Merry Christmas! Part I

Christmas was so big this year that I had to split it into two parts! This picture was taken on Christmas Eve. Micah had a little sweater vest to wear with his grown-up shirt, but it was a little too warm in Florida to wear it. I think it was 80 degrees on both Christmas Eve and Christmas. Yuck. But what a cute picture of my guys! Santa (and the relatives!) were good to us. Here's Micah playing the new piano that Aunt Heidi got for him. His first concert on the piano! We had an unexpected visitor on Christmas. This is Micah's friend Lloyd. His mom was supposed to have a c-section on January 2, but Lloyd's little sister had other ideas about when she was going to be born! So his parents dropped Lloyd off at our house at around 2:00 Christmas morning and he spent the next couple of days hanging out with us. Micah started to get the hang of opening his presents. His grandparents Williams sent a new "Praise Baby" DVD that Micah just carried around for a while. His grandparents Black sent Micah some Sandra Boynton books, which are some of his favorites. Daddy read "Barnyard Dance" to Micah that morning. We learned that, while Micah is great about sharing when he's at daycare or in the church nursery, it's a totally different story on his home turf! Both of them were a little upset that the other one was trying to play with the toy they wanted to play with. Garage sales are a great place to find toys for kids, especially those who don't quite get the Christmas thing yet. Micah loves his new VW bug! In this one, he's holding a new CD (it sings songs with his name in them!) and trying to play with his pig at the same time. We couldn't forget the dogs. This year, their presents were the empty rolls of wrapping paper. Really, they enjoyed those more than anything we could have purchased for them. This is Micah's new (from a garage sale, of course) dog chair. So far he likes it! He's holding another Sandra Boynton book. I had to put in this one because he looks so cute and he's wearing a shirt given to him by one of the members of Tim's congregation. How cute is he?? Merry Christmas to all!!

Merry Christmas! Part II

This is the Christmas jello salad that my mom made every year for Christmas morning brunch when I was growing up. It looks complicated, but it's really easy to make. You just have to have some time to wait for layers of jello to set! I made three in less than a week this year for various parties. It's always a hit and to me it's one of the things that signals that Christmas is really here. We visited Christmas Lane for the first time this year. It's really a guy who lives about ten minutes from us, kind of in the country, who goes crazy with decorations every year. The only cost to get in is a donation that goes towards the electric bill. Here's the house: When you read the signs posted around the yard, you learn that the displays he has up are made out of old mall displays. I guess he rescues them from death. It was pretty clear that these mannequins came from a mall! There was this ginormous tree in the yard, and it was beautifully decorated. Some cool facts about the tree if you care about that kind of stuff. They did throw in a nativity scene. If you look closely at the black background of the picture, you can see a line of lights. That's the cars lined up on the street waiting to get in. A closer view of the front of the house. One of the highlights is the opportunity to sit in Santa's sleigh and have your picture taken. We couldn't get Micah to look at the camera though. A tired Micah riding Daddy's shoulders as we neared the end of our time at Christmas Lane.

It's a Boy!!!

Tim and I may not be trained in the art of the ultrasound, but even we can see that Baby Black is definitely a boy!! Here's the profile picture too. He's just as cute as Micah was at his age! Everything looks great. We met with the geneticist and she said that based on blood tests and a prior ultrasound, our chances of having a healthy baby are fantastic. And really, that's the most important thing. He weighs seven ounces right now and is right on track. We're very excited that Micah will have a little brother to pal (and fight!) around with. Just like the first time, we don't have a clue about a name - and we probably won't tell you when we do. :)

A couple of random pictures

Just a couple of fun shots I took yesterday. Micah's new thing is to crawl under the table. I'm not sure why it's intriguing to him, but he seems to enjoy it. He especially likes it when one of his dogs is on the other side! Lately, he has really become much more interested in trying to play with the dogs. They don't usually pay too much attention to him, but they tolerate him well. At a girls' night out after a baby shower, I painted this plate, and then brought it home for Micah to put the finishing touches on. Those are his handprints that are the antlers of the reindeer. This will be the plate that we use in the future to put out cookies for Santa. Micah's not quite ready for that, but we think that he will be by next year.

One Big and Long-Overdue Update

I can't believe it's been so long since my last post. A new bad record. Well, it's not the same as frequent updates, but I've put a lot into this one, at any rate. Santa came to First Presbyterian again this year. Micah, it turns out, is like a lot of kids - terrified of the man in the red suit. I managed to get two pictures. Here's the first one... ...and here's the second one of a frantic Micah trying desperately to escape Santa's lap. Those are compared to last year when he sat serenely in Santa's lap. I'm just glad we didn't pay for the these priceless memories! Micah did enjoy the tree that was next to Santa, however. He loved the lights and the ornaments and the fake tree. At home, we've noticed something really cute. When Micah sees a fake needle on the ground, he picks one up and tries to put it back on the tree. Our little cleaner. Here he is a couple of weeks ago during a cold snap (it was a balmy 80 degrees here yesterday), posing for a Gap Kids ad. At least, we think he looks cute enough to be in one! Fun with spaghetti. Turns out, he loves to try to suck up the noodles.Finally, we have some news about baby #2. Our ultrasound is set for Monday, December 22 at 8:00 a.m. If the baby cooperates, we will find out the sex that morning! Merry Christmas to us!! Both Tim and I have our feelings about what it is, but we'll just let the ultrasound speak for itself. It's so cheesy, but if the new baby is healthy and fun and great like Micah, it doesn't matter the sex. But we're looking forward to finding out nonetheless!

