Christmas 2007

Alright, so on to Christmas pictures. Well, after a few taken before we left :). We had planned on having a nice quiet Christmas at home - Jason had a 4 day weekend and we thought it would be nice and relaxing. In the past we've gone up to PA (most of the time), but we thought with Zach being a little older it would be fun to stay at home. And with it being the first Christmas since my Grammie passed, we weren't sure if anyone would even be getting together. So I called my Gram to tell her...and then got really sad because she seemed a little bummed we weren't coming. So Wednesday, after much deliberating, we decided to go up to Pittsburgh. We know we're not going to be there next Christmas and don't know when we'll make it up again. So we thought since we didn't have a good excuse not to go, we'd go. It's a long drive, but family is worth it. We left 45 minutes after Jason got home from work on Friday. I think that's pretty decent, considering we had only decided two days prior we were leaving. I did some pretty good packing - it was all in the car ready to go when J came home! Then we drove, drove, drove. We actually made pretty good time, and Z fell asleep about 7:30. He only woke up once when we had to stop so J could pee. But then he fell back asleep until we made it to Gram's. He did a really great job. We did end up giving him a wee bit of Benadryl, and it might not have hurt that he has a new comfy car seat that reclines. It was pretty helpful!

Anyway, here's a few pics from the week before we left. We like our little boy.
This one is for Dustin - Z pulling on his shirt reminds me of a conversation we had around Paul's dinner table..."Is it hot in here??"
Z is usually so happy. This is a good profile shot, in my opinion.
I was a little worried with how Z would do at Gram's house. It had been a decent challenge to keep him safe and content at Paul's house, and his is definitely more open than Gram's. And more baby-proofed. But Z did really well, for the most part. There were a lot of little knick-knack things that we didn't let him touch. We had some pretty strict rules of what he could and could not play with. We did have some problems with him touching some pan lids in the kitchen, though...he would touch them and say "no, no, no!" He knows he's not supposed to touch them, so I'm not sure what he was trying to convey. Sometimes he got a little disobedient and we figured it was because he was bored...I told Jason it seemed like we were always telling him no since there were so many things he could get into. So a couple times we just took him outside and let him run around. He can touch pretty much everything out there! Though it was really windy, so it was actually pretty cold. But that really seemed to help his attitude and behavior.

And this time, Z didn't try to go up the stairs. The first step is a little higher than Paul's, so maybe that was a factor. And we didn't let him within several feet of the top of the stairs.

Here's a pic of Z playing with his blanket. You'll notice the box of toys in the background. I tried to bring enough to keep him occupied, but not enough to please an army. At any rate, I think it's a cute pic. He just loves to snuggle with his blanket!
And then shortly thereafter I think he got a little stressed out. Not sure why, but this is a toned-down version of the original :).
My Gram always gets the newspaper, and on one page there was a big fatty picture of a model train at the conservatory. So we thought it would be fun to see, break up the day, and that Z would really like it. It was CRAZY windy that day (Sunday), and we had to park a ways away from the entrance.

J really liked the exhibit stuff they had there - this dude does blown glass stuff that people are supposed to like. Some of it was cool, but it got a little boring to me. Someone mentioned that one of his rules is that there can't be many things, if any, flowering, so most of the plants were...well, just plants. And flowers are prettier. Oh well.

Here's a pic of Z and I. J asked us to do this, and the pic turned out really well, I think.
Random sculpture stuff...
Z was really wonderful the entire time we were there. We did bring the stroller, but I'm not sure he sat in it at all, save for the trip from the car to the building. We let him walk around and look at stuff. We let him touch stuff, too, if he was very gentle (but I think for most of that I was holding him). When he was walking, we made him hold our hand unless it was pretty open and no one was there. But there were actually a fair amount of people there. And another thing, that I did not like, was that you always had to stay to the right path. So as opposed to being able to wander around freely to whatever room you'd like, skipping the rooms you didn't like, you had to walk through them all. And there was really no passing people since the pathways were pretty narrow. It was kind of dumb. I just really wanted to see the train, but we had to go through all the rooms to get there.

Anyway, since Z loves leaves he did seem to enjoy himself. And we saw a fair amount of babies. Though as Jason later noted, most of them were blobs in their strollers. Whether the babies weren't very interactive or the parents weren't willing to put forth the effort to let the kids enjoy it too, we'll never know. But even babies older than Zach were just zoning out in their strollers. We only saw one toddler walking around. It was crazy. Z's as much a part of our family as J or I, and he should enjoy our activities just the same as us. If not more.

