Busy Busy Busy Bees Reeves!

Yes, I realize I haven't posted Christmas pictures yet... I'll eventually get to it, I promise! I've barely even had time to look at them, let alone post them! I tell ya, if it's not one thing it's another... but in a good way! We've been extremely busy around here and with exciting things! A wedding, some baby showers, getting the nursery ready as well as transforming Jack's room into something with a little more... Jack-ness!

We've been so busy, in fact, that I've even contemplated posting out of order (gasp!), as I am not sure when I'll ever get around to looking at my Christmas pictures! We'll see if my OCD side gives in and allows my but-I-just-want-to-catch-up-with-my-blog-before-the-baby-comes-no-matter-what-order-they're-in! side, but in the meantime I do have something that I can post! Our 2009 Christmas Card!

Hope your Christmas was Merry and Bright!

Coolest. Dad. Ever.

If you ask Jack where his daddy works, his face lights up and he exclaims "Daddy works on a firetruck!!!" I'm not sure he quite grasps the 'hero' aspect of Dave's job, but he is so proud of the fact that his daddy gets to work with these cool trucks up close every day! And the best part of having a firefighter for a daddy? He gets to live out every little boy's dream and 'drive' a firetruck!

Can you tell how excited he is?


"I need to wear the headphones! I'll be the engineer!"

Every time we get to go visit "Daddy's Firehouse" Jack is in complete awe. As soon as I pull into the parking lot he shouts "We're here!!! Daddy, where are you?! Let's go drive daddy's firetruck!" The station that Dave has been at for the last year is on the other end of the very long city, so we haven't been able to make many trips out there lately. However, this year two of the guys at Dave's station were retiring and all the families were heading out there for dinner to celebrate! I was excited to be able to meet the guys that Dave talks about that I hadn't yet met, and Jack was excited to get to see daddy and "drive" the firetruck!

As much as he loved "driving" the firetruck, I think he liked sitting in his daddy's seat even more! Dave showed him how the lights work and where they keep their gear, and he even got to play with what was probably the Coolest Flashlight Ever... he loves flashlights!


"I'm sit where my daddy sits!"

He was also very impressed with the big wheels and the fact that he could see himself in the hubcaps! He spent a lot of time looking at those.


I think that it's safe to say that Jack has the Coolest Dad Ever!

Christmas Cookies!

One Christmas tradition that I've always wanted to do with my kids is make Christmas Cookies! I remember my mom always letting us help her make cookies and how much fun we used to have, and I wanted to pass that on to my kids. Because of Jack Jack's severe egg allergy I was always wary of letting him touch the raw cookie dough, though, so this was the first year that Jack actually got to help me make the cookies!

First we made the dough and the frosting at our house, and then, after the dough had been refrigerated for an hour (per the recipe), we brought it and our cookie-making gear over to grandma's house!

I didn't have Jack help me make the cookie dough for two reasons- the first was because of his severe egg allergy, and the second was because of the fact that he's pretty terrified of my hand-mixer. He's slightly less terrified of my stand-mixer, though, so I let him help me make the frosting! He loves to help me in the kitchen and he is always asking "Can we make a recipe?" so I'm trying to encourage him to like the mixers, since most of my favorite recipes (read: sweets and treats and baked goodies) include using the mixers!

I'm thinking that the best and easiest way to encourage a fondness for the mixer is to let him lick the beaters after we're done making frosting... right?

Of course, he doesn't like to get messy, so he didn't really lick the beater. Instead he used his fingers to pick the frosting off of it and then licked the frosting off of his fingers. Hey, it works!

I was busy trying to keep the mess to a minimum (yeah, that didn't really work... sorry for all the flour and sprinkles all over your house, mom!) and hovering over Jack to check for any signs of an allergic reaction to touching the cookie dough (since there were eggs in it) and making sure that he didn't eat any of the raw dough (never even occurred to him, thank God!), so I didn't get any pictures of him with flour all over his face as he rolled out the dough, and cut out the cookies. He was interested for about three cookie-sheets, and then he took a break to play with Grandpa's train while I finished cutting and baking the cookies. We took another break for lunch while the cookies cooled, and then it was time to frost them!

He really didn't have any interest in spreading the frosting, but he loved putting the sprinkles on! I'm pretty sure my mom is still sweeping up the sprinkles, though!


He lasted for 6 cookies (probably because I had 6 different kinds of sprinkles and he wanted to use each one!), and then he was ready to eat one! Of course, rather than picking it up and eating it, he started picking the sprinkles off, and eating them one by one! Finally I picked up the cookie and held it for him to take a bite. He loved it, but once I set it down he went right back to picking off and eating the sprinkles, one by one.


Hmmm, picking at his food? Is he my kid or what?!

It wasn't until after I took this picture that I realized which plate I had put them on... these are the cookies Jack made at just over 2.5 yrs old, on a plate that I had made when I was just under 2.5 years old! I'm probably the only one that thinks that's interesting and/or funny, but I had to point it out ;)