Moving On

Every year I am at least a little tempted to not do the blog anymore. It is a lot of work and, at times when our life isn't very exciting, it is difficult to even think of anything to photograph. But despite the temptation, we have decided to continue for next year. We really love having the pictures over time, even if the process of getting them isn't always the most fun ever. Plus, we get a lot of great pictures we wouldn't otherwise take and have a good record of our everyday life, which was one of my main goals in starting this project. And since we have literally taken a picture every day of Joshua's entire life (as well as Clara's and Hannah's), I would be a little sad to stop, though I would if I had a good reason. But, "Sometimes it's kind of hard" isn't really that good of a reason.

One change we are making is a new feature that will probably be roughly weekly. I am tentatively calling it "Way Back Wednesday" though I am not promising it will always be on a Wednesday. I had fun looking at the pictures of last time Jason and I did a gingerbread house here and I have a lot of older pictures, both on paper and digital and I look forward to sharing some of them. 2013 also marks our ten-year wedding anniversary so it's a natural time to look back. Additionally, we really struggle on Wednesdays for pictures because usually the kids are at grandma and grandpa's all day and without them, not much exciting really happens. Especially because I use my free time to do things like grocery shop so my activities aren't very photo-worthy, people of walmart not withstanding. So I have decided to have this feature for many of these Wednesdays where we don't have a good way to get a photo. I think it will be fun.

We hope you will join us as we photograph 2013 at our new blog 2013 in Pictures. We will not be making further posts on this blog.

Jason's Awards and Stats for 2012 In Pictures

Much like I did last year and the year before, here are some awards that I made up and some stats about the 366 (This year was a Leap Year!) daily posts for 2012 in Pictures.

Best Write-Up:

When Rednecks Speak Spanish (4/17/12)

Top 7 Best Titles (in chronological order): 

1. They See Me Strollin'  They Hatin'. (3/30/12)
2. Cinco de Witt (5/5/12)
3. Foam Party (6/6/12)
4. McCormick & Smiths (6/16/12)
5. Gasoline Starkiss (9/17/12)
6. Box Seats (9/21/12)
7. Pottying Like It's 2012 (9/30/12) 

Top 5 Best Photography (in chronological order):

1. Is there a Sherangioma? (5/7/12): I wanted to get Clara's picture by the sign, but I needed about three hands to do it.  With some work, I was able to still hold her safely and get the picture that I wanted.
2. Sunshower (7/7/12): Some of these were taken with our good camera, which resulted in some beautiful pictures, even capturing the rain in sharp detail.  The sunrays in the top-right picture turned out great.
3. Mama and Baby (10/22/12): This one isn't about anything I did or the quality of the camera.  The lighting was already perfect, and the two girls were already perfect.  I saw it and immediately grabbed the camera to make sure I was able to get a picture of it before one of them woke up.
4. Unseasonably Warm (11/9/12): Meghan did a great job in the photo on the right of capturing the beautiful fall leaves in the foreground at the top while still getting Joshua playing with another branch in the background.
5. Multi-Kid Blockfest (12/1/12): Joshua's main interest was in knocking down stacks of blocks, and I wanted to capture that (in the top-right photo).  I had my cheaper camera with me, which isn't fast.  So I had to time it by pressing the button at just the right time when he was winding up to have the picture actually take when he was knocking it down and the blocks were in the air.  I was off on the first try, but I nailed it on the second.

 

Worst Photography:
A Williams Dinner (11/18/12): I took the picture of the three sisters, and I'm not sure what went wrong, but I turned what should have been a really nice picture of three pretty girls who all have perfectly fine skin tone into an apparent "before" picture for facial rash medication.  Sorry Williams sisters!


Top 5 Coolest Visuals (in chronological order):

1. Marilyn and Me (2/8/12): It almost seems like an optical illusion to have me so small compared to a statue, but then you realize it's a gigantic sculpture.
2. Deliciousness on the Plaza (2/19/12): I really like the intense light that seems to be shining down directly on us.
3. Perhaps Chartreuse Cabeuse? (4/11/12): The neon lettering behind me looks like it's on fire.
4. Foam Party (6/6/12): This picture has a fun 3D-type effect.  If someday technology allows us to convert this blog to 3D, this picture will look great.
5. 5-4-3-2-1: Happy 8:30!!! (12/31/12): I took some pictures of the glow-in-the-dark jewelry that ended up being really trippy.  The ones we used in this post are more normal looking but especially the one with Joshua results in a pretty cool-looking picture.