But getting back to the story and off the soap box, there were these fatty huge leaves that Z got a big kick out of. Fatty huge! It was crazy.
At one point we sat down on a bench to rest, and I snapped a few pics of the boys. Jason says that if he shows teeth his smile is dumb, so he doesn't show teeth...but sometimes he overcompensates and looks pissed! That's how the first one turned out. Luckily Z was still enough for me to take another one :). I don't think we could get his fingers out of his mouth - he's got some teeth coming in and would jam his hands in there as much as he could.
Some people walking by asked if we wanted them to take a pic of all of us. Not the best, but it'll do.
Here's a random star thingie in the desert room. There were all kinds of cacti, and I think this was the room with the bananas and star fruit. It was nice to show Zach something that was familiar.
I don't know what this thing is, but it reminds me of a line in Evolution - "Looks like the kitchen at my first apartment..." I don't know what's its purpose is, but it's a weird looking thing.
A random boat of balls. Z got a kick out of it.
So we get to the train thing...and it's not running. In years past (it's an annual thing) it's been inside, but because of an exhibit it was forced to be outside this year. And doesn't operate in crappy weather. We thought it might not be running as it was dreary and really windy with spotty showers, but it was still a bummer to find it not running. Of course, over the next few days we saw a commercial for it and it says it can run in the rain and light snow (it has an attachable plow). So I guess it was the wind. But it sucked. And as my aunt and her famiy told us, there's an even bigger train exhibit at the science center...inside. Anyway, the setup looked really cool. Z would have really enjoyed seeing them go around. I thought the paintings on the rock were pretty creative.
They of course had a room that was all decked out for Christmas. It was really pretty, but there were so many people and they weren't very conscientious about others snapping shots. It's a wonder we got one of both of us that's decent.

This thing was pretty impressive. Unfortunately there's nothing to compare it to in size. But it must have been at least 8 feet tall.

This was a cool chandelier thing hanging in the lobby. The clouds are pretty cool. This, too, was pretty huge.

That's all for conservatory pics! I know you're relieved :). Christmas Eve my Gram always cooks a fish dinner for Aunt Rosie and her fam. It's nice to be able to count on people getting together at a routine time. We were hoping they could make it over before Z went to bed at 7, but they just missed him. Oh well. We had a blast, though, and they stayed until around 11. We had lots of laughs, though we didn't think to take any pictures.

On my Mom's side, family used to gather at Grammie's house on Christmas Eve and Christmas. We found out Christmas Eve that Aunt Tina and her fam were heading up to another aunt's house, about a half hour away from us. Before it was only a 5 minute trip from one grandmother to the other, so it wasn't a problem to try to see as many people as possible. But we figured since we had planned on dinner with Rosie and fam, and Z goes to sleep so early, it just wasn't going to work out. But Aunt Tina came to us! She drove up early with her two girls so they could stop by and hang out, if only for a half hour. Her son had to work until like 7, so their fam had to take two cars. But it was nice to see them! Personally, I think there should have been a normal gathering at Grammie's house. It was odd to not be able to stop by and meet up with others. But I don't get to make those decisions, and probably for good reason. I just know it's nice to see your fam, especially when you don't know when you'll see them again (Morse family is notorious for not getting together. Family reunion, people!!). We were able to meet up with my Aunt Lorraine, though because Grammie's house was locked we couldn't get in. So we just took a walk outside, but it was pretty cold. And I didn't want to invite people over to Gram's house as she was busy and ended up sick. So that was a drag, because our visit was short because of the weather. Her daughter was in town too, but I didn't get to see her. I guess we've all got so many family members to see that it's just hard to coordinate seeing them all. Downside of a big family! But I really do appreciate those who made the effort to see us, really really. I know I can't see everybody, but it's nice to visit with those I can.

Anyway...So while we came in late Friday night and left the day after Christmas, Paul and Maggie came in Christmas morning on a red-eye. We figured we wouldn't get to see them very much as Maggie's dad (only about a half hour from my Gram) always makes a big dinner (well, him and Maggie :)). So Paul called up on Christmas and asked when we were leaving...and I told him tomorrow. He was like "But I thought we were going to hang out on Wednesday?" So I told him that tomorrow was Wednesday and we could hang out in the morning. He didn't seem very pleased with the situation, but said they'd be over as early as they could in the morning. I was relaying the conversation to Jason when Paul called back and asked where we'd be that evening so we could hang it. So Z got to spend some more time with his Uncle Paul, whom he loves, by they way. And even though we'd seen Paul a month before, it was nice to spend some more time with him. Here's a pic that's the epitome of Paul and Z's relationship.

