Merry Christmas!

We had Christmas at home this year. Our quiet morning was followed by a wonderful afternoon meal celebrating Christmas with family.

Josiah was thrilled with his new foot-powered car from Mom and Dad. He continues to rediscover it daily, and is always so excited to see it in the morning when he gets up. He really started to get into gift-receiving this year, not so much with unwrapping, but was really interested in what was inside the box (he would say "oooh!" to everyone's gifts).

Nearing the end...

This is a pic of my friend Sarah and I near the end of our pregnancies at work. We're due a few days apart from each other. We are both SO ready to be done! Her last day before maternity leave, I have a couple more... So jealous!

Meagan

Surprise visit from Grandma for Christmas!

So fun to see my grandma for Christmas, got a chance to spend some quality time with her and my mom. And they got to spend time with Josiah, which he loved.

Mastering the first of the new toys.

Nativity

One of Josiah's early Christmas gifts was a nativity set that he can play with. So far he loves it, especially opening and closing the manger doors.

Long day. Happy 60th birthday grandpa Jim!

Mexican

Jj's favorite thing to do at our favorite Mexican restaurant is double-dipping the salsa. Actually it is more like quadruple or quintuple dipping. Oh well one day he will learn but not today.

Nap Head.

Enough said.

Danskos anyone?

JJ likes to wear Meg's shoes around the house.  Some times it is her slippers and other times it's her Danskos.

Ranch

Ranch anybody?

Homeday

Jj and meg spent the day doing errands and avoiding the nasty weather outside.  Of course errands are always more complicated when Seth takes both strollers, but they survived.

Pumpkin carving at Grandma's

Jj and Seth went to Grandma's house and carved pumpkins on Saturday.  We had a great time and Jj helped... a little.  Enjoy the pictures.

Testing mobile blogging

We are testing mobile blogging.  Here is JJ at the park.

15 months

15 months ago we were eagerly awaiting our new little buddy.  Now he's here and growing up so fast!

Around here, days are fast-paced and filled with adventure (and a few other things like meals and naps).

It's "all done" all day long ("all done" is his first and favorite word to say). 

Up the steps down the steps up the steps down the steps up the steps down the steps... practice makes perfect. 

Fascination with doors has only grown.  Now he can reach the doorknob and pull doors closed from the outside (time to get those childproof doorknobs I guess). 

The "N" word (no) has not yet been said by our buddy, but we do use it sparingly to avoid his response (10/10 times it's met with tears and fits from little buddy.  He likes to do the downward dog pose, then throw himself backwards until his head is inches from the floor, then he will ease his head slowly to to floor, all whilst screaming.  Moments later he is all done and will get up, run to do something else smiling and laughing.) 

Lately one of my favorite games is to give him a big hug and then he gets down and pretends to run away, I then pick him up for another hug.  The game loops as long as he's laughing.

Little buddy's 'lovey' (he likes to take it to nap time and carry it all over)

Playing with food is as much fun as eating it.  Here you can see the squashing in progress.

Silly.

Messy.

This doggie gets plenty of exercise

This is the fit about the one time I said the "N" word.

Road Rash

With walking also comes falling.  So far, this is the worst we've had.  This one's from taking on the cement walk just outside our house.

Good thing it's nothing a toy stethoscope can't fix.  (This stethoscope, by the way, says in Cookie Monster's voice "Eat two cookies and call me in the morning." Good advice, Cookie Monster.)

Walking, Rocks and Raisins

We've been watching our baby walk all over the place.  He started walking a little before his birthday, and spent a lot of time walking through the house with his hands outstretched to steady himself.  Seth liked to call it the "zombie" walk.  After a few weeks of that walk, he has much better balance and can now walk around the house swinging his hands back and forth, looking bored.  He also spends a large amount of the morning tracking from the living room to his bedroom to the end of the hall to the kitchen and back to the living room.

One of the benefits of walking, he has discovered, is that he can now carry something from one place to another.  This is great when he wants to carry his sippy cup around.  This is not great when we find random toys in places they clearly do not belong (i.e. the little chuck truck I tripped over in the kitchen yesterday afternoon, and again in the bathroom three times overnight).

So with all of this walking, we've been going outside a bit more.  Since I've been trying to get more exercise, J.J., the jogging stroller, and I teamed up for an afternoon at the waterfront a few days ago.  Armed with a blankie, snacks and a camera, we had a great time.

We also went down to the beach where he had fun exploring sand and rocks.

 

Olives, Diaper Cream and Doors

A few things you should know about our son...

1. He intuitively knows that olives belong on your fingers - no modeling required!

2. He loves to chew on the diaper cream tube.

3. He can walk pretty fast... it's nearly a run.

4. He loves to open and close doors.

5. He knows where to go when it's bedtime (to his room).

Before Christmas our family had the opportunity to have some professional photos taken.  Here are a few of my favorites from that photo session.  He was nine months old at the time of these photos.  Enjoy!

Photos on this post courtesy of Matt Gebhart Photography -- Thanks Matt!

Catching you up.

Here begins a series of entries that will attempt to chronicle the important (and not so important) events for us over the last few months.  We'll start tonight with a little from before Christmas.

This is what I get to see every morning when he wakes me up... except this doesn't fully appreciate the fact that he is jumping up and down and talking or screaming loudly.  At least he's usually happy!

For the first haircut we went to a professional (we'll talk about the second haircut later).  She did a great job and he didn't mind at all!

Here's the little guy helping me wrap Christmas presents.  (He has sure grown a LOT since then!)

He was very serious about the whole operation.

One of my favorite memories of him at this stage is when he would play with his toy drum and sit and bounce to the music.  But I can't find that video right now, so I picked something else equally memorable--this is one of my favorites!  Hope you enjoy!!!