WELCOME

I'm sitting here comforting poor refluxy Julian at 5am(he's moaning and saying Dada...) and thought I ought to put up a post welcoming all the new visitors via our Christmas cards. We're glad you stopped by! Leave us a comment letting us know what you think and come back often to hear the latest about our wonderful boys. (or bookmark our RSS Feed...)

Merry Christmas from all of us!
Jed

Owen the Great Secret Keeper

Conversation with Owen tonight:

(Backstory: Jed and Owen painted an ornament for Mommy a few days ago. It's a secret, shhh. We had extra ornaments around...)

Owen: Mama, is this an ornament?

Mama: Yes, it is.

Owen: Can we paint it?

Mama: Sure, Owen. Why, have you painted an ornament before?

Owen: Yes. For you. But I CAN'T tell. Dada said NO. It's a secret.

Merry Christmas Everyone!
May Santa bring you everything your heart desires...

ho ho ho!

7 Months Old!

Ho Ho Ho!

Building Frosty

Snow Day!

Snow Day Activities include:
Shoveling SnowSledding

AHHHH! It's an Abominable Snow Dog!!!
(Just kidding, it's Quincy)

Making Snow Angels

Did I mention?
Eating Snow

And it's not even lunchtime folks!

The Evolution of a Snow Day

The first snowflakes fell yesterday morning, and Owen asked right away, "Is it Christmas?!" Then he went running outside to play without a coat.

Later in the afternoon, the flakes started to stick, and he asked, "Can we build Frosty the Snowman?"

At bedtime last night, we read The Snowy Day a couple of times, and lo and behold...

The world was covered in snow when we woke up.
AND Mommy had a snow day and didn't have to go to work!

It's really fun to play in, but the best part is eating it!

Uncle Danny and Aunt Erin

We were so excited to have Danny and Erin come and visit over Thanksgiving weekend!

Besides a great Thanksgiving Day, we had fun walking to the Christmas Tree farm next door and dragging our tree back to the house. The guys at the farm just laughed at us when we said we were walking our trees home!

There was an assortment of dogs over the weekend. Grandma Queen and Pop Pop came to visit, and then all canines were relegated to the deck. Of course, they really wanted to be inside. Look at those faces...


After our tree excursion, we came home and made pizza. Uncle Danny and Owen had a race to see who could eat the extra cheese the fastest!

Owen took this picture. Not bad for a 3 year old!

Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving this year! 14 people (if you count Julian, but he doesn't eat much yet). We couldn't have done it without the help of Danny and Erin in the kitchen. Also, it was a VEGETARIAN feast, plus a small turkey meatloaf that Erin brought.

Greta helped with the cooking as well - she's a budding chef!

Special guest: Lorrie Klukloski. She played violin in the Grand Rapids Symphony for 50 years and has become a close friend of Grandma Brooks. We loved having her and I enjoyed playing the piano for a fellow musician.

Julian's Thanksgiving Feast - Pears and Rice Cereal. Yum!

Our pie selection included Jed's special Lemon Chess, Chocolate Chess and Dutch Apple Pies (with hand picked Northern Spy apples...see previous apple blog post).

Grandma Connie brought Baker's Square Pecan and Pumpkin Pie.

AND, Erin brought a cake shaped like a turkey.
The turkey cake was Owen's favorite part of Thanksgiving.

6 Months Old

That's right...Julian is pretty much getting anywhere he wants to go! In this picture, imagine him starting out somewhere around the blue ring and the star. Then he crawled to the piano to get the red cup! He mostly gets around using the one-arm, army-style crawl. Hey, whatever works.

Also, he has a keen sense of what he's NOT supposed to have. He may not be motivated by his baby toys, but if something ends up on the floor that he's not supposed to have, he moves like gangbusters!

Apples, Apples Everywhere

We went apple picking with our Earthkeeper Farm friends, Rachelle, Andrew and Baby Liam yesterday.

Here's the story: Michigan has too many apples this year, so some companies have stopped picking entirely.


The farm next to Andrew and Rachelle is one of those orchards, and it was abundant with fruit. We had a great time, and we came home with a few apples.

OK, 250 pounds of apples.


Seriously!
100 pounds of Golden Delicious
100 pounds of Northern Spy
50 pounds of Red Delicious

Halloween Spooks

Don't be fooled. The beast looks tame in this picture, but you should hear him ROAR!

My sister, the banana.

Jed and I prefer the minimalist approach.

ROAR!!!!!!

Owen discovered the joys of free candy this year. At first, I think he thought the whole thing was a little scary. We went trick-or-treating on Brower Lake with Aunt Ginny, Uncle Bob, Spencer and Greta. By the third house, Owen was RUNNING (often he was running in no particular direction and needed to be herded to the door of the house) in excitement.

He's already asking when Halloween will come again and planning for his costume. This morning he told me he's going to be an owl next year. I told him that I think we have some time...

5 Months Old!

Can't you see how much Julian adores his big brother?

Scott Family Cousins

Little Tiger

Grandma Brooks made Owen's costume this year! He spotted this tiger costume in the fabric store and couldn't wait to start ROARING!

Owen really wanted to be there to see Grandma sew it together, so here is a glimpse of the last stages of sewing a tiger costume. Once he got it on, he was a very scary (and very loud) tiger.


Cousin John John surprised us this weekend by coming to Grosse Pointe, and we just happened to have our old Pooh costume with us to mail to them. John was so excited that he couldn't stop jumping up and down. Once Owen got his tiger costume on they literally started running in circles and hugging until they fell over.

Our camera had a foggy lens from coming inside from a cold car, so it looks like they're hugging in some kind of dream world...one where they get to where their Halloween costumes all day, every day.