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.
(Please click on the photo to see a few more pictures.)
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!
We hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We sure did. We spent Thanksgiving day up at GnGT with DLCnM and Great Grandma and her friend, Gloria. We all ate way too much food, except, of course, for Jake who is attempting to survive on bananas, raisins, and cereal bars.
On Friday we headed over to MPnA's and spent the day with them. They had hosted a dinner at their house the day before, and were more than happy to just spend the day relaxing.
Rewinding back, a bit... on Saturday, November 17, we met Bret and Jen in East Lansing for the final MSU game of the season against Penn State. While Bret got sick and didn't get to stay through the whole game, the rest of us saw a thrilling game where MSU came back from being down 17 points and won the game!
A few days later, our friends had a big day. Jeff and Marie had their baby girl, Adela. You can read all about it in their blog here, and see their photos here. She's a cute little girl, and her parents couldn't be happier!
Fast forward to the weekend after Thanksgiving... after Jake went down to sleep, Michele and I put up our Christmas tree. We had both forgotten how nice and thin the artificial tree is that we bought last year, so we were pleasantly surprised. Jake awoke the next morning and was so shocked by the whole thing that he ended up laying back down. When he got up an hour or so later for round 2, he started to get into it! We got him dressed up and spent about the next 30 minutes trying to get a photo for the Christmas card. Luckily, this year, I didn't have to do any major editing to splice multiple photos together like last year. We found that getting him to count to three resulted in a great looking smile when he said "three".
I've also got three different videos to share with you this time (the feature is getting more and more use on our camera).
This first video is of Maiya playing happily with a couple of plastic golf balls. I can't believe how fast she's growing up, and her laugh was too cute to only capture some photos. Everyone was a little jealous because she really seemed to take an interest in me this time. I even got quite a few kisses that everyone else had to beg for!
This is a video showing Maiya chowing down on table foods. I would have videoed Jake, but it would have been him shaking his head, saying no, and then screaming if we forced the issue.
Lastly, this is a video we captured a little before Thanksgiving. Jake was having a blast splashing in the tub, so I thought I'd get it on video. What I didn't know was that he was going to bust out into an anatomy lesson. Make sure you have the sound up, and watch to the end. I'm thinking of submitting it to AFV.
Regardless of how much fun we have traveling locally or far to see friends or family, sometimes it just feels good to stay home. That's what we did this weekend. We still go to see family as my parents and Alison came down to watch the football game on Saturday. We were very excited for a little bit in the fourth quarter, but eventually UM came back and beat the Spartans. Luckily, that pain was dulled on Sunday when the Lions demolished Denver.
Aside from leaf-work, I think I performed the last of the yard work for the season. After I spent a good part of the afternoon finishing that up, while Jake and Michele played outside, Jake pretended to mow the lawn as well. One of us did a pretty good job. You can see his attempt below. (No one bothered to film my work... oh well).
To my fellow Spartan fans, while the football team is now very close to not receiving a bowl bid, at least their hockey team is undefeated in CCHA conference play, and have only lost one other game outside of the conference!
Jake had a lot of fun in his costume this year. Like Michele has told anyone that would listen, the $20 was definitely worth it. Not only are we not as creative as Nez, but in the fall Michele doesn't have the time to make a costume either. Jake looked so adorable it was totally worth it.
We took him to a few neighbors houses where he got a couple goodie bags (we did not know that was customary, so we'll have to bust our butts to make our goodie bags next year make up for not having them this year). He then spent a good chunk of time playing on the porch, eating a banana, and helping hand out candy to the other kids.
(Please click on the photo to see more pictures.)
