The Robles: December 2010

So I know that I already posted some pics of Ephraim eating solids for the first time but I gotta post more because his expressions crack me up so much. He's hilarious! He always looks like I just stuck a lemon in his mouth when I feed him. It's funny because whenever I hold him while I'm eating he's always lunging forward trying intensely to reach my plate so I thought he would love solids but I guess not. Still, its fun seeing all his faces.

Ah, no food, just toys

Nathan and I were in charge of decorations for the ward Christmas Dinner and with a lot of help from others we hung up these little flowery puffballs in the gym. It looked a lot better in real life. We were very proud of the results and I'm glad its over now. It was a little stressful. Thank goodness for my sister Julie. All the decorations wouldn't have looked near as great if she hadn't swooped in and helped out. She even changed Benny's poopy diaper in the middle of all of it. Blessed saint!

Uncle Ben!!!

Daddy and naked babies!! Ephraim kinda looks like he has a gorilla chest in this picture.

So it's officially the Christmas season and I decided to try and make some effort to make it look Chirstmas-like around our house. Before I was married, I loved to think of all the cool family traditions I would have in my family and how fun all the holidays would be and now here I am with a family and I haven't done a really good job of setting up family traditions so I thought I better get on the ball so I don't regret it later. Since I'm half German, I really wanted to have a German tradition in there, so this Christmas we're doing the advent wreath. We've done it in past Christmases but only half-heartedly and kinds last minute type of thing. I'm trying this year to prepare for and plan it better. For this tradition, we have a wreath with five candles in it (it's on the fireplace in one of the pictures)and starting on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, we light a candle and gather round it while we sing Christmas songs and read Christmas stories and eat treats. We do this each Sunday, lighting one more candle each time and then we light the last and middle candle on Christmas eve. During one of these advents we also write a gift we want to give to Jesus on a piece of paper (like, "I will be better at giving to others") and then put it in a little container and then we can open it next Christmas and decide if we did a good job or not. So for the first advent, I made these German cookies for the treat and they turned out pretty good but man are they are real mess to make so I'm pretty sure they'll only be a once-a-year thing. We're doing the advent calender this year but it's been kinda hard on Benny. He was really happy about opening the first chocolate of the month but he didn't understand that he had to wait till the next day to get another chocolate so he'll sometimes go over and point to the advent calender and say "more". It's cute, and it gives me something to look forward to for the next day, to see him pick out his chocolate. I was thinking about starting that one Christmas tradition where Santa puts something in the kids shoes but I'm not sure what to put in the shoes and it kinda sounds like stockings. Anyways, Christmas is still in work in progress, but I'm way excited!

Ephraim is eating solids now. This was his first time and I don't think he liked it that much.