A Very Merry Christmas

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! 

We began by starting our Christmas cooking a few days before Christmas.  In the picture above you can see Dawson using his Melissa and Doug mallet to help crush Nutter Butter cookies to make Nutter Butter Bark.  He's so resourceful!  :)  Dawson LOVES to help me in the kitchen so he was thrilled to help me make a few new recipes, and he helped for over an hour before he lost interest!

We began our festivities by traveling to Tennessee on Christmas Eve.  We arrived early in the afternoon, and Dawson's Uncle Logan gave him his gift early.  Here Dawson is with the BIG gift!  He was thrilled!

It was hard to unwrap!

YAY!  Dawson loves it!  Uncle Logan did a great job shopping for Dawson.  He loves his masculine kitchen!  No pink in this kitchen-just brown and green! 

Christmas Eve night we went to my Aunt Janice's house for the traditional Wade Christmas Eve Gathering.  Dawson kept asking if it was a birthday party and saying he was so excited!  We told him it was a birthday party for Jesus.  The photo above and the one below is of the kids at the gathering.  Left to right:  Dawson, Ashton, Josie, Eli, and Corbin.  Dawson and Corbin are only 2 months apart, and Dawson has talked about Corbin several times since Christmas Eve.

One more picture of the kids lined up.  It's hard to get 5 kids all looking at the same time!

All the kids got several gifts to open.  Here Dawson is tearing into one of them!  Then the adults played our usual game of Dirty Santa, which always makes for a good time!

Dawson was excited about the cars he got!

(Also, notice he's wearing the Christmas bow tie I made for him.  When we put it on him, he asked if we were going to church! Hah!)

Christmas morning we woke up at Lolly and Pop's house.  On top of all of Dawson's presents there was a box of gummies (his favorite!), he was thrilled with this gift alone.  Not to mention when we got to Nana and Grandad's he got ANOTHER box of gummies...I think his grandparents really know what he likes!  :)

After getting over the excitement from the gummies, Dawson got to open his bigger presents.  Check out all these Thomas the Trains he got.  Thanks, Lolly and Pop-we will never have to buy another train.  Dawson's recent favorite has become Percy, and we've even learned of some trains we had never heard of before.  John and I are excited to use our gift from Lolly and Pop in the next couple of weeks-we got a trip to Harrah's Casino in Cherokee, North Carolina plus childcare by Lolly and Pop for Dawson (and Bentley) while we're gone!  We all had fun exchanging gifts Christmas morning!

After exchanging gifts with Lolly, Pop, and Uncle Logan, we headed next door to Jeannie's house for our traditional gift exchange and mimosas (just orange juice for me and Carter this year!).  The picture above was Dawson on the walk to Jeannie's.  His hat says, "Santa's Helper," and he was VERY interested in this birdbath.  We just thought it was sweet of him standing on his tip toes looking in the bird bath.

After Jeannie's, we walked back to Lolly and Pop's house for a get together with Lolly's side of the family.  Here Dawson is with his great Mamaw!  Dawson and Carter are the youngest great grandchildren all of which are boys!  It was great to see everyone, but we were unable to stay too long because we had another Christmas gathering to attend. 

Next we went to Nana and Grandad's house.  We ate a yummy lunch and visited with everyone.  In the picture above Dawson and Jared are opening some gifts!

Tearing into his Aqua Doodle which he loves!  He has fun doing anything art or writing related so this was right up his alley.

Dawson also loved his chain saw from Nana and Grandad.

And he was quick to find a wall in their house that he thought needed repairs!  :)  I think almost everything has been "chain sawwed" since he got it!  He even pretended to give me a hair cut with it the other day! 

Aunt Emmie gave Dawson a pillow pet turtle.  Dawson LOVES his pillow pets.  Since the one he has to sleep with every night is a panda pillow pet, he calls all pillow pets pandas.  He also has a dog pillow pet at home which he calls "panda doggie."  Aunt Emmie was hoping he would see the turtle and call it Mike the Turtle.  :)  When she asked if it was Mike the Turtle he said, "No, it's panda turtle."  Oh my!  He loves that panda turtle though!  She also gave us a University of Tennessee Garden Gnome, and I wish I had on video how excited Dawson was when he opened that gift!  He cannot wait to put it outside.  Thanks, Em!  :)

On Christmas night we drove back home to Alabama.  We had planned that Dawson would sleep in the car since we wouldn't get home until 11pm, but he stayed awake talking about Christmas the entire foggy drive home.  Santa visited our house on Christmas night, and we awoke the next morning to open gifts on "our Christmas." 

