Getting better ...

Thank you so much to everybody for your thoughts and prayers this week for my surgery and recovery. (If anybody doesn't know, I had my gallbladder out on Monday.) Each day I feel better and better and more like myself again. Thanks for thinking of me!

We wish everybody health, wealth and happiness in the new year!

Keegan's First Christmas

Christmas was absolutely wonderful, and so much more fun as a parent! Keegan was completely spoiled by both sets of grandparents, his parents and his aunts. We celebrated Christmas Eve at our place, with my family and then Christmas day at Matt's parents.

Helping Mom & Dad decorate the tree.

(Our sweet neighbor made the hat and scarf for him)

Yeah he was really sucking on the candy cane that he pulled off the tree … but I had to get a picture before I took it away!

Posing with presents.

It looks like he knew how to tear into the presents, but it took a lot of coaxing.

Should he really be getting presents that are bigger than he is?!?!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

He immediately started pushing his new toy around the living room. He’s going to be walking before I know it!

Christmas Eve dinner at our house with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend.

We call this his green gummy-bear-outfit.

No break for Mom ...

Keegan loves the bath so much that when I am in the shower he wants to join me. As you can see by the little feet sticking out under the shower curtain, he gets in between the shower curtains and the tub and plays in the water streams while I shower. He, and the floor, is always completely soaked by the time my shower is done. It sure is different having an audience while I shower!

He's Crawling!

Shortly after I posted the video of Keegan "army crawling" he starting "real crawling." We realized that he was restricted by his pants, and when we took those off and let him play around in his diaper he started crawling. It was as if he had been doing it his whole life. He can now crawl in any type of pants on any type of surface, and he moves fast!

O Tannenbaum...

This year we got the nicest tree of our marriage. It's a 12 foot tall blue spruce (I think) and our only complaint was that the needles are REALLY pokey. I mean draw blood pokey!

Or so we thought that was our only problem ...

Yesterday, after a relatively busy day of going to church, choir practice and family dinners, we decided to finish trimming our Christmas tree. We had all the lights and ornaments perfectly in place and we were ready to sit down and relax for the rest of the evening, but only after we put the star on top of the tree. As Matt tried to put it on top, the tree fell over on top of him!! Pokey branches and all I lifted it off of him and we spent the next hour trying to get it back in it's base, rearrange all the strewed lights and fallen ornaments and clean up the infinite number of tiny glass shards all over the floor. The water spilled all over the presents and we had to open several of them to make sure they were not damaged (un/fortunately they were all ones we purchased), and I found out that I am minorly allergic to pine when a burning rash spread all over one of my arms. But thats not the end of the story ...

Around 2:30am we heard the unmistakable sound of the the tree falling and ornaments shattering on the ground!!! AGAIN!!! So, 2:30 this morning we put the whole thing back together again! (This time in 1/2 the amount of time.)

So this morning:

• over 1/2 of our bulb ornaments and glass icicles are gone
• I can't let Keegan practice his crawling because there is probably still glass that I haven't found yet
  
• I am picking empty wire hangers and 1/2 shattered ornaments off the tree
• the strands of lights are all cross-wise
• the previously wrapped presents are sitting opened in the middle of the living room
• I have a dozen dirty wet towles to wash
• Matt has declared that we will never have a star on top of our tree
• we are already considering shopping the after Christmas sales for a fake tree for next year

Remarkably, Keegan slept through the whole thing!! Hallelujah! We got one cute picture of him in front of the tree before this whole ordeal, and we don't want him anywhere near the tree so there probably won't be anymore.

Hope your tree trimmings were less exciting, and more relaxing than ours. Happy Holidays!

Not quite crawling ...

I was waiting to post a video of Keegan crawling, but I am not so sure that that is going to happen. Right now he "army crawls," with his belly on the ground. He has been doing this for about a month now, and he is getting really fast at it (even faster than in this video.) He is now pulling himself up on everything, and loves to walk along the furniture and do laps around the coffee table. I think the next step might be walking and never full on crawling. Enjoy!

Keegan's Frist Thanksgiving

Keegan definitely enjoyed his first Thanksgiving. He is at such a fun age where we can let him try new foods, so he got the jist of the Thanksgiving feast. I think he had the most fun playing with the sweet potatoes.