Week 38

Nov 25-Dec 1

Happy Thanksgiving!! Of course this was Jack's 1st Thanksgiving and it was pretty cool because he is actually old enough to eat some "real" food. :) As usual with my job I had to work on Thanksgiving. Since I have been a nurse I've felt pretty bad because Ed LOVES holidays and he always gets so excited to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Over the years he has started to perfect his Thanksgiving dinner menu and it seems like I am never here to help him cook. Not that he needs my help.As usual he made a DELICIOUS meal. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and crescent rolls. Mmmm. It is soooo yummy.

I did actually contribute to one part of the Thanksgiving dinner. Ed tasked me with the job of making the pumpkin logs. It is his mom's recipe and it is ridiculously good. I attempted to make them, but for some reason my oven did not want to cooperate. Pumpkin logs are basically a spongy, pumpkin cake that you bake on a cookie sheet. You get it out of the oven, roll it up into a towel sprinkled with powdered sugar, then after it cools you frost it with cream cheese frosting made from scratch.

After that you roll it up similar to a "jelly roll" and then place it in the fridge. To serve them you cut them and they are little round pin-wheel desserts. The combination of cream cheese with pumpkin is very complimentary. To make a long story short my oven didn't quite cooperate so the pumpkin part was a little too "spongy" and they tasted good, but didn't hold their shape quite as well as I would have liked. I guess I need a little more practice.

So Ed cooked the dinner and I had to work at the hospital. We had quite a few patients and they were pretty sick so I honestly didn't mind working. I got home around 8:00 pm and we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. Jack feasted on mashed potatoes with gravy as well as sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. He loved it and ate every bite that I gave him. Ed had put up the Christmas tree but waited for me to decorate it.

One of our traditions we started is putting up Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving day. Decorating the tree is always saved for last and it is a very special celebration that we look forward to every year. We get out our boxes of ornaments and place them on the tree one at a time. Our favorites of course are those unique ornaments that bring back memories. We tell stories about them and reminisce as we put them on the tree. We really get into the mood because we have all the lights off except the ones on the tree and we play Christmas music. It's a nice tradition that we can't wait to share with Jack one day. :)

One last fun thing that happened this week. Ed decided to give me my birthday present a couple of weeks early. He has been so excited about this gift and I have been anxious to find out what it was. He finally said he couldn't stand it anymore so he let me open them. I knew it must be something good because he is usually the one to make me wait to open my presents until my actual birthday.

Well I opened them up and I got a new Nikon D5000!!! Basically it's an amazing camera that I thought I would never get in my whole life. I have always wanted to do photography and now I feel like I can really pursue it. We went out last Saturday afternoon and tested out my new gift. It is pretty amazing! Here are some of the shots I took. I can't wait to experiment more with this. It also takes HD movies, which I can't wait to check out. I really want to make movies with the iMac using my HD clips I take on my camera! :) There are so many possibilities with this gift.

As usual Ed has outgifted me. I didn't think he would be able to top the Surprise 30th Birthday Party with all of his friends and family. I guess I have to work on outgifting him at Christmas. I think I have it in the bag already. I have his gifts hidden away and I can't wait for him to see them Christmas morning!! :)

Week 37

Nov 18-24

Jack is still going, going, going. I swear, walking will come any day now! He really has awesome balance for just learning how to stand up. There are many times when he will be standing up playing with his toys and will let go for awhile and just stand there without holding on.

He is soooo curious and is into EVERYTHING!! I love catching him doing something he's not supposed to be doing because he knows better, but he looks at you and does it anyways. Here is a picture of him getting into Hope's water. Poor dog, never has clean water.

I also have another video to post because after watching it I noticed that it did a great job of exemplifying the very thing I was discussing in my last post about our living room starting to look like a daycare. It's hilarious. No matter how many times you clean it up he just gets it all back out. It's a lose-lose situation. You can't blame him either b/c he wants to play with everything, which is great b/c that is why we bought them. It just gets frustrating when you can't walk anywhere without stepping all over toys.