Best Facial Expression (in chronological order): 

1. Baby Math (2/11/12) Joshua's face: "GRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
2. Easter Sunday (4/8/12): Joshua's face in the lower-right photo: "I hope nobody is seeing me do this.  I hope nobody is seeing me do this.  I hope nobody is seeing me do this."
3. Clara the Climber (8/7/12: Clara's face: "Okay, so you've caught me.  But I dare you to stop me!"

 
Top 3 Rants (in chronological order): 

1. Perhaps Chartreuse Cabeuse? (4/11/12)
2. When Rednecks Speak Spanish (4/17/12)
3. Bags Instead of Babies (9/2/12)

Best Job of Avoiding Sharing Not-Yet-Public Information:

We found out Meghan was pregnant in late January.  Because of past fertility issues, we wanted to make sure things were going well before we announced it to our family, and then we wanted to tell as many people in person as we could.  It wouldn't have been so hard to wait to tell people, except Meghan was extremely sick for the about six months of her pregnancy.  So that led to times where we had to cancel events or have Meghan not attend without exactly admitting why.  It came up a couple times here in the blog, where Meghan was "sick" or "not feeling well", which was true, just not in the way you'd think.  Here are two examples of that:

1. Spending Time with Grandma (3/6/12)  
2. Substitute Chef (3/14/12)

Best Blog Improvement:

In past years the "X Months" post for the kids' under-1 monthly milestones were very brief.  This year we made a concerted effort to use those posts to elaborate more on developmental achievements that have happened since the last monthly birthday.  We try to keep track of these elsewhere, but having them also noted here in the blog makes for a quick and easy reference for us when needed.

Best Blog Trend:
Recently we broke away from the unstated policy of "one or two, but at most four pictures per day."  Meghan has been pushing for awhile to loosen up the format, so toward the end of the year we had some posts with five or even six pictures.

Most Annoying Blog Problem:
In general, you can click on any picture on the blog and it will show you the large version of it.  For some reason, in some posts, one of the pictures can be enlarged, but all others in the post do not get larger when you click on them.  This was especially annoying in posts such as Hannah's Dramatic Arrival when you want to get a better look at a busy picture.  We are going to try to figure out why this is happening and correct it for next year.
[EDIT (1/6/13): I have figured out why this happens and will prevent it from happening in 2013 in Pictures.  I will go back and fix some of the posts in 2012 in Pictures.]

Closest to a Blog Disaster:

Moral of the Story: Just use Lost & Found (3/19/12)  Without that crazy series of events resulting in me getting my camera back, we would have had three posts gone forever.

Saddest Post, In Retrospect:
Not Terrence's Favorite Place (3/31/12)  We switched vets quite a few years ago after Banfield's negligence resulted in Lemieux's early death.  Since then, we've gone to Oxford Animal Hospital.  Although they're a little more expensive than some vets, they provide great care.  Our favorite vet there is Dr. Ross Burd, pictured in this post.  Earlier this month, he passed away after battling pancreatic cancer.  I had forgotten we had a picture of him until I was going through the blog preparing for our end-of-year posts.  We'll miss him, and so will Terrence, Natalie, and Alex.

Closest to Sacrilege:

1. Terrence is My Co-Pilot (4/19/12)
2. G-Zus Saves... You Money? (12/19/12)

Tagging Trickiness:

It's a Girl! (5/21/12)  We tag everyone who appears in the posts, and at the time of this post we didn't know what we would name our baby, so she was just "Baby #3" in the tag.  After we had decided what to name her (which was the night she was born) I went back and modified the "Baby #3" tag to be "Hannah".

  

Do You Have Your Tickets to the Gun Show?:

Manual Labor Day (9/3/12)  Yep.  :-)

The Where's Waldo Blog Game
We tag each post with the people or pets who appear in them.  Usually it's obvious who is in the picture, but sometimes it's not.  Sometimes it's even difficult for us to spot that little pug in the corner or under the table in the picture.  Are you up for a challenge?  For each of the following posts, try to find the person or animal I mention (Okay, in one case it's a statue).

