Mustache

More fun with Mr. Potato Head parts.

"Dad, I'm gonna make you a great pizza."

- S.

Snack Time Buddies

Jack has started bringing friends to meals.  This also allows for random hugs while eating, which is a nice bonus. (Monkey gives the best hugs it seems.)

- S.

Peeler

Peeling carrots with Dad.

- S.

Play Doh

Jack has been introduced to Play Doh.  He was more interested in stacking and unstacking the cups it came in, and taking the covers off and putting them on.  Over and over.  Derrick had fun with the Play Doh, though.  It still smells exactly as it did all those years ago.

- S.  

Christmas

Jack had a few milestones over the holidays, such as first bout with conjunctivitis and first ear infection, and thus first round of antibiotics.  Then of course Derrick and I got sick as well.  Some people may not have gotten their Christmas cards until after Christmas and the whole baking cookies thing kind of went out the window (at least to the usual extent).  It was a challenge, and most visits to family were abbreviated, but we made it through. 

Jack ended up doing pretty well with the Christmas tree.  We put a gate in front of it for a good portion of the time, but he could still reach over and touch the ornaments if he wanted.  He was reasonably gentle and we only had one little outburst resulting in two broken ornaments after the tree had been up for some time.  Which was exactly why we put any fragile/important ornaments up at the top this year or left them off the tree altogether.  But he didn't pull the tree down, so that's something.  Maybe that will be next year.

Here is Jack checking out the perfect Jack-sized tree at Nana Earle's.

Jack was not feeling well on Christmas Day, but was well enough to play with his new abacus.

And Count Von Count.  

Didn't care much about the new sneakers, though I suspect that didn't have anything to do with not feeling well.

The cat was happy to have a big empty box.

To cap things off, here is an outtake from our Christmas cards.  We did attempt to have the whole family on the card, but alas, Jack had other plans.  There was serious consideration that this be the photo on the card, but we decided to just go with the star of the show instead.

Here's hoping for a healthy 2014!

- S.

  

Snowshoeing

We went snowshoeing on Sunday.  It was a nice day, the temperature was in the low 30's which was tolerable.  

Jack seemed to have an okay time despite not being able to move too freely from being so bundled up and there being a lack of leaves to touch.  And also that he had to wear mittens.  Here he is trying to pull them off with his teeth.

A Christmas post should follow soon, now that we have all just about recovered from the Virus from Another Planet.

- S.

Sledding

Today we spent 10-15 minutes bundling Jack up to go outside for about the same amount of time so he could try his new sled.

It is very cold here today and expected to be worse tomorrow, so we may try some sledding again Sunday when the temperature is supposed to be in the mid-30's.

A happy sledder.

- S.