Dawson immediately went to open his largest present first!

I think this was the gift we were most excited to give Dawson.  He turns every stick into a pretend weedeater, so we thought a real weedeater would be perfect.  He loved it!

We also gave Dawson his first game for Christmas.  He loves playing Don't Break the Ice!  Here are Daddy and Dawson playing for the first time.

Dawson also got some army men.  I'm pretty sure my former co-workers at Hawk would be happy about this gift!  :)

AND FINALLY...the last package Dawson opened was the only thing he had really asked for....SUCKERS!  Every time someone had asked Dawson what he wanted Santa to bring him, his response was, "SUCKERS!"  When Dawson opened the last box and saw that it was a bag of 600 dum dums the picture above was his reaction!  He held up a sucker and jumped up and down!  We loved watching how excited he got over the smallest gift!

Here is an action shot of him jumping around holding one of his many suckers in his hand.  He was thrilled!

After all the gifts were opened we assembled this construction site he got.

It has trains and dumptrucks...perfect for Dawson!

Playing with Christmas toys.

Dawson showing off his Christmas pajamas that have a cute little reindeer on the side!

One of Dawson's stocking stuffers was the capsules that expland into shapes and animals when put in warm water.  He thought these were the coolest thing!  Here he is watching the first couple "grow."

The first one grew into a lobster!

Dawson was excited about the rain boots we got him and insisted on wearing them over his footed pajamas...it's a good look for him, I think!  :)

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas as well!

It's Beginning to Feel a Little Like Christmas

We have been extremely busy this December (more about that in another post to come one day soon), and so it hasn't felt very Christmas-y.  This week though John and I agreed that "it's beginning to feel -a little- like Christmas." 

About a week ago I attended my friend Stephanie's annual Cookie Exchange.  We had a great time socializing and trying out all the delicious cookies people had brought!  Here's a picture of our group at the party!

One of our family traditions here in Huntsville has been to drive through the Botanical Garden's Galaxy of Lights every year.  It's a path over a mile long of different Christmas displays.  You drive incredibly slow so we let Dawson get out of his seat and ride in the front seat with us.  He loved the light displays.  This is the look on his face when we entered the Galaxy of lights.  :)

He has not stopped talking about the Galaxy.  When you ask him what his favorite light display was he says, "I like the penguin, nutcracker, tree, Santa, butterfly, other penguin, dino, reindeer...."  And he continues to list them on and on!  Dawson also thought it was special to get to ride with me in the front seat.

Monday night we visited Santa's Village for the first time.  It's in Downtown Huntsville at the Constitution Village.  While there we listened to carolers sing Christmas songs, saw two real reindeer (one of Dawson's favorite parts!), saw Mrs. Claus and elves, enjoyed playing in the snow that they blew every 20 minutes (another favorite part for Dawson), made an ornament, decorated a gingerbread cookie-which Dawson ate almost immediately, and saw Frosty, a penguin, and a Gingerbread Man (probably the very favorite part).  Of course, Santa was there too!  Dawson had a blast a Santa's Village.  It was really crowded but it was a good night to go since it wasn't too cold to be outside for a couple of hours.  Yesterday John said that holidays are so much more fun with Dawson than when it was just the two of us, and I could not agree more!  I love to see how excited Dawson gets over seeing Christmas lights or someone dressed in a Gingerbread Man costume!  The most talked about part of the night was definitely the characters.  No matter where we go if there's someone in costume, Dawson absolutely cannot get enough.  After we had taken more than our fair amount of time visiting with the penguin, Dawson walked around say, "Penguin, come back here please!  Where are you, Penguin?!"  Here are the pictures from Santa's Village.

Above:  John and Dawson at the entrance.

(None of the pictures are wonderful since

they were all taken outside in the dark.)

First we met Frosty and loved him!

Then we were even happier when

we saw this penguin with a bow tie to talk to!

Making an ornament!

Dawson running through the snow

flurries that were falling, although it's

difficult to see them in the picture.

One of the reindeer.

Dawson pretending to be a snowman.

Dawson absolutely loves Nutcrackers, and

he was excited to see this one to stand by.

Our family at Santa's Village.

Santa was there!

Dawson poking his head through

the Christmas tree.

Dawson, an elf, and the Gingerbread Man.

