8 Months... proof

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

Jake wasn't in much of a picture taking mood yesterday, but he cooperated for a bit this morning. When he's sick, his patience seems to lean more towards mine rather than Michele's.

When we went to feed him his breakfast, he looked TOO cute in one of the bibs Meme gave him that we decided to push our luck and squeeze a few more pictures in. You can find those here.

We'll be headed up to Grand Blanc shortly to spend Thanksgiving with the Anderson side of the family. Hopefully the Lions will start our day out right and give us something additional to be thankful for.

We hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

8 Months Old

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

Today, Jake turned 8 months old! Michele and I are both off tomorrow, so we'll probably put him through the paces with the camera at that time. There could be some new photos as early as tomorrow afternoon (although maybe not until tomorrow evening).

On Saturday, Brian and Di brought Cooper down to play with Obie. He has gotten a lot bigger, and at times the dogs were even tough to tell apart. Brian took quite a few photos, so maybe there will be a blog post eventually.

Speaking of updated blogs, there's a new blog added to our list of friends. Mike and Melissa Noll (Ohio folk) are expecting their first, and as such, have started their own blog. You can find a link over on the right. Also, Jason (writing for Elle) has updated their blog as well. Be sure to check them out.

Happy belated birthday to Mark. He celebrated his birthday with most of the family on Sunday.

We, on the other hand, were up in Fenton for a pre-Thanksgiving feast with the Trosko side of the family. DLnC were there with Grandmama and Grandpapa Trosko (the last time I'll EVER refer to them like that in this blog - from now on GnGT). Great Grandma Remenicky (GGR) was also there along with Pete's cousin Joan. Barb, another of Pete's cousins, also stopped by for dessert. We had a great dinner, and I got to spend time playing trains with Colin and watching Cars.

In other news, Dan went through a successful laparoscopic surgery yesterday. He went into the hospital to have his mangina, er... hernia pushed back. Everything went fine and he's recouperating at home. He's even expecting to be able to partake in a Thanksgiving feast on Thursday.

Jake spent some time at the doctors and the medical supply store yesterday as he was diagnosed with bronchiolitis. We had to go and get a nebulizer for his breathing treatments. He sounds a lot better today and is also eating and sleeping much better (thank God). We'll take him back in on Monday to see if things are clearing up and to find out how much longer the breathing treatments will be necessary.

November News

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

I wonder if I'd get pestered by my mom as often about my recent updating frequency if she was not retired? At any rate, it has been a while, but that's because things have finally started to settle down. Sure we seem to be busy EVERY weekend, but it's typically more routine stuff. I'm sure there will be more posts than anyone cares to read around the holidays, so I think maybe my fingers were just taking a rest in anticipation.

Two weekends ago we ventured over to Charlotte for Isabelle's baptism. The ceremony went well, and the Goodrich's threw a great party afterwards. To top off the excitement of the day, the Lions actually beat the Falcons. That was only the second time I picked them to win in our football pool, and it was their second win (more to follow). Jake got to meet Jack for the first time at the part, and we got some good shots of the three kids together.

In other news, Jake now has TWO teeth! We keep trying to get a good photo of them, but they are quite tricky to capture with our SLOW digital camera. The photo at the top of this post was an attempt to show them. We are considering investing in a new camera as a Christmas gift to one another. Last year was cell phones. This year a camera. I love my wife! I don't want to have to wait that long, but maybe next year I'll give her an HD TV and she'll give me a PS3. I think we should swap those gifts for Valentine's, but there seems to be a much lower spending limit on the gifts for that holiday.

Last weekend my parents threw a dinner for family and friends to wish Melissa a safe journey to Florida. She got a job selling Super Bowl XLI gear for the next few months. We all got together at Max & Erma's in Auburn Hills. This was following my third prediction of a Lion's victory but my first incorrect prediction. I no longer feel any responsibility for their winning or losing based on my picks. Luckily, in our league, only one person picked against them so it didn't hurt too badly. Here are some photos from MPnA from the dinner. Also, here are a few photos of Alison after she lost her first tooth!

Michele has parent/teacher conferences this week, so Jake and I will get to spend some quality time together. The question is, "Will it be post-worthy?" We'll just have to wait and see.

Happy Halloween

(Links to photos can be found below.)

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Halloween. From what we can tell, it looks like Jake sure did enjoy his.

GnGT came down and took Jake to a shortened day of day care. Every year, the director of The Learning Tree rides in a helicopter and drops candy down to the kids. The infants, obviously, can't really participate, but they get to go and watch. Pete was kind enough to record part of the event with our camcorder. You can see the video below.



