Big Brother!

As I'm sure you have heard by now, Justus's little sister, Piper Eden, was born two weeks early on December 23, 2010 @ 2:12am!! Weighing in at a whopping 5lbs, 15oz and measuring 19in long, she is a little peanut (or 'our little nut' as we have already started calling her!). So Justus is now officially a big brother and so far he is handling it like a little champ :)Here he is at the hospital meeting her for the first time on December 24. He got on the bed and wanted to hold her right away.
Leaning in for a smooch... he held her for a few minutes and that was about all his two-year-old attention span could handle!! I think he got bored after he realized she doesn't do much except lay there and he was more interested in pushing the buttons on my bed!
But back at home he kept sneaking in some brother/sister cuddles :)
He loves to nuzzle up to her which is super cute (and it makes his head seem HUGE next to her tiny little noggin!!).
We snuck her in his bed last night when he was sleeping...then we showed him this picture this morning! He didn't seem to mind that he unknowingly shared his bed with his little sis.
He was excited this morning that she had her eyes open (a rare occurrence since she sleeps about 98% of the time!). Not that I'm complaining... :)
More belly snuggles. Too cute! Can't wait to watch them grow up together!!

Looks Like Christmas

Well it definitely feels like Christmas here. We have our tree up and decorated. We make apple cider like every other day! And there is still plenty of snow. I still can't believe that Christmas is less than three weeks away...crazy. Justus helped us decorate the tree this year. When I asked him what we should decorate it with he said "stars and moons" so we made some of our own decorations and he put those on too!Playing with the decorations, just like dad :)
A big hug for mom (prompted by dad, but who cares??). Gotta love it!
Justus and I made cinnamon sugar cookies (the cookie cutters he chose were bats and stars!) and, of course, hot apple cider.Just when I thought some of the snow was starting to melt, it started snowing again last night and today. Our backyard is seriously a winter wonderland!

More Snow!

Well it just keeps snowing over here and doesn't show any signs of stopping any time soon! It is beautiful and Justus loves it, but we are kind of trapped! Our car doesn't drive well in snowy conditions and the roads near our house are getting worse and worse. But...like I said, Jutsus loves it so we might as well enjoy it while we can :) I love seeing him all bundled up (please notice my ghetto attempt at a mini-snowman in the background...I obviously have no idea what I'm doing since most of my winters were spent in Phoenix thinking that 60 degrees is freezing!).
Some of our neighbors were sledding (or "sledging" as they call it here) down the little hill in front of our house and they let Justus try it. Here he is - first time on a sled!
We got in a long snowball fight with our neighbor, Peter, and his friend (and by "we" I mainly mean Travis!). Here's Justus ready to pelt Peter!
Warming up inside with gloves and more hot apple 'spider' :)
The front of our house (kudos to Trav on the nice shoveling job!).
Our street - Dura View.
Trav's friend Kevin took this picture of the Swilcan Bridge at the Old Course, and I loved it and wanted to share. Like I said, it is beautiful, but let's just hope it doesn't get any worse!

Turkey & Snow

Well we had our second Thanksgiving here and it was crazy but fun! 14 of us, plus 4 kids - it was a full house and Justus was LOVING all of the attention :) This is his Thanksgiving 'cheese' face... not sure why, but he is so weird and cute!
We did get a picture this year with all three of us (well, four of us!) with Trav's eyes open this time!
The turkey-carving master...
Justus and one of his new friends, Ivy, were having so much fun together!
Justus decided that he loves hot apple "spider" (as he calls it) and he kept asking for more, while Trav drowned his pumpkin pie in whip cream :)
We had our first snowfall on Thanksgiving eve - but these pics are from the day after Thanksgiving. We actually got several more inches (well - really looks more like a foot) of snow last night so we are officially ringing in winter over here!! Justus' favorite part was, of course, eating it!
Playing chase with dad - too cute!

Undies

Since Justus has been potty-training, we get to see him walking around the house all day in his little 'Thomas the train' and superhero undies. I just can't resist taking pictures...he always looks so darn cute! Here he is golfing (in GiGi's shades)...
..."making tea" as he calls it (I fill the sink with bubbly water and he gets out his plastic cups and pours the water in and out of them, soaking the entire kitchen counter and floor in the process.)...
...listening to his playlist on the iPod, running around playing in his Superman p.j.'s...
...looking extra stylish wearing my boots and his gloves (to cover a band-aid on his hand that he keep wanting to peel off)...
...and sitting on the couch reading one of his books before bed.
Here he is running around in my boots again - this one makes me laugh!

