GO BLUE!

After Christmas in Indy, we went up to Ann Arbor. In the interest of getting this posted, I'm going to go light on the narrative and give you what you really want - pictures and video.

"You've got big feet Grandpa Dale"

"Aunt Jen has big feet too! Her boots go all the way up my leg!"


"Another dog to love!" (that's Figo under the love tackle from Jake)


"I'll write down the gifts this year Michigan Grandma"


"This is a great book about dogs, Grandpa!"

Some of you may know that Jake's favorite book is an out-of-print title called Gas Station Charlie. It's a true story about a Golden Retriever who "worked" at a gas station in Saline, Michigan near Ann Arbor. Charlie has passed on, as has his son, but his grandson Harley works at the station now. We took Jake to the gas station while we were in Michigan. Here's Jake meeting his favorite character.


He's just a little excited.




We took Jake to campus one day. It was really, really cold (don't forget Jake is a Southerner!), so we didn't go quite as many places as we would have liked to, but we still got some good pictures and got to see some old stomping grounds.

"Down with the Buckeyes!!"

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We're now "those crazy parents"

Okay, so we've been "those crazy parents" with regards to preemie things (hand sanitizer anyone?) for a long time, but we really jumped off the cliff into crazy parent land when we decided the best way to get home for Christmas in the Midwest was to get up at 3:00 a.m. and leave under the cover of darkness. Amazingly enough, those crazy parents know something and this strategy worked really well for us. Jake handled the 12-hour car ride like the trooper he is and we got to Indiana while it was still daylight.

Jake had a great time with his cousin Lily, Aunt Kathryn, Gamma B, and Papaw George, but his heart belonged to Bailey the dog.

"Let me show you how to open that Papaw"

"Let US show you how to open that Papaw"

"Who is this dog?"

"I like the Colts too, Papaw!"

"I love this rocking horse that was Gammy B's when she was little"

"This dog is fun!"

"Oh, so that's how you climb up and down the stairs super fast"


"I really love this dog"

"Play us another one Gammy B!"

"I really, really love this dog"

We also got to see my good friend Amy and her son Elliott while we were in Indy. It was great to catch up and for Jake to have another little playmate. Elliott was born right around when Jake was due, so they are pretty close in age.


Jake wonders how Elliott got all that hair...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

After the fun of Indiana, we headed up to Michigan for more fun! Pictures and videos coming soon!

Catching up

Jeff and I just finished watching the special 19 Kids and Counting... (or rather, I just finished making Jeff watch it with me). Back in December baby Josie was born weighing 1 pound, 6 ounces at 25 weeks. I know people have lots of opinions about the Duggars (except Jeff who had never heard of them until tonight - my husband is not exactly a pop culture guru). But say what you will, I feel like I could actually relate to them now. The fear in JimBob's eyes is what is still with me: Jeff had that same look while we were in the hospital. A woman from a preemie board I go to wrote a really excellent blog post about the Duggars back when Josie was born. You can find it here. (and you can also read the amazing tale of Robbie!)

Enough about the Duggars. We have a lot of catching up to do around here. Here's the last few months in pictures.

Here's an outtake from our Thanksgiving day photo shoot at Cousin Todd and Aunt Suse's. A pretty good picture but we are all looking different places, which is slightly disorienting...


Todd and Susannah with Jake. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with Todd, Susannah, her sister Mary, and her mom. That makes two years in a row of Thanksgivings in the D with friends and family. Not having to cook is very nice! Thank you!!


A series from our attempts to get a "at the fireplace by the tree" shot.

"Very sweet"

"Why are you grabbing your foot?"



"Don't grab your foot."

"Okay, let's try somewhere else."

"Yeah, that's not going to work either."


In early December we headed out to the Outer Banks again. This time hitting the southern end and a really nice little town? spot? named Frisco. Jeff's boss at Datatel took the whole team out to a little shack by the sea (aka, a huge 9-bedroom house that sits right on the beach with a heated pool, hot tub, the works!) to celebrate the end of the NC Project. We had a lot of great food and drink and the company was wonderful as always! Jeff was lucky to get to work with such a great bunch of folks for such a long time.

Mom and son in front of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse...

The Datatel NC team (with Jake wandering in)

In early December Jake was evaluated by a speech pathologist because we had some concerns that although he seems to understand most things, he is still not saying much. She confirmed what we essentially already knew. His receptive language was at a 19-month level (ahead for even his actual age at the time) but his expressive language was at an 11-month level. The pathologist had a number of things for us to try, and for Christmas I did get what I wanted - Jake's first word, which fittingly is "woof." He's now added "moo" and the occasional "meow." It seems that he really wants to talk to the animals before he talks to us. Fortunately, he signs for "food," "more," "help," "all done," "please," "bye bye," "book," and he blows kisses, so we know, roughly, what it is he wants. We are going to start speech therapy this month, so maybe sometime soon we will have a video of Jake talking.

He may not be trash talking yet, but this kid is already a baller. Here he is in late November with Dad's basketball...