Singing Beaver

In the middle of the song you see he stops dancing to help himself to a "floor snack"- cheerios that get dropped in the effort to get an entire handful in your mouth at once to be found and enjoyed at a later date.

Christmas 2009

Ok here goes.  I have been putting this off because every time I sit down to do this post it seems overwhelming.  Maybe now that I am fresh off a 1/3 cup of tea (Matthew was nice enough to spill the remaining 2/3) I can get some things accomplished.

We had a great trip up to Colleen's in Onoway, AB.  The airport and airline employees were awesome and Matthew slept most of the way so we were not that evil family with the crying baby.  The first couple days were great.

One of many meals accomplished without a highchair.  It was always a two person job because we needed one person to hold the kid and his arms out of the way while shoving the food in and one to distract the kid so the wiggling was minimal.

One day we had some snow so Aaron went out to capture the loveliness.

We really love our new camera!

Matthew loved Auntie Colleen's furniture because it was just the right height to stand up on and still see over the back.  It was over Christmas vacation that Nana taught him how to turn around backward to get down off of furniture.  An important life lesson he had not yet learned.

Bath times with Nana lead to nakedness in the living room.  Like his father before him, he really enjoys the nakedness.

Christmas jammies and fabulous eyes.  This was probably about the point in the trip when things went terribly wrong.  We started to enjoy the flu on the second morning we were there and it slowly but surely worked its way through everyone but Claire, Daniel and Carlam so that Colleen and Dad were still sick when we left of the 28th. 

This was late in the afternoon of the 25th as Daddy was too sick to get out of bed for the morning festivities and Mummy wasn't feeling much better.

Opening the owl Claire made for him.  He is in a onesie becauase he had puked all over everything else he had to wear and we had to wait until everyone went to bed to use the washing machine so the well would have water in it again by morning.

You can tell how good he was feeling by the look on his face.

In the far north of Edmonton Alberta at the end of December, Matthew rises before the sun.  Although it is always hard to get up in the dark, we did get to see some fantastic sunrises that we never get to see living in a valley like we do.

Gorgeous.

Right off the back deck looking out across the pasture.

Auntie Colleen was thoughtful to put some kid friendly Christmas decorations down on the lowest shelves.

This one was a favorite.  Thanks to Auntie Colleen for sending us the singing Beaver we accidentally left there, video to follow in the next post.

Nana forced us to assemble for a family photo.  

Some of you may remember that on Christmas day some asshole was nice enough to smuggle a bomb on a plane making post Christmas travel a bit of a nightmare for the rest of us.  After two hours in the security line and all of us being patted down (including Matthew) we made it back to Seattle safe, sound and a few pounds lighter.

When we got home, we opened Matthew's gifts from Grandma Joyce.

This little contraption makes a lot of noise but is almost always sure to distract and engage long enough for a parent to escape to use the bathroom or some other vital chore.  He loves it.

Thank you Grandma!