I've been thinking about the usual sorts of things that I write in these holiday letters, and it occurred to me that most of you a) read this blog fairly regularly and b) already know most of the things that I would normally put in a holiday blog post. It's typically a recap of the year for our family, but I could just as easily say "go read the 2009 Blogspot archives for the site". Mission accomplished!
But I suppose that would make for a decidedly short and uninteresting holiday recap, so I find myself forced to come up with things that we haven't already written about. So, in no particular order:
- I think we already covered it a bit, but the big vacation for the year was a hugantic (the boys like that word) family trip to Colorado back in June. We spent a long week in a couple of cabins up near Grand Lake, CO, with lots of hiking, fishing, and ice-cream-consuming. It was a great time, and it will be too long before we do that sort of thing again.
- Logan and Liam also took swimming lessons this summer, and did pretty well. They didn't have a chance to get out to the neighborhood pool all that much, since Jill was majorly pregnant in the summer and I was always at work. But, they did a good job with the basics.
- Logan advanced to Wolf Scout earlier in the year, and has still been enjoying Scouts. It remains mostly a Second Grader Social Hour, but there have been a few fun projects and community service days that kept things at least somewhat Scout-oriented. The holidays will find us preparing the Fire and Flames MkII for the 2010 Pinewood Derby, or as I like to call it, "Pinewood Derby 2: The Redemption". There will be payback, OH YES.
- Liam has made great strides in learning to read, thanks in large part to Green Eggs and Ham, the first book he was able to read nearly cover to cover. He still has trouble with bigger words, but he can do a passable job with Mercy Watson books, road signs, cereal boxes, video game text, and pretty much everything he can get his eyes on.
- Meyer has spent the last four months mostly porking up. And practicing for his future as Senior Chief of Drool Manufacturing. He is excellent. I predict a Vice President slot by the time he's three.
So that's about it, folks. Nothing really earth-shattering has happened, other than Meyer joining the family. Otherwise, it's been a fairly tame year. Life goes on. I'm still working at Boeing, finishing up my slot in Propulsion. I had hoped to stay on there permanently, but budget woes are preventing that, so I'm still working on just what I'll be doing next year. Haven't figured it out yet, but I should have a good idea by mid-January. Jill has given up her wedding coordinator gig at church to be able to spend more time with the kids and not give up so many Saturdays.
Hope to see many of you over the next couple of weeks. As always, keep in touch and best wishes to all.
- Jason
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Ye Merry Olde Hallow's Eve
For Halloween this year I was expecting more Star Wars or super heroes, so Logan surprised me when he said he wanted to be Robin Hood. I think it must have come from a recent bout of repeated viewings of the Disney Robin Hood movie, which was a favorite of mine when I was a kid as well.
Jill and I decided this would be pretty easy. It's easy to imagine making a lot of the costume out of fabric and felt, and I've already got the archery equipment. But then I decided I needed to make him a sword, and things started to get serious after a long morning fashioning that with Dad's help back in KC.
What followed was a bow and quiver full of arrows, a shirt and tunic, hat with feather, a scabbard for said sword, a couple of belts and straps, and some cool-looking but ultimately non-functional leather bracers. The end result was pretty good, if I do say so myself.
The Thursday before Halloween Logan's Scout Pack held their monthly meeting, complete with costume parade and judging. It was broken up by Scout rank, but Logan managed to win one of the costume prizes for the Wolf Scouts. I consider that redemption somewhat from January's Pinewood Derby fiasco.
Liam decided he wanted to be Robin. As in Batman's side-kick. Hmmm. Jill, in a brilliant bit if diversionary shopping, convinced him to be a knight instead.
This was great, because now we had Robin Hood and a medieval knight. What do you get when you mix those? Why, swordfights, of course!
Meyer's still a bit young for the candy, but he made a pretty cute monkey. Even if he did spend most of the trick-or-treating fast asleep.
All the boys had a great Halloween, despite the fact that we seemed to have very little time to prepare for it. Hopefully that's not a sign of the even busier times to come for the rest of the holidays.
Jill and I decided this would be pretty easy. It's easy to imagine making a lot of the costume out of fabric and felt, and I've already got the archery equipment. But then I decided I needed to make him a sword, and things started to get serious after a long morning fashioning that with Dad's help back in KC.
What followed was a bow and quiver full of arrows, a shirt and tunic, hat with feather, a scabbard for said sword, a couple of belts and straps, and some cool-looking but ultimately non-functional leather bracers. The end result was pretty good, if I do say so myself.
The Thursday before Halloween Logan's Scout Pack held their monthly meeting, complete with costume parade and judging. It was broken up by Scout rank, but Logan managed to win one of the costume prizes for the Wolf Scouts. I consider that redemption somewhat from January's Pinewood Derby fiasco.
