Christmas and one year pics

Here's Jason's visit with Santa. He was not a fan!

Earlier this month we went to Portrait Innovations to get family Christmas pictures and Jason's one year pictures. Here are some of the highlights:

Thanksgiving

I know it's long overdue but here's how our Thanksgiving went. On Wednesday we drove up to Olathe to stay the night with Abby and Terry in preparation for our early train ride on Thursday. Abby served spaghetti that night....she may have regretted it since that's one of Jason's favorites (probably due to the mess he can make). We boarded the train at around 8am in Kansas City and arrived in Galesburg, IL around noon. It was a pretty nice trip. Jason and I slept for a couple hours, we had some snacks, and were able to walk around and hang out in the lounge car a bit. We also met a nice deaf couple with a baby about a month younger than Jason. It was pretty interesting trying to communicate with them. I remembered some signs from my Baby Signs book but mostly I tried to make it easier for her to read my lips. Overall, I prefer taking a train to flying. We could bring all the luggage we needed and didn't have to go through security which took a lot of the hassels out of our usual travels. Too bad the train doesn't go to Muncie! When we arrived in Galesburg we were picked up by Dan's parents who had a minivan. It wasn't too much trouble putting Jason's carseat in the minivan but it's always a process getting it in just right. It was really cold in Illinois too, which was something to get used to. Fortunately we all had our cold weather gear. After getting settled into the hotel we drove over to Great Grandma and Grandpa Coffman's house for Thanksgiving. There were 28 people there that day! It was quite the housefull! Jason had a fun time trying to steal food from the snack table (which was a coffee table - right at his height and full of "chokables"). Fortunately he was never out of sight with all those people around. On Friday they had the bonfire/weiney roast. We rode a parade wagon attached to a tractor out to the bonfire site and it was REALLY COLD. Jason was screaming his head off either because he was cold, tired, or hated being bundled up. Either way as soon as the tractor started moving he was asleep for the next hour or so. We roasted giant marshmallows for s'mores and hotdogs and basically gathered around the fire for warmth. When Jason finally woke up he only lasted a few minutes before he got too cold and sick of not being able to walk around (the ground was too uneven and he kept falling down). Jason his Aunt Sarah and I went back to Grandma's house to warm up and let Jason run around with Sarah's iPod (he was happy to listen to music again). I put Jason down for a nap and his Grandpa watched him while Dan and I went to "the store". Great Grandpa Coffman likes to buy things at auctions and he keeps these things in a house near their own that is not fit to be lived in but works for keeping massive amounts of stuff. It's kind of like an episode of "Horders" but if we find anything we want we can have it. We got a cast iron skillet and a few toys and books for Jason. We also picked out a huge chalkboard that Dan's parents are going to bring to us at Christmas. Then it was over to Aunt Gail's house for dinner. They had a piano that Jason liked to play. He started to get fussy near the end of the night so everyone around the table played a game of "Jason says" where we all did what he did. He found it very confusing.

Here's the whole group at Aunt Gail's.

On Satuday we hung out and left on our train at around 5pm. The trip wasn't as interesting since it was dark most of the time but we did have dinner on the train which was an experience. The coach was kind of warm so we spent a fair amount of time in the lounge car. By the time we got back to Abby's house it was around midnight and we were all pretty tired. We drove back to Wichita on Sunday after lunch so we would be home in time to go to Hanging of the Greens at church. It was a really great Thanksgiving!

Halloween and Happy Birthday!

I can't believe it's been a year already. This time last year I was huge, contracty, uncomfortable and so anxious to meet my baby. I didn't put too much thought into my Halloween costume last year because I wasn't sure what I would be doing, but it was kind of cute anyway.

Amazing what a difference a year makes, huh?

Now that we have a cute baby to dress up, we wanted to do a fun family theme. We were planning on going to a halloween party so it was totally justified. We decided to do a Super theme and it turned out really good.

Jason and I also went to the Halloween party at My Gym (our baby gym). I dressed up too, and was the only parent who did but who cares, I looked fabulous!

Since our family doesn't live in town we decided to roll Jason's birthday into the halloween party because we didn't want to put too much effort into a party for someone who won't even remember it. I made some cute cupcakes for him and he loved them! I do wish I got him a "First Birthday" onsie or something but I didn't want to buy something that he'd only wear once. I'll have to schedule his one year photos soon because those are definitely ones we'll get.

Here are some pictures of Jason enjoying his cupcake:

Before:

After a few frosting licks he shoved the whole thing in his mouth:

Yeah, I think he liked it!

