Whirlwind Holidays

Whew! Is it 2012 already?!

December has flown by thanks to a madcap roller coaster of holidays. First off, our little girl Tessa turned 2 years old on December 14th...all with rather minimal fanfare. Since she probably wouldn't register the significance of the date, Kate and I decided to keep things low-key. We got her a present (and got a couple more from aunts in the mail) but didn't do anything more than that. She seemed okay with it.

We tried to get baking and Christmas cards out before the holidays but that just didn't happen. Somehow the month just got away from us. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

We ended up heading down to Colorado Springs to spend Christmas weekend with my family. My mother brought the whole lot us into her restaurant - Thai Eats - for a smorgasbord of both Thai and all-American cuisine.
It was also a joint birthday party of Tessa and her cousin Everest (whose birthday is Dec 31st). Tessa of course loved the cookie-http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcake she got from Grandma and even managed to blow out her own two candles!
The birthday kids opened a couple of presents and generally played around the whole night. The grown-ups ate too much. :-)

Christmas Day was more laid-back than I was expecting. Kate and I went to morning services at St Gabriel's then came back to my folks' home to chill for part of the day before jumping into prep for Christmas dinner. Kate did the ham and rolls while I did potatoes and gravy. Mom tackled green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and stuffing. Dianna and her family joined us later in the afternoon, with Dianna bringing over some dessert.

After dinner, we let the kids open up presents. It was kind of different being the grown-up parent watching the kids lay into their Christmas presents. I think it was the first Christmas where I felt like my parents must have felt when Dianna and I were younger. Sure, we had our own gifts but it was much more fun to just lean back and watch the children go at it. I think I took another step toward real adult parenthood!

Incidentally, Tessa really, really enjoyed tearing open Christmas wrapping! Big surprise there, huh?
The day after Christmas, Kate and I headed up to Denver, where we met up with Kate's siblings - Emily, Glynnis, Aileen, and Dan - at Emily and Jason's place. We enjoyed a second round of Christmas dinner and once more stuffed ourselves silly.

That evening, we traded presents around...and Tessa once again did her duty in distributing gifts to appropriate folks.And she once again had fun ripping open her own presents.


I should note that Tessa did pretty well for herself - between belated birthday presents and Christmas. In fact, we had to leave some gifts behind both in Colorado Springs and in Denver because there simply wasn't enough space in the car for all her new toys!
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I started back at work the next day while Kate and Tessa bounced between home and Denver, hanging out with Tessa's aunts and uncles. Kate's sibling came up on Wednesday to help us get started on our repainting projechttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift for the first floor of our house. That's right - the infamous purple wall is going, going gone!http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

To thank them for their hard work, Kate and I took Dan and the sisters to Beaujo's Pizza for dinner.

The next day after I got off work, I joined the family back in Denver for dinner at Larkburger and then our first ever visit to the Denver Zoo's Zoo Lights. The Zoo Lights were amazing! The creativity and artistry was great and even Tessa was noticing the various glowing, glittering animal shapes all around us. There were even a few animals out seeing visitors, including the mountain goats, giraffes, and Tessa's favorite: the Tropical Discovery house. I highly recommend Zoo Lights to anyone in the Denver area around the holidays.
Kate spent a little time on Friday with her siblings, seeing Dan and Aileen off before picking me up from work in Longmont. Friday night was kind of a gasp-for-breath sort of night where we did some clean-up and a little prep for New Year's Eve.

New Year's Eve was spent over at my friends Bill and Tammy's house, as if often our tradition. It was a modest turn-out, around seven or eight of us not counting two kiddos. Bill made a turkey stew and Kate and I brought plenty of fruits and veggies. We played a few games...and nursed an exhausted Tessa all the way to midnight. We didn't stick around much longer than the changing of the year, hastening home to put our little girl and ourselves to bed.

Fortunately I had the next two days off from work...which was great because not only did we need a recovery from the whirlwind, but all three of us had developed a bit of sinus, sore throat, and coughing problem. We spent the first day of the year either sleeping or just plodding along. The second day was a little more productive but we were still recovering. By this post, I'm feeling quite a bit better, though Kate is still coughing and Tessa is still a bit stuffed up. Hopefully we'll be recovering soon enough.

So...wow! What a lot of holiday crammed into a couple of weeks, especially there at the end. Don't get me wrong - we had a great time...but now we need the proverbial vacation from our vacation! :-)


Happy Holidays! Welcome to 2012! With any luck, we won't all be so busy that we miss this year too!

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!

Half a Year of Parenthood

Okay, okay...I know I should be updating more often than a quarter of a year. I'll try to do better.

(Those who believe that obviously don't actually know me.) :-)

Our daughter Tessa turned six months old on Monday. It's hard to believe that Kate and I have been parents to such a wonderful blessing for that long. I find myself in that old paradox where it feels like she's always been part of our family...and yet she still seems so fresh and new to us. I don't want her to grow up too fast...and at the same time I can't wait to see what she learns to do next.

She has grown up amazingly fast, I think. Just recently we finally took down the lovely handmade cradle that my Dad made for us because Tessa just doesn't fit into it anymore. Please observe...

This is Tessa lying in her cradle for the first time when we brought her home:



And this is Tessa trying to squeeze into it at the end of May:



See the difference?

You don't?

How about this...?

This is Tessa with her Mommy back in December:



And this is a more recent picture (May) of Tessa with Mommy:



She's getting big!