On another note-On Saturday Dawson attended his friend Jude's 3rd birthday party.  I had to remember him going to Jude's 1st birthday party when Dawson was only 6 months old and had just learned to sit up, and then last year at Jude's 2nd birthday Dawson played and had a blast.  This year, I told Dawson on Monday that on Saturday he would get to go to Jude's birthday party. This was a mistake because several times every day leading up to the party, Dawson would ask if it was time to go to Jude's.  I would tell him no, and then he would tell me that Jude's party was on Saturday.  Then Dawson would sing Happy Birthday to Jude.  We probably sang Happy Birthday to Jude at least 20 times leading up to the day of the party.  On Saturday Dawson was thrilled to go to the party, and he had a blast playing with Jude and his other friends!  The picture above is Dawson and birthday boy Jude who was playing dress-up.  Dawson had more fun than is captured from the expression on his face in the photo-I know because he's talked about Jude's party every day!

Dawson's Gingerbread House and Our Pea in the Pod 23 Weeks

On Wednesday, Dawson's Advent Gift was a Gingerbread House.  I knew he was going to be thrilled to put it together because he has been asking to make one every time we go to Target and he sees the sample one in the bakery. 

He sat for almost an entire hour at the kitchen table working on his Gingerbread House, and that's a long time for an active 2.5 year old boy.  He kept asking me to get the camera and take pictures.  He was so proud of his work!

Obviously I helped, but he did almost all of the candy placement on his own!  Now it's sitting in the kitchen, and he goes by to check on it about every half hour!

Here are the pictures from the construction of the house....

Dawson about to get started on the Gingerbread

House.  He was really excited about all the candy too!

Dawson was so proud of the final project!

Dawson's Gingerbread House Masterpiece!

At church Dawson worked with one of his favorite

Sunday School teacher, Ms. Dianne, to make

this sweet Christmas book.  I love the cover-a

tree made out of his hand prints!

Page 2:  A manager for Baby Jesus.

(I can tell Dawson enjoyed using glue to

put all these little pieces of paper on!)

Page three:  Angel.

Page 4:  The star.  They rolled a marble

around in a box with paint to make the cool

design around the star!

Page 5:  This is a birthday cake for Jesus.

John and I have a tradition of picking out a

new Hallmark ornament every year for our tree.

This year John had the great idea to always let

the kids pick out one fun ornament for the tree too!

This year since Carter didn't have much input :)

Dawson picked this John Deere ornament for our tree.

He loves to look at it on the tree and talk about how he

picked it out!

23 Week Update

At 23 Weeks Carter is becoming more and more active-if that's even possible!  We can now regularly SEE his movements, rather than just feel them.  It's hard to believe we're only 17 weeks from the due date!  We cannot wait!

Dawson wanted to be in the 23

week picture, but he looks like he's

hiding behind Carter just a little!

23 Weeks Pregnant with Carter.

Our wonderful friends, Josh and Cassandra, sent us the

first gift we've received for Baby Carter.

Is this baby blanket not adorable!?!  It's

so soft, and, of course, I love the most that

it has his name on it.  I'm already envisioning

a picture of him curled up sleeping on this blanket

as a newborn!  Thanks, Whites!  We love it!

Our Pea in the Pod: 22 Week Update

As of Wednesday I reached the 22nd week of my pregnancy with Carter.  I have not updated since week 18, so I have four of the weekly pictures to share-and there's no worry that Baby Carter is growing in there, as you'll be able to see!  We've had a couple of doctor's appointments since I last updated, and everything seems to be going well.  The doctor did tell me that Carter is measuring 4 weeks ahead.  When I was pregnant with Dawson he measured ahead from week 28 on, so this time I was not too surprised at all!  My doctor also said it's not a big deal. 

Carter seems to be following exactly in Dawson's footsteps already because he moves CONSTANTLY just like Dawson did.  Some of his movements are already visible just by watching my stomach move, and of course, these strong movements can be felt.  Dawson likes to put his hand on my tummy and wait to feel Carter move-so sweet!

Speaking of Big Brother Dawson, the other day at Dawson's swim lesson I was in the pool trying to convince Dawson to get his entire face wet.  Suddenly, Dawson looked down at my stomach and asked, "Is Carter in the water?"  I told him yes, and then he started getting his face wet!  Hah!  Also, sometimes when Dawson wants to sit on my lap leaned against my tummy, he will say that he wants to sit beside Carter.  :)

As far as planning for Carter's arrival- A few people have asked me about the nursery theme for Baby Carter, and it will be sailboats like Dawson's nursery.  I have picked out the cloth diapers we will be using, but we haven't started stocking up on them yet.  In January after we get settled in Tennessee, the more extensive planning for Carter's arrival will begin!

