Happy New Year!

Hard to believe it's almost 2009--what happened to 2008? It certainly was a big year for us, and we hope next year will be even better as we get to watch Jack grow up.

Andy and I didn't doing anything special last night for New Year's Eve, but we will have a busy weekend. Today of course will be filled with college football, and there's also a special hockey game in Chicago at Wrigley Field. This weekend our good friends Courtney and DJ are getting married, and Andy is a groomsman. The wedding should be absolutely beautiful, so we'll take lots of pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I'm a little late posting the pictures below, but these were from Sunday night when the Nolds, Feltons, Webers, and Frosts got together. Things were so busy at work this week I haven't been able to blog at all! At least now I have a nice 4-day weekend.

Here's a shot of Jack doing his baby bird impression waiting for food. I'll have to get a video of him doing this sometime.

Jack's helping Andy eat a popsicle (sugar-free) here. At first Jack was unsure about popsicles, but now he realizes they feel pretty good on his gums so he's a big fan.


The three of us


Jack at dinner--I think he's looking over at Aunt Carol and Uncle Bob, who were making faces at him.


Jack opening a present with cousins Lori, Marti, and Alexis. He loves this toy! Thanks Alexis, for getting it for him.


And finally, here's a sweet picture of Alexis and Jack. She loved holding him.


Happy New Year everyone, and Go Dawgs!

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! We certainly enjoyed Jack's first Christmas. As we expected, he was a bit more interested in ribbons and wrapping paper than the actual toys they covered. But he did eventually play a little with his toys, and I know soon he'll have some new favorites. Thanks to all our relatives who were so generous in giving Jack, Andy, and me such wonderful gifts for Christmas! We wish we could be 3 places at once so we could see all our families.

But since that's not possible, we took plenty of pictures and videos! We probably overdid things a bit with the videos as we tried to fully document each moment of Jack's first Christmas. I sorted through all the footage, so here are a few shots of Jack opening gifts:







Grandma Nold spent a lot of time making Jack this great Christmas stocking! You can see it's as big as Jack is--her decision to make the stocking that large may come back to haunt her in future years when he expects it to be stuffed full of goodies!



Here's Jack with some of his cool new toys:




And despite all of those great toys, at the end of the day this is what he had the most fun with:

(in case you can't see that's an empty Gatorade bottle)

Finally, we wrapped up Christmas with a yummy meal made by Grandma Nold and Aunt Lisa. We were eating by candlelight, so these clips are a bit dim, but here's Jack at dinner. He enjoyed some rice, pieces of roll, green beans, and of course his beloved Cheerios.





Merry Christmas everyone!

Fun playing

Jack just loves playing with blocks and knocking them over! Thanks to Uncle Paul for the blocks--they were actually made by Great-Grampy Jarvis when Paul was a baby.

Thanks also to Grandma and Grandpa Nold, who came over to babysit last night so Andy and I could go out to dinner with friends Dave, Megan, DJ, and Courtney. Jack was in a playful mood last night and had a lot of fun with Grandma and Grandpa before he went to bed.



Today we're sitting around not doing much and just trying to avoid having to go outside. After having to deal with a couple snow storms last week, overnight the temperature plummeted and now it's bitter cold. The high today is supposed to be 3 degrees. Awesome. Tomorrow's supposed to be about the same--should make for an interesting Bears Monday Night football game!

Fun with my dog

Here are some pictures from the other night when Jack was playing. Whenever we get down on the floor, Louie can't stand being left out and has to come over and get in the middle of everything.


Jack's getting closer and closer to crawling. Everyday I think he's about to, as he rocks back and forth on his hands and knees. Now he also does this weird pushup thing. He really looks like he's about to do an official pushup--his legs are back out behind him and he's up on his arms with his belly off the floor. I was hoping he'd do it when I took these pictures, but as usual he didn't cooperate.


Welcome back to Grandma and Grandpa Nold, who flew back from Florida today. We're glad they missed the big winter storm that's supposedly heading this way. I'll be really happy if the storm doesn't turn out to be as bad as they're saying. We've already had a much colder and snowier December than usual, and it would be nice to have a break before we get into the bitter cold of January!


And finally, here's Lou learning about the phrase, "it came back to bite me in the ass."

Being silly

Just a short video of Jack from the other night, showing off his arm flapping and fish-face skills. Better watch out, Feltons. This looks like a pretty good swan to me.

9 months old!

Hey there, it's me Jack. I turned 9 months old on Sunday, so I just wanted to let everyone know what I've been up to. Mom and Dad took me to my 9-month checkup at the doctor today. I was a little mad at Mom because she said I wouldn't be getting any shots today, and then it turned out I had to get a flu shot because it's winter, and they also had to draw my blood for a lead test.

