Jordon and Santa

I took Jordon to the Christmas breakfast at work where he had a chance to see Santa. He didn't seem to be scared of him-- someone said that comes next year...

Happy Anniversary

Mom and Dad wanted to take the family out to celebrate their 33rd anniversary. Dad has wanted to go to the Golden Ox for quite a while, and said it had been about 40 yrs. since he had been there. He really enjoyed all the historical photos in the restaurant, and we talked about how he used to bring cattle up to the stockyards (before it closed) when we were kids, including the wreck we were in with the cattle truck when we were very young. We all had steak, and the food was good. It was a really nice time.

Early Christmas

We opened some of the gifts brought up from the Mississippi crew early (at their request)... and I will have to admit I have a hard time leaving gifts alone. Don says I am worse than a kid. So here are some of the things we got... Jordon got some really cool Christmas books, and some animal bath toys that he loves to play with. He seems to be partial to the pelican and really seems to like bath time. Sharon made me a fantastic "Smores" quilt-- I have to fight with the cats to claim it some nights. Jordon especially liked the bows and wrapping paper.

First snow

Happy Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year. It was a good time and the food was excellent. Glad I was feeling better from whatever it was that Jordon gave me and was able to eat some of the spread. It was warm enough that the kids could play outside for a while. Evan was up and down the street in his mini-4 wheeler. Logan was pretty content to walk around and chase after a ball, and Jordon was happy with just sitting on the grass and taking it all in. It will be interesting to see how much the kids have grown and changed by next Thanksgiving!

Aunt Sharon and Megan come to visit

Aunt Sharon and cousin Megan came up to visit for Thanksgiving. Poor Uncle Dale was working, as usual. Too bad Jordon and I were sick during the time they were here. Since he has started going to daycare he has had all kinds of cooties which he has graciously passed on to Mom. We did feel well enough to visit Crown Center and Barnes and Noble on the Plaza, and they hit the city with Don and Jordon when I was working.

They brought lots of Christmas goodies up for Jordon from Mississippi. We definitely appreciated having others around to help out with Jordon; it was a nice break. More later... the beast is awake and messing with the keyboard.

Big helper

Yeah.... not so much. No other explanation necessary.

I can walk

Why no posts for so long, you ask? This would be the reason. Jordon is close to 9 months old, and during the last month he has learned he can get around with pushing the cart, holding on to furniture, etc. He has been into everything, even more than before. "No, not the toilet", "No, not the trash", "No not the electric cords".... there is new theme at our house. Just this morning he crawled up on the door when I was loading the dishwasher, and then dumped over the cats' water and was playing in it. He has also learned how to open his dresser drawers, pull out clothes, and throw them on the floor. Now that our house is on the market, trying to keep it show-ready has been a real challenge. He has also crawled up half a flight of stairs, and tumbled off the individual steps that connect the rooms in our house to bang his head off the hard wood floor. He never cries for very long, so I guess he must be pretty hard-headed like his Dad.

Babies are like cats

Jordon now is getting into everything. His main focus most of the time is pulling himself up, and he is starting to take a few lateral steps while holding on to the coffee table. He likes getting into his sock bin, and dressers, and anything else he can get his hands on. Any time he has the chance to pull things out and make a mess for Mom to pick up, he is game for it. I have noticed how much babies and cats are alike.

They like to spend time in the closet (and it can be a challenge to remove them from the closet).

They like to carry things in their mouths.

They like to chew on things.

They like to be outside.

They like to be under your feet whenever possible.

They like to get to the highest point available in the room, whether it's by standing, jumping, etc..

They like boxes and bags.

They think it's ok to share toys.

They really know how to smell up a room.

They have a tendency to be up during the night keeping others from sleeping.

Bye bye warm days...

These pics are from one of the last nice warm days this fall... warm enough for Jordon to be outside in short-sleeves. He likes playing in the grass and makes every effort to eat sticks and leaves. This is also his first time sitting on his Dad's Harley... he won't be starting up this habit if I have anything to say about it, but I'm sure Don has other ideas.

Daycare

Don accepted a coaching job for 9th grade girls basketball in Higginsville, which is even further east than Lexington where he teaches. He's been wanting to get some coaching experience for a while, especially with the trouble he had finding a job teaching social studies-- they often expect teachers to be able to coach something. The timing is not so good, with all that we have going on right now. With him having practices every day, and some games Tues. and Thurs. nights, we were put in a position of what to do with Jordon because there is no way he would last late into the evening at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Also it has become more difficult working around Mom and Dad's medical appts., so we found a daycare we can take Jordon to on Tues. and Thurs. That way hopefully it will be easier on Mom, as she will be watching him now on Mon. and Fri., and I will have him on Wed. It also gives them more flexibility with scheduling appts. on days they don't have Jordon.

