Santa!

Having kids makes the season even more magical! After discovering Santa left slippers in their stockings, Henry made his way to the basement to see if Santa brought anything else. He was delighted to discover his new "choo choo track"!

Santa left Charlie a wooden rocking horse! He (and Henry!) think it's a pretty fun ride!

(My favorite picture this Christmas!!)

After playing with their new toys all morning, we headed down to Austin at nap time for some Swank family fun! We then made it over to Great Grandma Marcie's house for a quick visit for the last of our holiday celebrations.

Tom and I were chatting . . . we absolutely LOVE Christmas, but we're discovering we also love when it is all over (any other parents of small children feel the same way?!?!?). The kids definitely put the magic back in the holiday but it also adds to the stress- not napping or going to bed at regular times really messes with their normal happy selves. Tom and I were both glad to put all our Christmas stuff away on the 26th . . . and we'll be happy to take it out again next year! :)

Christmas Eve night

Our favorite part of this busy holiday season is our little family celebration. We make a "funny supper" (appetizers and snacky food), put on our jammies and open gifts. We had another perfect Christmas Eve evening with our family of four! :)

Henry put out cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer before heading off to bed!

Christmas with Grandma Mary & Aunt Anne

We had a very fun and busy Christmas Eve with Grandma Mary and Aunt Anne! In typical kid fashion, the boxes and . . .

. . . tissue paper were a big hit!

We spent time rearranging the basement to make room for the new TV. We also toasted the bar good-bye before Tom and his handy helper took it apart!

Mr. Reads A Lot

Cozy spot for some afternoon reading

Parks Family Compound

Henry's favorite thing to do as of late is build houses out of his bricks for the Nativity animals. These houses come complete with a barn and a fence.

The donkey and sheep are comfortably sleeping on their bed . . .

Charlie turns 4 months!

Charlie turned four months on December 15th! Our little buddy is growing up fast! He is awake much more now and learning many new things! He throws his legs up, blows bubbles with his spit, holds his head up very well during tummy time, holds on to and chews on his toys, and saves most of his smiles for his big brother! He continues to sleep through the night (most nights!) and is up between 4:30-6 for a quick bite to eat before sleeping until 7ish. Generally, he takes a little cat nap every two hours or so. Bedtime is around 9 o'clock. He is wearing size 3 diapers and 6-month clothes.

We had Charlie in for his 4-month well child check. After explaining to the doctor that Charlie has had a cold since about 6-weeks, the doc put him on an antibiotic to try and get rid of it. Charlie DOES NOT like taking his medicine and spits 95% of it out so not sure if it's doing him any good (or if it's worth the effort to get him to swallow it or the mess it makes when he spits it back up!!). Otherwise, he is a happy and healthy baby! :)

Here are Charlie's stats at 4 months:

Height: 25 inches (58%ile)
Weight: 16 pound 2 ounces (76%ile)
Head: 16.54 inches (42%ile)

Charlie's absolute favorite past time is bath time! Too bad this poor second child doesn't get one all that often!!!

Funny side story (at least we can laugh about it now!):
The morning after Christmas, Charlie woke up with blood in his stool. Our clinic was closed that day so I called the nurse's line. She recommended we take him to the ER. So we headed down to the Northfield ER. After explaining to the ER doc that Charlie was acting like himself, he didn't have a fever, etc., she examined his diaper (I brought samples!). She saw the blood and told us that often times dairy causes blood in stool because it is so hard to digest. Well that would make sense, except that I've been dairy-free for the past few months. So she did a hemoglobin test on the blood. Turns out it tested negative. At further examination, we discovered that is "blood" was really fabric- most likely fabric from his own red Christmas outfit or a sweater of someone who was holding him on Christmas day!!! Boy was I embarrassed!

Hollidazzle!

As if our weekend wasn't busy enough, we decided to hit up the last night of the Hollidazzle parade. For those non-Minnesotans out there, the Hollidazzle is an outdoor winter parade with amazing lit-up floats. Only in Minnesota do you find people willing to line crowded streets in down town Minneapolis, freezing their tushies off, to watch a parade! Henry LOVED it, of course!

