Friday, December 24, 2010

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:


































Wednesday, December 22, 2010

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!