My oh my

Xavier playing before his first trip to the ER and 2 stitches!

Two stitches covered by a HUGE band-aid. The nurse said it was the only size the ER had. Apparently in cost cutting measures, St. Vincent only buys one size band-aid.

Bill, Bill, Will & Will

William is a very popular name on my mom's side of the family!

Cousins Charlie and Francis chasing after Xavier. Charlie is expecting a new baby Brother in May! We can't wait for baby boy #2 Hockema! Congrats Amy, Bobby and Charlie!

A little Saturday night play-date with some of Jake's friends and their kids!

Graham, Cooper and X. I like this one because Coop is trying to get Graham's snacks and Xavier is trying to take Coop's sippy cup. Xavier wasn't really feeling the pics. It had been a long day for us!

Wags, Graham, EJ, Coop, Jake and X

And after an eventful weekend......sacked out on the couch.

Monday morning he awoke and started throwing up. At first I thought it was just a cold as it was pretty much only mucus but 4 times and 4 outfits later......had to be the flu.

I got a touch of it on Wednesday, though not as bad and then Jake got it on Friday.

So after the ER and stitches the Friday before, we had had a VERY long week.

X still has a runny nose and a nice cough but he seems to be doing a lot better finally. Which is just in time for CHRISTMAS! Yeah! "It's the most wonderful time of the year!" Crossing my fingers noone else in the family gets sick (sorry Gigi and Opa who already got theirs this weekend after watching X) because being sick on Christmas is NO fun. I can personally attest to that as I had the flu last Christmas while pregnant!

Today we are going to the mall to finish some shopping and we are going to sit on Santa's lap! We saw Santa with Charlie and Caden at the Zoo but since this is his 1st Christmas I want to take him to the one at the mall too!

All my cousins and their kids will be at Christmas this year at my Grandmothers so we will have lots of excitement! There are 10 grandchildren, 5 spouses (or soon-to-be) and then 8 great-grandchildren (soon to be 9 with Baby H)! Xavier is going to love all the kids!
Okay well I need to get ready while my babe sleeps! Everyone have a great week and a

VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Christmas Craziness at the Zoo

Tuesday morning I decided to add a little ribbon to my wrapped presents. My little "helper" got most all the ribbon un-wound before I got a single present done.

Tuesday evening Gigi, Xavier, myself, Aunt Bonnie, Jenn, Amy, Charlie and Caden all went to Christmas at the Zoo. It was cold. It was also raining. We were one party of maybe 6 others that I saw. This is Xavier all dressed in his warm clothes and being smothered with blankets in his stroller. By the end of the one hour we were there, we were running through the rain to get to our cars!

Charlie and Caden in the Wagon. (good thing for the Canopy.......)

Gigi and X while I was taking pics!

The live Reindeer

The Polar Bear outside the "Oceans" at the Zoo.

Sharks you can pet!

Jenn showing the boys how to decorate cookies!

Caden didn't really want to eat the cookie. He would just poke and put a finger in the icing and lick it off. Finger in the icing, lick it off........

Last but not least! Picture with Santa!

Caden wasn't really feeling Santa at first, so good ole Jenn got in the picture with the boys!

Caden warmed up to Santa though and told him he wanted a train for Christmas. Xavier was just chilling the whole time.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Somebody is opening presents early............... sorry Aunt Be-be, so far yours is the one he continues to open and eat. I found him gnawing on the box earlier today.

Someone looks a lot likes his daddy here.

I want the camera!!!!!

Posing, well actually he was rubbing his head into the carpet, meaning it is time for someones nap! I can't figure out how to turn this picture around though on here....it is horizontal in my pictures.

I see that camera again!!! Give it to me!

Great Aunt Shady gave us a Christmas snowman. Xavier loves going up to him and just knocking him over or chewing on his carrot nose! He also "talks" to him, not sure what they talk about! I am working on getting video coverage of this!

It wasn't so great to be a Florida gator last night.........

Xavier is taking steps and "walking" all around. He usually does 3-5 steps, falls down and then crawls to his destination. He does hold my hand and walk from room to room though, so he is definitely getting the hang of it.

We are super excited for Christmas at the Knott house! Xavier is only getting a couple things and I have decided some wrapped empty boxes with glossy magazines are in his future too! It is hard to want to get him too many toys as our family room has already been taken over by toys and his 1st Birthday will be around the corner after Christmas, which means more toys! I can't believe that Xavier will be 10 months old next week! He is such a joy and it is so exciting to see what new things he does everyday! He hasn't really said many words that are understandable. It does sound like he says Da-da and Gi-gi and he definitely has his moments of when he is trying to say something but it is complete babble! Loud babble at that! So I am still patiently waiting to hear Ma-ma from those precious lips!

