Just Jack

one week. look at those bird legs! Matt was afraid that he was going to be a scrawny little guy. HA! Little did he know how fast Jack would grow. 8 pounds 10 ounces and 21 inches long.

one month old. wearing a sweater vest that Lindsey and Jason sent him.

2 months old. This is when he really just started growing like crazy and it shows.

3 months old. He found his thumb really early and knew exactly how to use it!

4 months old. Those eyes started to really brighten up.

By 5 months it was clear that he was going to keep his blue eyes and happy disposition.

6 months. Smiling a lot more and keeping control of his giant head and upper body. Also sitting up, although you can't see that here, and rolling all around the house.

7 months old. Drooling like crazy. He has 2 bottom teeth and is working on those top ones.

8 months old. Just easy. Happy all the time and cooperative in every way. Doesn't care what we put on him or how we pose him. Such a good baby. He is doing the army crawl and one top tooth has come in.
9 months. Seriously. How does the time fly so fast? I feel like we just brought him home. He is crawling around and getting into anything he can. He now weighs 24 pounds 13 ounces and is 31 inches long. According to today's well check appointment he is in perfect health.

Perfect.

"He Does Exist!"

This is my paraphrase of a true story our pastor told at church 2 weeks ago. Our church sponsors a Thanksgiving lunch for those who are in need. We also deliver to folks who are unable to leave their homes but are still in need of a meal on Thanksgiving. Obviously this is a large undertaking and requires a lot of volunteers who are willing to give up most of their day on Thanksgiving to serve others. 

The person in charge of the event wrote our pastor to tell him all about the success of the day. She spoke of the 300+ people that ate at the church and then many more who received meals at home. 

One woman was assigned 3 houses to deliver food to. When she called to let the last family know that she was coming with the food they told her that they unexpectedly received a meal from a neighbor already and would not need the food from my church. Not knowing what to do, the volunteer returned to the church and told the person in charge that she had 2 meals left over. The leader told the woman that if she drove around for a few minutes she would probably find someone on the street in need. While the volunteer was a little shy about doing that, she agreed to drive around the area just in case.

Only a few miles away from the church she came upon a park where she saw a woman and a boy sitting at a picnic table. She told herself to be brave and got out of her car to approach the two people in the park. She asked them if they would like some Thanksgiving dinner compliments of my church. The boy couldn't believe it. He tapped on the box and asked if there was turkey inside. The volunteer said, "yes! Of course. Turkey, dressing, the whole meal!"

The boy looked at his mother and shouted "God is real! He does exist! I prayed that He would give us turkey for Thanksgiving and He did!"

The volunteer couldn't believe what she was hearing. Apparently the woman had left her husband after he beat her son. She had nowhere to go and didn't know what to do. The volunteer called 911 for her and was able to get help for the woman and boy. She returned to the church to share the story.

How amazing is it to see God's work? What a wonderful gift that she shared it with our pastor and I just couldn't pass up the chance to share it with you.

Some Holiday Pictures

Not surprisingly I have filled up the hard drive with pictures. Matt is going to move them all to the external hard drive tomorrow so I don't have tons of pictures of the house, but here is a sampling. 

Our little Christmas tree. I have had it for years because it was small enough for our apartment and when we moved into our house we liked it because it fit in the room without having to move all of our furniture around. I would love to have a real tree but my husband has allergies so out of respect for his lungs, I go with the fake one. Begrudgingly. 

Our stockings are hung on the mantel. Jack's is different because it says "Jack's first Christmas" on it. He will have one like the rest of us next year. (this comes up quite a bit when people come over so I thought I would point that out) 

Jack's first Christmas! I can't wait to see how he reacts to all the paper and boxes (because we all know how these kids operate. They don't care about anything but the boxes just to frustrate us)

The silver ball was a gift from great family friends when Avery was born. They get them for their grandchildren and so it was very special to have them send one for Avery in 2006. I love ornaments that were sent from friends so I will highlight some others below. The Disney bride and groom ornaments were from our honeymoon. 

