Yesterday we took Simon to the aquarium for the first time. Can a child under a year old get much out of the aquarium? I say the photos speak for themselves.

We met up with my friend Renee, her husband Chuck and their 13 children (yes 13).  The last time I was at the aquarium was the summer that we came down for Sam and Chanda’s wedding. I think they have been married for 11 years – and the aquarium has changed quite a bit.  I was really impressed with the giant native fish tank that is the in foyer. Even more impressive was the diver inside the tank who had some sort of fancy apparatus that allowed her to speak to us from inside the tank! She taught us all about the native fish of the Puget Sound.  Simon had fun touching star fish and sea anemones but the best part was fishing for plankton.  I noticed a microscope sitting on one of the tables – it was curtained off so I casually asked one of the aquarium employees how it was used. She told me that sometimes they bring in plankton and allow the aquarium guest to examine it under the microscope but that right now they didn’t have any. I shrugged my shoulders and walked away. A few minuets later a different employee came up to me and said that actually they were going to bring in some plankton now and did any of the children in my party want to come outside and collect a sample with her.  Um – YES!  So myself and several of Renee’s children headed outside and collected some plankton samples.
 

Renee, Myles,  and Chuck totally missed out because we learned a ton.  I thought that plankton was a specific species – turns out its just a generic term for drifting organisms. According to wikipedia The name plankton is derived from the Greek word πλανκτος ("planktos"), meaning "wanderer" or "drifter". Rachel, the aquarium employee, was so great with the kids. She was really patient and let each of them have a turn either casting out the net, reeling it in, or collecting the plankton in a cup.  All the while answering questions and teaching us about plankton. She taught us that there are two main categories of plankton – Phytoplankton which are the plants that survive using photosynthesis, and Zooplankton which are animals. (There is also Bacterioplankton  which is bacteria but we didn’t talk about it.) The ocean is just teaming with plankton and if you have ever swam in the ocean – especially in a calm water you have probably swallowed some : ) So there you have it the Aquarium is great outing for babies, kids, and adults alike.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas! We did

Awful weather and all we ventured out on Christmas Eve for the Children’s service at my mom’s Church. It was a very nice service geared towards children. My favorite part is always when the little kids sing “Away in a Manger”. For some reason it always chokes me up. I am hoping that next year Simon will be old enough to learn the words and sing it.  Simon (and all the babies under a year) were given a Christmas ornament as part of the service. (pictured bellow).

Then we met with extended family for dinner. In our family we exchange stockings – as you can see there are a lot of stockings so we just do little gifts like soaps, candy, and kitchen utensils. Yes, kitchen utensils – I don’t think a year has gone by when I didn’t get some sort of kitchen utensil in my stocking (spatulas and wooden spoons) this year I got a silicone pastry brush! Simon, got some bath toys and some little cars, and airplanes -  he was so cute pulling out his toys out of his stocking.

Christmas morning (upper right) we ate orange rolls. We have never given Simon sugar before but it was Christmas morning so I let him have a taste – he of course loved it. The big box was mine : )
it’s a new food processor! Which I am really excited about – it’s a big one.  I make a lot of Simon’s baby food in large batches and freeze it – Up until this point I have only had a 12 oz food processor. Now I will be able to blend an entire batch of squash or sweet potatoes at once! and I can also now make pie crust the Martha Stewart way – with out touching it.

And this was what we got for Simon – maybe more fun for mom and dad at this point. It’s a baby version of a marble run and similar to a toy that I had as a child.

By now everyone on my list should have received their Christmas card – too bad that is not the case this year. Yes, I procrastinated in taking the picture and getting the order placed but then snowpocalypse 2008 happened and UPS stopped making deliveries. I tracked the progress of my supposed 2 day shipment as the cards went from Minnesota, to Iowa, to Oregon, and then back to Iowa, and then back to Oregon (and that's where they are now). I don't get it – the post office can make deliveries why can't UPS? So I guess my friends and family will be lucky to get their cards by New Years.  So I am going to show you what your Christmas Card would look like supposing that it had not snowed and snowed and then snowed some more. 

I am bummed out that our card will not sit in peoples cute little
Christmas card displays because by the time that they get this they will have put away all the Christmas decorations : (   Better luck next year.

