Jack's First Christmas!

Our week long Christmas Celebration has ended and we are recovering. Here are a few pictures from Jack's First Christmas!


We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and have a safe and Happy New Year!

There will always be more pictures to come!!!

Christmas Celebration!

We have been very busy at our house getting ready for the Holidays. :) A couple pictures to document the madness!!!
Jack saw Santa for the first time at our church Christmas Party. He either looked grumpy, or a little shy as he covered his mouth for pictures. It was pretty cute, and I scored a candy cane. :)


Jack and Papa Russ at the party- Jack loved his Christmas tie.

After a long night- He is BUNDLED in his snowsuit & hat. We also pulled out the love sac so our company can stay in our second bedroom. We have had a hard time organizing furniture to accommodate a Christmas tree and company!

We finally got our Christmas Tree (Saturday 11/19). We braved the cold and cut down the tree together. A lady we passed reassured us "You DO know that he won't remember this." I kindly smiled and said "I know, but we will."

Jack as he watched us put the tree in the stand. He was loving it! I ran out of lights, so we will get a picture of the tree when it's all decorated. And finally, our Christmas Miracle. Jack is crawling! He crawled Friday day a couple times, I got a short video for Dan, but this video is much cuter. It is so exciting to watch him move around!!!

15 min. to VICTORY!

2:00 Jack's daycare teacher comes to my classroom to tell me I have a flat tire.
2:30-3:00 Parents come for our school program
3:00-3:30 Santa visits, parent chaos, everything a busy school day brings

3:30 I go out to my car and it is flat, I get to work...

3:42 My friend Betsy comes out to check how I am doing. I tell her that I can't talk, I only have 3 more minutes to get this done. (She thinks I am crazy, always on the go, go, go. Who says they can only spent 15 min. on changing a flat tire. I am pretty sure that once you're into the project you have to finish, no matter how long it takes.)

3:44 I AM DONE! BMueller (who knows how to change flats too- her husband is a car guy) encourages me to tighten the bolts one more time and I am done.


An old student came to see his sister in her program and waves hello from across the parking lot, Betsy tells them that I just changed my tire all by myself, the mom says "oh, we assumed you were like trying on shoes!" The dad comes over to help but already got it. He makes the joke "15 minutes, it takes me 15 min. to stop swearing." They were pretty impressed.

I took the car right to my dad's shop and Dave in the office was impressed too! I don't get the "I am good" feeling too often, but I felt like I deserved it today. I did it all on my own, and under 15 min!

I just wanted to share my victory today! If you don't know how to change a flat, I will happily teach you- it is so EASY! ANYONE can do it!

I know of 2 silly things I did, so I definitely could cut 5 more minutes. Hopefully I won't have to do it again for a while, but next time I know to aim for under 10 minutes.

I promise I will post pictures in the next post- soon! I've got some good ones.

Just call me trouble...

Jack is not quite crawling yet, but he gets him self into a lot of things...


Jack and his friend having lunch together, yes on the floor. Jack kept trying to get her food, but she was not having it. They both look angry, but they were actually really enjoying their lunch date. (Yes she is 18 mo. older than him but I'm pretty sure he outweighs her by a couple of pounds.)


Paper, paper and more paper. I was cleaning out my church bag and he got a hold of my junk/scraps pile. Stinker!

His other favorite things... our potatoes & onions we keep on shelves at the end of our counter. I tried to distract him today with little fun-size boxes of "Dots" but he did care for those.

Water bottles- when I take this away from him he just CRIES/WHINES. I think he might be a little spoiled.

Keys, cell phones, the laptop, any food we are eating. Pretty much anything we have, he wants. My favorite is when I give him food on his high chair and he won't touch it. But if the same food is on my plate/fork, he will eat it (and a lot of it!) Talk about high maintenance. I guess we can be glad he isn't crawling yet, imagine the trouble he will find.

One day at a time...

Jack has ear infections... About 3 weeks ago he had his first (I knew something was really wrong when he was up every 20-30 minutes at night.) After 8 days on amoxycillin, he broke out in a rash and the Dr. labeled him "allergic to penicillin," but his ears were clear. So we stopped the antibiotic, gave him a little Benadryl...

(Ignore that it's sideways... apparently the blog is not as high-tech as the camera.)



Of course we figured we were in the clear, but 4 days later we were back because he was not sleeping again and his eyes were boogery. Of course, another ear infection. They bumped him up a couple of medicines on the totem pole of antibiotics and hopefully we will be in the clear very soon!!! We go for our 9 month check-up on Friday, so hopefully by then. :)

A couple random pictures...


In the morning, as I blow dry my hair and finish getting ready, Jack likes to make music on the heat return and the hall. Dan has not complained that it is too noisy, so I just let him do it. It keeps him happy!
Saturday we went to BW3s to watch the BYU & Utah game. It was a pretty good game! Jack wore his BYU hat from Auntie Manda (which is a little snug now, hint hint.)

We went to play with our friend Trevin after the game. We thought watching Trevin would encourage Jack to crawl, but not even he could do it! They did have a great time laughing at each other and playing peek-a-boo around the couch.

Doesn't he look sad??? Those are the weepy eyes. They are getting better though!