My friend Amy sent this ornament to me last year for Christmas. She made it herself which makes it extra cool.

See that martini glass? That is from Lauren this year. And while I haven't been able to drink since 2005 thanks to babies, I will make sure to catch up in 2009! This ornament reminds me that I am just 3 months away from feeling like a big girl again. 

My friend Michelle gave me this ornament a few years ago. She lives in Ohio and we don't see each other as much as we would like (which would be every week!) but we talk often and we are always thinking of one another. This ornament reminds me that she is never that far away.

These two clowns make the whole house feel festive all year long. The things that come out of Avery's mouth just make us laugh every day. 

I will post some pictures of other decorations around the house as soon as I clear some space on the hard drive. oops.

I Just Made a lot of Women look Amazing in their Husband's Eyes

In case you were wondering, Matt agreed to be Joseph. There were three conditions:

• I couldn't take any pictures of him at the event. (so there are none included here)
• I wasn't allowed to tell friends to come watch. (damn. but my friend Micha did make up for this by sending a timely text message as we were putting on our costumes.)
• I have to go see some stupid movie that I don't want to see. (which I don't think is that fair because I only asked him to spend 20 minutes doing something he didn't want to do.)

So on Friday night, we all showed up at church to participate in the live nativity. I had been gone for a week in El Salvador (which I will discuss at another time) so Jack was super excited to see me when I got home. Maybe a little too excited because during the show he kept trying to nurse. In front of everyone. I spent most of the 20 minute "performance" trying to make him sit up because he kept leaning back with all his strength so that he could root around. 

Awkward.

And speaking of 20 minutes, it didn't exactly go as planned. I had promised Matt that it was only 20 minutes but when we walked out into the stable and sat there "acting" for a few minutes we noticed that things couldn't possibly be going as planned because nothing was happening. After about 5 minutes of sitting there amongst some live animals (sheep, goats, a horse that was playing the part of a donkey), the person in charge of the event came out and told us that they were having technical difficulties and we would need to come back and start over. 

Matt was thrilled.

So we went backstage and waited around for a few minutes while they tried to work out the technical issues.  This is when things started to go downhill for us because Avery, who had been patiently waiting with the other angels, was losing her patience and only wanted to be with us. But we were the Holy Family so it didn't really work from a historical perspective to walk out holding both the baby Jesus and an angel. We were just trying to respect the historical accuracy of the event so we really couldn't give in to her demands. I mean, I have heard the Christmas story about a hundred times and it never once mentioned Mary and Joseph having a toddler together in the form of an angel before Jesus was born. So we left her on the hip of some poor unsuspecting shepherd while we started the show again.

Finally Matt, Jack and I went back out to the set of the stable with the live animals. Unfortunately for us the goat didn't realize that the show had paused and he should probably stop eating the hay because after about 3 minutes on "take two" of the show the goat puked right behind Matt. Then the angels came out to stand behind us and the little girl who was supposed to stand by the goat refused (on account of the puke, I assume). After that Avery started crying out for Matt to hold her. He tried ignoring her because her request just didn't make any sense in the context of the stable scene, but she wouldn't let it go. Matt eventually let her sit on his lap so that people in the audience could actually hear the narration.

(Meanwhile Jack is trying to nurse during this whole thing. Every time I sat him up he thrust himself backwards and leaned right in. I am sure I had saliva marks on my "Mary" outfit. I feel bad for the woman who had to put it on after me.)

So if you rolled up to my church on Friday night around 6:30pm you saw Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus trying to nurse over Mary's outfit, an angel sitting on Joseph's lap and a goat that puked up hay. I'm sure the folks there to watch felt exactly like they were back at that stable in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago. 

So ladies... you're welcome. I am sure that I have made it so that you can pretty much get away with anything you ask of your husband because if he ever refuses you can just recall the time when I convinced Matt to dress as Joseph in front of a bunch of strangers, some farm animals with weak stomachs, a crying kid, and a baby that missed his mama while she was away.