He is enjoying more and more table food. If he sees me eating he instantly crawls over to me to get a bite!

Oh and sweet sleep.......he has figured out that nap-time and bed-time mean going to sleep on his own in the crib! His crying-it-out is less and less everyday, sometimes no crying at all! Last night he slept from 7:30pm until 7:45am!!!! And no wakings! Or at least if he did, I didn't wake up to hear it! So knock on wood, we are starting to get the sleep thing figured out!

Okay well the little guy is waking and the Colts are getting ready to start AND we have some shopping to do this afternoon. Dad went to the Colts game so Mom gets a new sweater, or shoes, or something, doesn't matter, some new article is coming my way today! :)

Rub a Dub

Two Nakey's in the tub!

I thought it would be a g-reattt idea to put the boys in the bath together last week while home at my parents house! Xavier just wanted to check out the faucet most of the time and CW was flapping around like a fish most of the time. At the end of the bath I was worn out!

Playing nicely!

CW loves to go downstairs at my parents house and play on the pool table with the pool balls. Xavier likes it too but so far he can't sneakily try to get down the stairs. I caught CW trying to move the play-yard out of the way of the gate and go down. Notice CW's hair accessory! Whenever he goes to Gigi and Opa's he always finds this old head-band of mine in my room and wants to wear it!

And notice the shoes. This pic he has my running shoes on but he gave a valiant effort to try to put on my really tall rain boots. My boots however, are too tall and hit jimmy-pee-pee so he was done with my boots, for that day anyway.

On Thanksgiving we were trying to take a picture of my Grandparents with their Great-Grandchildren. The experience was a text book you-tube video of trying to get 6 kids from 10 weeks to 5 years old to all at least look at the camera! Xavier is smiling. Jayden isn't happy. Mikylah looks mad, Charlie is looking at Chloe who is crying and Caden doesn't want to be in the picture! But G & P are smiling away!!

I think I took about 20 pictures and we did actually get some of them all looking in the same direction. Miss Chloe was getting hungry though!

Grandi and Xavier at Grandi's Thanksgiving.

Xavier is sizing up cousin Graham. New this year to the Knott/McDonald family Thanksgiving, were little kids! They were definitely the hit of the holiday!
I hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving!
Xavier is taking more and more steps. Last week he did 12 for a couple days, then 13. I don't think he will actually be "walking" yet for at least another week, maybe even two, but he is trying!
We started our "sleep-training" on Friday night. After 40 minutes of crying he went to sleep. Last night I dropped the ball and let him eat to long and he got way to sleepy and pretty much went right to sleep in the crib. Tonight, he was out in 4 minutes. I am not going to get ahead of myself though, we still have a ways to go before the Knott house gets a wake-free night of sleep!
We put up the Christmas tree today! And believe it or not......for the second year in a row I got all my white lights on and was about to plug them in when I realized I put them on backwards, again. Ugh, I was so mad! For the second stringing, Jake decided to give in and help me out. When we got finished and turned them on, the middle strand didn't work. Ugh, again, since I specifically plugged all 3 strands in to see if they worked! So I took off the middle strand and plugged it in and went light by light to check the bulbs. Xavier did something and Jake dropped his end and Ta-Da, the lights all came back on! So back on the tree they went, they are still on as we speak, along with the color lights I then put on afterwards. The correct way. When Xavier got up from his nap he was interested in the tree and the lights. He also wanted to open a freshly wrapped package for Caden. We will see how many people's presents have little finger holes or tears in them this year!
Okay well its 9:30 and this mama is ready for bed!

5 Double Wide

This is the size Xavier got for his "first" pair of shoes. They certainly are not the cutest shoes out there, but when you have to wear double wides, you take what you can get I guess.....

He does have a pair of white Nike's that are wide, but I can already barely get his feet in them, there goes $25 down the drain!

This ice-cube is a slippery little sucker!

It was funny to watch him try to chew on the ice cube, then it would slip out of his hands on the floor and he would try to get it and it would slide away.....shouldn't laugh but it was funny!

I finally got some close-ups of him smiling for my Christmas card! I usually have them ordered and received by now, but due to other things going on I am a little behind this year. :)

Cheese!

Thankfully you cannot see the snot dripping down his nose in these pics! We have been keeping kleenex in business this week. Poor little guy has had a runny nose most of the week and a nice deep cough. Thankfully (knock on wood) it has not affected his already wakeful night sleeping. He is still only getting up once a night sometimes twice depending on how early he goes down. This Friday though, is sleep training night! I am so excited to start putting him to bed and hearing the poor little guy cry.....joking, I am NOT looking forward to it at all. I have reached the point though that I just cannot keep getting up at night and at 6 am in the morning and then be a nice person all day. When I think about it I have been waking up nightly for at least a year now. This time last year I was starting to get into the pee-ing all night phase of my pregnancy, boy I don't miss that!