Liam decided he wanted to be Robin. As in Batman's side-kick. Hmmm. Jill, in a brilliant bit if diversionary shopping, convinced him to be a knight instead.
This was great, because now we had Robin Hood and a medieval knight. What do you get when you mix those? Why, swordfights, of course!
Meyer's still a bit young for the candy, but he made a pretty cute monkey. Even if he did spend most of the trick-or-treating fast asleep.
All the boys had a great Halloween, despite the fact that we seemed to have very little time to prepare for it. Hopefully that's not a sign of the even busier times to come for the rest of the holidays.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Hehehe...umm...what?
The other day we were sitting down to dinner and I had Meyer on my lap. The boys were clowning on him a bit, laughing at the things he was doing. He had the chubby cheeks and double chin going pretty hard, and Jill started laughing at him too. The boys were trying to come up with funny names for him, and mostly just being silly. Jill was trying to keep things at least civil - "he looks like a chunky monkey!" "He's a chubby cheeks!"
Logan was laughing and then said "No, he looks like a sheriff."
"..."
"From California!"
Coming soon...the costume that redeemed the great 2009 Pinewood Derby Fiasco!
Logan was laughing and then said "No, he looks like a sheriff."
"..."
"From California!"
Coming soon...the costume that redeemed the great 2009 Pinewood Derby Fiasco!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
I Don't Know if We Have a Cleaner for That
So Jill and I were watching the KU-CU football game (a brilliant second-half performance was not enough to overcome two inside-the-10 turnovers by KU) when Logan comes downstairs to inform us that Liam is upstairs crying.
OK. While cause for concern, that's not an unusual occurance.
He then tells us that he also peed in the fan.
That's definitely a first.
So I get upstairs, and Liam is hiding under his covers, stark naked. His clothes are a wadded up bundle in the bathroom, and there's obvious wet spots all over the carpet near the fan. I check a little closer. Yep, pee all over the fan. Also all over the dresser. Oh, and hello, pee all over their Batman laptop and Lego boxes. I'm wondering what else has been soaked in a finely vaporized spray of urine.
I asked Liam what happened to his clothes and why there's pee all over the fan.
"I don't know."
Well, that's understandable. It'd probably take a momentary bout of amnesia for me to pee in a fan, too. I asked Logan instead.
"He was standing in front of the fan, and he unzipped his pajamas to cool off, and then he just started peeing."
"Is that what happened, Liam?"
"I don't know."
The amnesia's also handy for dealing with the pesky questions in the aftermath.
So apparently Liam decided to cool off, then decided that what he really needed was a little homemade cooling setup, like those big fans on the football sidelines or at summer festivals that blow misted water all over you too cool off. It's rather innovative, really. I mean, that's some pretty quick on-the-spot thinking.
Still, bleah.
I just know at some point in the future, either Logan or Liam (or Meyer) is going to ask me to take the oscillating fan down from the dresser and put it on the floor, and I'm going to say no. And they will ask "but why?", and although I never would have imagined it, ever, I'm going to get to say "Because the last time I did that, someone peed in it."
Monday, October 05, 2009
Cub Scout Campout! But without the camping, or Scouts.
This weekend was supposed to be the Cub Scout Family Campout for Logan's scout pack. Well, it was, I guess. We weren't planning to do any camping yet, but I was going to take him down to the campground for some of the activities going on during the day.
Apparently, a scout family camp weekend is far less organized than I expected, although based on pack meetings I'm not sure what I should have expected. We never actually found any of the scouts, so it turned into an impromptu Father-Son Hiking Day. Which was, arguably, even better.
The campout was down at Klondike park, a newish park in St. Charles county in the heart of Missouri wine country. It's built in the midst of an old sandstone quarry, and there's silica sand and huge bluffs all over the park. There's a central lake left over from mining days that we walked around, and I took the opportunity to try to teach Logan how to skip rocks. It was sort of tough, because there weren't many good skipping candidates, but I managed to find a few. I tried to explain what to look for, telling Logan to look for flat rocks that are smooth on both sides. I showed him some not-so-good rocks.
"See, these are more square and kind of chunky. They're not good for skipping."
"What do you mean, 'chunky'?"
"You know, they're not flat. Sort of chunky-looking, with jagged sides."
"I thought they looked more like rectangular prisms."
Uhh, okay.
We hiked a few other trails around the park, walked through a birding area, had some snacks, and found a lone swingset to enjoy for awhile. It was nice just having the one son to share time with for a change.
At one point I asked Logan if he liked having some time with just the two of us.
"Yeah, it's fun."
He thought for a minute, then said "I wish Liam was here, though."
"Why is that?"
"I just know Liam would really like hiking with us."
