Well, apparently I've been nice :)

James' First Beer

James' First Beer - Shock Top Raspberry Wheat:

Happy Five Month Birthday, James!

James at Five Months:

Height: 27 inches

Weight: 17.2 pounds w/ diaper

Head: Big.  Helmet'ed.  Less misshapen due to helmet.  Very controlled.

Clothing: Mainly 9 month stuff.  Just bought a "My First Christmas" fleece sleeper in 9m that should be perfect for this week.

Food: Formula with an ounce of rice cereal every other day or so.

Gross Motor Skills (I know, I'll think of a better name for the next post): He's SCOOTING! Or something like that. We lay him in the middle of his crib, and he ends up tucked in the corner. We lay him in the middle of our bed, and he ends up close to the edge or smushed in the pillows. We lay him in the middle of our living room, and he ends up laying against a couch.  There's not really a word for how he's getting there, because he's definitely not crawling, but somehow his body is scooching around.  He brings his knees up, sticks his bum in the air and pushes his head into the ground, then shimmies his shoulders forward to straighten out his body and repeats until he's moved several feet to his desired napping location.  Kinda like a caterpillar on a branch.  And if he doesn't want to move, he's "swimming", with his arms stretched back like superman and his legs moving in all directions as fast as he can.

The Sad News: James only has two more weeks of Daddy Daycare! James will start official daycare the week of January 1.

Here are some pics:

Photo Card

Sparkling Snowflakes Christmas

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View the entire collection of cards.

James at the Holidazzle Parade

Last night we made the light rail voyage to downtown Minneapolis with family friends for the Target Holidazzle Parade.  Surprise, surprise for Minnesota, it was cold and windy, but the parade was only 25m and afterwards we walked through the Macy's Christmas display, which was titled "A Day in the Life of an Elf".  Here are some pics.  Unfortunately, we didn't get home until after 9p, so it was a bit difficult to do a post yesterday.  Count this as Friday's post, and I'll do one this weekend as well.  Also, be sure to check out Patric wearing the Baby Bjorn - said he'd never wear it in public, but now I have pictures!




Patric and James bundled up watching the parade

 

Patric and James at the beginning of the Macy's display
The sign says "Welcome to Santaland!  Happy Wishes, Santa and Mrs. Claus"



Making Christmas Ornaments

We tackled a handprint Christmas ornament last night, and after three tries, we got a pretty good print...

James and Jackson hangin' pre ornament making

Making a handprint ornament

The end result

James and the Christmas Tree

James hanging out with Dad by the Christmas Tree.  Dad was pretty insistent on only white lights and red balls on the tree, and went WAY outside his comfort zone in adding gold stars from Grandma Lola.  I'm secretly adding a white plaster ornament with James' handprint on it tomorrow, so we'll see how he takes it :).  If there is no post on Thursday, you'll know why!

Sorry I couldn't get the second picture to rotate.

A Week of Posts, and Chinese Food.

So I am really behind on these posts.  Now that I am working full time and Patric is doing Daddy Daycare, the evenings seem to be a struggle to get everything done (read: dinner, dishes, laundry, bath time, helmet cleaned, play time with dogs, etc...) before passing out around 11p to start it all over again the next morning.  You would think the weekends would be an opportunity to catch up, but our friends have had so many great events planned, that we've actually been home less on Saturdays and Sundays.  Thankfully this coming weekend is under-booked and we might actually make it to church on Sunday and get a date on the calendar for James' baptism.

But that is not the subject of this post.  This post is about how I intend to do one post every day for the next five days to catch up on what I've missed.  And today's post is also about how Patric, James, and I spent yesterday evening:

Patric and Erin's Top Chef moment, titled Sunday Evening Chinese

Patric and I took a good 3 hours out of our Sunday evening to tackle 4 Asian-inspired recipes (starting top left and going clockwise): General Tso's Chicken, Crab Rangoon, Spicy Tuna sauce, and Chicken Fried Rice.  While the food was excellent when completed, except maybe the rice which was a bit mushy, we did learn a valuable lesson: it takes considerably less time, money, and dirty dishes to get take-out Chinese :).  But we really enjoyed spending the time together, so I guess that is all that matters.  In addition, James must have read our minds and took an 1.5 hour nap during our cooking fest, which really helped.  I was dealing with two pots on the stove and chopping vegetables while Patric was deep-frying everything in site, and I doubt we could have accomplish it all while entertaining James. 

Check back tomorrow to see if I really do a second post!