Hi Everybody! I hope everyone had a blessed holiday season with friends and family. We had a WONDERFUL time celebrating Jude's first Turkey Day and Christmas in the world outside my womb. For both holidays, we traveled to Indianapolis to celebrate the season with our family.
For Thanksgiving, we drove to Indy with the two of us, Jude, AND Niles and Fiona. We found a vet in town (who I love), so he gave us some awesome sedatives. They knocked the dogs out for the entire 9 hour drive. It was a riot. Fiona woke up a bit here and there, but was by no means coherent.
We visited with Jude's Great Grandparents and had some very special moments. We played lots of games, cooked and ate GOBS of delectable goodies.
Jude was not yet eating much table food, so he didn't enjoy much of the Thanksgiving feast but he didn't seem to mind. We stayed for a few extra days so I could spend some time in the office and then traveled to Columbus to pay a much-overdue visit to the Miller family - our dear friends that God blessed us with when Nathan was with his former band.
We spent the first few weeks of December at home in Georgia and enjoyed Nathan's time off the road by getting the whole inside of the house painted, christening our new mantel with stockings, and shopping at too many malls to keep track of. Jude's God Parents, Jimmy and Ashley, came down from Nashville for a whole weekend. It was the longest period of time we had seen and spent with them since April of 2008 (before I was even pregnant!?), so it was a LONG overdue slumber party.
The week before Christmas, Nathan went out to play "Santa" and called me around 6 to meet him for dinner. Like any other evening, I through my hair back in a pony tail, switched out of my sweats and threw Jude in the car seat. After about 15 minutes of waiting at the restaurant, Nathan came into the small Italian joint and said "come here, I have something to show you". I'm thinking that maybe he has something big in the car, something he won't be able to disguise, so he has to give it to me now.
I walk out, Jude on my hip and walk to where my car was parked. We stop in the parking lot and he pulls a key out of his back pocket. The early gift wasn't IN the car... it WAS the car. A new car!! Nathan had spent the last 4 hours at the local Toyota mall, wheeling and dealing, to buy me a sexy, black certified Toyota 4Runner. I mean, really?! For ME!?
So, needless to say, my Christmas started off with a bang. I mean, BANG.
We celebrated our Christmas on Saturday, December 21st by waking up, drinking coffee and opening our gifts in our jammers. Jude quickly learned how to rip the paper off and enjoyed eating the tags and bows over playing with his new loot. It had been so odd going up in down the aisles of Toys R Us with a cart full of toys - but not toys for me (it had been at LEAST 15 years for both of us)! Eventually, Jude realized that the items IN the boxes were fun too, so our toy store splurge had not been in vain.
Nathan's big gift this year was a PS3. With our new big tv and sound system, he had managed to "tell" me about it since at least Halloween, so I decided to play dumb and reiterate how we "didn't need a gaming system", despite knowing that it also had a Blue Ray player, Internet access, and a 160GB hard drive (for all our media storing needs). Jude also received a car from Santa...!
We wrapped up the day (no pun intended) with an afternoon next door with our new neighbors (the Phillips' - no relation) eating yummy soup and playing games.
We drove to Indy on Monday and spend several days with the Ehmans, playing games, eating, seeing movies and visiting with family. On Christmas Eve, after dinner, we went to my parents' home for the remainder of the visit, opening more gifts, eating more food and playing more games! We are truly blessed.
Among some of our other gifts from family was a bread maker, a doggie septic tank (yes, really, google it), clothes, Beatles Rock Band for PS3, a Le Crueset dutch oven and a college fund for Jude!!
We headed home a week after we arrived and drove through the snow and freezing rain to get back home to warm Georgia. Over the holidays, Jude started many new things. He turned 10 months on December 21 and is crawling like a pro. He only army crawls and I am beginning to think that he is never going to do the hands/knees crawl - but oh well!
The day after Christmas, his first tooth broke through the gum. Within the 4 day period following that, three more teeth have erupted. He is working on his two upper eye teeth (like Dracula) and his two bottom teeth. I will be sure to post photos as soon as I can get a shot of his toothy grin; you can't really see them yet...!
The last milestone was his sudden ability to pull up! While playing on the floor the other night with Nathan, me and the dogs, he crawled right over to the mantle and pulled right up! Here is a video to prove it (this was the second time he pulled up):
And here we are! Nathan begins Winter Jam, a three month tour, this week. It should be a great show and may be coming to a city near you - check it out!
As always, family photos have been posted to our Mobile Me site: CLICK HERE!
Love y'all!
B, N, J, N, & F
B, N, J, N, & F
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