Z warmed up to Gram pretty quickly. He's not so good with the g's, so her name was "mom." There were a few times that he walked over to her and asked for up. It seems like he usually takes a while to warm up to people, but not her. He got bummed out when she went downstairs for something, and all excited when we went to find her. We didn't snap many pics of them together, though (J did these ones). We actually had a pretty busy trip. Gram goes nuts in the kitchen every Christmas with breads, dinners and cookies. She makes the best food. She always keeps a plate of an assortment of baked goods on the table, so whenever you walk by you just have to grab some. And when I'm there, she rolls out the sugar cookies and cuts them, and I decorate them. Move over, Picasso! I'm an artist ("arteest") when I do those bad boys. I'll color coordinate hands and feet with the little stars. I'll do sprinkles in a variety of placements. So when people eat them, I always have to flaunt my wonderful work. I think they end up pretty neat :). And we found out that Z likes sugar cookies. He bonked his head on the table (he only smacked himself twice while we were there) so when we went down to get some ice he asked for a cookie. So we crumbled like cookies :). But he doesn't eat too many sweet junk food, so I figured it was okay. I certainly had my fill! And we had kielbasa, too. Always have to have that for Christmas. Jason said next year we're going to have to try to find a way to get some. Just wouldn't be Christmas without it!

On Christmas, we came back from visiting my aunt to find Gram sick on the couch. Her stomach was all jacked up, which for her isn't that unusual. So she waited it out while we asked her if she needed to go to the hospital or a doctor. Finally she called Aunt Rosie, who came over super fast. By the time she got there, Gram decided she needed to go to the hospital. So the ambulance came to take her away, with her telling us to eat, eat, eat the food and cookies. Turns out she had pancreatitis, which she's had once before. She had thought that might be the problem. So she spent some time in the hospital and is now in a nursing home for a few weeks. Apparently you can't have anything to eat or drink for like three days, so they want to make sure she can eat okay before they release her.

At any rate, it made for a crazy evening. Paul had come over to spend time with us and left shortly after Gram did to go have dinner with Maggie's fam. That left just us in Gram's place. It was really weird to have it so quiet - we weren't really sure what to do.

The day after Christmas we got together with Paul and Maggie for brunch. We figured we'd go out to eat. We googled a local place and drove by...to find that there weren't any cars in the parking lot. We weren't sure if that was a bad thing, but they had just opened and it was the day after Christmas. So we gave it a shot. To sum up our dining experience and the food, I'll quote Paul when I asked him if his chicken was good - *shrug* "It'll keep you from starving." Oh well. The company is more important than the food. Then we got all packed and saw Gram in the hospital for a few short minutes. They had been doing tests non-stop, so she was really doped up and tired.

Here's Z and Paul in the car.

And laughing, of course.

Then we drove, drove, drove home. We stopped at Cabela's for a break (Z had a pooey diaper and I needed some clean pants, too - I spilled a third of a nalgien bottle on me). Z also likes blizzards. I needed some comfort food :). So I got my ice cream and J got his sporting goods store. We stopped a few hours later for dinner before Z's bedtime, then I drove, drove, drove. I actually drove for like 4 hours straight (J did a great job of controlling his liquid intake so he didn't have to pee). It was nice to get home, though our place felt so empty! Not that Gram has a heap of crap, but her place is just laid out differently than ours.

We had to wait until J came home from work on Thursday to open presents - we had taken just one for each of us to Gram's house. Maybe we're just trained to be materialistic, but Z had a hard time opening presents! I think he got overwhelmed with them - he had so many. I had gone to some garage sales earlier in the year and bought some toys and lots of books for him. So he had a pretty huge stack of stuff. He liked to pull the paper off, but then would want to actually play with the toy. Which would have been fine, but we didn't have much time at all before bedtime. So we saved some for the next morning and evening for him to unwrap. He had quite the haul!

We tried to take some pics of us. The only lame thing about our camera is that the display often makes the picture look much brighter than it turns out. So when we should have used the flash, we didn't because it looked way too bright. But it turned out okay.