Moms out there, any suggestions on ways to store toys? So far I have a big basket which did a great job for awhile, but now his toys are starting to get bigger and bigger and they definitely won't fit in a basket.

For now I will just have to ignore the mess and enjoy playing with Jack! :)

Week 36

Nov 11-17

I don't really have a whole lot of material for this week. We have been super-duper busy lately with work. Ed has been in and out of town on TDY and I have been working 4 days a week which equates to 50+ hour work weeks. We are all very tired.

Of course little Jack does not let any of that slow his day down. He is CONSTANTLY on the move and finding new ways to climb, jump, grab, etc. Ed and I can barely keep up with him and we try to stay one step ahead of him so we can predetermine how to keep his environment safe. We have been making all kinds of adjustments to the house to figure out a way that works to keep him somewhat contained but so he still has plenty of room to play with his toys. The key is for him to be safe so I can do dishes, clean up, etc without worrying he is going to get into something or get up the stairs.

We have moved furniture, bought gates, etc., but we haven't quite yet perfected something that will work for both of us and not look like our house is a daycare. People with kids you know what I'm talking about. I know it's a little bit vain to want to keep my house a little bit stylish, but at the same time it's not worth it to constantly be telling him "no" when he tries to get into the plants, or splash in the dog's water. I want him to be able to have an area he can touch everything without consequences and play with his toys. We will get there eventually. It makes me sad that he can't really play in his room since it's all the way upstairs and we're not really up there very often.

Well here is a video of Jack playing. He is so much fun to play with. He's really starting to talk and interact. I swear sometimes he answers my questions. :)

Week 35

Nov 4-10

Jack has learned some new skills. First of all he has definitely mastered crawling. He can go FAST!!! We have learned a new meaning to the word "tired" after chasing him all day. He not only crawls, but he CLIMBS.

He pulls up onto the coffee table, the tv stand, the couch, etc. He walks around all of these things and even will let go for a second to reach over and grab something else.

He is very brave and does not let anything stop him.Another new skill he has mastered is stair climbing. It is one of his favorite things to do. Surprisingly he's pretty fast and doesn't slip very much. It is amazing how quickly he went from scooting around the floor to speed crawling. Ed and I pretty much agree that he will be walking by Christmas.It is so sad when your baby grows up. I can't believe how fast the time flies by.

Happy Anniversary!

November 3, 2009

Happy 3rd Anniversary!!  We had a wonderful night.  Ed came home from work and surprised me with a dozen red roses and a beautiful card.  He instructed me to be ready at 6:00 pm.  I was sooo excited!  I love when he arranges fun stuff for us to do!  At 6:00 we dropped Jack off at his BFF Riley's house (thank you Paul & Jessa for watching him!!) and we drove to our favorite restaurant The Chart House.  Ed had made reservations for 6:30 so we were right on time.

Everything was perfect.  Our names were printed at the top of our menu with a message...nice touch!  Ed had planned everything and even remembered to bring cash for the valet service.  We had a lovely dinner with drinks and even splurged for dessert.  We had the Hot Chocolate Lava Cake...it is worth every calorie.  Here is the description to give you an idea...."A rich chocolate cake with molten center, made with Godiva liqueur.  Served warm, topped with chocolate sauce, Heath bar crunch, and vanilla ice cream."  Mmmm...deeee-lish!!  Yes, we will be running many miles to pay for that one, but I don't care!

For those of you who don't know Ed and I have two anniversaries.  One is for the day we got married and the other is for our wedding.  The reason for this is because once upon a time we were both in the military and although we were engaged, planning our wedding, we had to be legally married for the AF & Navy to make any efforts whatsoever towards us living together.

So anyways November 3, 2006 is our wedding anniversary and March 20, 2006 is the day we were married.  Sometimes we get confused as to which one we celebrate.  I think we have decided now to celebrate the wedding anniversary because that is when we were planning on getting married.  It is also the day all of our friends and family were a part of.  Here is a pictorial tribute to our wedding 3 years ago!