1. Lazy  Saturday (2/4/12) - Find Terrence and Natalie
2. Fun With Crayons (3/23/12) - Find Natalie
3. Easter Sunday (4/8/12) - Find Terrence
4. Casual Observers (4/21/12) - Find Joshua and Alex
5. Drinking from a Cup (5/9/12) - Find Barb and Clara
6. Tactile Adventures (5/17/12) - Find Terrence 
7. Teeny Tiny Lady Liberty (8/23/12) - Find Statue of Liberty 
8. Holiday Weekend BBQ (9/1/12) - Find Terrence
9. Joshua Turns Two (10/12/12) - Find Terrence
10. Unseasonably Warm (11/9/12) - Find Terrence
11. Seasonally Appropriate Art (11/12/21) - Find Meghan, Hannah, Terrence, and Natalie (Hint: They are not tagged because unintentional reflections aren't tagged) 

Most Words:

Bags Instead of Babies (9/2/12) - 515 words

Fewest Words:

2 Grandmas (5/3/12) - 29 words

Most Pictures:

The Big 0-2 (10/27/12) - 6 pictures
Gingerbread Fun (12/11/10) - 6 pictures
5-4-3-2-1: Happy 8:30!!! (12/31/12) - 6 pictures

Most Links:

Farewell Chicago? (12/27/12) - 5 links

Most People (not including concert crowds):

Bringing the World to Kansas City (12/5/12) - 17 people
Christmas Weekend Part 2: Nicholl Edition (12/16/12) - 17 people

Musical References:

Did a post title not make sense to you?  It might have been one of the many musical references we tend to use in our post titles, although for whatever reason we used far fewer this year than we did last year.  Here is a list of the post titles that were references to either a song title or a lyric, with some verbatim and some modified to fit the subject matter of the post.  The link takes you to the song that is being referenced.  You’ll see there’s a wide variety of genres and generations among them.

1/11/12	Empire State of Mind
1/25/12	I Wish I Was a Little Bit Taller
2/9/12	Little Drummer Boy
7/3/12	Dance, Then, Wherever You May Be
8/15/12	She's Happy and Knows It
8/20/12	Closing Time
8/31/12	Raindrops Keep Falling on Her Head
12/6/12	Away in a Very Sturdy Manger

Some Nerdy Stats:

Posts by Jason:	218
Posts by Meghan:	148

This is a much larger difference than we normally have, but there's a very good reason.  Meghan's pregnancy sickness was so severe that she needed me to take over most of the blog tasks for awhile, resulting in my post count being much higher than it normally would be.


In each post we tag the people in it, as well as our own pets. Here’s the breakdown on the number of posts in which each person or furry friend appeared, among those who made at least two appearances. Ties are broken by the alphabet, not by how much we love you.

Joshua	183
Jason	141
Clara	140
Meghan	74
Hannah	40
Natalie	19
Terrence	19
Joanna	11
Julie	10
Andrew	8
Barb	7
Christine	7
Peg	7
Ron	7
Alex	6
Bob	5
Jean	5
Kirk	5
Jim	4
Tony	4
Deb	3
Michelle	3
Nick	3
Vincent	3
Abby	2
Brent	2
Carla	2
Christa	2
David	2
Jason K.	2
Lucy	2
Mark	2
Nate	2
Nathan	2
Sam	2
Steve D.	2

And as we did last year, this year we tagged each post with the state where the picture was taken if it was somewhere other than Kansas, solely so I could do this exact list, because I’m curious about dumb things like this. Here’s the breakdown:

Kansas	325
Illinois	10
Missouri	7
New York	6
Nebraska	3
Ohio	3
California	2
Indiana	2
Michigan	2
Minnesota	2
Wisconsin	2
Kentucky	1
Texas	1

And that's the end of the stats and awards.   Just like a real awards show, it probably dragged on too long.

[Editor's Note: In the next day or so we'll post the final wrap-up post for this year, and then we'll be off to a new blog.  Until then, stay tuned!]

