Merry Christmas!

Here are a few pictures from Christmas Eve at my mom and dad's house in Iowa. I don't have my camera cord to upload my photos, but I thought I would share a few that my sister took. We celebrated Christmas Eve at my parents house with my mom's side of the family. We had a great time and got to meet my cousin Jarrod and his wife Molly's daughter, Nora, for the first time. I'll share pictures of the two of them- they were SO cute together!

Aaron and I will be staying in Iowa until just after the new year and Tim will be joining us again on New Years Eve. Enjoy the last days of 2008!

I went into Aaron's room and found this....

I think that our baby is officially becoming a big boy! I went into his room this morning to find him standing up in his crib! Notice the mobile- guess it's time to take that down!! Happy holidays everyone!

Getting into everything!

Wanted to share a few photos of Aaron, who is now getting into everything! It's taken a few days, but he can now pull himself up on almost anything. He's having fun with this new skill, that's for sure!

Standing up!

Here is our big man who is now pulling himself up to standing whenever he gets the chance! This time he got ahold of the remote control- such a man!!!

Aaron and Connor

Here is a little video clip of Aaron and Connor from last week. They are generally very entertained by each other!

New house!

Tim, Aaron, and I have some very exciting news that we'd like to share with all of you. Right after Thanksgiving we sold our condo and yesterday we submitted an offer on a house and it was accepted! It was a pretty crazy day- we narrowed it down to two places, a single family home and a two floor condo. We then found out that we had until 5 pm to let them know about the condo and that the single family home owners had already been negotiating with a bidder on their house! So yesterday at about nooon, we knew that within 5 hours we were going to have a place, we just didn't know which one! We decided that we wanted to go after the single family home, so we submitted our offer and then had to wait while they gave the other bidders the chance to submit their best and final offer. We found out very soon after that they accepted our offer!!!! We're thrilled with our choice and assuming that the inspection and everything goes well, we'll be closing on our new home on January 19th and moving in early to mid February!

Ever since I moved to Chicago from Hawaii I've always wanted to move back to the beach, I just didn't really think that it would happen. Well, now it has, kind of. Our new home is located at 1618 W. Beach Street! It's in the Wicker Park neighborhood of the city, just a few blocks south of where we live now. It's just a couple blocks south of North Avenue between Paulina and Asland. It has an eat-in kitchen, dining room, living room, and half bath on the main level. On the 2nd level there are 2 big bedrooms and 2 full baths. On the lower level there is a big family room, 3rd bedroom, another full bath, and a laundry room. There is a really nice deck off the back that overlooks a small garden/yard and then right behind that is our 2 car garage!! Yippee! Here's a photo and also a link to more photos, so you can take a look for yourself.

http://tours5.vht.com/Viewer/PhotoGallery.aspx?ListingID=1182087&Style=IDX

Crawling

Here's a shot of Aaron crawling that I took this morning. He's getting good! (oops- just realized that this is side ways so you'll have to turn your laptop or your head! Next time I'll do it the right way!)

7 months old!

Just thought I would put on a quick update to let you all know that Aaron turned 7 months yesterday! He's becoming more active and interacts more with us every day. We feel so fortunate to have such a sweet and happy little boy! That being said, the past month has brought out more opinions, a little more whining and fussing, and ofcourse, the two teeth! It's hard to know when those darn teeth are bothering him and when he is just being a little on the fussy side! He's still happy most of the time, so we feel very lucky.

Aaron is becoming a better crawler everyday and is now mobile enough to get into LOTS of things! His favorites at the moment are to crawl under the Christmas tree to get to the stuffed animals(wonder if he'll start opening the gifts when we put those under?) and pulling all of the dvd's and xbox games off the shelf! Sounds fun, right?! Yesterday he discovered the fireplace and was having a great time grabbing the mesh screen!

Aaron loves to stand up and has so much fun when Tim takes him for 'walks'. He's starting to try to pull himself up on things and things and can get himself to standing with just a little bit of help. It won't be long before he'll be doing that on his own and then we'll really be in trouble! He is sitting up on his own and can almost pull himself up to a seated position, but is not quite there yet. The round middle is still a little difficult to pull up to mid-line!

Aaron's eating seems to have slowed down a bit in the past week or two. I've been joking that he's on a 'hunger strike' and some days he's only had about half as much formula as usual! He's still eating his fruits and veggies really well though. The past week he's been waking up at 5:30 in the morning just starving and will suck down an 8 ounce bottle in about 5 minutes! It seems like he's trying to work himself into a slightly more mature eating schedule where he doesn't have to eat every 3 hours, so we'll see if that continues!

Aaron still loves to take baths, sing songs, and play with his toys. He really enjoys playing with real things around the house and loves nothing more than to chew on one of his spoons, bat around some tupperware lids, and chew on his medicine dropper! Sometimes I wonder why we ever buy toys?!

Aaron weighed in at 21 1/2 pounds last week when we were at the doctor! We bought new car seats this weekend, because he's almost too big for the infant one already. His least favorite thing right now is to be strapped into his car seat. Once he gets in there he's usually fine, but getting in is pretty traumatic. Hopefully he won't dislike it as much when he's in a bigger carseat. We'll see!

Thanks for checking in on us. I'm going to try to take a little video of Aaron crawling someday soon, so you can see him in action! Hope you're enjoying the holiday season and staying warm!

Decorated for Christmas...

Just thought I would share some pictures of Aaron during our pre-holiday fun! We got the house all decorated and Aaron loves to crawl under the tree and play with the stuffed reindeer that are under there. (remember those, Brianne?) We ordered him a santa hat with his name on it, which is a bit big for his head this year, but is still adorable! Hope that you're all getting into the holiday spirit!!

More photos...

More 6 month photos...

6 month photos

Over Thanksgiving we had photos taken with my mom and dad with all 6 of their grandkids! Aaron also had his 6 month pictures taken. Emma, Jacob, and Olivia had theirs done and so did Brett and Claire. Check out the little darlings...

First snow

Aaron saw snow for the first time while we were in Fort Dodge. He wasn't sure what to think about it! We didn't have his mittens, so we only stayed out for a minute. Just long enough for him to reach down and eat some!

Aaron's first Thanksgiving!

Hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and was able to take some time to remember the things in life that are truly important- family, friends, and stuffing!

We had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed all of the time that we were able to spend with our family. Aaron started the holiday off with a bang by officially crawling for the first time at 9:30 pm when we arrived in Fort Dodge at Amy and Dan's house! Guess he just wanted to be a show off!

We visited with my dad's side of the family on Thanksgiving day just outside of Des Moines at Jerry and Alecia's house. It was great to see everyone and catch up! Did I mention that we had some delicious food?

On Saturday we headed to Denison, Iowa to celebrate with my mom's side of the family at my Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob's house. We were sad that Tony, Angie, Emma, Jacob, and Olivia and Jarrod, Molly, and Nora couldn't join us, but we had a great time spending the day together. Did I mention that we had some delicious food?

We are thankful for our amazing family and friends and had a wonderful time celebrating.