October Indiana Trip

After finding out that a few of our college friends were planning on going to Purdue's Homecoming game, we decided that we would attend too. I called my mom and we decided to make an extended visit out of it. We flew up to Indy on Wednesday Oct 13th. I really pray for the day that there will be a direct flight from Wichita to Indianapolis because we always have to go through another airport - usually O'Hare because it makes the most sense. We were delayed for a couple hours out of O'Hare which was a struggle with an 11-month-old, but we found an empty gate for him to crawl around in. We arrived in Indy around 6pm or so then drove to my parents house in a rental car. We rented a carseat along with the car so we wouldn't have to bring ours. It was a decent seat but as always it was a struggle to get it into the car right. At this point, Jason had had it with traveling and it was throwing quite the fit. Nothing like a little extra stress! I just had Dan sit in the back seat with Jason to help calm him down and he was asleep pretty soon after. We got to my parent's house by nearly 8pm and they thankfully held dinner for us. We were all pretty tired and hungry. When we planned this trip my parents thought it would be nice to make a family gathering out of it and we planned on getting together with my dad's folks since they hadn't met Jason yet. My mom's parents decided that they were feeling pretty good and wanted to go up to Indiana/Ohio to visit family and since we were in town they coordinated it to be there when we were. My brother also thought that would be a good time to visit so he was there as well. It was great to see everyone! Jason found Shadow's toys immediately.

On Thursday everyone was there and we had a kind of "Thanksgiving in October" event. We also celebrated Jason's and my dad's birthday at that time too. Jason loved playing with all of his new toys and my parent's dog and cat, not to meantion all the family giving him attention.

After lunch and more visiting with family on Friday, we drove up to Lafayette. We stayed at a hotel in town Friday night so we could get to campus as early as possible on Saturday morning for tailgating. We were able to make it by just after 9am which was pretty good for us! They had some awesome food and games and it was nice seeing everyone and introducing them to Jason. It was pretty cold first thing in the morning (like 40 degrees) but by the time 11am rolled around and the game started it was about 70 degrees and sunny. Jason took a little nap before the game which allowed us to eat lunch and he stayed asleep through most of the game with a few times of cruising on the bleachers behind us. He was very good during the game and Purdue won which made it all the better!

After the game we drove down to Mike and Tammy's house in Brownsburg, IN. They were having an after-game party and we stayed the night with them so we could put the baby to bed and hang out as long as possible. Jason was a bit fussy after putting him to bed but Dan went up with him so I could hang out a bit longer (yay!).

After breakfast on Sunday we drove back to my parent's house and spent the rest of the day with them and my brother. We were all in our Colts outfits and watched football, hung out and Jimmy and I went through some of our old stuff in my parents storage "garage". Unfortunatly, some of the stuff was destroyed by mice but the important stuff was in plastic containers so those survived and some of the stuff washed up ok. The Colts were the primetime game and they won so a good time was had by all! We left on Monday afternoon and our plane rides back were uneventful. I'm so glad Jason is a good traveler and the trip was a really good one!

Chasin' Jason

Sorry for taking so long to update! My mastitis cleared up in a couple days so that was a relief. I have a lot of updates and stories so here we go. On August 28th weekend we went up to KC to visit Abby and Terry. They also watched Jason on Saturday night so Dan and I could go out to dinner for our 6th anniversary. It was nice to dress up and have a grown up meal out. We had a really nice visit and even had a good swim in the community pool.

On September 4th we took Jason out to have his first haircut! He did so good and is now even cuter than ever.

Before:

After:

Lately, Jason has been fighting his morning nap. I imagine he'll be fading that out eventually in favor of a longer nap in the early afternoon. This picture is funny because one Saturday when he was fighting his nap I said "fine, then you can help me sort laundry". He was playing in the pile and then would drop off to sleep....wake up and play....drop off. Too cute
Now that he's quite mobile with the crawling and pulling up and cruising on just about everything I find myself "chasin' Jason" most of the day. He's some pictures of what the little stinker can get into.

"reading" the newspaper - we've since decided it was best to keep our pile of newspaper out of reach

I swear, if you leave this kid alone for too long he'll crawl into the bathroom and unravel the toilet paper - he loves to do that

One day I thought it would be safe to leave him to play in his room while I went to the bathroom. Appearently he can reach the Kleenex box....

On September 20th we got a nice little day-visit from Grandma Bender and Great-Grandma Coffman. We went out to get Jason some new shoes and just generally hung out and played.

Ok, I think we're all caught up now!