Oh Just Forget It

Look, it just isn't going to happen. Those two kids are not capable of both looking at the camera at the same time and smiling. And frankly, I don't think my marriage can handle many more of my attempts to capture these precious angels on film to share with distant relatives and far-away friends. Every morning after they are dressed and ready for daycare I make them get together for another futile attempt at a picture worthy enough to mail out. They are always in a good mood and each of them are happy to smile. Just not at the same time. 

Meanwhile Matt is in the background yelling something about it being 8:15 and needing to leave for work. I'm not exactly sure what he is saying because I am too busy bribing Avery with "special treats" (ranging from an m&m to a cookie when I am really desperate) to hear what he is yelling about. He needs to get his priorities straight. This is for our Christmas Card. We must not fail.

Christmas is so stressful. 

Here are some samples of the 75 pictures I have taken since last Thursday.

This one is close. You'd think that I could just live with this but Jack is looking at Barney on TV rather than anywhere near the direction of the camera.  And Avery is kind of squishing her face with her shoulder. 
In this one I am pretty sure Avery just pinched him because she has somewhat of a guilty look on her face and he is starting to cry, which is completely out of character for Jack. Look at the way he is looking at Matt. It is as if to say, "dad, for real. these women are just impossible to live with." Avery's tightly closed lips indicate that she totally did something wrong.
Then they resort to those thumbs. The thumbs are actually the biggest problem of all. Here's how it normally goes when I am trying to take pictures: Avery is willing to play along and smile for about 3 shots so it is all about getting Jack to cooperate. Normally he has his thumb in his mouth so I take it out and get him to laugh. It works! He thinks it is funny! So then I return to the camera and by the time I look through the viewer the thumb is back in his mouth. damn. Next I get Matt, my impatient sidekick, to remove his thumb while I keep my eye on the two of them to get the shot. That's when Avery starts sucking her thumb and I might as well just forget it. 
These pictures of Jack are usually taken before Avery decides to participate in the photo session. Usually once I start taking pictures of Jack she decides to join in. 
But also I take them because he is cute. Thumb sucking and all... Plus he will always wear whatever we put on his head. It's such a change from Avery who immediately pulls off any hat we put on her because she hates us.

And the thing is, Avery can be cute when she wants to be. She likes getting her picture taken and can be quite fun.

Another attempt at a group shot. This time Jack is looking at Matt who was trying to get them to both smile. And let's not fail to notice that his pants are a little big and have ridden up higher than his bellybutton. This works for the over 60 crowd but it isn't really suitable for our family card.

I don't even know what to say about this one. I mean, can you imagine opening your card from our family and having THIS fall out to the floor? For goodness sake. It's ATTACK OF THE HEAD. Dang German genes. 

So that's it. Time is up. I leave for El Salvador on Tuesday morning and I have produced nothing worthy of sending to friends and family. I think we will just have to make a card with separate pictures of the kids and send that off. It was a good effort. I had fun trying. No one was seriously hurt (since I caught Jack as he was falling off the couch) and we were only slightly late to work every day (EVERY. DAY.) while I was taking pictures. 

I still haven't checked the mail in a few days because I know that there are Christmas cards in there. Perfectly put together cards by friends and family that have it all together. I am sure there are letters with lovely stories of what they have been up to this year (something I will not be including in mine because the thought of having to string together something coherent about how the year went for us kind of makes my stomach hurt). 

(and it isn't like we didn't have some newsworthy events this year. I mean, Avery got glasses in January and then Jack was born in March. Matt had his annual trip to the Indy 500 in May and then turned 30 in June so a few friends showed up to help him celebrate! We celebrated our 5 year anniversary this summer. My brother's family came to visit in July and then I went to Vegas with friends in September. But that is kind of where it ends. And frankly, is it all that newsworthy to say that I went to Vegas? Do you know how many people go to Vegas every year? Maybe I could mention my new role at work which requires some travel to rather fun places and means that Matt has to play the role of both parents while I am away. But I don't know if that is card-worthy information. You see what I mean? Stomach ache.)

