Coming Home!

On our way home from Minnesota we stopped by at Grandma and Gram's house to pick up some of the stuff we left. Grandma had assembled Jaydon's new Tricycle so we tried it out. It is pretty cool!

We realize we need to work on how the helmet fits and his feet can't quite hit the pedals yet even in the nearest position so we have a ways to go before we will use it regularly but Jaydon does enjoy it.

Finally home and the first thing Jaydon wants to do is snuggle with Higgins, the first thing Higgins wants to do is escape from Jaydon. Oh well. We had a fabulous trip and entire holiday season. It was very busy but so much fun!

Christmas #4 - Minnesota

Christmas Day we flew to Minnesota to meet up with Granny and Papa and meet the extended family. It was a whirlwind trip (only a couple days) but it was wonderful to get to see everyone again and introduce them to Jaydon.

Just getting off the airplane and seeing Granny and Papa in baggage claim. I so wish Jaydon would sleep on airlplanes but alas, he just fights it and then is very tired after.

First stop - Aunt Nonnie and Uncle Bob's house. It was pretty late but it was definitely worth it. Jaydon was opening one of his presents and he kept handing each tiny piece of paper to Uncle Bob, it was pretty cute.

The only place he took naps the entire time, riding in the car. Also his first experience with riding forward in a car. He is totally fine size wise to ride forward but we still have him rear facing because "they" say it is safer to keep them rear facing as long as possible and Jaydon doesn't mind.

Going sledding with cousin Nicholas, Granny, and Papa. Nicholas got a new snowboard for Christmas and he wanted to try it out. He did an amazing job for never having been snowboarding before!

Still waking up so he thought he might just rest on the sled.

Nevermind, this is fun!

Jaydon really enjoyed sledding with daddy until he went through a pocket of powder that tossed snow in his face. It was a great hill (I sure don't remember being bounced around so much on a sled before) and we had a great time.

A picture of Nicholas getting to the bottom of the hill.

Trying out the steel drum app on Granny's IPAD while we waited for our food at the Nepali restaurant.

The morning we had to get ready to go we let Jaydon sleep as long as possible. He started out every night in the pack n' play but I would bring him into bed sometime in the early hours and he and I slept together. I could tell he was exhausted by the end of the trip because he just wanted to keep sleeping in.

At Great-Grandma Tozzie's before we left to the airport. Hugging Scout.

Mads enjoying the igloo that a friend of the family, Jay, built.

Jaydon, Papa and Granny next to the igloo.

Family photo. We didn't do a great job of getting photos of everyone and everything. We had a wonderful time and hope to get back there for another visit soon.

A couple not great quality videos of our sledding adventures.

Christmas #3

After Christmas Eve festivities, we headed back to my step-grandparents to spend the night and wake up Christmas morning with my dad, Diane, CJ and Jimmie. This plan worked out well because we were flying out later in the day for MN and it put us closer to the airport. This plan did not work so well in that Jaydon slept terribly and was up for a couple hours in the middle of the night.

He loves animals, here he was trying to snuggle with Troy.

Troy was not so sure about this little human but he did pretty well putting up with Jaydon.

Opening just a couple more gifts.

BOOKS! Jaydon loves books and he got a ton for Christmas, it was pretty crazy that we avoided any repeats!

Jaydon also doesn't realize how lucky he really is. I always wanted one of these punching bag type toys when I was a kid but no such luck. He got one from his Auntie Kelsey and Uncle Tyler - it was quite a hit.

We didn't even have the batteries in it yet to find out what kind of additional fun that will provide.

Christmas #2

Jeremy calls this Christmas #3 but I don't consider Leavenworth a Christmas, it is just a wonderful Christmas decorating party, so for now it will remain only Christmas #2.

My mom's family has been celebrating on Christmas Eve forever so this was our Christmas Eve celebration at my aunt's house. The family enjoyed a good old German meal of sauerkraut and spare-ribs for dinner.