Our Top 10 Posts: The Year in Review

From Meghan:

This was a really hard year for me and for us. Although my pregnancy culminated in the wonderful gift of Hannah, it was pretty miserable most of the time. It's easy now to say, "Oh it wasn't so bad" because we have Hannah and it's kind of faded off into the distance, but it was really really bad. One of my favorite things about it besides it ending is that Joshua and Clara are too young to remember how I couldn't do a good job taking care of them for so long. So looking back at the year, it was still hard to pare it down to only ten moments, but it also was hard seeing all the pictures I wasn't in because I was so sick. I am really excited about being able to live 2013 more intentionally and staying out of survival mode. Here are my top ten in chronological order:

1) Finalization (1/27/12): This was special because in adoption, until it's final, you can never really fully relax. Leaving the courthouse and knowing your child is yours forever is a great feeling and we had a fun little roadtrip for this since we returned to Wichita for finalization. It was also the last weekend before I knew I was pregnant and I remember really enjoying my food at dinner, so that was nice to be able to do.

2) Naptime: AKA Party Time (1/31/12): One of the things I really hate is that even with the blog, even with trying to write things down, I will never remember everything about the kids' childhoods. There's just too much that happens and so many amazing things that occur every day. And when you are in a phase it feels like everything will be that way forever, but then one day, it just stops and the thing that you didn't really make a note of because it seemed like it wasn't that special is gone forever. So I am really glad we have pictures like these. This is Joshua in full one-year-old glory and I love it.

3) Lady Gaga loves Joshua (5/26/12): I love seeing the kids play together. I can't wait until Hannah gets a little older and can join them. This is one of the first times they did parallel play (Hannah already tends to smile big at Clara so I can't wait to see it as Hannah grows as well). I also always love any post that talks about words since now Joshua only says "Gaga" sometimes and probably soon won't say it at all.

4) Zoo Day (6/9/12): Because I was so sick for so long, we didn't really get the trips I wanted this summer. I wanted to go camping and to Florida. Those didn't happen. But we did make it to Omaha for a weekend and I was able to participate with the help of medication so this was really special that we were able to go on a trip at all. This was a really fun way to break up an otherwise not-that-fun summer. I am sure we will go again at some point since it's a nice trip and pretty close, but it was really fun being able to take the kids swimming for the first time and to the zoo and the children's museum and I just love roadtripping, so we had a lot of fun.

5) Sunshower (7/7/12): I love these photos because they capture Joshua's personality really well. He loves water and the outdoors and thinks almost everything is amazing. We don't often get sunshowers in Kansas. In the summer when we get rain, it tends to be storms, so this was a good opportunity for him that I am glad we took advantage of.

6) Clara the Climber (8/7/12): I love this picture because it has Clara's facial expression she gets when she thinks she is getting away with something. I also like it because it reminds me of her determination. Her determined personality does make things harder some of the time (or in the toddler years maybe a lot of the time really), but she also hit all her milestones pretty early because once she decides to do something, she really can't think of anything else. She was really proud to be able to climb the stairs and I really think her determination is going to make her successful in life.

7) Hannah's Dramatic Arrival (10/2/12): I think a first baby is always especially nerve-wrecking because you don't know what labor is like and you don't know what to expect. I feel like I was misled by the medical community because everyone is like, "If you are in labor, you will know" and that you don't need to go to the hospital until the pain is bad enough to take your breath away. I am an outlier apparently because by that time, it was too late. I didn't have exactly the birth I planned, but, my friend Tricia told me, "I was initially surprised, but then I thought, 'That's the perfect birth for Meghan'. You're like, 'I know what I am doing. I don't need doctors to screw this up. I'll just do it myself'" Which is a pretty accurate assessment of my personality, so I do think it was the perfect birth for me and, however she came, Hannah is amazing.

8) Night of the Living Farm (10/19/12): This was a fun time because I felt kind of like my old self. I was able to plan coordinating costumes for the kids and we had a nice night of fun and it was one of the first times we got to photograph all three kids together, which I love.

