Happy Birthday, Maiya

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Dan and Lynette had people over this afternoon to celebrate Maiya's first birthday. Both sets of grandparents showed up along with several sets of friends as well. Maiya was all decked out in a cupcake dress with a cupcake bib, cupcake cakes, and, well, cupcakes.

The Last Christmas Bash

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GnGT came down and met Lynette and Colin for the HAT party (Herman/Anderson/Trosko). Dan stayed home with Maiya who is suffering through her first ear infection. Hopefully she'll be all better in time for her birthday on Saturday.

We had great appetizers, food, dessert, and drinks. There was also more gift giving, which by this time, didn't interest Jake at all. He did have a lot of fun playing with his cousin though.

Merry Christmas - Update

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Here's the post that I promised yesterday. All our photos are up and commented on.

We got to have Jake open all his gifts from us today, and he seemed pretty worn out by it. So, we figured the best thing to do would be to get the Pruss family over so Jake and Elle could exchange gifts! Jake got a very cool wood block from them that shows all his vitals. I think it should go right into his "keepsake" tin from his birthday. We gave Elle a few books that she seemed to enjoy. Then, they spent the rest of the time terrorizing each other by trying to steal whatever toy the other was playing with!

The Herman family, or at least part of it (due to sickness) will be coming over with GnGT tomorrow so we can wrap up our Christmas celebrations. Then, we have Maiya's birthday party, and a trip over to the Jurado's this coming weekend. Those should call for a few more blog posts!

Merry Christmas

(Sorry... uploads are slower than Mark's stream,
so, no pictures tonight...

They should be up tomorrow though!)

I'm sure there are many questions about the photo above... it was taken through the top of the wall in the newly remodelled basement at MPnA's house. Mark said they should leave it unfinished. I think this proves that it should not. I'm sure Meme will be horrified that this made it to the blog, but I said it would, and thus it was done. Tomorrow's lead-in will be a cute picture of Jake... I promise.

We had a great Christmas with friends and family.

Our Christmas weekend started on Saturday when we went to our annual dinner and a movie with Dan and Lynette. We ate dinner at Luca's in Grand Blanc and then watched August Rush. It was a wonderful evening.

On Sunday, we got to see Tiff and Francesco who were are in town for the holidays. We only got a couple hours with them, but it was great to catch up.

Monday took us back up to GB where we went to church with MPnA, MnK, and Melissa. We then had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner with the Stewart family at the Husted's. Jake did really good and even managed to stay up until about 10 pm.

Today, we opened gifts in Grand Blanc then headed to Fenton to GnGT.

We, along with Jake, especially Jake, got spoiled by all the great gifts we received. We are very lucky to have such wonderful friends and family.

Welcome to Winter

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Well, we're winding UP to Christmas, and we just got our Christmas gift to each other delivered a few days ago. Michele and I decided we should finally buy our first set of living room furniture. Michele's parents were generous enough to let us take some of their furniture way back when we first got married. We've been dealing with slip covers and the loss of padding ever since.

Now, after ordering one set of furniture that we realized was WAY too big, we got a slightly smaller set that still seems pretty large. We both really like it though, and I've heard that's what counts. Michele's dream is to one day move to a house with a larger living room, and at that time add a chair-and-a-half with a cocktail ottoman in some sort of contrasting color. We all have our dreams, right?

Jake seems to like the new furniture, or at least sitting against it. He did tell me the other day that it would look better in the glow of a 42" LCD HDTV playing a blu-ray disc from a new PS3. Unfortunately, Michele wasn't in the room to hear it.

If you follow the link above, you'll see the furniture. If you continue below, you'll be treated to a few new videos.

Winter Weekends

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Jake had a pretty fun set of weekends bookending a brief fever. Two weekends ago, Jen, Jessi, and Melissa visited with Jack and Isabelle. The kids had a pretty good time playing with each other. Their naps seemed to go in phases so it was usually just two at a time.

Jake then got to spend three more days at home, one with each of us, and a final day with Grandpa. He never showed any symptoms of being sick besides his fever, and being a bit groggy. He got to go back to daycare on Thursday, and then got a visit there from Santa on Friday! Jake wasn't thrilled to sit on his lap, but he didn't scream, so I guess that's something.

This past Saturday, Meme brought Alison down to visit with Jake. Aside from just playing with him, they also helped to distract him while Michele and I shopped for some new living room furniture (our Christmas gift to each other - not quite an HDTV and PS3, but something cozy to sit on when we finally get those). Then, on Sunday, when we got the two snow blowing jobs worth of snow, it was fun to get Jake out and let him play around in the deep drifts. We then pulled him around on his sled while Jason pulled Elle on hers. Jake didn't like the snow blowing in his face, but he was more than willing to put up with it order to stay outside and continue to play.

Michele's First New Car

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Shortly before Thanksgiving, Michele's '02 Malibu that she bought from her Grandma Remenicky started to have some problems. After an overnight stay at the dealership, we found out that the laundry list of issues was going to cost a few hundred dollars less than the car was actually worth. We only had a few payments left, so we had to make the tough decision to fix it or replace it.

We decided to go ahead an replace it with a newer model. Michele is now the proud owner of an '08 Malibu LS. It's not loaded, but it's got all the features that you'd really want in a car like power doors, locks, and windows. It has remote entry, though it lacks a remote start feature. Cruise, CD player, and many airbags are all included as well.

Michele pretty much fell in love with it as soon as she took it on the test drive. Unfortunately, while we were test driving it last week, that particular car sold. Michele had her heart set on a black car, so we just tagged the next vehicle coming to the dealership. We were called yesterday and informed that the new car had arrived and we could pick it up.

Michele has slowly moved from sad about not having a car payment to excited about having her first, brand new car. Hopefully she feels the same way for the next few years!