I was pretty brave, though. I only cried a lot when they drew my blood, and that was just because the silly nurse kept tying my arms up and poking me. She said something about how it was hard to find a vein in my chubby arms. But after she finished, and right after I got my shot and Mom held me, I was fine. This is how I felt about getting my blood drawn:


I have quite the hot bod, apparently. I'm a svelt 19 pounds, 4 ounces and 28 1/2 inches long. I'm not quite sure what Mom means, but she says I'm just under the 50th percentile for weight-for-length, and I'm just over the 50th percentile for length-for-age. After all those months of packing on the pounds when I was first born, it feels good to not be gaining weight so fast. After all, I've got to make sure I look good for the ladies.

I'm getting more exercise these days, which is helping me stay fit. I'm not crawling yet, but I can push myself up from my tummy onto my hands and knees. I'm still not sure what to do after that, so for right now I just rock back and forth. I can also push myself along the floor when I'm laying on my stomach. The only problem is I always go backwards. Sometimes I get frustrated because I'm going the opposite direction that I want to go.

I also get frustrated at night. I roll over onto my stomach and push myself up on my arms, and for some reason I just can't remember what to do next. I can roll over onto my back during the daytime, but at night when I'm tired I forget that I know how to do that. For now, I think I'm discovering that I actually like to lay on my stomach. Last night after I fussed for a minute when I woke up on my stomach, I just decided to lay my head down and sleep. It's just easier that way.

I'm getting better at eating. I figured out how to feed myself Cheerios--at least most of the time when I pick them up they make it to my mouth. Some of my favorite foods are sweet potatoes, bananas, and apples. I've also been trying corn recently, and I think that's pretty good. Mom tried to feed me mashed (white) potatoes again, and I still thought those were absolutely disgusting. I don't have any teeth yet, but Mom says she doesn't mind since she's still breastfeeding.

I'm having a good time during my first holiday season. We went to see a lot of family in Vermont for Thanksgiving, and we'll spend Christmas with our family around here. I don't really know what Christmas is, but so far I like the lights and crinkly wrapping paper. If Christmas involves more of that, I think I'll be happy!

Christmas party

Andy took that picture yesterday when he got home from work. As you can see, Jack was very excited to see his daddy! Earlier yesterday, the tots class that Jack goes to wrapped up their fall session with a Christmas party. Our nanny Melly took a couple pictures for us. Jack's eyeing the presents in this one.

I was worried Jack might get scared by Santa, but Melly said he didn't cry. Still, it doesn't seem like Jack is overly thrilled at being held by Santa here; looks like he's sizing him up.

And here's another picture Andy took yesterday of Melly and Jack.

Melly will babysit tomorrow night so Andy and I can go out for a rare night on the town together. It's his company's annual holiday party. We'll have fun and try to keep warm--it's absolutely freezing here!

Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! Andy, Jack, and I returned from Vermont on Sunday. Fortunately our flight was in the morning, so we were able to miss the bad afternoon weather and had no problems with our flight. Speaking of flights, I'm sure everyone is wondering whether Jack continued his proud tradition of plane pooping--and the answer is yes! He didn't do it on the flight to Vermont, but on Sunday about 5 minutes after we took off, he took a nice poop. I don't know what it is about flying that causes that kid's intestines to start moving. Andy had the pleasure of cleaning this one up in the plane bathroom :)

We had a great trip and got to visit family, a lot of whom were meeting Jack and Andy for the first time. The first couple days we were there, we just stayed with my mom and stepdad (Grammy and Grampy Jarvis). Everyone, including Jack, had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Jack's meal was traditional Pilgrim fare--sweet potatoes, squash, and Cheerios. Below are pictures of Jack with Grampy and Grammy.

For the last couple days of our trip, we stayed at a resort in Smuggler's Notch, Vermont. The picture of Jack below was taken at the resort. He was in a very giggly mood that morning.

While we were there, Grammy babysat Jack while Andy and I went skiing--or at least Andy did. I think what I did is more appropriately described as falling. Apparently years of cross-country skiing experience combined with one day of downhill skiing experience (10 years ago at a small place in Indiana) are not sufficient to prepare one for the "real" ski slopes of Vermont. Thanks to Andy for patiently helping me for 2 hours as I inched my way down the mountain!

On Saturday we visited with family, and below are several pictures from that get-together. Jack behaved very well. He's developed some typical 8-month old mommy separation anxiety, but for the most part he let other people hold him.

Here's Jack with Aunt Marti:

Jack with Great-Grampy Jarvis:

The four generations picture--Great-Grampy, Grampy, Uncle Paul, and Jack:

Jack and cousin Emma:

Jack and cousin Rachel:

Here are the first-generation cousins: me, Emma, Paul, Rachel, Nicole, and Jenna (Nate and Allison weren't there):

And here are the second-generation cousins: Drew, big Jack, little Jack, Cooper, and Alec (Drew and Alec are Jenna's sons, and Jack and Cooper are Rachel's sons). Note how most of the first-generation cousins are girls, and now we have all boys!

Here's the Jarvis family, including Great-Grampy:

And finally, this is how Jack felt afterward:

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!