Lilly's 1st Day at School

Big day today!  Today was Lilly's 1st day at school!

 Also, Jackson got his first big-boy haircut with the electric clippers.  He looks so much older.

January 2010

I was getting ready to write a long post about January, but apparently not as much happened as I thought.  Lilly was born of course, as we already covered, and that was quite an eventful time, but I had it in my head that some of those snow storms happened then.  Apparently not, so below are a few highlights from what did happen that month. 

Sarah is obsessed with stupid shoes, and these are not Jackson's best pajamas.

Josh and his girlfriend, Mary Kate (no, not Olson) cam for a short visit in early January.  Jackson loved Josh, saying his name over and over again. 

I guess that's it.  I know - pretty dissapointing.  We're lame.  February will be much better!

Sarah's Book

Endorsed by the American Heart Association

Hopefully you all know by now, but Sarah's book finally came out in late February.  We're all very proud of her.  I've added an extra stand alone page for our blog, all about the book.  You can click on the link called "Bringing Down High Blood Pressure" on the upper right of this blog under the "Check Out These Pages Also" heading.  Or, you can just click here.  Check out the pgae and the book!  Better yet, just buy the book by clicking on the Amazon links that you see to the left here.  Amazon is the cheapest place to buy it anyway.

2009 in Review

So 2009 is already complete and in the past by nearly a quarter of a year.  It was a pretty good year for us, despite a few hiccups.

We began looking for a house - then stopped when decades of mismanagement by idiot politicians in NJ finally caught up with the state and as a result the governor took away promised raises and then essentially gave us paycuts by requiring us to take unpaid furlough days.   After a while we began looking again - and then stopped when the new republican governor was elected on a slash-and-burn campaign and I wasn't sure how long I'd still have a job.  That roller coaster has repeated itself again, but in 2010, so I wont go there. 

Sarah got pregnant again. 

Jackson had a big year:   He started the year looking like this:

And soon after began eating solid food, then crawling, and eventually walking and running.  He made his first trip to Cabela's, and his first trip out of the country - to Costa Rica!  Of course he had his 1st birthday and gets cuter and more fun every day.  By the end of the year, he looked like this:

 We didn't go too many places this year, but the trips we did take were great.  Our week-long camping trip around PA in May was wonderful. 

We didn't go to as many national parks as we would have liked either.  Well, I say that, but maybe we went to more than I'm remembrimg.  Let's see:
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
Steamtown National Historic Site
Friendship Hill National Historic Site
Fort Necessity national Historic Site
Fire Island National Seashore
Denali National Park
Horseshoe Bend National Military Park

So 8 parks isn't bad.  Sarah and I are up to nearly 14% and 15% of the parks, respectively.  Jackson is up to 3%.  We have a long way to go.  We also visited Katmai National Park, but I don't think I can count it because the park is so huge and we saw such a tiny part of it.  Plus, that park was originally founded to protect the "Valley of 10,000 Smokes", which we didn't see.

2009 was a great year, and so far 2010 is looking good too.

Christmas 2009

Yep - I'm just now to Christmas.

Christmas this year was pretty uneventful.  We stayed in PA and it was just the four of us - Me, Saah, Lincoln, and Jackson.  Jackson is still a little young to understand what was going on, so it wasn't as fun as we were hoping.  Next year! 

 He got a couple of baby computers.  He loves it.

Hopefully next year we'll be in a house too, where we'll have room for an actual Christmas tree, instead of one of those mini Christmas tree-shaped rosemary bushes that sat on top of our tv this year.

Jackson's big present was this new baby Lazy-Boy.  It even reclines and the foot rest comes out.  He really loves this thing.  Mostly he loves jumping on it and freaking out his mom.

Our friend and former neighbor Bob came over that afternoon and Jackson had fun showing him his new computer. 

December 2009

Since I'm so far behind yet again, and since I have so much less time to do this with the new baby, I'm going to breeze through December and mostly just provide a bunch of pictures. 

I put this one in here just to show that Jackson has the funny habit of sometimes sticking out his tounge when he's concentrating.  Jon David does the exact same thing except that JD also drools on himself.  Just kidding.

Jackson likes to sing.

Jackson riding in the front car of the shopping cart at Sam's.  He loves that thing. 

Video

All of us at a Christmas party at Sarah's Uncle's country club. 

He still loves his hat and won't take it off. 

We went to a christmas party for Sarah's work friends.  Jackson was a hit - he loves to dance:



On the night of the 19th we got an awesome snow!  About 13" at our house, with ~16" in Philly.  This was the biggest December snowfall ever in Philly!  I was afraid that this would be our 1 big snow that we seem to get each year.  Little did I know that it would be only the 1st of 4 so far!!!  I love the snow - I can't say it enough.  This was a very dry, powdery snow, so no snowmen.  We tried to take him sledding but it was even too soft for that. 

Jackson is actually standing up in this picture.