Family Photos

Below is a link to some family photos we had taken! They are by Steve Fellers Photography here in Arkadelphia. We decided it was time to finally get some professional photos and it was so worth it! The boys both did a great job despite the fact that there were gnats plaguing us. I'm still glad we had them taken outside, though.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100272961938973.2481394.9218136&type=1&l=eebfe67bfe

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas! See you in 2012.

Christmas at Home

Merry Christmas everyone! We celebrated our Christmas at home which is where we open all our presents to each other before flying to the grandparents' house for actual Christmas Day. We wrapped everything and had it under the tree for Saturday morning so Micah could get the full effect :-) He was not disappointed. "All these are for us?!" You can see him counting all the gifts in this first photo. This year we had him read all the tags to see if they were for him. He can recognize his own name and Jacob's name now. Of course he helped open 'lil bro's gifts too! We had our "Happy Birthday Jesus" party at church yesterday for all of the families with kids. It's a fun and kid-accessible way for our family to remember why we celebrate Christmas. Plus, as Micah says, there's cake!

"One for you, two for me, one for you..."

Jacob, enjoying all the excitement.

Jacobs plays with his new toy from mom and dad.

A "rite of passage": Micah receives his first Nerf toy.

Paging Dr. Micah!

"This ball popper is a blast!"

Jacob plays with his favorite toy, his foot :-)

                                             Micah and Jacob play together.

Cutiepie under the tree

Blowing razzes at the camera.

Jacob 'talks' about his first Christmas and wonders about the camera.

Micah shows Jacob how his new toy works.

Now that we've had our celebration here, we'll move our focus to getting to Delaware on Friday. So far, I'm staying sane, self-medicating with lots of chocolate, and meditating on the phrase, "it's only a two-hour flight." :-)  We are all excited about getting to spend the holiday with family, especially since it's been 2 years since we've been to DE--way too long. This may be my last post until after the holidays, so we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Haircut

The boys playing nicely together :-)

"Mmm, these 'knee' things can come in quite handy."

Losing hair, not weight!

Well, we finally bit the bullet and gave Jacob a haircut. His hair was beginning to fall down into his eyes all the time and he has ezcema on his cheeks so that wasn't helping matters! Dan got out the scissors and in a matter of minutes, he was sporting a shorter 'do. (Of course, I saved the clippings for the baby book!) We've been having a lot of sleepless nights lately because of Jacob's restlessness. I took him to the doctor to make sure he wasn't coming down with an ear infection or something but everything looks good. He's now about 22 lbs and 6 oz. He's obviously hitting another growth spurt as well, so he's back to eating in the night again. The teething has just been really tough for him and we're finally coming out of a rough week. I knew things were bad when one night, as I was trying to give Jacob some Tylenol as he was screaming and get Micah some dinner, Micah said, "Can we pray for Jacob to feel better?" Poor kid. I know he's probably been waking up at night with all the noise, but he never comes out of his room. He's a total stoic. As you can see from the pics, Jacob is becoming much more mobile, up and all fours and rocking back and forth. He and Micah have enjoyed playing with their nativity set over the last week. It plays music and there's  a star that lights up on top of the stable which has been a source of great amusement for the under 1-yr.-old crowd :-) (Also on the entertainment lineup: playing with feet and rocking out of the bouncy chair and onto the floor, followed by giggling.) Micah's been asking lots of questions about where the baby Jesus lives. In a manger? In heaven? In our hearts? How do you explain to a 4 -yr. old?

In a week from today, we'll be boarding a plane for Delaware! I hope Jacob's a good flyer, but just in case he's not, there will be Tylenol involved! Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday and balancing that with the extra tasks this time of year always brings. We're looking forward to seeing family.

Tooth Troubles

Poor little Jacob is getting his second tooth and he is not liking it! He seems to also have a cold, which doesn't help matters. The video above shows his multi-method techniques for relieving the symptoms--two finger in the mouth, making sounds and banging his head with the free hand! Sorry the video's dark, we were playing by the light of the Christmas tree! The second tooth broke through yesterday so we're hoping after this we'll get a break from teething for awhile. You can hear him say "ba ba ba". He also says "da da da" which dad is pretty excited about! The other day when Dan went to check on his in the crib he was up on all fours rocking back and forth apparently angry that we'd taken too long to come get him when he woke up. I don't think it'll be too long before he starts crawling.

Here is another video of our happy boy!

Our other happy boy enjoying some morning lounge time in his bathrobe :-)

We had the opportunity to meet up with my cousin Bruce who was in Little Rock for a conference at UAMS. Bruce and his wife Myra and kids Ethan and Anna currently live in Namibia, where Bruce works as a professor at a developing university there. They have been in missions in Africa for several decades now, so it's not every day that we get to see them! We had brunch at a Cracker Barrel in town and had a chance to catch up on the basics. Wish we had more time! Here's a family photo for posterity. The visit prompted a lot of questions from Micah: Africa is very far away? There are lions and giraffes there? Is Curious George there? Yes, we asked Bruce if he'd seen George, but of course I explained that George now lives with the Man With The Yellow Hat in the United States and had come from Africa years ago :-) Bruce told us some stories about the monkeys they see everyday over there and I think Micah thought that was pretty cool. Maybe someday he'll get to see that for himself.

Mom Brag

I just had to tell someone that Micah wrote his whole name by himself last night with no help from mom and dad! The "C" was sideways, but I attribute that to his naturally creative personality :-)