Family pics

A couple of family photos from today's Christmas. Just missing Ken in the big pic; he had to work.

Sleepy J!!!

When it was time to take a nap this afternoon during the Diddy Christmas, who was it that got Jasper to fall asleep? Mommy? Nope. Daddy? No way. It was cousin Kyren who grabbed J, went to the theater room and had him asleep on his lap within minutes.

Thanks Kyren! 

The photos are of Kyren and Jasper and then Nat holding J during the same nap.

Diddy Christmas

Adam, Natalie and Jasper celebrated their sixth — and final — Christmas in 2008 Saturday (Hendersons, Wilsons, our own, Wilsons, Trissel side and Diddys).

The Diddy side met at Vik and Amy Vali's house in West Des Moines for the second year in a row.

In Diddy family fashion, there were some very cool homemade gifts traded amongst the 25 or so adults who participated in the annual gift exchange; Nat ended up getting Amanda Hancock's family picture frame and Adam brought home a decorative window/shelf Shani Henry made. Amanda, in turn, took home Adam's shelf and Dini Anderson stole Nat's 'Life. Laugh. Love' pillars.

A special thanks to the Henry family for the 'Jasper and his friends' book!

Here are a few shots from today, with more coming. Jasper and Nat with the 'Jasper' book, Jasper and Adam, Jasper opening a gift from Elijah Hancock, and grandma Debbie with Jasper and Jasper's cousin Jackson Melendez (about 7 weeks older than J).

Visitors

Andrew and Suzy Malloy stopped at our house Saturday morning on their way back home to Carmel, Ind., from Stuart. Thanks guys!

One photo recovered

So ... with the help of some 'recovery software' by SanDisk, I've been able to save one photo from the 40-ish that I deleted this morning.

Here it is.

Great Christmas ... bad news

Jasper's first Christmas was great. He got everything he asked Santa for. Santa brought Jasper a Leap Frog Learn and Groove Music Table (see photo), books, clothes, and much, much more than I can't think of right now.

Normally I would've attached a photo of Jasper playing with the table, but that's where the 'bad news' in the headline comes in. Natalie got a new camera for Christmas, with which we took something like 50 photos yesterday, including J opening gifts at home, at grandpa and grandma Wilson's and at the Weller's.

I tried to upload the blog using those photos this morning but, to my chagrin, I accidentally hit a 'format' key on the new camera — read the damn directions, Adam! — and deleted the photos from the card.

Let's just say I'm none too pleased with myself.

So here's where you all come in. If you took any photos of Jasper (and us) Christmas day, please email them to me at adwilson@dmreg.com.

The photos attached are from another camera. Let's just say these aren't the best of the best, but right now it's all we've got.

Thanks all ... and Merry Christmas!!!

Another Christmas tree

We took a photo in front of a Christmas tree at the Iowa Hall of Pride and now we have one in front of the tree at Raccoon River Lodge.  I'm sure we will continue to build our collection of 'J in front of Christmas trees' photos ... stay tuned.

My friend Quinton's 1st birthday!!!

Quinton Hall's first birthday party was Saturday, Dec. 12 at Raccoon River Lodge in West Des Moines. 

Lots of friends, lots of family ... and one 'little' cake that Q tore in to after getting a little help from dad and mom (Ben and Melissa Hall) to blow out the candle.

In this photo, Jasper was still trying to decide if he liked the mini ball pit shaped like a fire truck with Q showing him how fun it was. The tears started to flow about 5 seconds after we took this photo, but J spent most of the rest of the time on the outside of the fire truck, tossing the balls around.

J and cousin Sydney

Just a couple snapshots from Thanksgiving, with Jasper and cousin Sydney hanging out together, playing on grandpa Paul and grandma Debbie's front porch and then Melissa and Syd posing with Jasper and Nat. Yeah ... it's almost been a month and I'm only now getting these online. What of it?

Trying something different

Bear with me as I try to load a short video of Jasper sitting in his Bumbo chair on our kitchen floor in September. Not too exciting, but we're trying.

Yes ... Cozmo thinks he's the star of the show.

Bath time

Jasper has outgrown the bath chair we used for the first few months so we've been sitting up like a big boy in the bathtub.

Mom doesn't like the towel, but dad thinks it's the best idea until she decides what kind of bath mat she's going to get.

Here are two photos taken tonight of Jasper's bath, with his rubber duck covering what needs to be covered so we can still post these photos.

Cookie Monster Cutie

Caden Ziegler was kind enough to give Jasper tons of his old clothes - thanks so much, Zieglers! Jasper is definitely getting good use out of ALL of them! One of my favorites is his blue cookie monster fleece - I snapped a picture of him in it yesterday and had to share! ...ok, I have to admit, I thought it was Elmo at first and was telling Jasper how cute he looked in his Elmo fleece, until Adam heard me and came to correct me that it was indeed Cookie Monster...."Natalie, Elmo is Red, not BLUE" he said....whatever, I knew that - I was just testing Jasper :)

Gearing up for Christmas!