I only bought J a few things, but that's because we've finally learned how to buy for each other. We each have the same amount of money to spend, but J would rather have one or two expensive, super cool gifts. I'd rather have lots of cheaper gifts. Just the way we are. One year he got me like two or three gifts and I was like "this is it?" Anyway, so J got an iPod nano, which he really wanted to use while riding his bike. That was a surprise and made him pretty happy. I made out with several things for the kitchen and some jewelery. Not to mention the gifts that our family shipped to us. Speaking of, one might wonder how to wrap a bike pump. Well, I was given just such a task and, in my opinion, succeeded with flying colors. Here's a pic to prove it (for you, Bobster :)).

Since Paul works at Leapfrog, he sent some stuff for Z. The first thing was an alphabet pal. Since Z knew what it was, he got so excited when he opened it. He kept saying "pal, pal, pal." The excitement wore off, however, when it took me like 5 minutes to get it out of the packaging! But this one's in Spanish, so it's pretty cool.

Paul also sent a toy with all the letters. If you put them into the gadget, it sings a song about that letter. It also has a button you can push to sing the alphabet. This one, too, is in Spanish. I had forgotten many of the letters! Zach really likes it, though, and will say "da, da, da" for "dance, dance, dance" before hitting the button. Though the pieces usually end up all over the kitchen floor...



Zach got a heap of books for Christmas. Like I said, I bought several of them at garage sales super cheap. And I bought a lot of Berenstain Bears books off of ebay. It seemed like every other present was books...and I think it literally turned out that way. But there's a few he really likes, and some that have pop-up features. One of those is about zoo animals, which is fun. Since we can't find many turtle themed things, our backup has become the zoo.

We almost forgot to pull out Z's chair from our closet! He really likes it, though it took him a day or two to figure out that we have to sit on our bottoms. I was doing something at the sink while Z was playing with a cereal box. The chair was out of view, but then I see the cereal box bouncing over the floor punctuated by a thud. He must have been standing on it and fell backwards. Needless to say, he now knows he always has to sit on his bottom.
Z loves containers, and when I saw him with his blanket shoved in this one I knew I had to grab a pic. He likes to put all kinds of things in there. This is the one I mentioned with the train on it. He just loves trains!

One day it was really sunny so I showed Zach our shadows on the wall. It's something we've played with before, but now he has a word for it - "lala." It may not ound like much, but he knows a lot of things. Just the other day he kept saying "pop" and another word, which turned out to be toast - he wanted to see some toast pop from the toaster! And he likes to try and see the water in the drain of the sink when the dishwasher drains...we were in the living room the other day when he heard it and said his word for water (also "lala" :)). After I realized what he wanted we went over to see if we could see anything. He's pretty smart. But anyway, he was pretty funny with the shadow. I'm not entirely sure he realized it was his, because he kept saying baby. At one point he went over and seemed to kiss the wall, like he used to do with a mirror. It was cute :).
I joke that Zach is going to be such a girl (not to go with stereotypes :)). He loves to help with laundry, loves to stir anything (he'll pretend with his cups and spoons), likes to have lotion put on him ("mo lolo pea") and has even pretended cleaning the table with a napkin. Lately he just loves to put the oven mits on his hands and walk around. He knows what they are used for. He just sees me doing all these things and wants to copy me. It's pretty funny. This is a pretty good shot, I think.
Thanks to some generous fundage from family (thanks again!) Zach got a new winter coat! I had been wanting to buy one for him, but hadn't had the chance to go looking. I was out looking for pants, getting frustrated as usually because NOTHING fits. Stupid gapage in the back. Hello people!! Some of us have butts AND a waist. But I'm not upset at all! :). Anyway, for a little therapy to make me feel better I wandered upstairs in Kohl's to look at the baby stuff. They only had one boy winter coat, but it was super cute. And it came with snowpants! Which is just perfect, because we didn't have any of those, either. Hopefully we won't have to use them too much, but they're nice to have just in case. But I was super excited to find something that I liked AND on sale. Not all of your baby stuff can you buy second hand, so I was okay buying something retail ("Retail, Kate."). Z seems to like them, too.
Here's a pic with just his snow pants.
I know most kids probably start out on cheerios, but he always seemed to have trouble chewing them. It's not like he has many functional teeth. He's been eating kix for a while, but we had some cheerios so we let him try them. He does okay, even after shoving like five in his mouth. Sometimes he'll get some stuck to his chin and it's super cute. Of course, they fall off right before I snap the picture, but that's alright. He's cute anyway :).
Thankfully his chair isn't on the floor anymore. One day I put all the ornaments, lights and the tree away. Took a lot of effort! Z did really well, though. Packing popcorn can amuse him for hours! Then that night J took down the train. So the next day I pulled our table and chairs out from Z's closet. It's nice that we can actually walk into the walk-in closet now! Course we just end up putting crap on the table, but oh well.

