Santa’s on His Way ~
As part of the Hughs family tradition, we went once again to East Texas to chop down our own Christmas tree. We’ve been doing this for well over 20 years now (since the early 80s). Of course, we used to come home with one tree tied to the top of the Suburban. Now that our family has grown, we need 4 trees and a pick-up truck. Henry and Taylor loved the farm animals, tractor ride, picking out trees, helping Pop use the saw, watching it fall and yelling “TIM-BEEER”! I recommend this tradition to anyone with small kids.

Another tradition – pictures with Santa. Jake isn’t too fond of Santa. At Matt’s company party, Henry was excited to tell Santa he wanted Diesel 10, Henry’s Tender and more Thomas Tracks for Christmas. Then the following week, at our church Christmas party, he got scared. Both boys cried. Better luck next year, right?
Henry has a new tradition. Every morning he asks me, “What are we doing today, mama.” Everyone knows I’m one of those stay-at-home-moms that don’t really “stay-at-home”. We’re always on the go – shopping, lunch with friends, playgroups, mom association meetings, church stuff and Mother’s Day Out for Henry on Monday and Wednesday’s (9am-3pm).

Jake is on the go now too. He’s finally crawling! I say finally because he’s been in crawling position rocking back and forth for weeks now. I really thought it would be any day…now a month later he’s moving, and into stuff. Last week I found him eating Henry’s playdough. I’m not sure Henry likes Jake’s new milestone. He can now get into all of Henry’s toys, knock over Henry’s trains and steal Henry’s cars. We’ve had more than a few “sharing” lectures over the past few days. It’s a lesson I’ll be repeating for the next 18 years, I’m sure.

My boys look like they’ve been beating up on each other. Jake was in the ER last week because he rolled off the changing table onto his head. Our hardwood floors left a nice goose-egg just above his right eye. The pediatrician thought he needed a CAT scan since he kept nodding off after the fall. All is good though – no concussion or brain damage. They released him within an hour and said he’ll just have a nasty bruise. He's a fast healer - this picture was taken just a couple days later. Henry has a matching bruise now under his eye after slamming into our fireplace harth last night. The pointy, granite-tile corner is not at all forgiving. Lucky we already got our Santa pics done.