Henry kept yelling, "I see more!"

Charlie eventually slept through most of the parade snuggled in his car seat!

We then made our way to Tom's office to picnic on bagels and watch the traffic below. Henry thoroughly enjoys going to "Min-a-po-lus" to "daddy's office" in the "sky-swape-ah." We had the place to ourselves so Henry ran the floors and got rid of some energy! It was awesome!

God Bless, Charles!

Charles Paul Parks was Baptised this past Sunday. We had a wonderful day celebrating our little boy!

We were the only ones being Baptised that day so we got lots of attention. Father Paul did an excellent job involving the kids!

Our happy family!

Our wonderful friends, Shawn and Sue, are Charlie's Godparents.

All those who were able to celebrate with us!

Mullenbach Family Christmas

We celebrated Christmas on Saturday evening with my family. The annual "adult" table picture! We feasted on delicious soup and lots of treats! :)

The "big" kid table

The little kids

And the babies!

Grandma and Grandpa got all the kids stools with their names on them. It was a big hit!

We had such a fun night! The kids are just a delight to watch! Thanks, everyone, for coming to our house once again this year! :)

Little Stinker

This is how I found my boys early one morning when I came out of our bathroom from showering. Notice the white stool in front of the pack-n-play. Henry = Little Stinker

Margot Love

On our way home from Target yesterday:
Henry, "Mama and daddy go on date."
Katie, "Do you want mommy and daddy to go on a date?"
Henry, "yeah."
Katie, "Who should babysit you if mommy and daddy go on a date?"
Henry, "Margot."

Gift wrapping

Here's what happens when mom is busy wrapping gifts. Henry entertains himself with my breast pump.

And Charlie happily looks at the lights and chews on wrapping paper!

Christmas Tree

End of November: Katie says to Tom, "Let's cut down our own tree this year! Henry will love it!"
Beginning of December: Katie says to Tom, "Since it's so cold out, let's just go to a nursery and have a fun holiday experience picking out a tree there."
December 11th: Tom says to Katie, "Let's just stop at Menards on our way home and pick up a tree. Henry will get a kick out of looking at it on top of the car."

And so there is our tree! Yes, it is strapped to the top on my new mini van (I'm an official suburban mom!). And Henry did get a kick out of the tree on our van. He plays Christmas tree with his cozy coupe now and places a fake branch on top of it! :)

The official tree light inspector.

The official decorator of the Christmas tree.

Ta-da!

Big boy!

We had Grandma Mary over to celebrate her birthday! Charlie got to join us at the table in his Bumbo!

He thought he was pretty cool!

Strong Little Man

Charlie is loving his exer-saucer now! His feet almost touch the ground!

Gingerbread House

Grandma Debbie started a gingerbread house building tradition a few years ago with cousin Brynn. Little did she know in just a couple of year's time she would have four grandkids old enough to make one! Big lesson learned on this go round with Henry: read the directions before you start constructing the house!

Henry very carefully placed the candies on his house!

The finished product! My mom insists the houses looked better with each grandchild- I think Henry's looks pretty cute myself!

Side story: I just threw out the house yesterday before Charlie's big baptism day. Today, a couple of weeks after the house was build, Henry noticed it was missing (I really didn't think he'd miss it!). I told him Santa needed it at the North Pole to show his elves how to build a gingerbread house. He then informed me that Santa would bring it back to him on Christmas. Does this mean I have to build a house late on Christmas Eve???

My little book worm

Henry "reads" books to Charlie daily! :)

Cookie baking- with a toddler . . .

Cookie baking with Henry brought me to a whole new level of patience!!! The process was slow and tedious, but Henry had fun and that's what counts (I guess!!!).

Charlie-man got in on the action too!

Henry invited one of his BFFs, Margot, over to help frost and decorate the cookies.

Masterpiece, each one of them! :)