Happy Holidays

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, Jeffrey must have been the only kid in town who actually slept in Christmas morning - he didn't get up until 7:30 which is a half hour later than his 'official' getting up time. He was very excited on Christmas eve as you could see in the video of him chanting 'Christmas, Christmas....' over and over. He was happy to get things started by passing out stockings to everyone, then after examining the fun stuff in the stocking and opening a few toys we had a nice french toast breakfast followed by some more presents. Jeffrey got a lot of 'space' themed toys this year, the space shuttle, some rockets and lunar exploration toys. He also enjoyed playing with the usual trucks, airplanes, and driving his new McQueen car!

Jeffrey races McQueen around the house

Kids in their matching jammies on Christmas Morning

Meredith was delighted with wrapping paper and a shiny green bow, but she managed to do some unwrapping too and had fun playing with some new stacking bowls and a tea set. She was very happy to smile and pose for pictures. We were happy she is not yet mobile and was content to sit and play and enjoy the tree from across the room without trying to grab lights or ornaments.

Meredith unwraps a present

Checking out the new tea set

Jeffrey was thrilled to spend time over the holidays with all our family. There were many moments of high excitement. He enjoyed moments of sharing toys with Meredith and tried to make her smile and laugh. He has been very helpful at dinnertime picking up a spoon or cup that she drops and handing them back to her and she has been growing quickly, progressing over the last two months to eating babyfood - a favorite is vegetable turkey dinner- and sitting up on her own almost unassisted. She can spend long periods carefully examining a single toy and really enjoys the colored plastic stacking ring toy. Meredith just loves to see people and laughs and wiggles with joy when anyone engages her. She is the happiest baby I have ever seen! We had a wonderful Christmas and are planning on heading out to see ice sculptures downtown in the afternoon of New Year's Eve - an Axtell tradition!

Jeffrey Crashing his new car, with commentary

Kids excited for Christmas!

Some self-explanatory videos:

Some Xmas themed pictures

Everyone knows there are rules. The rules include rules for xmas. In case you don't know, some of the important rules are about when you are allowed to decorate. Xmas lights are to be put up on the first weekend in December .. no sooner, no later. However, the xmas tree itself is to be obtained and put up during the second week of December .. no sooner and no later. I'm happy to say that we are following the rules here. Two weekends ago I spent a long cold afternoon putting up all of the lights, including the icicle lights which required roof work! I really like the white LED's, mostly because they're bright.

From December 2010

From December 2010

Gwen has posted some pictures of our xmas tree on her picassa gallery at http://picasaweb.google.com/gwenie/December2010#

Last weekend (the xmas tree weekend), we all went to have breakfast with Santa at Wegmans. Everyone had fun, and both Jeffrey and Meredith got to sit with Santa! Here are some pix

From December 2010

From December 2010

From December 2010

Happy Birthday Great Grandma!

Jeffrey and Meredith's great-grandma Johnson celebrated her 90th birthday on Saturday. Congratulations! There was a very nice reception that I (Mike) went to. Here's a photo of me with Grandma Axtell, Uncle Steve, and great-grandma:

From December 2010

The kids and Gwen unfortunately had to say home -- everyone's been sick and we don't want it to spread to much.

Meredith has been working on sitting up. She can sit up well if she has some reinforcement, as you can see:

From December 2010

Today, I am putting up the xmas lights on the house. There are rules for when this is to occur. The 1st weekend in December is when the lights should go up, regardless of the weather. Also, the xmas tree goes up the second weekend of December. These are the rules people -- any earlier is too early!

In years past Gwen, Jeffrey, and I would go together to cut down the tree from a local tree farm. But we've learned our lesson. Jeffrey never has liked going and always cries and cries. Last year this led to some urgency in selecting our tree and in the end I made a rather poor tree choice. Not going to happen this year -- I'm going solo and coming back with a good tree without toddler strife. .. stay tuned.

Recent photos (full size) in the picassa albums:

http://picasaweb.google.com/axtell.mj/November2010#
http://picasaweb.google.com/axtell.mj/December2010#