Happy Holidays!

Jason, Jay and I are very fortunate that we live so close to family.  We are able to spend some time with both sides at Christmas!  Jay gets to play with all of his cousins and Jason and I get to have some good, adult conversations.  We were very fortunate that the weather was good and made travel easier.

I think our house is a little more in order than it was when we first got back.  We have a lot of boxes to get rid of yet.  I'm still looking for homes for a few things, but once I get rid of some more clutter, that shouldn't be a problem. 

This weekend is jammed packed with visitors!  Jason's parents are coming down today for our choir's cantata tomorrow.  A friend from Texas is traveling through Iowa with her girls and would love to stop and see us.  (Not to mention a shower and some home cooking!)  Tomorrow, some friends of ours from Independence are coming out for the day.  We're going to have a busy couple of days!

Jay has discovered how fun it is to stick food up his nose.  It started with corn, then rice.  I'm trying to make sure to feed him food that is too big for his nose now.  It definitely changes things!  Jay and I also went and bought "Cars 2" and he is just as enthralled with this movie as "Cars".  The same people who made those two movies are coming out with a new one, "Planes" based on the planes from the movies.  Jason and I are planning on taking Jay to see it in the theater!

I am planning to take a trip to eastern Iowa in January, with Jay in tow.  We'll be leaving Ames the afternoon of the 13th and returning sometime the following week.  There are several people that have requested a visit, and we're going to try to see everyone, but we'll see how things go.

Jason will no longer be working weekends come January 14th.  He's been working weekends again for the last two years, so we're hoping that he'll get to stay off weekends.  That will help him accumulate some vacation time instead of using all of it. He's very excited about it!

We hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!  We'll be in Ames, celebrating at home and spending New Year's day with friends.  We hope everyone will be able to be with loved ones!

No Party

Jay and I made the trip to Des Moines Friday night to go see the Ryan family.  It took us about an hour and a half to get to the hotel.  Luckily, Jay slept halfway.  I spent some time talking with Cyndy and Eric while Jay decided to wrestle Kjetil.  Jay had so much fun!  We even got to go swimming.  I think Jay's favorite part was checking everyone's hotel room out.  He was very good about following me around the hotel to go to different places. 

We shared a room with Jordan and her boyfriend, Andrew, and his dog, Sally.  It was a long night since Jay was overly tired and overly excited about everything.  It took several YouTube views of the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" theme song to get him calm enough to lay down and go to sleep.  He woke up around 4:30am, after finally going to sleep about 2am.  He cried and cried, then started coughing this barking type cough.  After discussion with Cyndy, it's most likely croup.  The hotel room was very dry.  I finally got Jay back to sleep about 5am after taking his jammies off, Jordan turning the heat down in the room, watching some Disney Junior and finally getting him to drink some water.  Of course I had to wake him up to get him ready to go so we could check out on time. 

Jay and I did not get to stay for the family party.  Dad wasn't feeling well with his cold, so the three of us came back up to Ames.  And since Mom and Jordan didn't take the pinwheels I made out of the Pacifica, those came back to Ames with us!  Jay didn't take a nap when we got home, but he did end up going to bed at 6pm.  So far, no coughing!  (It's 7:30.)  Mom and Dad left to go back to Miles since Dad has to work tomorrow.  Jordan is nice enough to stay with us for the weekend to help watch Jay.  (Maybe we'll even get all of our presents wrapped!)

Waiting

I am recovering from my surgery.  I no longer have a splint and get my stitches taken out on Wednesday.  I am able to use my wrist as normal, as long as I don't overdo it.  I'm sure I'll have a nice scar to show everyone!

We're patiently waiting for some snow.  It did snow one night and Jay was amazed!  We even got him to try catching the flakes with his tongue.  He has a snowsuit so I'm hoping we'll get enough snow that he'll be able to use it.  For now, he likes to put his mittens on and wave at traffic while in our driveway.  (He tends to wave more at the cars than at people.) 

I spent a couple of days making some goodies and we gave them to our friends.  Jay was pretty good while I was making everything, sleeping the one day and staying fairly occupied the other.  We don't have our Christmas decorations up.  I can't get to where our decorations are, but we do have an advent calendar. (Thanks to Jason's mom for getting it for us!)  It's really cute.  It's a Christmas tree with snaps and each day is a different ornament.  I think Jay will really like it next year.  This year, he only wants to pull it off the wall.  I also don't have any of our wrapping paper out seeing as it's with our Christmas decorations.

We're planning on spending Christmas eve in Miles and Christmas day in Olin.  It's going to be an extremely short trip, but it'll be fun and filled with lots of family and love.  And probably laughter!  Currently, I'm planning on Jay and I spending about a week in Miles in January with a stop in Olin at some point.  I should go back to my job in February and want to take a "vacation" before I end up working close to 50 hours a week. 

I look forward to this holiday season as Jay is getting more and more curious about everything!  We decided not to take him to see Santa because we're not sure how he'll react.  We'll try to make sure we read the Christmas story and I'll see if I can't at least get out our Nativity.