After the excitement with the helicopter, they took him to Salem Elementary for Michele's Halloween party. A few other teachers had their babies there as well.

When he got home, we threw his costume back on to get a few more photos and eventually Elle came over to take some photos with him.

Jake then went to bed before the first trick-or-treater arrived, and luckily slept well even with all the noise out on the porch.

Here are our Halloween photos. You can also see photos for the DLnC and MPnA's.

The weekend before Halloween, Jessi, Harlan, and Isabelle crashed at our place while they were in town for a wedding. Isabelle is a doll! It's actually hard to remember when Jake was that small!

The day before they arrived, Michele went to visit Steve, Melissa, and Jack. He was a week old, and didn't look quite as big as he sounded, but definitely huge compared to when Jake was born.

You can see photos from both visits here.

If you already followed the link to the photos above, you may have found out that shortly before Halloween, Jake cut his first tooth! We can't quite get a picture of it yet since his tongue always seems to be in the way, but trust us, it's there. It's like one little dagger in the abyss that is his gums.

Even BEFORE that, Jake turned 7 months old. He actually turned 7 months at Meme and Papa's house when we were off in DC. We still managed to get our photos, although he was not as cooperative as he has been in months past. You can find those photos here.

Lastly, we got his 6 month photos back from JC Penney. While probably not completly legal, I scanned them in, and you can see them here (1, 2, and 3). I left the quality fairly poor to discourage printing of the copyrighted photos (that should make up for the illegality of scanning them).

We're Back... with Congratulations to Give

(Please find the links to more pictures in the post below.)

Michele and I spent the weekend (October 20 - 23) in the Washington DC area.

The morning before we left, we found out that Melissa and Steve had their baby boy! Jack Stephen was born on 10/20/2006 at 3:03 am. He weighed in at a MASSIVE 9 pounds, 4 ounces at 22 1/2 inches long. Melissa ran a fever during her 22 hour delivery, so there were a few issues, but everything seems to be better now, as Mom, Dad, and their newborn toddler are all at home in Brighton.

The first person in our house to find out that Melissa had her baby was Jen. Jen and Bret came into town late Thursday night so that we could all ride to the airport together fairly early on Friday.

So, why did the four of us decide to visit our nation's capitol? Well, that's where the second set of congratulations come in. Francesco and Tiffany tied the knot on Saturday, October 21. They had a beautiful wedding in a small chapel followed by an intimate lunch at one of the groom's family's restaurants. It was a great day and it really seemed to fit their personalities. After some people caught some quick naps (and Michele and I made it to Church) a few of us got together to watch the Tiger's game. We had some trouble finding a sports bar, and when we finally did, we were bummed by the Tiger's loss, and even more bummed by the crappy service we got at the bar.

Sunday found Bret, Jen, Michele, and I taking the Metro train into Washington DC to do the amount of sight-seeing that lesser people might take a week to do. We saw all of the following: The Air and Space Museum, The National Museum of Natural History, the Capitol, the White House, the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Korean War Memorial. We visited all of that even with taking some time out to grab lunch and watch part of the Lions game, and end the day at The ESPN Zone in time for the start of the Tiger's game. When the wives started to fall asleep in the booth, we decided to leave the restaurant in the 6th inning and made it back to the hotel in time to see the end of the game. Luckily, even on the underground train system, my Verizon phone kept a data connection and I was able to keep up with their win through the mobile version of MLB.com.

On Monday, we got up and drove into Arlington. We visited the Marine Corps War Memorial, and spent the rest of the morning in Arlington National Cemetery. In the early afternoon we headed back to Dulles to catch our flight back to Detroit.

It was a great, long weekend that we'll remember for the rest of our lives. The only thing that might have made it better is if we could have taken our son along with us. Jake still had some fluid in his ears, and we decided it was probably safer to leave him home than risk the flight along with being in a strange place in the event that he might need to go to a doctor. GnGT got to watch him Friday through Saturday and Meme and Papa got him Saturday night through our return on Monday. While you might think it's unfair that one set of grandparents got 2 nights while the other got 1, I think they'd disagree (probably not out loud though). Jake had a bit of trouble getting to sleep and did not keep to his usual bed time of approximately 6:30 pm. His bedtime, instead, swung from 9:30 to as late as 11:30. Other than that, it sounds like he did very well being apart from us. It was awesome to see the expression on his face as he saw us when we got back on Monday night.