He never stops surprising me.
Apparently, a scout family camp weekend is far less organized than I expected, although based on pack meetings I'm not sure what I should have expected. We never actually found any of the scouts, so it turned into an impromptu Father-Son Hiking Day. Which was, arguably, even better.
The campout was down at Klondike park, a newish park in St. Charles county in the heart of Missouri wine country. It's built in the midst of an old sandstone quarry, and there's silica sand and huge bluffs all over the park. There's a central lake left over from mining days that we walked around, and I took the opportunity to try to teach Logan how to skip rocks. It was sort of tough, because there weren't many good skipping candidates, but I managed to find a few. I tried to explain what to look for, telling Logan to look for flat rocks that are smooth on both sides. I showed him some not-so-good rocks.
"See, these are more square and kind of chunky. They're not good for skipping."
"What do you mean, 'chunky'?"
"You know, they're not flat. Sort of chunky-looking, with jagged sides."
"I thought they looked more like rectangular prisms."
Uhh, okay.
We hiked a few other trails around the park, walked through a birding area, had some snacks, and found a lone swingset to enjoy for awhile. It was nice just having the one son to share time with for a change.
At one point I asked Logan if he liked having some time with just the two of us.
"Yeah, it's fun."
He thought for a minute, then said "I wish Liam was here, though."
"Why is that?"
"I just know Liam would really like hiking with us."
He never stops surprising me.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Muffin Man
So I've decided that since my boy Liam loves to cook, I will make an effort to spend some time making something yummy in the kitchen with him each week. This is actually last week's concoction...mini cinnamon muffins!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Three Times the Sweetness
The last three weeks have been a whirlwind. My days are flying by much too quickly. It seems that I can't ever get anywhere near the end of my "to do" list and just end up bumping things back another day. But I had to catch a few snapshots of my three sweet boys this week and jot down a few of the special things about them right at this moment.
Liam and Logan
Excited second grader!
At the bus stop
Boarding the bus
Meyer is just one big bundle of sweetness. His cheeks are plumping up hourly it seems, and I am trying to soak up every ounce of his "tiny-ness", because I fear he won't fall in that category much longer! Like his brothers when they were infants, Meyer is very fond of mealtime. At his check-up last Friday, he weighed in at 8 pounds, 7 ounces. (His "going home" weight just over two weeks prior was 6 pounds, 10 ounces.) As we left the office, Dr. Hoffman said to Meyer with a smile, "Make sure not to miss any meals!" I assured him that he wouldn't, and Dr. Hoffman replied, "I didn't think he would!"
Meyer is sleeping 2 to 2 1/2 hour stretches at night and has a couple good periods of alertness during the day. You can tell he is thinking about smiling but isn't quite sure how to go about it. Although he wasn't sure about it at first, he now loves bathtime and seems to find it very soothing. Meyer still isn't crazy about the pacifier and much prefers Mom, although he will take it occasionally. Really, he's an all-around good baby.
I love the way Meyer still curls his legs up underneath him when I hold him over my shoulder. I love his little stuttering cry and his pudgy double chin. I love his outie bellybutton with its little smiling fold. I love the way that he cries when his big yawn is too much for him to handle. I love his crazy, wispy dark hair and the way he focuses on me with his big eyes when I talk to him. I love the way he separates his big toes from the rest of his toes. I just love all of him to bits.
Logan is already well into second grade, having started the school year in mid July. His teacher, Miss Grosch, has been very impressed with his spelling capabilities and was excited to have to pull out her "third grade list" to keep Logan challenged. (And to tell the truth, he still doesn't have to do much studying!)
Fiction chapter books are quite popular with Logan these days, but he is still very much interested in non-fiction books covering topics ranging from knights to thresher sharks. After school, he enjoys playing with friends and can often be seen whizzing around the cul-de-sac on his scooter. Indoor play typically involves Star Wars action figures, Legos (castle, Indiana Jones or Star Wars), or board games. (He is definitely following in his father's footsteps, as is Liam!) Oh, and he still finds time to pull out the art supplies on a regular basis too!
I am definitely surprised at how much Logan has grown up on me lately. He is so much more mature and even walks home alone from the bus stop. He helps get breakfast and snacks for himself and Liam, and he is very responsible about remembering things he needs to take care of for school. He still has a beautiful twinkle in his eye and a warm smile. He always does his best in everything and is just an all-around good kid. When I ask, I can still get a big squeeze from him ~ thank goodness!
Logan and Dad
Fiction chapter books are quite popular with Logan these days, but he is still very much interested in non-fiction books covering topics ranging from knights to thresher sharks. After school, he enjoys playing with friends and can often be seen whizzing around the cul-de-sac on his scooter. Indoor play typically involves Star Wars action figures, Legos (castle, Indiana Jones or Star Wars), or board games. (He is definitely following in his father's footsteps, as is Liam!) Oh, and he still finds time to pull out the art supplies on a regular basis too!