9) The big 0-2 (10/27/12): I really enjoyed planning Joshua's second birthday party and I was really feeling good again by this time, so it was a fun day. The second birthday is hard for me. The first isn't really because a one year old is still mostly a baby in a lot of ways. But I feel like at two, they are kind of like little kids, so it's hard for me to accept and I get that feeling that probably every parent gets that time is just too fast and I wish I could slow it down. So it was an emotional day, but also very happy and fun.

10) Gingerbread Fun (12/11/12): Living intentionally is something I try to do all the time, but I only succeed some of the time. I feel it's especially important in parenting because otherwise the time just slips through your fingers and is gone. I am really pleased with how advent went this year and I look forward to doing even more stuff in future years as the kids get older and can understand and do more. I can't choose just one favorite moment, but this evening was definitely up there. Jason was there, which was nice since he can't be there for all our activities, but this one was easy to do at night. Plus all the kids could be there and Clara could participate at her own level, making it a fun evening for everyone.


From Jason:

The first year we did this blog we did a Top Five list.  Last year, Meghan couldn't narrow it down beyond seven, so she did a Top Seven list, and I followed suit.  This year she told me she couldn't choose fewer than ten.  I sort of scoffed, but then when I made my list, I too found it really difficult to only choose ten.  So here are my top ten favorite posts, in chronological order:

1) Finalization (1/27/12): This was a significant event, because it meant we were officially a family of four.  At the time, we thought we might be a family of four at least for awhile and possibly forever, since we didn't yet know Meghan was pregnant.  It was a really happy day to finally have it all done and know that we'd have our family of a little boy and a little girl.  A bonus of this day, which wasn't covered in the post, was getting to find out exactly where Clara was born (a nearby rural fire station) and getting to drive by it and take pictures on the way home.

2) Inadvertent Yard Helper (5/19/12): I love Joshua's little natural attitude of wanting to be a helper for everything. I'm also very excited about being able to do things together in the future as father and son.  Working in the yard isn't the most glamorous father/son activity, but it'll still be fun in a way if it's the two of us.  Even though he wasn't trying to help me here, it was still heart-warming to have the two of us working together on the same project, doing two different tasks working toward the same goal. 

3) The Bull and the Memorial (5/31/12): Although I get to travel for my job, most of my trips are to the same midwest-ish cities (Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee, etc.).  But when one of my Chicago accounts happened to have an office in New York City, I had the opportunity to go out there.  I had never been there prior to this year, and I got to go five different times.  I made sure to find time to see a lot of different sites, monuments, memorials, and landmarks that are famous and that I'd otherwise still not have seen.  I no longer have that account, so I probably won't be going back there again.  All but one of my visits were during the summer, so I have these really pleasant memories of these fun summer trips to New York that allowed me to see some great things.  I wish Meghan had been able to see them with me, but I know that's not how business travel normally works, but still I'm very thankful I had the opportunity to have those experiences, and this post represents that. 

4) Omaha or Bust, Zoo Day, and One More Day of Fun in Omaha  (6/8/12 - 6/10/12): I'm grouping these three together, as they composed our three-day trip to Omaha and back.  We wanted to have a family vacation this year, even though the kids were still really little.  Omaha is only three hours from us, and it has a lot of things that a family like ours can do.  The vacation went really well, exceeding the expectations that Meghan and I had for it.  We intend to try to do something like that every year, and next year we already have our sights set on a roadtrip to Florida.  

5) Honeymoon in Olathe (8/4/12): This was a great day for our family, as we were able to officially welcome Deb as part of our family.  A lot of times kids aren't happy with step-parents when they come into their lives and their family, but it's hard to see how Julie, Joanna, and I could have done any better than Ron ten years ago with Mom, and now Deb with Dad.  This day was not just the celebration of seeing them as a married couple but also included the surprise of the news that it had happened, making it a really special and important day in our family's history.

6) Clara the Climber (8/7/12): This is another great example of why this blog is awesome.  Without it, I'm not sure I would have tried to take a picture of one of Clara's first attempts to climb stairs.  But because I thought, "Hey, we need a picture for today.  I'll get one of her climbing the stairs." I ended up with this adorable picture with her cute little face and cute little bob haircut (which fortunately happened naturally).