We had some extra help with my mom in
taking the photos. It's really hard to get Simon to look at the camera
when I am just using the timer, he just wants to look at us. So my mom
came over and took these for me. Great work mom! The card template is
by Doodlebug Designs. 

So I don't normally do indoor portraits for families but when the weather is just not cooperating and it is too dark, too wet and too cold to take photos outside we have to improvise. At any rate I they were super cute and we had a lot of fun even though we were cooped up indoors.

The snow was fun the first few days now I am just bored and sick of being stuck at home. It just keeps snowing and snowing and snowing – and not melting. This has to be some sort of record – usually it snows and last only about 24 hours before it melts. I will take some more outside photos tomorrow I just haven't been in the mood lately. We really haven't felt like trying to drive down off our hill so we have just been hanging out at home. We actually walked to Church Sunday morning – there were 15 people there including ourselves and the pastor and his wife. Actually it was very nice – and very informal.

So I have no where to go but I just don't want to be at home either. There are a million things I could be doing, like folding laundry, proofing client session, updating quickbooks etc, ect. Instead I decided to fool around and take a self portrait – so you know I am really really bored.

That's going to be my new facebook profile photo for awhile : )

oh, and I'm not the only one around here who is bored. Check this out…

Yep, that's Myles exceeding the weight limit on Simon's crib. I could here them back in the bedroom reading stories and I went back there and this is what I found.

This beautiful baby girl was not all the keen about being on her tummy. She preferred to be held – but she did let me get some sleeping shots.

We took these photos back in October to celebrate the adoption of this family's two youngest children. Their adoption was officially finalized on November 17th – national adoption day.

and no, the last two images were not shot in sequence I just thought it would be funny to pair them together.

One more video of my little talker. He has actually been saying a few words for awhile now unfortunately I am about the only person who can understand them. I have been trying very hard to get some of his words on video but any time I pull out the camera he becomes a lot more interested in it then talking. He started saying “bye” at 8 and 1/2 months but only when he felt like it. Now he says Hi, Bye, Dog, Duck, Quack, Ball, uh-oh, NO, BOP (which is Simon-ese for STOP!). He also sings “e-i-e-i” as in “Old McDonald”. I have been trying to teach him sign language but he is not very interested. Pretty much he only signs the word “Dog” and he waves “bye” but that’s it and we have been working very hard on “More”, “Please”, “all done” and various other signs. The interesting development is that I realized he thinks all 4-legged animals are dogs. He has a toy bear which he started calling a dog. he holds it up and says dog and signs it (patting his leg as if calling a dog). I say no bear and sign bear – we go back and forth like that – he insists that the bear is a dog. Today I showed him a you-tube video of some cows and showed him the sign for cow. He was mesmerized by the video clip and  signed and said “Dog” – I said “no Simon tha’s not a Dog it’s a Cow! but he insits. So here is a video of him insisting that the cows are dogs. Our neighbor actually has cows and horses but I deemed it too cold to take him out there to show him a proper cow. So here he is – if you listen closely you can here him say “Dog” several times.

So if you haven't heard the Seattle area got a pretty big dumping of snow. Well big by Washington standards. The news is calling it a "blizzard". I am not really sure what qualifies weather to be a "blizzard". Growing up in Alaska we weathered through quite a few storms, most Alaskans would consider what we got yesterday to be a dusting, and I don't think I ever once heard a winter storm referred to as a blizzard but Washingtonians absolutely freak out when they even so much as see a single snow flake. So we had a snow day today. Myles worked from home and I took Simon out to play in the snow. You can see from the pictures that Simon did not embrace the winter weather.

Oh Simon – what will we ever do with a little boy who does not enjoy winter sports?

I tried to get him to make a snow angel but he wasn't interested.

Later in the afternoon Chanda came over with the girls and we walked to the elementary school for some sledding. Here is a little video of Simon's sledding with Megan. I promise that we didn't torture him the whole time. He was fine as long as he didn't actually touch snow, but on this particular run some snow sprayed him in the face – he hated it.

My cousin's Christmas photos.
Elle is SO over it. But still this is better than last year.

At least we got a few decent pictures of the 3 of them together.