Okay, last one...

Here's Tessa in her car seat at about four days old:



And here's Tessa at exactly six months:



She is rapidly turning into her own little person!

She's rolling over like a pro now and seems to be grasping the concept of 'skooching' though she hasn't mastered it yet. She gave us a scare a week or so ago when she rolled right out of our bed while I was half-dozing. Naturally she was fine - just startled, which got her crying for a while.

She loves to stand up (with help from her Mommy and Daddy). We're holding an "Excersaucer" for Emily and Jason and found out that Tessa loves it! She'll play with the toys but mostly she likes bouncing up and down.

While we were at my parents' house, we also learned that Tessa loves to swing. Kate is trying to make regular outings to the nearby park so Tessa can plop down in the bucket swing for a while.

She's showing an interest in solid food, staring at it when Kate and I have dinner. Kate's still exclusively nursing on demand but we'll probably be considering some homemade food options in the next month or so.

She's also a grabby little thing. Anything that she can get a hold of, she will...and usually ends up cramming it into her mouth. Last Sunday, we left our church bulletin within reach and she mangled it. At her well-child doctor's appointment this morning, she had fun shredding the paper lining of the examination table.

I'm not going to lie and see that everything is absolutely perfect all the time. Tessa has her moments...like when she refuses to settle down and take a nap, even though it's obvious she (and her parents) need one. Or when she gleefully explodes out of her diaper for the third night in a row. Or when she grabs a hold of Mommy or Daddy's hair, yanks hard, and won't let go.

But these are all minor things and they quickly pass. Truly, Tessa is a joy and a wonder and I love every single opportunity I get to watch her grow.

Happy Six Months, Baby Girl! Daddy loves you so much! :-)

As always, thanks for reading...and I hope you're having a great day!

Happy Birthday to Dad!

Just taking a moment to shout out a quick "Happy Birthdy" to my Dad!

Thanks for everything, Dad! You're the best!

Love,
Your Son,
- Michael

Happy Birthday to Dianna!

Wishing a very happy birthday to my "kid" sister Dianna!




Love you, Sis!

Happy Birthday to Mom

Sneaking this in at the almost very end of the day...



A very happy birthday wish (young folk call it a "shout-out") to my mother today - April 7th! I wish I could have said this in person but these days the digital form is just as meaningful as the real thing, ain't it? :-)

Happy Birthday, Mom! Love you lots!

Happy Birthday to Kate

Today is Kate's birthday! (I won't say which one - that's her prerogative!) Everyone please join me in wishing my beloved wife a very happy birthday today!



We unfortunately both have to work today so we can't do anything fun until tonight. However, Kate is thrilled 'cause she gets to go back to the new Council Tree library branch and continue to unload new books onto shelves. Yes, that's right - my wife thinks that shelving books is fun. :-)

We're planning on going out to dinner tonight at a semi-fancy restaurant called Fish. Yep, that's it - just "Fish." Kate's been wanting to try this seafood spot in Old Town for a while so here's her opportunity.

That's all I've got for now - I'm posting this just before the Longmont library opens so I'd better go and do my friendly lab monitor thing now. :-)

Thanks for reading - hope you're having a great day!

Busy Weekend

I'm not sure when exactly Kate and I developed an actual social calender but we sure don't seem to be spending a lot of dull evenings sitting around watching re-runs anymore. :-)

The weekend started (after a fashion) on Thursday when yours truly turned thirty-five. We both had to work so that limited what we could do for my birthday, but we did manage a leisurely dinner at Olive Garden that evening. In addition, I received plenty of cards, well wishes, and gifts from friends and family. Thanks to everyone!!

After work on Friday, Kate and I attended a relaxed wedding between a couple of old chums, Jeff and Leslie. We arrived halfway through the ceremony and were able to hang out afterwards.



Hanging out afterwards was kind of cool. It was sort of an "old home" night since there were a couple of folks that I hadn't seen in (literally) years!

On Saturday, we drove down to Denver to meet up with Emily and Jason for lunch. Emily suggested a cool place called KT's BBQ, where we had some awesome sandwiches! At first, I was twitchy about driving down there since the best approach was apparently I-70 to Colorado Blvd...but when Kate reminded me that the route was the same one we always take to the zoo or museum, I chilled out.

It was a nice get-together. We hadn't seen Emily or Jason since January up in Selah!

(Oh, and there was also this cute kiddo named Linc who was absolutely fascinated by me and Jason. Go figure!) :-)

Shortly after we got back to Fort Collins, we hopped over to a housewarming party for our co-worker Shana and friend Aaron. They had just bought a house and were looking for a rummage party. We had a couple of things we were already planning on taking down to Goodwill anyway, so we gifted them instead. It was a fun potluck - I picked up a couple of recipe ideas from Shana and other folks there. And it's always fun to get together with co-workers outside of work.



So congrats to Shana and Aaron on their new home!

Sunday was reserved for a few errands and our usual game and dinner night with Bill, Tammy, and Ron (plus our new chum Josh).

Whew! Busy-busy-busy! :-)

This coming weekend probably won't be much lighter. Kate and I are hosting our Library Board Game Night on Saturday and meeting with friends at Coopersmith's to try out the trivia contest there.

You'd think we had lives or something! ;-)

Anyway, that's it for now. Thanks for reading and hope you're day is going great!