The Adventure of Eating

So tonight Micah was very fussy about what he ate. I think it has something to do with the fact that he has yet another ear infection. The tubes are doing their job in that the ears are draining, but that isn't quite keeping his ears from being infected. He's on antibiotics now, both oral and drops in his ear, and we're hoping that this round will finally knock out the bacteria that's left in his ears. If not, cultures are in our future. But I digress... I tried chicken with Micah tonight. No luck. I tried cheesy vegetables. No luck. I tried peaches, which he normally loves. No luck. What did get him to eat a little bit? Control over his fork. Well, "control" is stretching it a bit, but at least he was trying to feed himself. He would pick up the food and then try to spear it with the fork. He can't decide which hand he prefers to hold the fork in! He didn't always get something on his fork and therefore in his mouth, but Micah took a lot of pride in his work! After dinner, we played a little peekaboo with the curtain by the door. Where's Micah? There he is!!

Save the Date

Big news!! Baby number 2 is due on anniversary number 5!!! Micah's little brother or sister will arrive around May 28. We're experiencing all the same feelings we did when we found out Micah was coming - gratitude, shock, amazement, queasiness (okay, that's just me) and excitement. Overall we're feeling really blessed to get to be able to be parents all over again. Micah has been such a joy that we can't wait to see what God has in store for us the second time around. And to answer a couple of questions: 1. Yes, we'll be finding out the sex of this baby as soon as we possibly can. 2. It's clearly not twins. Whew - dodged that bullet again! This is the picture that I used to tell Tim, as his birthday present, that he was going to be a dad again. The only bad thing was that I told him while he was driving us across the state on I-4. I think he almost crashed the car!

The Little Dinner that Couldn't...Be Eaten

I have grown to really enjoy cooking. The problem is that between working full-time (and often having to deal with evening hours for either Tim, myself or both) and chasing after Micah, I don't have either the time or the energy to cook as I like to. But I was all proud of myself this morning. I got out some pork from the fridge, cut it up, and marinated it all day. I couldn't find our skewers so I ended up making a stir fry. Look at how pretty it was!The only problem was the smell. The meat didn't smell quite right when I took it out the fridge that morning but I worked with it anyway because I was late for work. I noticed the smell again when I started cooking it, and again when I was done cooking it. I looked up on the internet and it turns out that pork only keeps 3-5 days in the fridge. My seven (or longer, if I'm totally honest) days was too long. so I took a picture of the prettiest dinner that we'll never eat. And then Tim brought McDonald's home at 9:00 when he was done with his meeting. Micah ate baked beans, fruit, half an ear of corn, and goldfish. I'm a bad parent tonight, but at least there's tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!

Here is our little lion at daycare this morning! Being a lion must have been a popular choice among one-year-olds this year because three of the seven children in the class were lions! The other two were dressed in the same costume, but Micah's was different - and much cuter if I do say so myself. Garage sales are great places to find Halloween costumes that are only worn for 20 minutes! In this picture, Micah's sitting in his seat (look how they had to stretch the strap to get it around his fake belly!) waiting for his morning snack.I know it's kind of out of order, but here's a shot at home before we left for daycare. Check out the tail! Here's the kids that were in his class today, all patiently waiting for their snacks before walking around the center for the Halloween parade.Lion Micah walking the parade route with his teacher, Miss Margarita. Unfortunately, we had to take his little lion feet off and let him walk in sandals because the bottoms of the lion feet were too slippery for the floor. After the parade, Micah gets back to some serious playing! Here are some random shots from the past week that I didn't have time to put up during the week. A new thing for Micah is brushing his teeth. He actually likes it. He doesn't actually brush - it's more like sucking on the toothbrush. But everyone has to start somewhere. We went to the pumpkin patch at St. Andrew's again this year to pick out our family pumpkin. The patch is fenced in, but sits right on a major road. Micah's thing lately is cars - not necessarily to play with, but he loves to watch them. It was difficult to get a straight-on shot of him because all he wanted to do was look at the traffic! I wanted to do a little comparison shot. Here's Micah in the patch this year... ...and here he is at roughly the same time last year. Pretty crazy, huh? He's such a big little guy! Grandma and Grandpa Williams sent Micah a very cute Halloween shirt that lit up whenever he moved. Micah enjoyed it, but it was difficult to catch it lighting up on camera. The ghost on his shirt was what lit up in red. We also liked it because it says, "Boo" on it, which the nickname that Tim and I call him.