I am definitely surprised at how much Logan has grown up on me lately. He is so much more mature and even walks home alone from the bus stop. He helps get breakfast and snacks for himself and Liam, and he is very responsible about remembering things he needs to take care of for school. He still has a beautiful twinkle in his eye and a warm smile. He always does his best in everything and is just an all-around good kid. When I ask, I can still get a big squeeze from him ~ thank goodness!
First Day of Second Grade
July 18, 2009
Logan and Dad Liam and Logan
Excited second grader!
At the bus stop
Boarding the bus
Liam is looking forward to another year of preschool (first day on 9/9). However, he seems to be enjoying this time at home to settle into his new role as "big brother" while Logan is off at school. He is always eager to help me out by fetching a diaper or burp cloth, and he checks in on Meyer's status (eating or sleeping) regularly. Liam loves to see Meyer with his eyes wide open and thinks that maybe we should call him "Mr. Big Eyes". He plants kisses on Meyer's forehead nearly every chance he gets. (I should add that Logan is equally enamored with his new little brother and also dotes on "Baby", as he frequently refers to Meyer.)
As much as we hate to admit it, Liam is totally addicted to video games (Playstation and XBox). Our only consolation is that Logan was once obsessed as well but has fortunately outgrown that phase and is much more well-rounded now. We are eager for Liam to become more passionate about other things but certainly enjoy hearing his excitement about passing this or that "level". When we can pull him away from his "screen time", Liam loves to play board games. He is quite good at them too! He likes to ride his Batman big wheel, duel with Star Wars action figures, and play with his "gorilla mountain" playset. He also loves to help cook. (Here's hoping he inherits his father's culinary skills!)
I smile every time I hear Liam laugh. He has a brilliant smile that just tickles me. He is compassionate and so thoughtful, never hesitating to share special treats he receives with Logan. Would you believe he almost never complains about any food we set before him (and even says he loves salad!)?! He likes spicy food and has developed a fondness for pop, particularly root beer (although he did leave an open bottle in the refrigerator for awhile the other day because it was a little too "fuzzy"). Liam is just a bubbly, wonderful boy!
Root Beer
August 30, 2009
Making Brownies with Mom
August 31, 2009
Meyer is just one big bundle of sweetness. His cheeks are plumping up hourly it seems, and I am trying to soak up every ounce of his "tiny-ness", because I fear he won't fall in that category much longer! Like his brothers when they were infants, Meyer is very fond of mealtime. At his check-up last Friday, he weighed in at 8 pounds, 7 ounces. (His "going home" weight just over two weeks prior was 6 pounds, 10 ounces.) As we left the office, Dr. Hoffman said to Meyer with a smile, "Make sure not to miss any meals!" I assured him that he wouldn't, and Dr. Hoffman replied, "I didn't think he would!"
Meyer is sleeping 2 to 2 1/2 hour stretches at night and has a couple good periods of alertness during the day. You can tell he is thinking about smiling but isn't quite sure how to go about it. Although he wasn't sure about it at first, he now loves bathtime and seems to find it very soothing. Meyer still isn't crazy about the pacifier and much prefers Mom, although he will take it occasionally. Really, he's an all-around good baby.
I love the way Meyer still curls his legs up underneath him when I hold him over my shoulder. I love his little stuttering cry and his pudgy double chin. I love his outie bellybutton with its little smiling fold. I love the way that he cries when his big yawn is too much for him to handle. I love his crazy, wispy dark hair and the way he focuses on me with his big eyes when I talk to him. I love the way he separates his big toes from the rest of his toes. I just love all of him to bits.
Miscellaneous Meyer
Three Weeks Old
Three Weeks Old
August 31, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Two Weeks!
Meyer turned two weeks old about...oh, a little more than two hours ago. To be honest, I don't think he noticed. But when you have a newborn, you pretty much use any excuse to trot out the photos.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Colorado 2009
Wow am I late getting these up. I have a lot of reasons, but none of them seems to encapsulate the essence of reality quite like "I'm just lazy". So we'll go with that.
For those not aware, the whole extended family (all 13 of us) spent a week in Grand Lake, CO. It was a great time, with a little something for everyone. I even got to mountain bike IN the mountains for a change. Fish were caught, hikes were hiked, and much ice cream was consumed.
For those not aware, the whole extended family (all 13 of us) spent a week in Grand Lake, CO. It was a great time, with a little something for everyone. I even got to mountain bike IN the mountains for a change. Fish were caught, hikes were hiked, and much ice cream was consumed.
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