wild snowstorm!

Here are some pictures of what the storm has brought us today. (These are taken from our bedroom window at 10:00 at night, so pardon the terrible quality.)


I wouldn't be surprised if that car was just a big pile of snow by morning!

Merry Christmas :)

This is a live Christmas tree that I got this year. Honestly, I didn't think about it when I bought it, but it would be really cool if this tree could grow up with Jack. I guess we'll have to wait and see if it's as hardy as it looks! The good news is that it doesn't have to be planted for several years, so it will be okay living in a pot until we find a permanent home. :)

a great tummy time photo

teething baby

He likes the teething duck!

Jack's horsie

another milestone

Yesterday, Jack spent an entire trip to the grocery store working on grabbing and releasing his blanket. Today he proved that all the hard work had paid off-- he was able to grab his brush, wave it around, and even get it to his mouth for a chew! This marks the first time he has really held something on purpose (aside from tugging haphazardly on blankets). He's very proud. :)

Can you call it a growth spurt....

if it never stops???

Jack hasn't needed the boost for his jumpy horse for at least a week now. We have a whole new batch of hand-me-downs to go to Caiden. AND he weighs 15.5 pounds according to our (admittedly probably inaccurate) bathroom scale!

I feel like at this rate, he's going to be fully grown by about 8 years old!

We survived the ice storm!

We lost power on Thursday night, in what may end up being the winter's most spectacular storm. Out of 500,000 paying electicity customers in NH, 400,000 lost power! Some folks (like a woman Alex works with at Visiting Geeks) won't be getting their power back until Christmas!

On Friday it was 60 degrees in the apartment by 11:00 AM, and dropping, with no sign of returning power. I had thawed out a nice big half-turkey to roast on Friday and make a feast with, but we had no oven AND no refrigerator to keep it fresh! We packed up and headed for Massachusetts, to our brother-in-law Bobby's house, taking the turkey feast to pay for our room and board. :)

We had a lovely feast with Bobby, Alison, and all five Webber children, and came back home on Saturday to find that there was still no power, and our apartment was so cold, the thermostat couldn't even register the temperature! We grabbed all the food that was still good, wished the cats luck, and headed back down to Bobby's until Monday, which was when the rumor mill said we'd be getting power back.

Fast-forward through a weekend of fun and mayhem with Jack, Caiden and Rebecca, and here we are home again at last! We have to go grocery shopping to re-stock our fridge, but otherwise, we came through the whole episode just fine. :)

merry early Christmas, everyone!

Jack has this thing at night where he gets tired and all he wants in the whole world is to stand up. That's ALL, thank you! Last night we had a bright idea to get him a jumpy chair, which we have been meaning to do for a while. I guess our arms were finally fatigued enough to go for it. :)

Here he is getting acquainted: (It's a horse!) :D


He's a little short, so we got him a boost. :)


He settled right in. He likes the picture of a horse (which is right behind the red thingie in the picture, of course). He can chew on his chair and talk to the picture for ever!

ta-daaaa!

Guess what Jack can do:

trip to the store

Here is Jack setting out to the store:

He is getting much better at staying awake for walks TO places (so much to look at, especially trees!) and even at staying awake for the intended visit. Yesterday he stayed awake through a whole library visit!

However.... Here he is demonstrating our usual return: :)

Alex's Parents Visit

Here are an assorted selection of pictures from their visit:

Bear of Familiar Name

This outfit makes him look like a certain Pooh Bear, no?

Sleeping Hard

I caught a video of Jack working really hard at sleeping.

chillin'

He stands!

next video

He figured out we were recording him. He does NOT perform on command!

more videos

More happy baby!

Video!

For those of you who can't meet the boy in person, here is a little message from Jack:

Alex has been hiding pictures on his phone

These give a pretty good idea of what life has been like since the spring. :)

another picture

Here's yet more proof of how strong Jack is.

Presents from Alaska

Jack got some great Alaska goodies from his Aunt Pam and Uncle Jonathan. Here he is being a little studmuffin in his new t-shirt. :)

"Sunshine Baby"

Every morning we are greeted by a person we call Sunshine Baby. Jack spends the first few hours awake in the morning happily chatting and smiling at us. Of course, we chatter back in English, but he gets the gist. We've been meaning to capture some of the phenomenon with a camera, so here are a couple of shots of Sunshine Baby in his chair. I'm sure video will follow soon.

photo shoot!

Courtney took some really great pictures of Jack recently. I will put up more of these later, but to get the ball rolling:

I love this face:

We get this one a lot too!



You can see how alert and expressive he is.


Baby feet!


And I really like this picture. I might want to frame it for Alex. :)

hobo baby

Alison and Bobby gave Jack a present while we were in the hospital. They said it was all for Jack, and Alex and I were not to have any! We weren't sure about that, but Alison and Bobby insisted, so we went along with it. :)

dubious diaper change