We had Xavier's 9 month check up and all is well, except for the cold that is. He had to get 3 shots and took the first one in stride without any tears but #2 and 3 he just did not appreciate. He has grown 2 inches since his 6 month appointment and Dr Jim was impressed with him. He is a standing machine these days. Yesterday he took 3 steps for Grandi and me. He wouldn't show daddy when he got home, but he did it! He loves to put his arms up for "touch-down" or how big is Xavier. Still loves getting into the same things. Now if you go out the garage door he super crawls to it to try to get out too and if he makes it just as the door is shutting.....he does not like that! He found mommy's set of VHS tapes this week, I think he really wants to watch SHAG or Runaway Bride because he keeps taking these 2 tapes out of the cases. I am not real sure why I still have VHS tapes since I don't have a VCR, but I just don't know that I am ready to part with Shag yet. Somehow I imagine they will "disappear" when we move in the spring.

I am happy to say that I am 50% done with Christmas shopping. And here I was thinking this would be the first year in my life that I would be shopping the week before! Thanks Grandi for watching X while I did some shopping yesterday.

Can you believe it is Thanksgiving already? I can't. And Christmas is around the corner!

I cannot wait to decorate as I love this time of year! I am hoping though my tree will stay up-right too and I don't have any disasters!

Okay have a Happy Thanksgiving with family and friends!
Love to my brother Drew who we won't see until Christmas this year!

Last home football game...

Xavier hanging out at Gigi's wearing his Wabash shirt before the Bell Game.

Xavier wearing his Knott Onesie from Trey and Jen

Xavier and one of his Deno girlfriends

Me, Ali, April and Emily at Harry's! April and Emily made their first appearance to a Boiler game this year, followed by a trip to the Chocolate shop.

A few of my favorite things!

I love to un-roll the toilet paper roll. Sometimes I stick a little piece in my mouth to eat! (he also figured out how to flush!)

I see mommy's camera.......

It's a trash can! Why does he want to play with trash???
(maybe he will want to be a trash man like Uncle Drew)

Look for a book, pull it off the shelf and throw it on the floor!!!

What? The sippy cup is supposed to go in my mouth??

Look at me standing all by myself!

And mommy thought these were supposed to keep the babies from playing with the outlets. Little did she know I would be able to get them out!!

Up the step, down the step, up the step, down the step. At least I finally caught him going backwards instead of forwards! Good job X!

Probably not a good idea to let him "chew" on the glass table, but I think he does it at least a couple times a day!

I throw right-handed!! Whew.

I rolled the ball to Xavier last week and he threw it back to me. So I rolled it again, he threw it back. Had to make sure it wasn't by accident! His daddy was so excited when he got home from work that night to find out he was starting to throw and it was with the right hand!

Standing with the help of a chair and the side table. I found out I can open the doors on the table and look at all of mommy's pictures from the last 5 years! I also like to chew on the knobs or stick them in my mouth anyway.

Whew! I tell you. I didn't realize all the things he gets into on a daily basis until I put the pictures on here! The big one I am missing though is the fridge. I open the fridge and he comes flying from wherever he is so he can play with the bottles/stuff on the first 2 shelves. If I shut the door before he gets there, he is not HAPPY.

I have NOT forgiven the Governor or anyone else who thought DST was a great idea. X used to be pretty regular about waking up around 7. Thanks to DST I stare 6 am in the face everyday now, or at least for the last week. He is still waking up once or twice a night, except last night. Last night he decided to wake up at 11:30, 12:30, 1:30 and 2:30.

Einstein coffee was definitely on my radar this morning and we went and got Qdoba breakfast burritos! Yum! Jake says to me as we were leaving the parking lot. It is 8:30 am on a Sunday and we have been up for 2.5 hours and eaten breakfast! Oh how life changes :)

But we wouldn't change any of it for a minute. We love our precious little monkey, sleepless nights and all!

It is a B-eautiful weekend here in Indy! Today is clean out the garage day and get organized day. Well in between First downs anyway of the Bears game, followed by the 4pm game and the 8pm game. Okay, maybe its an organizing day for me. (joking Jake, I know you will be productive today)

Might get down the Christmas decor so I can be ready to do that at Thanksgiving! Although this year is limited decorating due to a 2 legged little guy who stands about 2.5 feet tall!

Okay, he is waking up from his nap, gotta go!