Merry Christmas!

(Please click on the photo to see more Christmas pictures.)

So, I think it's safe to say that, aside from his crazy sleep schedule, Jake really enjoyed his first Christmas. He got all kinds of great gifts, most of which would fall under the category of edutainment. Michele and I also learned how much more fun it is opening gifts for your child and seeing their expression! This could easily be the best Christmas we've had together. This even topped the Christmas that the Anderson kids got our very first Nintendo!

Christmas eve eve, we headed up and visited with GnGT for a while and got to see their new fireplace and entertainment system. While I don't appreciate the enormous amount of heat that thing can pump out like everyone else, I could appreciate their new LCD HDTV. I helped Pete make sure he had all the best cables for his current equipment, plugged everything in, and programmed and taught them how to use the universal remote.

Later in the afternoon we headed over to MPnA's. We went out to church and then came back to have delicious grilled cheese sandwiches from Colony. I think they've quickly replaced Halo Burger as the food that I MUST have when I'm in the area. God help us if I ever get transferred up that way. I could easily weigh 300 pounds within the first 6 months.

Christmas Eve morning, Jake decided he would continue to get up at 6:00 am, so we decided to do all our gifts in the morning. Alison seemed to have as much fun helping Jake open his gifts as she did opening her own.

Later on, we went to church at St. Matt's in downtown Flint before heading over to the Husted's. When we got there, Michele and I tended to Jake (as good parents would) making sure he was fed, medicated, and then finally asleep only to get down to the kitchen and realize that no one missed us, and most of the food was gone! I think we both got enough to eat though, and the lasagna and shrimp were as good as ever.

After ANOTHER round of great gifts, we tried to carefully move Jake down to the car with no success. He woke up got to see a lot of relatives briefly before we whisked him away around 9:00 pm. He fell asleep in the car almost immediately on the drive down to DLnC's. When we got there, he, of course, woke up again, and was up until just before midnight. 6:00 rolled around awful quick, yet Jake was ready for it. We got up and fed him long before anyone else was stirring... even Colin.

Once everyone did get up, we had a great Christmas morning with even MORE gifts for Jake (and us). The rest of the day was spent eating, relaxing, and playing with all the great new toys.

On the day after Christmas, we finished up our gift-giving/receiving with the Pruss family. Elle really seemed to like the bongo drum we got her. Jake couldn't take his eyes off of it either, so maybe we have a birthday present figured out for him all ready!

It was a great weekend for all of us, and we are very blessed to have such a great, large, family.

After you've visited our photos from the picture link above, be sure to check out MPnA's photos here. I'll post other links for DLnC and hopefully GnGT when they are available.

Also, we are heading out this afternoon to get Jake's head ultrasound. Hopefully everything will go well, and I'll be able to report that he just had a head growth spurt, and nothing else. I'm not sure when we'll find out the results of the scan, but I'm sure Michele will be on pins and needles until we do.