New Beginings...

What a difference a year makes! It has been about one month since our last posting and for those of you still hanging in there and occassionaly reading our humble little blog, I sincerely apologize. Although I have a lot to share about the holidays, I must first share a bit of exciting news...Jeremy and I found out today that we are going to be having a baby!!!!!! We were a little surprised to find out that we are almost 11 weeks along in the pregnancy, and to be honest, I didn't even know I was pregnant. I think it must be keeping up with a 14 month old and life in general. I have been able to contine to run and really didn't have a clue! Because of past complications and some confusion over my situation, my doctor had me go in for an ultrasound to confirm what we were dealing with and sure enough there is one little sweet punkin growing very healthy! We couldn't be happier and although we are still adjusting to the idea of another little one, Jeremy and I both agree that God's timing is perfect and we have to trust that this is absolutely the right thing. Another exciting aspect of the July due date is my good friend Regan and her husband Dave are expecting their first baby in July, actually 2 days before Jeremy and I, and Jeremy's cousin Paul and his wife Shauna are expecting their 4th baby in July, so the three of us are going to get to go through the awesome experience of having babies together!!!

Now, on to the holidays...I absolutely love the Christmas season and how families come together to enjoy each other's company. Christmas this year was especially fun with a 14 month old. Bryant was just starting to get the hang of present opening, but it really didn't hold its fascination for him until he could actually play with what was inside and once the package was opened, Mommy and Daddy had to quite expedient about unpacking the toy from a ridiculous amount of twist ties and tape. Next year, I will only wrap pre-unpackaged presents! Bryant's biggest accomplishment this holiday season was learning to blow out candles, which he is now doing quite well at. In fact, every time he sees a candle, whether it is lit or not, he is blowing on it and smiling...I can hardly wait for his second birthday.
We traveled over to my Mom's house in Portland for Christmas and the drive over was a cinch, rained the whole way. On the 24th, we took Bryant to visit Great-Grandma Viola (Jeremy's Grandma) because it was her birthday and we just happened to actually be close by! We spent most of Christmas Eve at my brother Adam's house playing his new Nintendo Wii and letting Bryant play with Cortlyn, my brother's little girl who is 2 1/2. Christmas Eve night we visited the church Jeremy and I attended when we lived in Portland, Crossroads, and had the chance to reunite with some old friends.

(Left: My Mom with Bryant and Cortlyn in matching Christmas Jammies)

Christmas day was very relaxing, except for Bryant's early wake-up at 3:45! Thankfully Jeremy was a super-dad and was able to get Bryant back to sleep in our bed for a couple of hours, needless to say we were all a little extra tired that day and thankful for the slow pace of staying home. We even had some snow on Christmas day, and even though it was a bit too warm to stick, it was sure fun to look at!

(Left: Christmas with the Davis Family, Jeremy's Dad Jim, Bryant and I, Jeremy's sister Jill, Jeremy's Mom Judi and our niece Bevyn)

Jeremy and I packed up and headed home the day after Christmas and after a brief stop off to visit my Dad, we headed over the Santiam pass for Sisters. The drive home was not as easy as the trip over to Portland. We had snow for about 1/2 the drive home and even with studded tires on we had to chain up coming over the pass, it was pretty nasty. Once we arrived home, at about 10pm that night, Bryant was lit and overly excited to be home. We ended up having quite a bit of snow on the ground, and we have had a couple of snowfalls since, it has been really fun. New Year's was fun and we spent a bunch of time with Jeremy's family, celebrating birthdays, Christmas and New Years. We all got free babysitting courtesy of Jeremy's parents and got the chance to go out snowshoeing and to a movie, it was quite a treat!

I think about brings us up to date...there will be many more exciting postings this coming year and we look forward to all that 2008 has to bring! Love to you all.

