Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas. Jaydon started the day by opening up a few presents. The first one was from his Great Aunt Patricia. She got him a wonderfully soft blanket that he just loved to cuddle with. After a few more gifts Jaydon got into his celebratory Christmas gear and was the cutest reindeer anyone had ever seen. He had lots of fun playing with all his new toys and hanging out with his family, especially his Uncle Mike. It was a beautiful sunny day and Jaydon had fun outside in the grass - even if it was a little brown it was a lot better then the cement and sand he's used too. All that fun and playing made everyone hungry for a yummy Christmas dinner. But Jaydon's favorite part was the pumpkin pie and whipped cream - he even got to help clean up the beaters...the best part. After all that good food we went out and saw a few Christmas lights in the neighborhood and called it a night.

Christmas Eve and Happy Birthday Mike

Christmas eve is my brother Mike's birthday so our tradition is birthday presents and cake. By this time Jaydon had started to get the hang of unwrapping presents so he pitched in to help his Uncle Mike open up his. The 2 of them made a pretty good team. After Mike opened his birthday presents it was time to let Jaydon open a few... he liked the big red one which wasn't for him so had to settle for just stealing the bow. The presents he did get to unwrap were from his great Aunt Bun Bun who got him all the cute items every baby needs for Christmas like a HO HO beanie and a personalized Christmas bib and Santa hat. Finally we ended the night with a little birthday cake but that time Jaydon was already in bed getting lots of rest for the big day.
Happy Birthday Mike!

More snow and learning to play the drums

Jaydon discovered a new toy back at my parents house in Palisade... my Dad's drum set.

It didn't take long for Jaydon to get the hang of the game. But everyone had to watch out - it's a little dangerous giving 11 months old 2 sticks. And he loved it. While in Steamboat we had no snow so fortunately, once we got back to the valley it decided to snow on us again. We were all happy that it waited until after we had made the 4 hr drive back. We bundled Jaydon up and got a few more shots of him playing in the snow.

Steamboat

We headed up to Steamboat to spend a few days skiing and to see some more relatives. Well the travelers from Doha didn't do any skiing - we're a little low on winter gear and Jaydon came down with a bad cold and passed it on to Steve and I so we all just hung out in the condo, sniffiling, and enjoyed the view of the mountain. The condo was fully carpeted, which is a luxury for us so Jaydon got a chance to try out some stairs. We also now have a sneaking suspension that Jaydon may be a Raiders fan. We were watching the game and the Raiders blocked a Broncos field goal. Everyone in the room groaned and Jaydon perked right up and started clapping to the chagrin of everyone. Jaydon also got to meet his cousin (actually my Dad's cousin) Marsha and Westy. They had brought along some Christmas gifts so Jaydon got to practice opening more presents. At first he wasn't so sure if he should be tearing the paper but after a little encouragement he got right into it. His favorite part was meeting his new friend inside the box... ....a green monster named Walley (Marsha is a big Red Sox fan). Walley and Jaydon had lots of fun together in and out of the box. We also went into downtown Steamboat which has a lot of character and characters. We got to see Abe and meet the Light & Sons horse. We also stopped by a cute little cantina and had some real Mexican food - something we don't get in Doha. You'll also notice that Steve is now in the pictures. He was able to surprise us all and jumped on plane 3 days earlier than we had expected. It was great to finally have all of us under 1 roof again.

Getting ready for Christmas in Colorado

Next stop on our trip was back home to Colorado. And first order of business was getting Jaydon his first Christmas tree. We went out to a cut your own tree farm which was perfect because then we could get the Jaydon proof tree. Here's grandpa cutting it down for us. When we picked it out and cut it down with such a long trunk I don't think any of us appreciated just how convenient it would be. We set it up and Jaydon crawled right over and that's when we discovered that keeping Jaydon out of the tree wasn't going to be that difficult... ...he couldn't even reach it. No ornaments on the bottom and the Jaydon proofed tree was ready to go. It also started to snow a little so we bundled everyone up and went for a walk so that Jaydon could see his first snow. What we didn't realize is that it was going to snow and snow and snow. Here's us going for a walk the next day.... Some reports claimed that areas of the Grand Valley hadn't received that much snow in a day since the 1920's. Good thing Jaydon has his snugly warm blanket. One final thing to do before Christmas was go visit Santa. Palisade had their own Christmas festivities so we went down to join the fun and tell Santa we'd found one of his reindeer in Doha and flew all the back to get him home before Christmas.

Florida - Beaches and Fun

Jaydon and I spent a couple of weeks in Florida enjoying the nice weather - at least for the first part of the trip. Before things got cold we had a chance to drive down to Naples to visit Jaydon's Great Grandpa Forte and was able to get a 4 generation photo, each generation almost exactly 30 years apart. We also got a chance to go and visit the beautiful Naples beach and Jaydon loved it. He had fun sitting in the sand (and yes eating it too) but his favorite part was the water...waves and all. Every time I lead him back to shore he turned around and headed right back into the water. The ocean here was much rougher than anything he'd experienced before but he happily waded in to over his chest and got splashed and beat around by the waves. I wasn't prepared for Jaydon to enjoy the water so much so the next time we went to the beach I made sure to bring a swimsuit along. But by then the colder weather had rolled in and the water was much too rough to play it. Even the birds preferred to stay on shore rather than float in the water that day but it gave my dad a chance to try a few artistic bird shots. While back in Ft.Myers we did capitalize on a beautiful day by going out on my Uncle Deacon and Aunt Monty's boat. Jaydon was not a very big fan of the life jacket - it didn't really fit very well so I just opted to keep him in the Bjorn. Jimmy the dog came along for the fun and Jaydon also has enough teeth to share an apple with me. While in Florida Jaydon definitely lived up to being an Aquarius - he loves the water no matter what the circumstances.