I love getting cards from friends and family, particularly when the card includes a picture so we can see how the family has grown or changed over the last year. I have a lot of friends that have had babies this year so I look forward to getting pictures of the little ones. And if I am really being honest, I especially love when people send letters stating what they have been up to during the last year. I can usually tell that a letter is enclosed by the thickness of the envelope and I save those cards for last so I can spend some time reading all about the last year. It makes me feel close to those people since we can't be physically close all the time. The pictures generally stay up on our refrigerator or on our picture board for the whole year (or longer) and I have every Christmas card I have received in the last 5 years saved in this Christmas box that gets put away when all of the Christmas decorations are taken down. It is a special gift to have so many friends and family members to love.

Maybe I should just send out this year's picture of Avery with Santa. It certainly shows how much she has grown since last year....with her longer curly locks and glasses.

The 2008 Santa photo with Avery. She is nothing if not consistent. 

Maybe I should just send a card with Lucy's picture on it this year

I still do not have a decent Christmas card picture of my children and it is starting to feel like it is just never going to happen. This is something that they don't teach in the parenting classes and I have not seen anywhere in the Secrets of the Baby Whisper book. But for all those new parents out there, let me save you the trouble of looking it up: Apparently, kids are just jerks when it comes to posing for pictures. Here are a few examples below:

I think this one SCREAMS "We are a happy family and we wish you a Merry Christmas!" especially considering Avery is holding her Halloween bag and Jack is holding a plastic egg. (what? So I don't put things away in a timely manner. Easter should be celebrated all year long.)
Here we have an attempt by Avery to smother Jack with kisses and his attempt to get away from her as fast as possible. Jack fell off the couch a few seconds after I took this picture. 

Luckily I was able to catch him with my finger nail. It was a proud parenting moment. Avery just sat there looking at me like I was a total dumb ass. The only good news was that Matt wasn't in the room to witness my sacrifice of our son's safety for a good picture.

Then there was the idea that we could use some bath pictures because Jack absolutely loves to take a bath. But by the time he is done with all that splashing around the whole room is wet and Avery is usually in tears--which also means it isn't a good time to take a picture of them together. 

Plus there is that whole naked thing, which probably isn't the best idea now that Avery is 2. It's one thing when they are a infants but by the time you reach the toddler years you really have to draw the line. There is "embarrassing your kids" and then there is "requiring years of therapy." We're in a recession so I don't have enough savings to pay for all those psychiatrist bills.

So as of Dec. 3rd I have nothing close to a good Christmas picture. I am even avoiding our mailbox now that the cards are starting to be delivered because so many people are more prepared than I am. Each card mocks me just a little. It's cute how I think I have it all together until a holiday rolls around. 

We can't even get our Christmas lights on our tree to work. It's wonderful. And the lights are the essential building block to everything else on the tree. We obviously can't put ornaments on until we get the lights working. And clearly there is no reason for me to wrap any presents if we can't put them under the tree. Also? No need to decorate the rest of the house with Christmas cheer if the tree is bare. Obviously we have a problem here. 

Since our Christmas Open House is on the 14th and I will be in El Salvador from the 9th-12th it would seem that we need to get our act together PRONTO to get the house all Christmasy for the CHRISTMAS PARTY. [bangs head on wall]

moving on....

Now doesn't this look like the face of a guy who could play 'Joseph' in our church's live Nativity Scene next Friday night? Sure it does! I mean, I don't know how you can do better than a guy who doesn't believe in organized religion to play 'Joseph' while I am 'Mary' and Jack is 'baby Jesus' (although he looks more like toddler Jesus but we don't hear much about him in the Bible so we will just go with some creative swaddling. Jesus could have been a really big baby. We don't know for sure. NO ONE EVER SAID HE WASN'T 23 POUNDS.) 