Christmas Tree Temptations

We told you in our last post that we ventured out in the elements to find the perfect Davis Christmas tree and now our beautiful tree is up in our living room and looking very festive. Bryant is drawn to the tree for even reasons he isn't sure of and for some reason cannot help but unplug the tree at any given moment. He is actually really good about the ornaments and ribbon and has only tried to pull a few things off. Even as I type this he's leisurely hanging out against the wall, next to the outlet and plug for the tree's lights, oh the temptations of a one year old! :-) The actual tree decorating was lots of fun, albeit messy, Bryant really enjoyed the whole process. As you can see, he even cleans up after himself. He pushed the heavy Rubbermaid bin with all the decorations in it all over the downstairs and enjoyed emptying the box and see all the cool stuff we have. We are heading out this afternoon to start, yes I said start, our Christmas shopping, nothing like waiting until the Christmas rush, huh??

We have this little tradition we started last year with my friend Regan where we go out and make a day of shopping and hanging out, it really gets me in the holiday mood and the three of us had a blast together last year, so we are really looking forward to our outing today. Our weather forecast says snow today, so that would definitely put me in the holiday mood! Love you all!

What's This?

Bryant is really starting to develop in his communication just in the last couple of weeks. I taught him to use sign language to say "please," mostly because I wanted him to ask nicely for things instead of whining or crying, it has worked like a charm. He is also getting very good at saying "No" and walks around playing with his toys singing it over and over again, as of now I think it is really cute, ask me again when he is almost two! He says, Mama and Dada, Duck, Dog, NightNight, and my favorite What's this? No joke, he was in Les Schwab with me the other day and there was a stack of studded tires and he walked over to them and said "what's this?" and the lady at the counter said that was the cutest thing she'd ever heard. I was validated, he really does say it!

We have been very busy traveler's since our last posting, traveling over to the Vancouver/Portland area twice in the last week. We spent Thanksgiving at Jeremy's parents house in Vancouver and had a really nice time. Bryant got to meet some new cousins and see his Great-Grandma Viola, it really was a wonderful day. Jeremy's cousins Bart and Cheri came to dinner with their three kids Riley (8), Brooklyn (6) and Lexi (4). I didn't have high expectations for the kids playing with Bryant, after all he is 1 and has a 10 second attention span, but they really had fun together. Bryant would chase the two younger girls Lexi and Brooklyn around the house and at one point he had Lexi up on a chair and was pounding on the chair and screeching at her, it was very entertaining to watch and the kids really seemed to have a lot of fun together.

We traveled back over to Portland last Thursday morning for a holiday dinner for my work. We had a very nice dinner at the restaurant at the Heathman Hotel and Bryant spent the evening playing with his cousin Cortlyn (2) and hanging out with Grandma (my Mom this time!) Bryant had a little bit of a rough night on Thursday, waking up three times and finally getting up on Friday at 4am, which of course meant Mommy and Daddy were up at 4am as well, nothing like 4 hours of tossing and turning to energize your day! :-) We decided to go ahead and head home on Friday because there was supposed to be a snow storm making travel over the mountain passes a bit treacherous on Saturday. I helped my Mom get some Christmas decorations up around her house and then we headed for home.

Today we took our annual trek out to locate the Davis family Christmas tree in our nearby forests. We can get a Christmas Tree cutting permit for $5 and go out and have our pick of the best Deschutes National Forest has to offer. Jeremy's sister Jill and her family went out with us and we did end up finding nice trees, but the weather wasn't very nice at all. As you can see from the pictures, we were definitely in snow, but the weather was slightly warm today and so we were getting rained on, not fun with little kids! Bryant had a really good attitude despite his coat and gloves being way to BIG and the snow too deep to walk in. His face was soaked both from several face plants and the rain, but he hardly cried, what a trooper. This was his first experience in the snow and although i don't think he was all that impressed, I do think he had a fun adventure. I was able to find little infant snow boots and snow bibs at Target so he stayed nice and toasty warm despite the rain.

Well that brings us up to date for now, hope you are all enjoying the holidays!