We've had to do some rearranging with Z's toys. Man, he just has so many. In retrospect, we should have just saved some Christmas money and bought him some things later. That's alright though. Picking up is just a chore. But he likes all his toys, and I found him one day like this. I'm almost positive I had to help him out - he was backed in!
Here's Z again with the oven mits.

The tree was fun in that we could search for things. I could ask him to find the baby, apple, ball, etc. It was pretty fun. Passed the time while he was eating, too. I asked him to find stuff so I could get a picture of him looking at the tree.
I figured I should get a picture with the lights on.
You can't make this stuff up, people!! Here is a picture of our "demon child." He must have been right in the middle of a blink when I took the picture. No special effects! How often does that happen?
And finally, here's Z with his two alphabet pals. A few times since he got the other we've turned them both on and walked around - him pulling one and me pulling the other. It's a little crazy :)

Alright, now I'm done with the pictures. Stupid blogspot has been fragging out and making certain things double spaced and deleting pictures. I meant to finish this days ago! Technology!

Anyway, Z is now being potty trained!!! I'm super excited. At first I just sat him down with his pants on to get used to the idea. Once he became comfortable with that, I sat him down with just his diaper. A little weird, I know, but it helped him adjust. Unfortunately the next step to being diaper free wasn't that easy. He started crying a lot. I figured the potty was cold or it hurt him as his little bottom is, well, little. But I tried sitting him on it with his diaper and just undoing it and that freaked him out, too. I think he just doesn't like the idea yet. Though he likes to run around without a diaper. But anyway, last Thursday he went pee-pee on the potty twice! And then the next day he went poo! He was crying while he did it, but he still did it. To be honest, I think the poo scares him. But since then he's gone poo and then another time pee-pee! I know it's going to be a long process (he's already peed on the floor and poo'd in the bath), but I'm super excited and feel like it's a big step. I set the timer and we sit on the potty for a few minutes about every hour. He still doesn't like to sit on it most of the time, but if I can find something to amuse him, he'll sit there for 10-15 minutes. So I don't think it's because it hurts him. He's just not used to it. But I'm excited. And from my knowledge, it's pretty advanced for his age.

A few other random notes...we were able to go to the zoo last week! Monday and Tuesday were in the low 70's. Now granted, it was fairly windy and a little overcast, but it was awesome. We were grateful for the break. I've decided it drastically improves my mood when I can open up the doors and windows and get some fresh air. And not have to spend 10 minutes getting us all dressed up to go outside. It was wonderful. Of course, yesterday we just barely got above freezing and had some snow, but we'll take what we can get. But Zach did seem to enjoy the snow. We went out for a few minutes yesterday.

So we have some friends with a small baby (now 4 months!) who came over for dinner the other day. Now Zach just loves babies. Loves them. But not when they are crying! I was feeding him and Sadie Beth was crying (not wailing, mind you, just crying) and Z put both hands over his ears. It was super cute. When he first heard her cry months ago, his face got all contorted and he wasn't sure what was going on. Though if I remember correctly, David and Blair said Z seemed to be worried about her when she cried last month (they watched him). And a while ago Jason held Sadie Beth in front of Zach...and he did NOT like that. He started crying and crawling over Jason. It was pretty clear he knew that it was HIS daddy and he should be holding HIM.

So for Christmas we got some hand puppets. I used them a little with Zach the other day, of course using a higher-pitched voice. After a few minutes he wasn't sure what to think and said "aiya" for all done. Then he wanted them on his hands. He can't move the mouth very much, but he tried and then started babbling in a higher-pitched voice too! It was cute.

I know there's other things he's done that are cute, but can't recall more right now. He does, however, like the movie Ratatouille. Who doesn't? He likes to watch the "ma" or mouse. Gets all excited.

And he did have his 15 month check-up. Little guy weighs 20 pounds! Not complaining too much as I have to hold him all the time. He's 29", which is in the 5-10 percentile as well. When I told him we were going to the doctor, he kept saying "mom" for Gram. We had told him when she left for the hospital that she was going to the doctor. Kid's got quite a memory!