Christmas without words

Attempt at a movie

Entry by Mark

This is my first attempt at uploading a movie we made with our Flip camera.

Entry by Mark

Seattle was buried by an immense snowstorm in the last few days. There is more snow than I have seen in a while. I am thankful we have a 4x4 now. Rebecca and I have been staying home from the office and doing work from home. It is hard to work when there is so much fun outside.

We dressed J in her snowsuit and headed out to check out the neighborhood. I wondered whether she was registering that it was a lot different than usual, and that this was out of the ordinary. She was taking it all in stride.







Entry by Rebecca-
Here are some photos from our backyard. It is a real winter wonderland. Folks have been x-country skiing in the streets. Yesterday on our walk we saw parents pulling their kids on sleds. The kids were yelling, "Faster Daddy Faster" and I thought that is going be our little girl in a couple of years. Mark sat in our back room with Josie while I tried to work yesterday and told her stories about the big blizzard of 1978.





Here is Josie "apres" snow. She is just chillin' out with her snow suit unzipped. I picked up this snow suit for $20.00 at the Hanna Anderson outlet in Woodenville. Most of the clothes I buy there are only $5.00 each, but I decided to spend the big bucks on the pink snow suit since all of her hand-me-downs are from boys.






Aren't Mark and Josie the best looking daddy/daughter duo in the world? Each day I am so happy we are a family. Mark has been real trooper helping out during Josie's recent illness. Last Wednesday Josie got a temperature of 102.4. We took her to the doctor and they checked her out and sent us home with the diagnosis of "viral cold" and instructions to take Tylenol. The next day her temp was still over 101.5 and she was miserable... crying non-stop, arching her back, boogers and snot everywhere. Her eye was also goopy and yellow. We went back to the doctor and she was given amoxicillin. Good news is that she started to feel better after five doses of the anti-biotic. As you can tell from the photo, she was happy to get out of the house and take in the snow.




Here is the family in the snow. We went to the Loyal Heights Community Center near our house and there were tons of kids and parents on flying saucers, sleds and even snowboards. Folks had built little bumps in the snow. We might blow up our intertubes and go later today. And grandmothers don't worry - we won't take the baby down the hill!



Sweet sleeping baby

It has been a while, so lots of pictures (unless I get interrupted)

Entry by Mark

Our family has been very busy this holiday season. Or, at least it seems that way based on how long it has taken me to get time to post more pictures. The big event was flying back to Indiana to introduce J to her Midwest relatives. We flew a red-eye flight to Indy via Minneapolis, and that went really well with J sleeping for most of both legs of the trip, and there was no crying on any of the take-off's or landing (not on the return trip either). We were fortunate that on the longer of the legs, we had an empty seat in our row so we could spread out a little bit. It was much easier traveling with a baby than I was expecting.

We were back in Indiana for about a full week. We had enough time to spend time with all my sisters' families and my Mom and Dad and not feel like we were rushing from one event to another. We stayed at my Dad's the whole time.

Here are pictures...

First a non-family picture, here is the interior of Indianapolis' new airport. It had only been open one or two weeks and everything was sparkly and new. I was very impressed, our bags even beat us to the baggage claim area.





This is a nice family photo we took while we were all lounging around Dad's house...




Here she meets her Grandpa Good..




Here she meets her Grandma Good...





Here J meets her Aunt Susie....




...and Susie's son...






This is at my sister Diane's home on Thanksgiving day...




Here she meets her cousin on Thanksgiving...





Here is a few non-Thanksgiving photos that I have been meaning to post, but haven't been able to find time to put up until now. This is J hanging out in her stroller before a walk on a sunny day. She didn't mind wearing the sunglasses, she is a very agreeable baby.




Here J tries sitting in a big person chair all by herself. Like all babies, she has intense fascination with anything we touch and then move out of her reach.





With all these toys of her own, you would think that she would not want for anything else





First a disclaimer, she was only outside for a moment and Rebecca voted for me to put J in a coat, but I convinced her it would be okay. Here is J experiencing snow for the first time. We woke up this morning to snow in Seattle.







Here is a picture from later in the day when she was better dressed for the weather. We were heading over to meet up with our PEPS group for brunch. Our group has continued to get together the 2nd Sunday of every month to catch up. It has been fun to see all the other babies grow so much in only a month. It will be really exciting in the next few months once they all get mobile and start non-stop exploring.




Rebecca took this picture while holding the camera at arms length.

Halloween evening

Entry by Mark

Hi, more picture, but less time...

Josie has learned to sit up on her own. She isn't very stable yet, but can do it for a few minutes. Here she is practicing...




We joined Karine and Jens and their sons for trick or treating. The boys were both Tiggers and were quite cute. After hitting a few houses in hopes of getting "millions of pieces of candy" (per one of their sons), we went to the local community center where they were having a Halloween festival.

pumpkins 2008

Entry by Mark

Rebecca and I hosted the annual Pumpkin Carving party last night. Everything went off without a hitch, the addition of more newborns than any other year happened without any noticable difference (except around 8 p.m. I started to get sleepy). In preparation for all the guests visiting her home, J found herself a cute witches outfit. We dressed her up in it early in the afternoon and set her up for a photo shoot. We took 20 photos in the front yard. This is the one that turned out great. Maybe it will be easier when she can sit up on her own.




Here is one inside the house...



Later, the guests arrived. J really enjoyed having all the people in her home and was quite the host, chattinig up with various people through the night. Here is J with our friend, Kristi...



...and with Mike and Jaime...




J also was sure to play with her friends on the play mat, ensuring everyone enjoyed themselves. Here she is with Randy and Jean's son.





We invited friends that we have met through the baby classes we took before J arrived, and from the PEPS group we joined after she was here. Here are Jean and Randy and their son....





Matt and Sara and their son...




Ken and Jeannie and their daughter...





and, we also invited our friends that we have known for a long time. Here is Jens with his two Tiggers (sons)...




At the end of the evening, we took the traditional group photos. Those with sharp eyes will see that J had decided to start her nap before the guests had departed. Maybe next year she will pace herself.