Miss Alissa has helped us make some great crafts to gear up for Christmas. Jasper came home a couple weeks ago with a construction paper link leading up to the 25 days of Christmas. Jasper gets so excited to take off a link each day. He does want to chew on the paper after we take off the link, so that sometimes is a challenge. And he also made a glittery pine cone ornament. It's up on the tree - smack dab in the middle where everyone can see it! Cozmo was thrilled to see that on the tree - pine cones are his FAVORITE, especially the ones out at the Wilson's house - he could play with those forever!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season!

Thanksgiving 2008

We had a great Thanksgiving! We were able to spend the morning with the Wilsons and afternoon with Grandma Vicki and family. We spent the day eating, sleeping, playing Wii, looking at Black Friday ads, and playing board games. Jasper enjoyed his first Thanksgiving - but he did say that he can't wait until he gets to actually eat the food, although he did enjoy green beans and turkey baby food in spirit of the holiday! AND he traced his hand and made a turkey out of a pumpkin at Miss Alissa's! *unfortunately, we didn't charge our camera batteries so we didn't get any turkey day pictures with grandma vicki and family :( note to self: charge batteries for next year!

Santa Claus

(Note: I have photos to attach to this entry but couldn't get them to load. Soon.)

Jasper met Santa Claus for the first time Nov. 28 during Christmas in Olde Town (Altoona). 

As you can see, he was a little nervous at first, however he warmed up to the Jolly One quickly and then couldn't take his eyes off the beard.

Hopefully he gets what he asked for. We'd hate to disappoint the kid on his first Christmas!

Change of pace

With regular sitter Alissa fighting a cold Dec. 4 Jasper visited some new friends at Angie Julander's house. She said he was a good boy all day and, by the look of these photos, he made some new buddies.

Love this photo!

While mom was at great-aunt Sandy's baking cookies on Sunday dad and Jasper played ... and played ... and played until grandpa Paul and grandma Debbie got there for a visit.

Of course, I had the camera and caught Jasper — who stands at EVERY opportunity — trying to get the attention of his puppy, the Coz.

I just love this photo! (Even with the dirty glass!)

Christmas time

We stopped on our way out of Wells Fargo Arena Dec. 4 after the Iowa Energy's first home game to snap a photo (thank goodness for the timer) in front of a big Christmas tree. I'm sure there will be FAR more Christmas tree photos now that we've got ours up at home, too.

Iowa Energy

The Wilsons continue to support Iowa's best professional basketball team, the Iowa Energy, who play their home games at Wells Fargo Arena. The Energy opened the 2008-09 season with a big win Dec. 4 against Albuquerque and we were there.

It was technically Jasper's first game, although Nat and I went to a dozen or more Energy games last year (when she was pregnant) — we were season ticketholders. We chose not to renew our tickets this season but I'm sure we'll make it to a handful of games.

Jasper loved the bright lights, the continuous movement on the court and, of course, the dancing girls!!!

Fun at daddy's office

Jasper has been entertaining the few poor souls who had to work the day after Thanksgiving at the Altoona Herald (dad included) with his 'dadas' and the fun time he was having in his exersaucer.

Here are a few photos of him playing before he got sick of not being on my lap, banging on the keyboard.

Random question: Anyone else have 'Funkytown' constantly running through your head after reading Melissa's most recent post? (Talk about it ... talk about it ... talk about it ... talk about it ...)

Big boy foods

Jasper has been chowing down every type of baby food we've tried, but Sunday was the first time we tried these teething biscuits that our sitter, Alissa, gave Jasper.

They took some getting used to, but he eventually took a liking to the new treats. And, of course, it didn't take long for the Coz to figure out that when Jasper gets strapped in to his high chair, food will surely fall to the floor.

We spent 4 1/2 years training the Coz to avoid human food and to not beg. All for nothing!

Playin' cars

Jasper has taken a liking to a big, red toy car, 'vroooming' it back and forth before letting it roll across the floor. And now that he's mobile, he can chase after it, giggling all the way.

Sometimes, though, it's just more fun to tip it over and spin the wheels.

Good times.

Four-point stance

He hasn't proven himself to be much of a football player yet , mostly just sucking on his stuffed football, but Jasper P. put on a clinic the other night, showing off his four-point stance and his, umm, 'mean' face.

Pretty darn tough.

Sleepy Saturday morning

With temps in the low 30s and flurries falling, Nat, Jasper and the Coz decided to sleep in on Saturday — until 10!!! After drinking my cup of coffee and reading the paper, I snuck in to peek on the trio, with my camera of course.

So peaceful.

Newspaper man

Forget the rubber block or the music maker on the floor, Jasper likes simple toys like measuring cups, a pie pan and, of course, newspaper. As you can see, Jasper's had his way with Friday's Register, crinkling it up before moving on to another toy.

Army crawlin'

Jasper is a quick little bugger when he wants to be, pretty much going wherever he wants to now that he's learned how to Army crawl.

These photos show him seeing a wooden spoon on the kitchen floor and realizing it'd be quite fun to play with it.

Happy birthday Noah!

Cousin Noah turned 9 years old on Saturday so we had a birthday party Friday night at Vicki's house in Waukee.

The photos are of the birthday boy with cousins Payton and Pryce with his military-themed cake, Jasper and Noah in Noah's room, Jasper walking around with cousin Mallory and Jasper and Nat, waaaaay past his bed time.