Public vs. Private

"Uncle Jeff, will I go to a public or private pre-school?"


"Well AJ, let me look it up"


"Is that a pink Chair?"


"Ah yes, here we are. It says sarcastic little kids go public school."


"OH NO! Not public school!"


"YO YO YO What's wrong with Public School?"

Izzy's Birthday (Part 1)

Here's "Uncle" Andy with Izzy and Aliza perfecting the art of sticking out the tongue. Izzy helped me take the first shot and Aliza, the second.

Later On...

Apparently Andy and I were too busy entertaining, playing, eating and talking on Christmas Day to take many pictures.  I have to wait to get some from family members so that I can scan and post them to finish the Holiday Postings with Round 3!

However, here is a perfect shot of AJ that pretty much sums up how we all felt when the dust settled. He's slouched on the couch watching Curious George, while holding his 3 favorite things: Bear, Thomas, and Toby!  Plus, his socks are falling off...   :)

Christmas: Round 2

When Dec 24th rolled around, Andy and I were in pretty good shape as far as presents being wrapped, house being clean and things being ready for the next day's celebration.  Andy's sister Melissa and her boyfriend Tom had been staying next door since Mon night, and their extra hands were a great help to us. 

What we hadn't planned for was AJ's illness...on Tues morning, we woke to find he had gotten sick in his crib during the night.  Then thinking it must have just been something he ate, I gave him his morning cup of milk as usual.  Bad idea. Just as I was running a bath to get him cleaned up, all the milk came back up too...and he was a little freaked out, not knowing what was happening. Poor little dude. At least it didn't happen right after the bath, or IN the bath! (Eeeew!). So the next few days, we had many diaper disasters and changes of crib bedding as the bug worked its way through our poor little guy.  For the most part, AJ was still in relatively good spirits, and still ate pretty well even though we had to keep him on the BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast) for a few days. Even I was getting tired of what he was eating!

On Christmas Eve, we still went to church, since this was a major reason we had wanted to stay home in the first place. It was such a fun and cute service. Lots of singing and readings by the kids from the school, and it kept AJ entertained. The church's decorations were very pretty, and after the service we took AJ up to the front to see the baby Jesus in the life-sized nativity scene. He thought that was cool, but he really wanted to pick up and kick the hay, so we made a bee line home after that!

Back at home, I said, "OK AJ, so you want to help Mommy put out some milk and cookies for Santa?"  oops...no milk for AJ, and no cookies for AJ meant bad idea mentioning both! I quickly realized my mistake and back-tracked making up a story about how Santa likes bananas and Gatorade.  Hahaha!  So, that's what we put out for Santa on a plate...a kids cup of red Gatorade, and half a banana. Yum. Here's AJ on Christmas morning when he went out to see if Santa had liked the snack! 

Then we opened AJ's stocking and his present from Mom and Dad. Here are some shots from the morning, and a video of him playing with all of the new vehicles from Santa. It was really fun for Andy and I to see Christmas through AJ's eyes, and it really was a generally relaxed morning like I had hoped for! (Stay tuned for Christmas: Round 3, soon to be posted after I upload more pictures from the family gathering) 

Here he is digging for more presents in his stocking from Santa...

He got a cool book from Santa called Foodie Babies Wear Bibs. It's fast become a favorite!


Here he is playing with his new Jack Rabbit school bus. He loves that the people come out and then go back in easily with the help of a magnet. He calls the bus driver a police man, and loves that there is a dog riding the bus too...

Here he's checking out his new Toby and Thomas trains (also from Santa...that Santa's pretty smart!). Now, weeks later, he plays with them EVERY day. Luckily he let me talk him out of sleeping with them pretty easily one night and hasn't asked again!