You can see Grandma, Cousin Joe, Auntie Jenny, Cousin Sam, Great-Grandpa, Ed, Jaydon and me getting ready to enjoy the holiday feast. Though it must be mentioned our family ran a bit late and so great-grandpa had already eaten!

Keelah was there enjoying the party.

We missed Darlene but she sent along this crazy Chinese fortune game which Great-Grandpa was reading to everyone. The fortunes were a bit grim, but still entertaining.

Jaydon enjoyed opening his presents again!

He was getting pretty hot and tired after awhile (it takes a long time to open gifts with my maternal side of the family).

Ed got a lovely rain hat, I am not sure he was all that fond of it.

Jaydon really enjoyed his new tricycle box (I am sure he will enjoy the tricycle too, but for now the box was just fine).

Christmas Carolers

We live in an AWESOME neighborhood. Our little cul-de-sac has 8 houses and we took plates of cookies around to everyone to enjoy during the Christmas season. We certainly did not expect anything in return - but every single house brought us some holiday goodie. It was really pretty fun to be a part of.

This was a terrible picture of our neighbors Bud and Trudy bringing part of their large family by to sing us a couple Christmas carols. I can't remember ever having been caroled to in the past and I loved it!

Here you can see Trudy with a couple of her great-grands and they call their great-grandchildren.

Christmas #1

We celebrated Christmas #1 down at my step-grandparents house on the 19th. Everyone was able to get there except Auntie Kelsey and Uncle Tyler (who we missed dearly and hope they can come up for a visit soon)! Jaydon was spoiled and I can tell I am enjoying the first Christmas where Jaydon can really participate because I found there were almost no photos other than of him opening or playing with a present.

Great-Grandpa CJ and Great-Grandma Jimmie got Jaydon this cool fire truck/dump truck/duplo truck/making noise truck. Jaydon loved it and of course had to try standing on the seat as soon as he could.

Here he was opening a crazy dinosaur from Aunt Judy and Aunt Karen. It roars if you press on its chest and Jaydon gets a kick out of it. He was a bit hesitant about it being done a lot right away but now he has learned to step on it (because he isn't strong enough to have it make sounds using his hands yet).
More riding the fire truck.

Opening his great train from Nana and Grandpa. He loves it so much we got one to send to his friend Peter. We hope Peter enjoys it too!

Visit with the Millards

We got to enjoy a wonderful visit from the Millard family. It has been hard to coordinate a good time to see them since we moved away so it was great to get them to come up and see us. It was also really nice that Ben put Christmas lights up outside on our house! I have been waiting for outside lights and I finally got them :-)

Jaydon really enjoyed playing dominos with Tyler.

Lauren joined the fun climbing on stools.

If you look carefully you can see Micah standing at the island playing with some cards. Rachel was around somewhere and the kids had a good time. So did the adults!

"Helping" with laundry

There have been times Jaydon is a real helper with the laundry, pushing it down the hallway for me, throwing it in the dryer or getting it from the dryer to the basket and into the living room. Then there are times like this....

He wanted his lambie that was in the laundry! Everything must come out!

Jaydon enjoying the camera

One day Jaydon was being really cute and being a ham for the camera. He was almost posing and smiling and then just being silly. It was pretty fun to watch, if only we had a good camera that didn't take so long to actually capture the image.

He sure was enjoying himself and you can't beat a blanket and his golf club for entertainment!

Christmas Photos

When we were living down south we were right next to a cool pet shop that did Santa pictures with your pets. We were one of the few families to bring in our cats (it was mostly dogs) but it became tradition for us. This year we weren't around so we tried doing a timer photo for our Christmas card. Many of you received the card with what we deemed to be our most successful shot (and I will admit for taking it ourselves on a timer I think it turned out pretty darn well).

It did not work out so well for me to try holding both cats. Jeremy loves this photo, I hate it. I put it on here because I knew he would enjoy it immensley.

"Jaydon, look at the blinking red light!"

Come on Lily, its not so bad.

Pretty darn close!

Ok, we aren't pressing our luck anymore!