Merry Christmas!

The first of the Christmas presents

This driving game was the first present Josh opened. He loves it! For a few weeks now he's been asking if he can drive the car when he gets bigger, so we knew he'd love the simulator. Unfortunately, like his love for hitting his golf balls into the water in Golden Tee, his favorite thing to do so far is drive his car into the wall. With a little practice, I should be able to beat his resulting lap time.

Sleep like a baby

Luke has developed a strange habit of sleeping with his face pointing directly down. He puts his little hands on either cheekbone, and puts his face right down on the mattress. Our friend Mandy babysat for us last weekend, and called when he went to sleep to check on this seeming safety issue. But, no matter how much I turn his head, he goes back to this position.

The Polar Express

We rode the "Polar Express" train out of the Mt. Hood Railrood in Hood River, Oregon on Dec. 12. Everyone was served hot chocolate and cookies, as in the book, and we had the added advantage of being seated in the cocoa car, which means we got the leftovers! We traveled out about 45 minutes to the "North Pole" (a depot decorated with lights to look like a little village) while listening to the audio book, then picked up Santa and his elves, who rode back with us to our starting point. The elves dispersed among the train cars to lead carols, as Santa made his way through one by one. It took a long time, especially for us in the second-to-last car, but to Santa's credit he sat at each and every table and spent as much time with each child as it warranted.
Here are two of Santa's elves as we departed:

Josh enjoying his cookie:

A look down the train car at Daddy, Lucas and Josh:

Santa!

Josh asked Santa for a bell (just like in the book), and was ecstatic to receive one. Here he is swinging it around wildly:

We had a really nice time.

It's not easy being Daddy

Christmas tree farm 2007

In the middle of lots of cold, or rainy, or cold and rainy days we were lucky to wake up last Saturday to a beautiful day with clear blue skies. We headed out to our favorite Christmas tree farm (Terry Bradshaw's, though presumably not the Terry Bradshaw you may have heard of) and the hunt was on. We think we found a pretty good tree:

Josh helped Daddy cut it down. Mommy and Lucas provided the useful shadows:


O Tannenbaum:

Who took this picture?

Deck the halls

The first ornament:

Our elf and his decorations:

Six Months

Lucas turned 6 months old on December 4. He is a happy and healthy baby. He loves music, other babies and kids, and putting things in his mouth (as he is desperately trying to cut in a tooth). He is beloved by Josh's classmates. He can keep himself seated once he is put into a sitting position, he can hold his body up when lying on the floor, and he can roll on demand, even across the room if he needs to get somewhere. He is trying to crawl, but only ends up scooting backward so far. When he gets excited about play, his whole body shimmies, with arms flailing and legs kicking. After we finally broke down and resorted to the "cry it out" method of sleep training (after everything else failed) at the end of November, he is now sleeping well, though he continues to awaken at midnight and at 3 am for feedings. Unfortunately, he has dropped to the 10th percentile for weight, so not only must we continue the nighttime feedings, we need to find a way to get more food into him during the daytime as well. Some of this is the consequence of his decision back when I returned to work to start refusing the bottle, which limits the amount he can eat during the day. But now that he can eat cereal and some baby foods, hopefully we can add in another daytime meal and help boost his growth.

He may be small, but he has a big smile:

Dance, baby, dance:

His idol:

Next step: crawling!