Happy 2008

Here's four generations on both sides! We had both sets of grandparents and both great grandmas over on the 23rd.
Three generations with both grandpas.
Don't they look debonair?

Here's the annual cousins picture.

Ethan loved eating...er...opening presents Christmas morning.

Here we are Christmas Day at the Meuers.Grandma Leona admires Baby Jake.
Here's another four generations with both Meuer boys and their boys.

Our picture with little Santa.

Ethan's day after Christmas present was his helmet.

Will nicknamed Ethan Magneto from X-men. Here's Magneto using his metal crushing powers.

Baby Jake was Christened on December 30th. Here's the family before the ceremony.

Here's Jake right after the dousing. He didn't even wake up!Happy New Year!!!Here are a few pics of our new car, a Mazda 3.

Here's the cake my mom made for my cousin Charlie. He asked for hooters on his cake. I thought my mom was pretty clever!

Well, I thought I would put a sampling of the major events from our holiday since looking at those and seeing the captions would help you see how we've been spending our time. It's been a very busy couple of weeks filled with a lot of fun family events. But, man, are we exhausted!!!

Christmas came and went so quickly, as usual, but it was a great time. For the first time, Will and I had Christmas morning in our own house, starting new traditions with Ethan. He mostly just ate his wrapping paper, but he did seem to enjoy some of his toys...once they were out of the horrendous packaging that is. Grandma Mary Terese gave him a shelving unit with bins for all his toys and its already pretty much filled thanks to all of his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins! He hardly knows what to eat/play with first.

The day after Christmas was a bit sad for us because we did have to go into the city to pick up Ethan's helmet. I'll admit to getting a bit overwhelmed/upset while there because when they first put it on, it was very low on his head, and it didn't look like my Ethan. I decided then and there that he would just deal with a lopsided head! But then the orthotist did some trimming and now it's really not so bad. Many family members have even said how cute it is. It is somewhat cute, I guess, but, of course, we'd rather not have to have it. It does not seem to bother Ethan at all now, which is a great relief, and the only major problems are:

1. It smells like a foot when you take it off, giving Ethan the nickname Stinky Head.

2. It hurts my arm when I nurse/rock him.

3. It's difficult to get clothing over it.

4. Ethan headbutts sometimes and now it can leave a bruise.

One major advantage (besides the whole fixing of his flat head) is that I no longer worry about knocking Ethan's head against the changing table when I get up from his chair. He's protected now! In all seriousness, though, we are feeling much better about the whole thing and appreciate all the support you've given us throughout the process.

Ethan's 6th month appointment was today (he was a stud with the shots) and he continues to top the charts with his height: 28 inches. He's as tall as a typical 10 month old. He's weighing in at 18lbs 10oz these days, less than we thought actually. He's 75th percentile there. My back sure is feeling that weight, but I suppose I should thank him for the bicep workout. Everything else is looking good. Tomorrow, we're going to start feeding him jar food. Should be interesting!

The only major Ethan snag in our lives right now is that he has not been sleeping well at night. We've unswaddled him (finally!) but he now needs to be rocked to sleep most times because he takes his pacifier out of mouth to play with it. When he inevitably drops it, he is very mad. We've created a monster. On top of this, he seems to be getting an upset tummy (aka lots of gas pains) every night. I've cut things from my diet, tried drops and tonight gave him some chamomile tea...nothing seems to work. He is waking up very frequently and it's been a bit frustrating. His naps are very short, too. To make matters worse, I have a bad cold that's all in my throat right now and the lack of sleep is not helping. I just keep telling myself, "This too shall pass" over and over. We're hoping it will settle down once our lives settle down and he's not doing so much of his sleeping on the go. He's been sleeping for over an hour now with no stirrings which is better than the past few nights, so knock on wood quick!

Oh, yeah, and we bought a car! We had many talks and finally decided to hold off on the minivan for another year or so and get a sedan. It's much more cost effective for us right now with only one kid. Soon enough, we'll be trading in the Impala for the good old van, I'm sure. We decided on a Mazda 3 after Will poured over all the car ads for a few days and spoke to many a car dealers. We were able to get 0% financing for 36 months, which was a definite for us, so we're pretty happy. It's a nice little car. All the online reviews compare it to the Corolla and Civic, two cars we were looking into. I'm pretty excited because I've never had a new car. We said goodbye (well, Will said good riddance) to the Pontiac. It got us a whopping $500 toward our new car, which actually was more than I expected since it needs a lot more work than that! I meant to get a picture of the "Goldie Oldie" but forgot. Oh well.

The other new thing in our lives is our master bathroom. My uncle Johnny helped us out big time when our shower started leaking. He redid the bathroom, working nights and weekends) in about 4 weeks! It's beautiful. I'll get some before/after pictures up soon.

Before I head to bed, a special congratulations to my sister-in-law, Laura, and her new fiance, Chris, who proposed yesterday. We're very excited for you Laura! Congratulations!

Happy New Year, everybody!