Our 7th Wedding Anniversary

Our 7th Wedding Anniversary was on the 29th. We celebrated with a (pricey!) dinner at Sullivan's Steakhouse in Tucson. It was a lovely evening, although not as fun as our 4th Anniversary that we spent with my parents at Disneyland,

or as adventurous as the pink jeep tour we took in Sedona for our 1st Anniversary.

Michael and I got married before digital photography became the norm. My wedding pictures were never posted on-line. I scanned a few to include here. I had a baby crawling on me while I was scanning, so some of these are a little uneven. Sorry.

Michael and his parents

Me and my parents

We had the whole catholic mass during our wedding ceremony. The priest was nice and let us sit down during the appropriate parts. I like this picture because my grandfather, who passed away in 2005, is looking right at the camera.

Look at this young couple.


The whole wedding party

Fast forward 7 years and this is now that "young" couple from above. Yikes!

Spencer this year on our anniversary

Spencer last year on our anniversary

On the second day after Christmas.....

We started out the day with a trip to the Yagers to meet baby Zac. How soon I have forgotten what a newborn is like.

Here is Zac at one week old. He is a little bundle of tiny.

Spencer and me with Zac.
Chelsea and I have a tradition of taking pictures with our kids whenever we are together. We would like Lilly and Spencer to get married someday and it'll be nice to have some old pictures to show at their rehearsal dinner. Here we are when Spencer was 5 weeks old. Spencer was still a bit jaundiced, hence the yellow hue.


Here we are yesterday. Sorry Zac, we don't have a wife for you.



After a long afternoon nap, my mom and dad had a big holiday party. This picture was taken at the very beginning of the party. At about 8:30 there wasn't even room left to stand in this room. The last people left at 1:30 am, many hours after Spencer and I went night-night. Way to go baby-boomers.


The dogs were being naughty, if you consider barking and tripping people to be naughty behavior. They were banished to the bedroom.


They still got visitors.


Are you curious why my infant son is wearing a onesie when it was 34 degrees outside? My dad had a theory that if we ran the heaters all day the outside walls of the house would heat up and people would be nice and cozy inside, despite the cold weather outside. He forgot to factor into his equation the heat that is generated by 88 human bodies and 2 quarantined dogs crammed into the house.

This is a representation of the temperature of the house around 9 pm

On the first day after Christmas.....

The dogs took a nap,

Spencer learned how to use his feet to push his new horse (backward- he's still working on forward),

and we played in the tent.

Toys, Noise, Family and Fun

Toys, Noise, Family and Fun- that pretty much sums up our Christmas. We started the day with my parents and my brother Nick at my parents house. After breakfast we opened gifts.

Spencer and daddy opening presents

Spencer got a very cool tube to crawl through

And a lot of old-fashioned wooden toys

A crawling tube has to end in a tent. And the tent obviously must look like an igloo.


This is my attempt at artistic photography.

After the presents Spencer took a long nap. There is no picture of that because, my god, why would we risk waking him up. There are actually NO pictures of Spencer sleeping because it's too much of a gamble.

Spencer got a bath and used his new reindeer towel.

Then we went to Michael's parents house for more presents and Christmas dinner.

I have a memory book to record what happened each Christmas. This is our picture to go into the book. I have to be vigilant to get a picture each year.

Spencer got his very own chair. He likes pushing it more than sitting in it.

He also got a fat horse that may or may not be dead.

Ginger took a nap on the couch.

And then had to move so Granddad (my dad) could give Spencer a ride.

Spencer loves his new choo choo train.

And hanging out with grandma (Michael's mom).

The men had manly talk.

And Ginger and I had a cuddle.

Ginger got to cuddle with my grandma too.

Spencer put on his nightcap and the adults drank a nightcap before we went to bed.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas!

We are down in Tucson spending the holiday with our families. It is actually the longest trip we've ever taken with Spencer- a week! It took military level precision and planning to coordinate everything that was needed to get here. I am going to wait until later today or tomorrow to share our Christmas day pictures, since the day is not over and I'm sure there will be more to share by tonight. I did want to share some Christmas Eve pictures though.

This is us last year at Christmas Eve mass. I spent the entire mass outside walking around with Spencer. He finally fell asleep during communion.

This is us at mass last night. Michael and I shared duties chasing Spencer around outside. We also bribed him with Cheez-It's to get him to sit through a little bit of church. A little girl asked Michael where Spencer got a Cheez-It. He told her from his mommy. I think he should have said that God gave it to Spencer.

Here we are in front of the tree at my parents. Spencer found his toothbrush under the sink and didn't want to give it up.

This is what happened when we took it away.

Uncle Nathan put Spencer in a gift bag. Spencer wasn't so sure he wanted to be there.

Spencer with his great grandmother and Uncle Nathan.

More pictures of Christmas day coming soon.

Naughty Behavior

It is because of nights like last night that I decided to write this blog. It gives all my family and friends a glimpse into my life with the baby and the beagle. I swear they are in cahoots with each other and plan their attacks to overlap one another.

We had some final holiday shopping to finish last night. Shopping with Spencer is never easy because two of his least favorite activities are sitting in the carseat and sitting in a shopping cart. We decided to just do everything at once so that it would be 1 big unpleasant evening rather than 3 unpleasant trips. Spencer's maximum tolerance for being put in and taken out of his seat is 3 times. We had to go to Home Depot, Cost Plus, Michaels, Target, Ashley Furniture and finally, to dinner. All in separate shopping centers. That is 6 times out of the carseat and 6 times in. So, it was a rough evening.

We finally get home and, oh joy, this mess is waiting for us:

This is the first time that Ginger has ever knocked over the garbage and rifled through it. This is very typical beagle behavior but is very untypical for Ginger. We're assuming she was mad at us for leaving her home alone and this was our punishment.

Here is a closeup of the scene of the crime.

As soon as we get this all cleaned up Spencer waltzes into the kitchen holding a silver ball from the Christmas tree. The second we notice he is holding it he chucks it at the tile and it shatters.

Here is a closeup of the other scene of the crime.

I'm afraid that Spencer really enjoyed the sound of that glass breaking and will be wanting a repeat performance soon. At least he helped clean up. Don't worry- all the glass was gone before we let him walk around in his bare feet. I can't say the same for dust and dog hair.

Love the basset hound track suit

On a totally unrelated subject- Congratulations to the Yager family on the birth of a healthy new baby boy named Zac. Thanks for being born before Christmas, Zac. A lot of your mother's gifts were riding on that.