Christmas (before Thanksgiving?!?)

I love the decorations for Christmas. I have almost no Thanksgiving decorations. The baby is due to arrive the weekend after Thanksgiving which is when we usually decorate for Christmas. So, to insure that we don't miss the chance to put up all of the decorations that take up a lot of room in the downstairs storage closet - we did it early. I love real trees and plan to have one again in the near future, but we decided that our fake ones would have to suffice this year. We had a delightful time decorating the house this weekend. Jonathan is enamored with the ornaments on our tree. We have gotten wiser since last year and only put ones that he can play with near the bottom. The fragile ones are near the top.

In the midst of all of the fun - we only took two photos. Here they are:
Jonathan with Daddy and the first part of the tree. Jonathan giving me kisses and telling me that he loves me. LOVE that!

Happy decorating whenever that time comes in your house!

Sarah

Excitement about Babies and Other Stuff

Jonathan found a doll baby in some hand-me-down toys that we were cleaning for the baby. He has taken to the baby (maybe it is all of the talk of a new baby coming to our house?). He doesn't play with it in the way that I typically see children playing with dolls. It is like he thinks the baby is his new pal. He was coloring with markers the other morning and wanted the baby to sit right next to him. The next thing I saw was Jonathan holding the baby by the head with one hand and holding the marker in the baby's hand with his other hand. Then he said, "look, Mommy. Baby color with markers" and proceeded to color the paper with the marker that was in the baby's hand. He also wanted to share some of his crackers with the baby. It will be a challenge for him to understand that the new baby is not going to get up and play right away.

Jonathan calls himself Jonah. He likes the story of Jonah and The Big Fish in his picture bible. He used to call himself Jona (as if to cut off the last syllable of his name), but now I think he deliberately calls himself Jonah because he likes the story.

Identity crisis: Jonathan thinks that the snowman we put up for Christmas is Santa. Snowman/Santa... guess they both begin with S and are related to Christmas.

My mother dreamed that we had a girl, my dad thinks the baby is girl (he was wrong with Carla, so keep that in mind), and Abby thinks it is a girl (Abby has yet to be wrong in her predictions). We should know in the next two weeks or so.

Perspective

Jamie's travels have been put in perspective. Why can't I have perspective on things without having to be slapped in the face by bad news?

A friend from my previous job whom I worked with daily and thoroughly enjoyed as friend and colleague experienced an unspeakable tragedy yesterday. She is between thirty-five and forty, married, with a three-year old and a five-year old. She is pregnant with their third child. Her husband was having routine shoulder surgery yesterday to repair cartilage that had been problematic for a few years. He died of cardiac arrest on the operating table. No prior health concerns. A routine surgery.

Perspective, huh? Traveling seems a minor irritation in light of her terrible sadness. Keep Jodie and her girls: Evie and Lila, in your prayers.

Playing in leaves

We played in the leaves yesterday even though it was quite chilly. It wasn't raining and it wasn't terribly windy so the cold was no problem. Jonathan didn't like the leaves on his head. The three of us were playing football in the leaves... I chose to remain standing since getting up isn't a quick move for me anymore.

Jamie chose to play tackle football with Jonathan.

Our new camera is working great. No more large purple lines through the photos. We dropped our camera on the lens portion about a year ago and it miraculously survived. I think that the age of the camera and that trauma probably were the causes of its demise.

Baby 2 is two and half weeks from its ETA. I am hoping for it to come before Thanksgiving. We will be waiting for God's timing barring any complications. My doctor was very quick to offer an induction on the Monday before Thanksgiving. No thanks. Didn't like Pitocin last time, and would rather not go down that road again this time.

Few thoughts

On the evening of historic elections in our country, I am bucking the apolitical trend of this blog to say a few things pertaining to neither candidate because I am a moderate and see positives to both candidates.

No matter who wins, I will:
~ Not waste my time belittling the character of the future president of our country. He deserves our respect for being willing to serve in such a way and do a job I wouldn't do.
~ Discuss issues and not bash people. Issues deserve time to be discussed, but the INCREDIBLE amount of bashing that occurred towards PEOPLE during and after the last presidental election was disgusting. Not to mention the stuff that has already been said about the people currently running for office.
~ Encourage my child to thoughtfully ponder the issues as he grows. Hopefully he will grow up in a household where we intelligently discuss matters of concern. Putting nasty bumper stickers on cars and wearing disrespectful t-shirts just because one disagrees with the position of another serves NO ONE any good.
~ Still know that I serve a God who is bigger than all of the politics.

Sarah

Hide and Seek

One of Jonathan's favorite games is "Hide and Seek". He likes to "count" and rarely starts with "one". Usually he starts with "four". It must be his lucky number. Anyway... this video is of a game of hide and seek when Jonathan was the seeker (you might need to turn up the volume a bit for the first 5 seconds).

Jonathan Guild, MD

Jonathan was supposed to be a doctor this year for Halloween. Originally, he was just going to wear his costume from last year (I am kind of cheap - I know) but when I tried it on him the week before Halloween it was decidedly too small. Guess he's grown a decent amount since I checked on the status of the costume size in early September. A doctor it would be. Jonathan already had these cute little scrubs and we thought it would be easy to use his doctor kit and a few add ons to make it adorable.

He had other plans. These plans didn't include the hat, mask, stethescope, etc. We did manage to get the hat on him for a little while, but he didn't have much interest in trick-or-treating. He would have preferred to remain at Lauren's house (one of his best buds) and play instead of moving on to the next house. Mommy and the little doctor
Dressed like partners...

This photo says it all: he preferred to run around playing at the Bare's house. He wasn't all that excited about moving on to the next house.

Jonathan minus the hat (and everything else that made the outfit costumy)

In other news: well, there is no other news. Just us, hanging out, waiting for Baby 2 to arrive in four weeks (if I'm lucky: THREE).