San Diego Cousin Fun

Our second half of our Christmas vacation was spent flying across the country to San Diego to visit with the delaMontaigne family. Everyone was home so it was great to spend time with each other.

Joseph and Sydney met in October and it was amazing to see the difference in growth in the two of them in just a few short months. Love the first picture as we affectionately labeled it the "mouth swipe"-growing up in the dela fam "eye swipes" were a common occurrence, especially on road trips if Brian was sitting behind you, so we were glad to see that Joseph is continuing the tradition!

Both are fans of the dogs!

And we loved getting our hands on our sweet little niece!

And Joseph loved all of the attention from all of his aunts, uncles and of course Nani and Poppa!

Three Boys in a Tub

A visit with cousins just isn't complete without at least one bath one together!

How cute are these three? Again, really hard to get a picture of the 3 of them smiling together-or even looking at the camera since they were way more interested in splashing-but you get the idea!

Mall Rats

The weather was cold and mostly rainy while we were in Atlanta so one day Gina, Amber and I ventured to a mall with the 3 boys to check out the play area and the train. I didn't know malls have trains now but I guess that is the new thing-this train goes through the mall "dodging" mallgoers. Pretty hilarious!

The boys were able to get some of their energy out at the play area and thankfully Joseph only got trampled on once. Well, according to the girl that fell on him, he tripped her :) but everyone was ok so not a problem.

"Not sure what I think about this!"

"I'm gonna get you Aunt Amber"

Michael is such a good big cousin-hardly ever left Joseph's side.

"Whatcha doin' Michael?"

Such a good helper!

This picture just makes me smile of Michael :)

And, after a good amount of time in the play area we went on the train which was a hit and then grabbed some lunch and cookies and called it a day!

Michael and Aunt Amber

As long as the boys don't turn in to mall rats as teenagers we'll have to come back here next time.

Good Buddies

It was so fun seeing Michael, John and Joseph together again! Michael and John were so good with "baby Joseph" or "Josie" as Michael affectionately called him. Seeing the three of them together really makes me excited about watching them grow up together and of course the arrival of 2 more BOY Ducote cousins this coming year.

Wanting to play outside

Trying to get a good picture

They LOVED the bean bag chair-they would all stand next to it and then fall on it and laugh-Uncle Gary was supervising :)

Still trying to get a good picture of the three of them

Playing with wrapping paper

Matching pjs...still trying to get that picture

Handsome boys-all 3!

Unfortunately not much luck on a picture of all 3 boys (or even 1 boy) looking and smiling-hoping that Gina has one but highly unlikely :) Maybe in a few years we'll get them all smiling and looking-for now, though, these are all still pretty cute and definitely show their love for one another.

Gina called me the day after we left and said that John woke up asking for Joseph and both boys asked about him throughout the day-SO cute!!

Ducote Fun

When hearing that Rich has 8 siblings (7 of which are male) people often ask both of us, "What is it like when you are all together?" One of the first words that we answer with is, "Fun!" The Ducote family is an awesome family and I feel so blessed to have married into them-not only are they definitely fun but each of them is also polite, kind, funny and just so easy to get along with. Mom and Dad Ducote definitely have done an amazing job with raising all 9.

When we were in town, one night some of the brothers decided to take on a food challenge-specifically trying to eat 6 saltines in 1 minute. Not really sure how it started but luckily Greg had a box of saltines on his bed (along with a few bags of chips :) Harder than it sounds...Mark was the only one who was able to beat the challenge...he is the reigning Iron Ducote champ though so it makes sense! Joseph wanted in on the challenge, too (as you can see from the pictures). Rich is going to work with him through the year so next year he'll be ready to take Uncle Mark on!

The cousins received recordable books for Christmas so they could hear Nona, Pop Pop's and their aunts and uncles voices on a regular basis. One night we all sat around the kitchen table and recorded the books-we had some good laughs and thankfully finally finished them all!

We spent the rest of the time hanging out, laughing, and of course eating-Joseph was a huge fan of Nona's sauce!

Looking forward to our next visit!

Christmas 2011

We spent Christmas 2011 in Atlanta with the Ducote family. We arrived on Thursday, the 22nd, so it was nice to have a few days to relax with everyone before Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went to mass and then a new tradition of going out for Chinese food which was delicious and worked out very well.

In the photo below we are missing Gary and Amber who came up on the 26th and Brian who is serving in Afghanistan and Gina and the boys who came up later on Christmas day. One of these years we'll get a picture with everyone!!

After dinner we went home to open presents. The Ducote tradition is to open all presents on Christmas Eve (except for Santa presents, of course!) We put Joseph to bed before opening gifts so he could have a good night's rest waiting for Santa to come.

On Christmas morning we had a delicious Christmas breakfast

and then Joseph was ready to check out his gifts!

Doesn't the photo below look like he is thinking, "Umm, is that it?"

After the traditional football game (which Joseph and I opted out on since it was cold and rainy) we waited for Gina and the boys to come. Joseph was SO excited to see his cousins. These pictures weren't staged at all-when Joseph saw Michael he just gave him the biggest hug and Michael of course was so excited to see him as well. They stayed like this for about 5 minutes just hugging and playing with each other!

Terri made a delicious Christmas dinner and it was a wonderful day! We are so thankful we were able to celebrate Christmas with everyone.

And he's off!

I have a ton of catching up to do on blog entries as we just arrived back home last night after our 12 day Christmas vacation but wanted to post this quickly today. This past weekend in San Diego Joseph really started taking off and today he has been walking all over the house. Watch out world-here he comes!