Farmer's Market

Once a month, there is a local Farmer's Market in St. Andrews. We have only gone once before (while Peeps & Tom were visiting). There is really not much to it, just a few booths selling cheese, meats, veggies, chocolates, wines, and that sort of thing. We decided to get out of the house on Saturday morning and browse the selection. In case you're wondering, we bought some Hot Pepper Jelly (Tom bought this last time we went and we all loved it and we just ran out - thanks for introducing this to us, Kubes...we'll eat it in your honor!) and a couple of cheeses that Trav picked out - mustard cheese and whiskey cheese - both yummy actually!
Justus' favorite booth was the smoked fish stand...they were smoking the fish on the spot and selling it as a snack.
Here are the boys peeking at the process, and Trav enjoying some of the finished product!
Justus loved running up to the smoke and then running away screaming before it blew on him!
Here's a peek of the little cutie...

Happy Halloween!

Justus celebrated his second Halloween in Scotland...third in his life. He was a little green dinosaur (courtesy of Pops & GiGi) and he was super cute, as usual. Halloween is not really a big holiday over here (no trick or treaters at our door tonight - down from one last year!), so we decided to take him back to Cairnie Fruit Farm (his birthday spot) since they were actually having some holiday festivities. Plus, I needed an excuse to get him in his costume!
I mean, come on, how cute...
We had to bribe him with candy to stand in line for the costume contest (as we do with a lot of things these days).
In front of the nearly-empty pumpkin patch...
He found a little green pumpkin that was just his size.
Getting rocked by dad, once again, on the jumping pillow. Still loving it!

Enjoying some serious father-son bonding on the trampolines :)

St. Mary's Cup

So I think it might be a new tradition started this year, but on Sunday Trav played soccer in the "St. Mary's Cup" - it was his fellow ITIA (Institute for Theology, Imagination & the Arts) students vs. the rest of the theology postgrads. Trav looked like a professional compared to the rest of the crowd...but he played nice (minus the hilarious trash-talking!), passed a lot, only scored one goal (though he could have probably had about 30), and he never saw a red card (not that anyone was 'refereeing' or whatever they are called in soccer)!! Here is Trav looking like a European football star... Justus and I cheered from the sidelines - my friend Jodi was taking pictures too (some of these are hers) and she caught me with the camera in Justus' face (he is used to this by now - it is how he has spent most of his childhood!).
This is the picture I was taking...I know, nice transition :)
Justus loved kicking the ball around on the sidelines during the game, but he did take a breather to pose for us!!
The sun actually came out for a few minutes, which was nice!
Of course he wants to be just like his dad...he already loves soccer (and golf!) so he is well on his way :)
Action shot!! This belongs in Sports Illustrated for Kids or something.
In case you're curious, Trav's team dominated!

Almost Famous

Justus got some 'air-time' last weekend during the Sky Sports broadcast of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship (an annual golf tournament in St. Andrews). Trav took him down to the Old Course on the last day, and Justus took his plastic putter and one of his golf balls. Trav said that he was stealing the show and that wherever they were half of the people were watching the pros and half were watching Justus! He even had a couple random people tell him that they saw Justus on the TV broadcast (we even had a friend in Australia who said he saw them during their broadcast too!), so when they got home we found it and here it is for your viewing pleasure... (we had to film it with our video camera playing on the TV so the quality is not great, but you still get the idea!)

Panda Club

Justus just started in a weekly gymnastics class (more like tumbling) called Panda Club. There are all kinds of mats, trampolines, bars, beams, etc. set up all over the gym and the teacher just puts on music and basically lets the kids run around for 45 minutes. He absolutely LOVES every single minute of it and does not stop running around until the time is up! If you ask him what his favorite thing about Panda Club is, he says "running" and "jumping."Smiling after doing a somersault :)
Climbing up one of the ladders - he gets to jump off onto a squishy mat when he gets to the top... good motivation.
Climbing up a tunnel.
Here is 1 minute of the 45...