When our church called and asked if we would participate in the Live Nativity Scene in December I said yes right away. They were calling all of the families that had babies in 2008 because the baby is the key element in the event so it didn't make a whole lot of sense to call the families with teenagers. It is only for 20 minutes. 20 MINUTES! so I didn't think Matt would object very strongly. 

I was wrong.

Matt has been saying no (as in adamantly no) for weeks but I have chosen to just hold out hope that he will change his mind. We won't have to talk. We won't have to sing. There will be no ritual sacrifice of any animals (or anything else for that matter). All that we have to do is stand there in sheets while someone reads the story of Jesus' birth. 

20 minutes.

So tonight when I reminded Matt that next Friday is the Live Nativity at church he said he wasn't doing it. Apparently he thinks he has been telling me that for weeks and that I am just "not listening" or some nonsense. 

I choose to think of it as selective hearing.

Because all I am asking him to do is stand there silently in a sheet for (say it with me) 20 MINUTES. So he told me to give him a day to "think about it" and then he will give me an answer. Which I totally do not understand since I told him about this a month ago. 

So what if he doesn't believe in organized religion? He believes in God and it would really suck if he ended up at the pearly gates only to have God tell him that he would be able to let him in except for that one time when he refused to act like Joseph for a church Christmas celebration. 

I'm just saying..... He should play along just in case.

A Thanksgiving Photo Review

Avery was "very helpful" and participated in cooking Thanksgiving dinner with us. She made quite a mess with eggs and water. We also suspect that she added some water to the sweet potatoes when we weren't watching but we can't prove it. 
Since she is so cooperative she decided to look past the camera and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade instead. I think her favorite part of helping us cook was being allowed to stand on the step stool. She was really happy when she was up higher than her 2 year old body can do naturally.
Meanwhile Jack had his first taste of finger food. I love this shot because it is a cross between "what the heck is this" and "why are you taking my picture right now." He seemed to like the puffs but most of them ended up on the floor and then in Lucy's mouth.
Josh joined us for Thanksgiving this year because his family was in Ft. Worth and he needed to stick around Austin for the UT game on Thanksgiving night. Priorities. 

He showed up with a pony for Avery. She obviously loved it. 
Lucy wasn't too sure about the pony and continued to sniff around with her ears pinned back. Avery enjoyed teasing Lucy by pressing the button that made galloping noises. Lucy was so confused.
Josh usually has a way with kids and Jack is no exception. He loved the attention he was getting from "Uncle" Josh.
Josh got more than he bargained for when he got a big wet kiss on the cheek from Jack. He is pretty good at just slobbering all over any face that dares to get close enough.
Avery eating pie on Poppa's lap. She is all about sitting on laps when she eats, which is pretty annoying to me but Grammie and Poppa never seem to mind.
After dinner Poppa and Avery went outside to talk to the neighbors who were hanging out in their backyard, too. That's what happens when it is 80 degrees on Thanksgiving. Everyone just kind of makes their way outside to walk off the huge amounts of turkey they ate and talk to the neighbors to compare notes on the large portions of yams and mashed potatoes. I think this is a tradition that also started on the first Thanksgiving.

After dinner we headed out to the UT/A&M football game. It was a great night at the stadium. The crowd was really fired up and a lot of people were holding up 45-35 signs (to represent the final score of the UT/OU game). We won 49-9 which should have been enough to show the Harris Poll voters that we are the Big 12 South Champs. SHOULD have been...but it wasn't. So now on Saturday night Mizzou will play OU for the Big 12 Championship. Ridiculous. And if one more analyst talks about the high scores OU puts up I might scream because they leave their starters in for the entire game no matter what the score and we don't. We need a new system.
Matt and Avery getting ready for a nap (apparently Matt started napping already) on Friday afternoon. It's amazing how he is always the tired one on the day after Thanksgiving when I am the one who gets up at 4am to shop.