It's almost 2009

Solomon longing to pull off some ornaments.

Zoe posing.. where on earth could she have learned this vital skill?

Solomon in his monkey PJs.

So Christmas has come and gone. We did xmas eve with my parents and then drove up to Lawrence on Christmas day to hang out with Alex's family. It was nice. We now have more toys than ever in our house. It's just a constant mess. I think solomon's favorite toys include Elmo's kitchen, pressing the button on the Crayola marker thing, the piano and the Thomas the Train car thing. However, he plays with almost everything for at least a few minutes a day. Some of the toys are a bit old for him right now, but that's okay. The funniest moment of Christmas day was when I opened a card from Alex's mom that contained money for his college fund. After opening the envelope, I noticed a postcard which had two women talking on the phone pictured. I thought that was odd.. so I turned it over and noticed that she had accidentally placed a "remember your pap smear" card/cervical cancer awareness card in the Christmas card. I announced this and everyone started cracking up. It's just an odd thing to find in a little boy's christmas card. She had also patched up a few holes in some of the Christmas wrapping with return address labels. Hmmm.. still haven't figured that one out completely. I always tell people that this will all be in a book someday. While in Lawrence, we went to see a house where the family had computerized their Christmas lights to match a series of songs. YOu could tune your radio into a station and listen. It took a while, but it was pretty cool. I told Alex to get started on ideas for our display for next year! Then, we laughed, knowing he loathes putting up lights so it's doubtful that it will ever happen.

I got lots of good clothes from my family and a few fun electronics from Alex.. such as an iPhone and a bluetooth headset. He also got me the Roomba vacuum cleaner thing. I love it. I watched it for about 30 minutes the first time it ran. Pretty cool.

My next mission is to get all of the Christmas decor down. I usually leave it up until Jan. 1, but I'm sick of it so I think it will come down tomorrow.

I'm listening to the KU game b/c it's on ESPNU, a channel we don't have.. bummer.

Tomorrow, is NYE. We have some plans for early on, but i'm sure we'll end up at our bar by midnight. Have New Year everyone!

Busy Times

So, I feel like I've been everywhere, but really haven't been any farther away than Dallas. It's just been a really busy couple of weeks between work and Thanksgiving and Solomon and all kinds of other stuff. For instance, we are finalizing our purchase of Kirby's Beer Store, a local bar, this week, so Alex has been really stressed out with all of that stuff. We did manage to find time this weekend to get our holiday picture of Solomon taken. I was also able to get the holiday decorations up last weekend.

This weekend was fun. I went to my friend Jackie's wedding reception. She was married in September in Maui, and another friend of hers held a party for them here. Today, I went on a run in the morning and this afternoon, we went to Brooke and Andy's house for pizza. There were tons of kids there which is always crazy but fun.

Speaking of kids, I have posted a few pictures of my kiddo, Solomon: http://www.haverhillstudios.com/gallery/Solomon-at-14-months

Here's a cute little video of Solomon saying "mommy". :)

Solophant

I think I totally forgot to post the link of Solomon's photos from Halloween to my blog. Here it is: www.haverhillstudios.com/gallery/solophant. They are so sweet.. I have looked at them about a million times.

Baby Love

Yes. I'm still alive. Work has been extremely crazy lately, so I've had zero time to blog or even barely email anyone outside of work. I think things are finally going to slow down for the holidays.. Hooray!

Solomon has been cute and sweet and fun as usual, with a bit of crazy and annoying toddler stuff thrown in there at times of course. He's been very affectionate at times lately which is so fun for us. He had his normal 14-mo. check-up on Friday. His stats are below:

• Weight: 23 lbs. 6 oz. - 41%
• Height: 30 1/2" - 45%
• Head circ.: 47 1/2" - 45%

So, he's much more proportionate than he was last time and just about average. He had his flu shot and four other vaccinations, so he ran a fever and was pretty irritable off and on, on Saturday, but overall he did just fine.

Above, I've posted a few pics.. one of Solomon in his sweet little PJs and another with Alex that I find funny. Alex was getting ready to go for a bike ride so he had on one of those thin cold weather shirts.. It just happened to match Solomon's outfit. Below, I've also posted a few videos of "baby love". :)

"Oh What a Night!"

One of my fav songs says it all... "Oh What a Night!" Last night was truely awesome for me. Obama's speech was outstanding and he really knows how to deliver a speech. Most of the press surrounding Barack Obama's win seems to be focussed around the fact that he's the first African American president of the U.S. That is amazing, but I also think the enthusiasm he and obviously the people running his campaign were able to garner from people all over the country and overseas is amazing. We will soon have an incredible person in office. Now the hard work really begins for Barack Obama.

Silly Solomon

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I would post a fun little video of Solomon being happy and running around the house. He's so silly lately. He knows how to point out his nose and he's working on his ears. He'll just grab them, but I don't think he fully gets it yet. He's jabbering about something all the time and says "Mama" in a very dramatic Sopranosesque kind of tone. He falls alot now too b/c he doesn't know his own limits with the walking/running thing. I've heard boys are crazy about that. Basically, he has a bruise on his head almost every other day. :( He and Coco are still pals. He's still eating well too. We also figured out that he's not lactose intolerant. He just had some issues getting adjusted to the regular milk vs. formula, but seems to be over it now. His favorite toys include his little car that his daycare bought him for his birthday, his monkey, Wheels, the refrigerator magnet set by Leap Frog and random stuff like one of those pitchers with the mixer stopper thing in it.. LOVES that.

We had a great and relaxing weekend.. Friday night, we did some shopping. SAturday, we did some stuff around the house and went out with Brett and Abby at night (left Solomon with my parents). Sunday, we watched some football while Alex worked on the magazine, went over the Brett and Abby's house and played with Solomon. Hope everyone else had a good weekend.

Solomon update and other things

Solomon has officially entered the phase where it'll be hard for me to remember the exact number of months old he is. 13 is the present number. Anyway, I've posted some random new pictures of him at the link below:

http://www.haverhillstudios.com/gallery/albun14

His hair is always curly and crazy now and people often mistake him for a girl b/c of it I think even when he has on very boyish colors. I think people are unobservant and I think Solomon is just a very pretty boy. He really is though. :) People will come up to me all over the place and tell me how adorable he is. I'm sure most parents experience that, but I think he is the cutest. People also tell me that his pouty face is irresistable. In fact, a couple of his daycare people have told me that "everyone likes Solomon. He's just so cute." Okay, okay, enough of the endless bragging.

He's started to put things in drawers like his sippy cup. I currently can't find one from this morning, but since it's full of milk, I"m sure the smell will soon lead me right to it. Delightful! He also loves it if he says "oh oh oh" and I repeat it. It makes him squeal with delight sometimes. He's settled nicely into his 1 yr. old classroom. I don't like it as well as I did the first year, but we'll give it some time.

As far as the rest of my life goes, Alex and I hosted an engagement party last weekend for Brett and Abby. It was fun. We had a really good time and I think everyone else did too. My parents kept Solomon and the dog. It was such a nice thing to sleep in.

Alex is on a camping trip right now for another friend of his who is getting married. It's his bachelor party of sorts. He gets back tomorrow and I think I'll do my best to dump Solomon on him for a while! :)

I also had this saga with Craig's List and getting rid of our shed that's too long to go into, but it's pretty funny. The good news.. We no longer have a shed and a really nice man took it off our hands. We're glad to have the eyesore gone.

Some girls are coming over tonight. It should be fun. Tomorrow, I'll watch the KU vs. OU game! Go KU!!