Baylee gets an award!

Baylee received the Principal's award at school for her great science project. (THANKS GRANDMA!!!!) Myself, Grandma and Papa all went to her school to watch her be given her award. It was a fun little event for her. Baylee enjoys getting one on one attention a lot (I guess what kid doesn't?), but when you put her up in front of a room full of people she gets REALLY upset. This was no exception. I had to go up there with her while she received her award and it wasn't until after all was said and done that we got her to crack a smile or too. Congratulations Baylee!!

Grandma, Baylee and Mrs. Duncan

Baylee and Papa

Why are people so mean?

So a couple weeks ago I was shopping on Sunday as I do every week. Baylee and I drove down to Costco to meet my mum. We have a handicap parking pass for Baylee. I had parked in handicap parking when we arrived and done my shopping and on the way out Baylee decided to ride with my mum (as she often does) to our next shopping destination. So here I am, got Wyland in the car, just finished loading all my groceries into the back and I get in the front seat. I start my car and I see that there is a lady talking to me in the car in front of me. So I focus on her only to realize that she keeps saying over and over "YOU AREN'T HANDICAP!!!" I mean it just looks like she's yelling at me. Her husband (I'm assuming was in the car next to her). Now what do you do in a situation like that? I had two very strong impulses in that moment. One, was to haul Wyland out of the car, helmet and all, give her a little flash of him. So I thought, no that's not honest even though it *might* make her feel bad, being that he's a baby and all. My second thought was just to get out of the car myself and walk over to give her a piece of my mind. Something along the line of, "No IIII am NOT handicap, however my CHILD is. I would trade places with her in an instant, but that isn't possible. So rather than sitting in your car and making your judgements of me, perhaps next time you should stop and think. YOU DON'T KNOW ME! Nor do you know the life that I live or that of my family." In the end I did nothing. I drove away, asking myself how people can be SO ignorant ALL the time? I have had 4 REALLY bad experiences with people judging me and Baylee, 3 of those have been while shopping at Costco. I don't know what's the best way to handle those things. Do you stand up to people and set them straight? Or do you keep your mouth shut and leave in peace?? The question of the day I suppose.

Wyland's Helmet

So I've never talked about Wyland's helmet. At his 2 month appointment we got sent to a physical therapist because he was getting a very prominant flat spot on one side of his head because he always slept facing the same direction. After a couple months of physical therapy we weren't seeing any improvement so off we went to the plastic surgeon. He took one look at Wyland's head and sent us to the helmet guy. I guess in an ideal world your head would measure perfectly even on both sides. Well Wyland's was 12mm different. So we had to make the decision about whether or not to pay for the $2k helmet. It isn't covered by insurance because it's considered cosmetic. As you can see we got the helmet. I couldn't feel good about saying, "Sorry Wyland, I don't care if you go through your entire life with a crooked head." They kept assuring us that it wouldn't bother him. Well I'm here to tell you that if you are faced with the same predicament, it DOES bug them. But it IS worth it. We go to the store and get lots of stare and lots of, "oh he's so cute". But what can you do. We get the stares anyway, people are cruel. So here we are over a month into the helmet and already he's down from 12mm off to 7mm. He wears it 23 hours a day, only gets it off for baths. We're hoping only one more month and then he'll move to only having to wear it at night time and that will go on for another month. At the end of it all, he'll hopefully have a nice round head!

6 mos old - sitting up WELL this week

Isn't this cute? It looks like Wyland has his arm around Jackson.

Christmas

We have some very ritualistic traditions for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve we get together for dinner (usually pizza) with the entire family. We will open presents from the tree which always include pajama's and a tree ornament. Mum takes a lot of pride in choosing just the right ornament for each person. After dinner and presents we all go to a movie together (the latest one possible). There is a lot of thought put into deciding exactly which movie we will see. It has to be a heartwarming movie. One year we went and saw "Pursuit of Happyness". While this was a good movie, we all left feeling guilty for all that we have and all the presents we would be opening the next day. So we've since gotten much stricter on what movie we will see and begin discussing options very early in December. This year we went to see one about a Puerto Rican family getting together for the holidays (the title is escaping me as I write this). Mike and Amber decided that they just had too much going on on Christmas Eve and therefore decided to forgo the movie. Not to mention Mike had to work. After the movie Jeramie and I (and the kids of course) come back to my parents and we sleep over. I think that Baylee thinks Santa doesn't come to our own house so we have to go to Grandma's. Once the kids are settled in bed us adults just sit and relax and enjoy a nice drink.


Jackson of course was the last one asleep and he spent a lot of time looking at Grandma's Christmas village. I think he would really have liked to have some cars to drive through the streets with but he settled on playing with one "guy". Grandpa sat and watched with angst!

My dad was nice enough to snap a great pic of us coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. Check out Wyland! I think he's still asleep! haha.

Santa brought Jackson a John Deer tractor, along with trailer. Since our many summer trips in the trailer Jackson has become rather obsessed with towing things. He is always either riding in Grandpa's truck with the trailer attached behind or riding in Big Red with Grandpa's boat hitched on. So he's rather obsessed with trailers at the moment.


Wyland got a CUTE bouncy horse. Although I think that Jackson likes to climb in there more often.

Wyland's First Christmas


Santa brought Baylee a new camera. She got quite into the picture taking as the day progressed.

Grandma and Grandpa just hangin' out.

So on Christmas morning we get up and open presents from Santa. Then my dad cooks us all breakfast, including Mimosa's!!! YUMMY!! After breakfast Mike and his family come over. We then open a handful of presents from family in England. Now usually what happens at this point is Jeramie and I go and pick up his boys. This year Jeramie's delightful ex after spending most of the day not answering the phone told Jeramie that it was "too windy" for us to pick them up. So instead we went over to his mom's house and spent a little time there exchanging presents. Then it's back to my parents for dinner. Our dinner table can sometimes he the location of very disturbing (aka gross) discussions. This year wasn't too bad though. Then after dinner it was time for more presents. Mum and Dad bought us a new TV for our bedroom (THANKS!!). We LOVE it! It is mounted on our wall now.

Howard Family Dinner Table (note mum's fancy plates, they only come out on holidays)

Dad's thinking: "They're my BOYS!"

I just think this is such a GREAT picture of Baylee and my mum. They have a VERY special relationship.

Me and my honey

All in all we had yet another wonderful holiday season. It's hard to believe that it's already over. Now we begin the countdown to summer. And as I say every year this time, I'm gonna make my Christmas list now. It's SO hard with as many people as we have to buy for. I want to start shopping and wrapping now.