Too cute

Yesterday my B-I-L was taking a Christmas picture of 8 of the 9 grandkids. My sis Heather and her youngest Jake can't make it up till Christmas Eve from Columbus, but since Jeremy lives with his dad right now, less than a mile from my sis Linda's house he goes to visit a lot. Jeremy and Chris are both 15 and freshman and have become quite close over the last few months. The order of kids goes like this:

Christian Louis - 15 (Linda's son)
Jeremy Jordan - 15 (Heather's son)
Anthony Wade - 13 (Linda's son)
Kyle Frederick - 11 (Linda's son)
Jacob Bailey - 10 (Heather's son) - Desi, my B-I-L, is going to crop him into the photo, can't wait to see the end product!
Kayla Ann - 8 (Linda's daughter)
Nicolaos William - 7 (Linda's son)
Ethan Forrest - 6 (My son)
Alexander Francis - 3 (My son)

Now, obviously it's disproportionate for poor Kayla being the only girl. I keep trying to convince Jason we should try and have another baby and if it's a girl, how neat would that be. Yeah, he's not going for it. Oh well.

Anyway, as Desi was taking the pictures, we were trying to get the kids (especially the younger ones) to all look at the camera and smile.

We told them to say cheese.

Everyone except for one child: Cheese!

Ethan: Broccoli!!!

Huge smiles and laughs from EVERYBODY including Nana and Papa O., Lin, Desi, Daddy and me!! Too funny!

I love it when he does unexpected things like this!

In other news, Ethan is learning to control his behaviors nicely. Instead of getting upset and melting down over silly little things, he calmly talks and asks a question or explains his thoughts! So second grade classroom, just watch out! He'll be there soon.

Also I guess since poor Alex hasn't been raved about on here in awhile, I should definitely give a quick update on him too! I *think* we have another early reader in the family. Ethan read at 3, I read by about 4 or so, and now Alex is recognizing words like crazy! Today he was looking at the lunchable he picked out and was sounding out the letters and read pizza. Now he did know it was pizza, but he was pointing to the letters and actually telling me what sounds each one makes and then said "This says pizza, Mom. Right here."

We had a good weekend. My parents and Jason's dad came over for homemade lasagna on Saturday and he got some b-day gifts. A new Cleveland Browns jersey, some hunting clothes and targets, and a DVD of the movie Wanted.
Sunday we went to Linda and Desi's to celebrate Kyle and Kayla's birthday. We got Kyle 2 Harry Potter books, and Kayla a shirt, Belle jewelry box and a silver elephant link bracelet. Sloppy Joes, cake and lots of playing.