7) Hobo Kids (9/27/12): One of the best things about having kids is the joy I get from watching them do things that make them happy.  I wasn't sure what they would think of the box, but they both had genuine excitement while exploring it and playing in it, and you can see their beaming faces in this picture.  It made them so happy, and watching that made me happy.

8) Hannah's Dramatic Arrival (10/2/12): This one was the easiest pick of all.  This was such a crazy and amazing night that it's likely to end up being the most memorable event of my life.  I went from thinking we were a week or more from the birth to having Hannah in my hands all in one day.  Being able to say and know that I delivered my own daughter is an amazing thing.  Like literally, amazing.  I love that it happened that way, but only of course because everything turned out fine.  I was calm the entire time, and I'm thankful God gave me the personality traits that He did to be able to handle the situation as I did.  And thankfully, as part of that, I had the awareness to also realize we would want some pictures of it all, and I was able to get some great photos to make this post better than it would have been.
 
9) Mama and Baby (10/22/12): This is one of my all-time favorite photos.  It just captures Meghan's beauty so well, and it shows the perfection that is little baby Hannah.
 
10) Happy Thanksgiving (11/22/12): The post is important to me because of the day that it was.  Thanksgiving has never meant more to me than it did this year.  I've had a great life with plenty of things for which to be thankful through the years, but never more than this year.  I have a wonderful and beautiful wife who's perfect for me.  We had what we thought was our complete family for awhile, thinking a third child would be a few years down the road, if at all.  But God had a different plan for us.  He brought us little baby Hannah.  She's so perfect and sweet and beautiful.  We didn't even know we could have a baby, and then God brought us her, and we couldn't be happier with our precious little baby girl.  I'm so thankful for that, and for our family of five.  I'm also extremely thankful that we have such great family and friends who have helped us out so much.  Having three children under two (for a few days) and now having three who are so close in age and so young has had its challenges at times, and our family and friends have been so wonderful in supporting us and helping us.  I feel guilty sometimes because I probably don't thank them enough.  But on that Thanksgiving day, I thought a lot about how much God has blessed us and how we really have so very very much for which to be thankful.


[Editor's Note: (Haha, it cracks me up every time I call myself an editor) Within the next day or so you'll see the final two posts for this year.  One is my awards and stats post, and the other will be our final wrap-up post inviting everyone to follow us again in 2013. Don't worry, you're not missing any posts from 2013.  We have them, they're just not publicly posted yet.]

5-4-3-2-1: Happy 8:30!!!

This year, for the first time, we decided to stay home for New Year's Eve. I prefer going out, but it was fun to be at home too. We wanted to do something fun with the kids, but obviously there is no way they are making it to midnight without becoming total nightmares. So we decided to celebrate with them at 8:30. I saw an idea with bags on Pinterest so we did that. There was activity in each bag. (Jason made fun of my not-very-accurate clocks. Whatever. In elementary school I remember thinking telling time was a complete waste of my time given all the digital clocks around)

We ate fondue and had a dinner of various appetizers.
We played with glowing jewelry
We also watched a Veggie Tales movie starring Minnesota Cuke, played a game, and ate dessert. But soon it was 8:30 and, after practicing with Joshua how to count backwards from 5, we rang in the "new year"

After we put the kids to bed, Jason and I celebrated again at midnight. This has been an amazing year and we can't wait to see what 2013 has in store.

Everyone Gets an Upgrade!

One of Clara's gifts for Christmas was a booster seat. She really had enjoyed sitting in Joshua's at times so we decided to upgrade her to sitting at the table. She is doing pretty well with it so far, though it has prompted her to start sharing with the pugs, which I really wasn't going for two kids feeding the dogs at mealtimes so that's been a bit disappointing. Besides that, she is doing very well in her big-girl chair and Hannah now has a place to sit at the table too. She is sitting in Clara's old highchair seat. We reclined it and added the cushion back on (my kids are too messy to have a cushion once they start eating real food. I don't have the time or inclination to wash it all the time) and she has been joining us for mealtimes, though she isn't pictured here because she was being fed at the time.

Shouldn't It Be Either Jose Pimientos or Joe Peppers?

Because we didn't have to pick up the kids until 12:30 today, we took advantage of the time to go to lunch (after sleeping in, of course!).  We wanted Mexican, so we went to Jose Peppers.  Here we are in front of a mural of a different type of Jose.

