Jack's Birthday

What a fun time we had for Jack's party. We just had some family over to our place and had some cake and pizza and presents. He was a little more aware of presents than at Christmas, so it was very fun. He got lots of fun things - my favorite being walking shoes - yay! Matt is glad he doesn't have to hear me griping and grunting every Sunday morning trying to get his shoes on! It was very frustrating; but I like shoes, so I kept trying anyway. Anyway, thanks to everyone who came and shared in our little boy's birthday.

Everything else is going well with us - still caretaking and still commuting a ways to church. We will be moving soon to the parsonage at our church, so that is very exciting. We will be glad to be closer to church and family. Just staying busy with life, I'm sure, just like you all are. OH! We ARE coming up on our 5th wedding anniversary, so we're planning a fun trip to Florida soon. 85 and sunny - here we come! After windchills of 50 below, I can't imagine that. Today was 40 and felt quite tropical. Here are some pictures of Jack's party.

Happy Birthday Jack!

Jack is 1 today! We are very blessed to have him in our lives. I have been saying for a while that I was going to get a video of him walking. Well here it is. I have combined it with one of his birthday gifts. We were going to wait to give him this present, but he found it and wanted to play with it. We'll still wrap it up and let him open it tonight.

Picture Update

Just thought we'd put some recent pictures up on the blog. We never put any from Jack's first Christmas. Here is Jack rummaging through the paper, getting a Vikings hat, and a "My First Christmas" ornament.

And here are some miscellaneous pictures of Jack.

OK finally back to reality!

But Christmas was so fun! Of course, Jack was clueless about what it all was; but nevertheless, SO FUN! He is taking many more steps at a time, has lots of teeth, and is in general growing up really fast! I won't get too sentimental yet, since I still have 17 years to go before we are empty nesters. So now we're gearing up for his first birthday in which he still won't know what is happening, but we will all have fun watching him destroy his cake.

Matt treated me to a night out for the Sound of Music and dinner - just the best (night and husband)! So we have been busy and happy. Thank you all for your cards. It was fun seeing all of your families and hearing what everyone is up to. So we will be updating more soon with pictures.

Another Post!

We go from one post every two weeks to two posts in one day. I found the opportunity to get some pictures and videos up and I thought I would take the chance.

Unfortunately, I am unable to get the video of him taking a couple steps up on the blog yet, but I will get one up soon.

Here is a short clip of Jack clicking his tongue

Here is a great video of Jack laughing. Sorry if it is a little dark.

We also had the opportunity to go out and look at Christmas lights with the Hanks family and along the way, we ran into Santa! Here is Jack meeting Santa for the first time and getting a present from him.

Merry Christmas!

We hope that everyone has a wonderful and safe Christmas! I know that we are looking forward to spending time with our families. We are so blessed to have both of our families living in the same area. Tonight (Christmas Eve), we go to church with Matt's family and then over to their house to open up gifts. I think the Grandmas and Grandpas are just a little excited to be having Jack come over to open up gifts. Of course the only thing that he will care about is all the wrapping paper! Rip, rip, rip!! Then, on Christmas day, we will open up our gifts to each other and head over to the Hanks house to open gifts and have a Christmas fondu party! The difficult part this year will be with our position as caretaker. Every day at 10 a.m., somebody has to go through and do OK checks. They have a little sign to put outside their door to let us know they are OK and if they don't have it out, we have to call or go in and check on them. We do these checks on weekends and holidays. So, after we open up our gifts, we will have to get these checks done before we go over to the Hanks. That won't be any fun, but we'll just do it as quickly as possible.

Jack is doing great. He is starting to take steps! He just started in the last week and we only have one little video clip of it and we don't have it on the computer, yet. I promise we will have it on here before too long. His great grandma taught him how to clap last week and he loves it. He loves to clap when he is happy.

Sorry I don't have any pics or videos on this post, but I will make up for it later. Thank you to all those that sent Christmas cards! It was nice to get caught up on what is happening in your lives. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a great new year!!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Sorry that it has been so long since we posted, but we have been extremely busy! It has been a little bit of everything. The caretaking has been crazy lately with all of the cleaning and shoveling. We have already had a couple of snow storms in Minnesota that has required a fair amount of shoveling. Of course, with the time of year, we have been doing a lot of things to get ready for Christmas. Shannon has helped decorate the church and attended a cookie exchange for the ladies at the church. Of course, it is also for the men as their wives get to bring a lot of cookies home! YUM! We have also been planning for our adult Sunday School's Christmas party which happened last night. We had a great time! There were 11 of us at the event and we had great food, played some fun games and just had some great Christian fellowship.

Jack has been extremely active lately. We think he is on the verge of walking. He is walking along furniture and venturing out with only one hand on the table. He sometimes lets go and stands there for a while. The other day he let go and tried to take a step toward me, but he reached out and missed my leg and fell down. He's not very far away!

Here is a picture of Jack helping us with the Christmas decorations. He sure loved the lights!

I am also including a video of Jack playing some Peek-a-boo with the whole Hanks family. It was cute how he kept lifting the napkin over his face over and over again.