We are so excited that we're now only 18 weeks from the due date, and we can't wait to hold our little pea in the pod!  For now, here are the "Watch Baby Carter Grow" pictures! 

19 Weeks Pregnant with Carter

20 Weeks Pregnant with Carter

21 Weeks Pregnant with Carter

22 Weeks Pregnant with Carter

The Zorio Family Update: End of November & Beginning of December

It's been about three weeks since I last updated our blog, so I decided to do an update on everything from the end of November through the beginning of December complete with pictures!

In mid-November we were invited to

a bonfire at our new friends, Chad and

Anne's house.  We told Dawson it was

going to be very cold outside, so he

got to wear his moose hat for the first

time.  He loved it.  At the bonfire one of his

friends, Caroline (age 4) asked if he would

chase the other kids and pretend to be a

real moose.  He got a kick out of this!

Some of the kids and adults at the bonfire.

It's hard to see, but Dawson is in the very

middle.

Dawson hanging out with more friends at

the bonfire.  We all had a good time and ate

some yummy food.

Dawson showing off one of his new

bow ties I made for his "winter collection."

:)  This is his Christmas bow tie.  He now thinks

he cannot go to church without wearing a bow tie,

and if I don't put one on him he requests it!

Toward the end of November we were

invited to Dawson's friends Jordan and

Jayden's 3rd birthday party at their house.

It was a rocket theme, and everything was

adorable!  During the party they even launched

a little rocket in the backyard.  This photo

is Dawson watching the rocket in the air.

While at the birthday party he got

to spend some time playing with his

friend Matthew too.  Don't they look

like they're cooking up trouble together?

My 26th birthday was on November 26th.

We had fun spending the day together

as a family, enjoying some Moe's (yum!), and

spending some time outside playing.  Pictured: Dawson

sitting with me on my birthday!

At the beginning of December

we decorate our Christmas tree.

Dawson loves everything Christmas

this year, and he had a blast decorating

the tree--and undecorating it and

redecorating it every day since! Haha!

I think Dawson is looking like such

a big boy these days.  John

took a couple pictures of Dawson

acting like a big boy!

Dawson started standing like this

on his own.  So big!

On Saturday afternoon we visited

Santa who stopped by John's work

for a while.  Dawson LOVED Santa,

and he cannot stop talking about him!

Santa asked what he wanted, and he said

he wanted a sucker.  That shouldn't be

too much work for Santa!  Haha  :)

Our yearly family photo with Santa.

This year with Dawson, Daddy, Mommy, Santa,

AND CARTER!

On Sunday afternoon my friend, Kelly,

hosted a greenery party.  We all brought

greenery clippings, berries, pine cones,

and similar "treasures" from our yards.

I made a wreath, and other people made

table swags, mail box decor, vase fillers, etc.

It was really fun and such a great idea.

Here are some of the girls at work!

Me and my friend Kelly-the hostess.  We

are both expecting boys!  Kelly is due in February, so Carter will

only be about 6 weeks younger!

This was our attempt at a photo with our baby bumps in the center of

the wreath!

This is our elf on the shelf.  Dawson has

gotten really into finding Charlie each morning

and checking on him all day long.  This is one

of the many fun places Charlie has been when we've

gotten up in the morning.  He made this swing from the

ceiling fan in the living room...silly Charlie the elf!

Dawson's favorite spot so far has been when Charlie

was riding the piggie bank!

This is slightly out of order, but on Saturday night

we went to our annual Sunday School Christmas

Party.  It was SO much fun!  The kids had their own

pizza party at another house with the baby sitters,

while we had our Christmas party.  Dawson apparently

had a great time with his friends playing because he

talked about it the rest of the weekend.

At the adult party we had yummy food, chatted,

played Christmas pictionary, and Christmas Minute-

to-Win-It.  John & I were the champion couple-team

of the Minute-to-Win-It game!  Before the end of the party

we took time for a group picture.  We had a great time!

That wraps up The Zorio Family Update for now.  Check back tomorrow, and I will have an update on Baby Carter who is now only 18 weeks from his due date!!