He started last week Tues., and I think things went better than we expected. Aside from the initial wailing and me having bad parent syndrome the first day, I think things are going ok. The first day he seemed to get a little attached to his teacher, Jamie. I was afraid they wouldn't be able to get the kid to take naps since he is such a sleep fighter, but they have managed to get it done. He's already got a runny nose, but I guess that will be part of it with being around all the other kids with snotty noses. They also called me Thurs. to bring in some Tylenol 'cause they thought he was teething... which could explain why he was up the previous 2 nights wailing for 2 hours. Hopefully he will continue to adjust ok and this will be a good schedule for the little guy, as well as providing coverage for Don's coaching gig and giving all of us more flexibility. Bad news is that to accomodate Don's practices before school, our house is up at 4:15 am several days a week to get Jordon to Grandma's and Don to practice by 6:00 am. Insanity....

School bus rides

My brother Tim came up with the idea that Jordon should go for a ride in the bus, and started pushing him around in it at Grandma and Grandpa's. Here Don and my nephew Evan are pushing Jordon back and forth in the bus. We thought we might have a repeat of what happened with Evan when he was about Jordon's age-- Tim was pushing him back and forth in some kind of ride and he toppled off and banged his head off the floor. But Jordon managed to hold his own without any injuries. In the one picture you can see the old playpen in the background-- that thing is really something to see in person. It's even got duct tape on it in places. That's my Mom; gotta love it. Friday night we were all out at the farm and the guys were wrestling with Evan and throwing him in the pen-- he could partially crawl out and then would fall the rest of the way to the floor.

Happy Halloween

This is Jordon on his 1st Halloween. At 7 months old, we did not take him trick or treating, but he was fascinated with all the activity that night with the trick-or-treaters in the neighborhood. He and Don were outside recruiting business because for some reason this year we didn't have as many kids but we had tons of candy. We did take him dressed up to the Sinclair Pumpkin Carving Party, Hospice House, and on Halloween he went with Grandpa to the cancer center, where a lot of adults were dressed up. Geez, Mom and Dad really know how to hit the happening spots, huh Jordon?

Family pics

We had pictures taken with the Kirchhoff bunch at City Lake in Concordia. Here are a few that Don happened to get-- these don't include my siblings but there are some good shots of Jordon and his cousins, Evan and Logan. Poor Logan's face was pretty banged up from having hit the pavement... he's walking now and taking some tumbles. It was a lot of fun to watch the boys interacting. Jordon earned the name "leaf-eater" as he kept trying to shove leaves in his mouth. He threw up during the shoot and I managed to fish a twig out of his mouth.

Look who we visited in Columbia

On our trip up to Columbia for the game, we were able to catch up with our friends Denise, Kerri and Andy, Mike and Christie. Jordon also got to spend a little time with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jon.

Look what I can do!

In the last 3 or 4 weeks, Jordon has become even more of a man in motion. He has learned to crawl and is getting into lots of stuff. His favorites are places he shouldn't be, like under the computer desk, or playing with dresser handles. He has also been pulling himself up on everything that is stable enough to use, and can pull himself up to a standing position. He then looks up and smiles like he is really big stuff.

MIZ-ZOU

Every year my sister gets free tickets through her work to attend a home MU football game, and they have a great spread for tailgating before the game. This year the game was on Oct. 11, and Mizzou played Oklahoma. The weather that day was awesome, up around 80. We took off early from KC and made the rounds in Columbia visiting friends before the game. The game was going to be earlier in the day, but then they decided to televise it so it was moved back to 7pm. Not so good for us considering we brought the little man-- Don wanted to take him to his first football game. But, he did surprisingly well and seemed to enjoy all the action up until about halftime, when the noise and everything got to be too much for him-- we had planned to leave about that time anyway to head back. I think that at the time of the game, Mizzou was ranked #2, but lost the game and several since then, so they have fallen in the ranks. That's ok, we'll always be tiger fans and the games are always a good time.

More pumpkin patch fun

Don and Jordon are standing next to a huge beehive. They also sell the honey there that still has the comb in it. There are kittens in the cubby holes that hens usually lay their eggs in next to Jordon and I. He is more fascinated with the indian corn than the kittens-- I think because the kittens were sleeping rather than moving.