The Winery and the Colorful Moose

We rarely get a true date night, but tonight was one of those nights.  We dropped the kids off at Mom and Ron's (Joanna was there too) for an overnight stay, and we then went to a restaurant that we like that we can't normally go to because it isn't very kid-friendly: La Bodega, which is a tapas restaurant.  We had a 45-minute wait when we arrived, so we milled about in the nearby Crate & Barrel admiring the nice furniture that would be appropriate in a house without small children.  When it was time to eat, we chose several of the available tapas, including the best one on the menu, the Solomillo Con Cabrales, which is grilled beef tenderloin crusted with Spanish bleu cheese.  It was a very cold night, so after that we decided to go to the Blue Moose and have a few drinks by the fireplace inside the restaurant.  It was a really nice night out to ourselves, and we really appreciated having family who was so willing to help make it possible.

Farewell Chicago?

Recently they changed my sales territory at work.  For the past couple years I've focused on Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana  But our company is growing, and they've hired more sales reps, so as a sales engineer I'm now working with sales reps who are closer to Kansas City.  I'm not sure how this will go, because the Kansas/Missouri/Ohio/Colorado/Iowa/Nebraska territory isn't exactly booming with opportunities (I also have New Mexico, the Dakotas, and Montana, but those aren't really even worth mentioning).  I do have Minnesota, which probably holds the most promise out of all the states.  The new sales rep for that territory starts in a couple weeks, so hopefully he'll do well and we can get some business.

For now, though, I'm holding on to a few of my old accounts, though I'll likely lose them in the near future, so yesterday and today I was in Chicago visiting one of them.  I was supposed to fly back first thing this morning on a 9am flight, but my flight was delayed due to a mechanical problem.  By the time it was ready, I would have missed my connecting flight, so I had to be rebooked on a later flight leaving at 5pm.  So I spent basically the entire day in O'Hare.  I wore my glasses in the morning because I planned to sleep on the first flight (it's not very comfortable to sleep in my contacts), but because I didn't end up flying until the evening, I ended up wearing them all day.  Here I am toward the end of my long day living in the airport like Tom Hanks.

New and Improved Tummy Time

Hannah is making big progress with her motor skills lately. Not only does she smile and laugh more and lift her head up more often, but she also bats at things and is more interested in the world around her. This means tummy time is going much better than it was and she seems to actually enjoy it for at least a little while. It is exciting to see her develop new skills and become more like a tiny person with likes and dislikes.

Merry Christmas!

Today we had a very nice Christmas. We woke up, read the Christmas story, and then did presents. Joshua was a little excited this year, but not too much. Terrence still was the most excited one in the house. Joshua did really like taking off the wrapping paper though and he was not really worried about only unwrapping the ones that were his. Jason and I had fun giving the kids the gifts we made, as well as the ones we bought. This is Hannah in her carseat poncho and Joshua with the helping tower. Later, we had our traditional dinner of sauerbraten. We really enjoyed spending the day with the kids and each other.

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve. Our normal tradition involves Jason shopping until dinner time, but this year he was ahead of the game and finished shopping yesterday. But he had to work so we didn't really gain too much, though I guess he had the satisfaction of feeling ready for Christmas a day early. Regardless, we had our traditional dinner of shrimp bisque and rolls (lots and lots of rolls for the under-three set). This year Peg and Ron joined us for dinner and they, as well as Julie and Andrew, went to the candlelight Christmas Eve service with us. We have always gone to the 11pm service, but this year we just didn't think Clara could deal with it so we went to the 7pm service and used childcare for both Clara and Joshua. Though I love having communion in the service and also leaving church and having it be Christmas morning, the earlier service was still very nice and we enjoyed it. Unfortunately I was losing my voice so I couldn't sing any carols, but I know Jason really enjoyed singing and it was nice to hear them even if I couldn't participate. Here is our family after the service. Clara really enjoyed the large atrium of the church and was just delighted with her ability to run free (not too free, but I think it seemed free to her). Hannah stayed with us for the service and she slept through the entire thing, but we did give her a candle so she could participate too.