Christmas 2008

This is before Christmas, but I had a request for pictures of Jack with Sunga...she is really good with him, no worries here at all.We had a great Christmas. We spent the actual holiday in Utah with my family, but before we went, we gave Jack his presents from Santa. As was expected, he was more into the wrapping paper than the toys, but this one was a hit. I have video of him unwrapping, but it's not that exciting.
Later that day, after Matt had finished a 24 hour shift we headed to the Detroit airport. We left fairly early because the weather was iffy and arrived with time to spare. We were waiting for the plane to arrive when it was announced that it had blown a tire on landing and would be delayed an hour... three hours... canceled. We were rebooked to arrive the next night, given a hotel voucher and sent to baggage claim. Then the flight was uncanceled. We went back through security and finally landed in Salt Lake 12 hours late after spending most of the night in the freezing cold Detroit airport. (employees in the terminal stores were wearing coats and scarves and mittens) We were very happy to arrive!!
Airport napping:
Santa came to my family Christmas party. As we hadn't yet taken Jack to see Santa, we were excited to get the traditional first Santa picture with terrified child. My favorite is the look on Santa's face. There were lots of kids in the under two crowd and every one of them screamed. (Thanks for being such a good sport Uncle Randy!)
Things improved Christmas morning. Jack was excited to see all the presents (or at least all the wrapping paper and boxes).He started to get the hang of unwrapping. I think he may have been confused that this was paper he was allowed to rip up. We are now safely home and wish you all a Happy New Year!!

Did we really think this through?

Last winter looked something like this...This winter looks something like this... ...and I'm told it lasts until about May. Apparently it does stop snowing, but just long enough to dig everything out. I think we may be investing in a snowblower before too long. Especially since the really heavy, wet, deep snow seems to fall when Matt is on 24 hour call. Meaning that Jack's nap=me shoveling.
Matt got home in time to shovel the overnight snowfall--4 inches or so of the light fluffy stuff...he missed the 10inches of heavy, icy fun from yesterday. He did do most of the work today and dug out the end of the driveway that the snow plows contribute to...I wussed out on that part.
I couldn't post without a cute picture of Jack...Christmas ribbon is yummy!

This video is a little dark, especially at the end, but still pretty cute. He's been into "reading" the books he takes off the bookshelves lately. I love the little kicking legs and the "kiss" (aka lick) he gives the mom in the picture.

Let it snow!

We had our first major snowfall last week and yesterday it really came down again. I was really pretty...big huge snowflakes. I shoveled this morning though, and am wondering why we left Hawaii...and why we bought a house with such a loooong driveway.

This is Matt and Sunga out in the backyard...hard to tell, I know.Jack's first big snowstorm.
Out front yard. It really is pretty here.

New addition...

I finally gave in and we adopted a dog yesterday. She's a lab mix, about 14 months old. She came house broken and semi-trained (which was one of my conditions). She has a really sweet temperament, the trainer at the shelter thought she may have been trained as a therapy dog. After taking her (or rather attempting to take her) for a walk, I don't think that's the case, but she could probably be trained for it pretty easily. She is very friendly, very patient with Jack (he loves it when she licks his fingers) and very scared of everything right now. She has to be carried down the stairs to the basement, I had to reschedule her appointment with the groomer to when Matt could help me get her in the car...but I think she just needs to get used things. We (by "we" I mean Matt--he's had dog names picked out for years) named her Suga (pronounced "soon-ga"). It means "girl" in Samoan. Keep your fingers crossed that I'm up for this!!

Jack is pulling up on everything now and starting to cruise. I think he really may be walking by Christmas. I got him this little walker/push toy a couple weeks ago. He used to really scare me with it (the wheels moved too fast), but now he's starting to get the hang of it.
I know he looks like he has "crazy eyes" in these, but really he's just learning to be a ham for the camera.

This is how he always starts. I have to put him in the right spot for him to actually push the toy the right way. What were they thinking putting all the cool stuff to play with on the opposite side from where you should pull up?

I am so excited to have my computer access back! We have two laptops. Mine was dropped and the LCD screen cracked. About a week later, Matt's stopped recognizing the A/C cord and once the battery ran out we no longer had a working computer. Mine came back from its trip to Dell today and we are reconnected!! It's crazy how out of the loop I've felt the last couple weeks! I'm excited to catch up on everything!

About a month ago my mom decided that since she couldn't come see us in Michigan, Jack and I should go see her...so we went to Utah for a week. Lindsey, Tom and Liam were moving back for a few months for two of Tom's internships, and we timed it so they got there before we left to come back to Michigan.
Isn't Liam too cute? When this kid is happy he's really happy!
Jack learned to go up and down stairs (well two of them) at grandma's house.We spent hours in the airport like this. Jack would sit on a blanket on the floor, go through the carry-on, and flirt with everyone around us. As usual, Jack was quite the little traveler. He never cried on the plane and entertained himself for hours with a cup that the flight attendant gave him. I don't know how we got so lucky to have such an easy-to-travel-with kid.
The weekend before Halloween, we went to a local pumpkin patch to get pumpkins. They had hay rides, a corn maze, and a petting zoo with baby goats, alpacas, cows, pigs and chickens (we didn't pet them all) in addition to the pumpkin patch. We had a great time. I can't believe that this is five minutes from our house...sometimes I forget that we really live out in the middle of farm country.
Family picture at the pumpkin patch. (If you know Matt you know the draw here was the old truck)Jack had a little Halloween outfit for the season, complete with Jack-o-lantern robeez (shoes). I had to get a picture.
We dressed jack up as a penguin. We bought the costume last year when I was pregnant. I took him to be in the parade at the library that they broadcast on the local cable access channel, but that was all he dressed up for...it was too hot to keep him in his costume! I thought Michigan was supposed to be cold! It was 68 degrees on Halloween.
We stayed home Halloween night and carved pumpkins.