a try.  He liked it!

In other developmental news, Owen is about to crawl (we think).  He has been up on hands and knees for over a week now, rocking back and forth and "almost crawling" here and there.  Eli started sitting up unassisted on Christmas day.  Owen can sit up as well, but he is more likely to topple over than Eli.  Also, Chloë now sleeps in a big girl bed (as of 2 nights ago).  My babies are all growing up!

Some photos:

All Chloë wanted for Christmas was "A choo-choo train, a spiderman, and a pirate ship"

Santa brought her this pirate ship!

Kyla gets in the holiday spirit

We had a full house in Christmas morning...and Kyla's stocking isn't even pictured...

Delivering a gift to one of her neighborhood pals

Little friends came over for a holiday cookie exchange the week before Christmas

Myke & Chlo

with Gramma on Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach

I love this shot of my dad with Eli

My parents and the kids

(after Chloë's school Christmas program)

Chloë's preschool Christmas program - Dec. 16th

Borrowing some kids bike at the playground 

Donuts with Gramma!

Hot cocoa (with Kahlua!) gets everyone in a festive mood!

Mom-mom  & Elijah

me and my boys

Myke and Maureen (his mom) giving the boys a bath in our double kitchen sink

Owen wonders why Eli has so much more hair

building towers with Pop