wifey

every once in a while diana and i ask her mom and david to take ledger for the evening and get the chance to go out and have a couple hours to ourselves, a bit of a date night.  it doesn't really matter what it is that we do, just so long as we do it together.  as you can see, we tend to get a little silly when we get these special times with just the two of us!  its so great to have the opportunity to step away from all our responsibilities for a while and just enjoy some time together; a chance to recharge our batteries.  thank you mom and david- it means so much that you give us these special hours together!

around the house

we haven't been out of the house much with ledger these past few weeks.  when there's four feet of snow out side and the weather is in the negative teens, it kind of makes it hard to find things to do outside the house.  fortunately, he doesn't seem to mind too much!  we've been keeping him busy with all kinds of fun things, so he's been perfectly happy keeping warm around here.  one of the things that he's been loving is drawing on his big pad of paper!  david found a huge tablet of paper in his office a while ago, so diana has been laying on the floor with ledger just doodling away.  i pulled out some of the latest pages and set them out so i could get a picture of all the colorful fun he's been up to.  so, of course, he decided that would be the perfect time to stomp around on them papers and play with his animals on them!
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mema papa's!

diana had an opportunity to go with miranda to visit lissa in detroit, so ledger and i the chance to go up and spend some time with mema and papa! it wasnt a very long visit, but any time he gets to spend with them makes everyone happy.
i always know that i dont need to bring any toys up to grand rapids when i go, mema and papa have a whole room full of toys from having the other grandkids over to play.  ledger always loves to go up to the toy room and pick a few special items to play with for the day.  his current favorite is the car playset, the noah's ark filled with animals, and for some reason, a stroller?  yeah, i dont get that one either...  saturday afternoon papa sat down on the floor to play with him, and ledger took that opportunity to teach papa all the ins and outs of his car playset!  as you can see both he and ivy are captivated...
sunday the cousins came over after church and the four of them had a great time playing together- jaidey and avery love playing with ledger so much!
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snowed in

this stuff just will not quit!  for days and days the snow has just kept coming.  and to make it worse, the wind has been so strong that we've had a few -16 degree days!  the nice part is that i've gotten a few snow days out of the deal, the not-so-nice part is that we have to deal with this!  now, to be honest, i had been really enjoying the snow shoveling (i would rather shovel snow for three hours than mow a lawn for one), but this was getting to be too much!  i'd spend an hour out there trying to clear a path for all the cars, and by the time i had gotten back up to the top of the driveway, it looked like i hadn't even done anything!
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a squirmy sitting

with our boy getting bigger and bigger, i've been wanting to get some pictures of him done.  i know, i know, i take dozens of pictures of him every day, but i still want some good ones done professionally (on a side note, i recently took a look at the folder on my computer that has all the pictures i took of him during his first year of life and saw that i had taken more than 2,500 pictures of him!  and that doesnt even include all of them that diana too as well!  i'm pretty sure we've got a well documented boy...).  we had taken him in to the portrait studio when he was four or five months, but we hadn't been back since.  we were long over due, so i made an appointment and brought him in.  diana wasnt able to come, so it was just the two of us.  it was really fun to put him in his fancy outfit, but so hard to get him to sit still and look at the camera!  that little squirmy wormy just wouldn't stop moving around!  we ended up with some decent pictures, but its pretty obvious that daddy was at the sitting and not momma- she would have had him on best behavior!
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stickers!

one of the gifts ledger's grandma got for him was a big book of vinyl stickers that he can put on and peel back off, and boy does he love it!  its got a bunch of fun scenes like a farm, a jungle, and others.  there are hundreds of little stickers for him to put on and take back off again- which he does constantly!  every day he asks to play 'thtickuths!' which, in his language, means 'stickers!'  we'll pull out that book and he's all set for a half hour or more.  he's getting really good at naming all the animals and figuring out which ones go with which scene.
what a perfect gift!

doggy

he finally did it.  diana and i weren't sure if ledger was going to grow an attachment to any sort of stuffed animal or blanket, but he did.  ever since we last visited mema and papa, ledger has hardly put this little doggy down!  he's become obsessed!  it was one of two little stuffed animals that mema had that caught his eye.  the other one looks the exact same except its got pink spots on it.  its really cute to see him walking around with a tight grip on this little guy.  he's now taken to asking for 'doggy!' every night as we put him to bed.  its very cute, he really loves his doggy.  here's the thing though... its not a doggy.  i'm pretty sure its a lamb, but neither diana nor i have the heart to correct him...

tooth brushing

one of the challenges with having a toddler is trying to get their teeth brushed.  i've tried a bunch of different things to get him to open his mouth and let me brush them, but none of it has worked.  one evening, in frustration, i just gave him the toothbrush and told him to do it himself- so he did!  granted, he didnt exactly do the best job, but he was finally willing to let me finish the job after he played around with it for a while.
i'm starting to learn the little tricks of raising a child...

allen christmas

diana, ledger, and i also had the chance to pop in for an hour or two at the ol' allen family christmas!  we met up with barbara and dad and got to see all the extended family: nancy and arnold, becky and tom, and all the rest.  i really love that family!  everyone was so thrilled to see our little guy- he was the hit of the party.  we got to have a great meal and catch up with everyone.  when the white elephant gift exchange got started, we unfortunately had to head out.  but it was fantastic to see everyone again.  maybe next time we can stay a bit longer!

keenan prizes

by the afternoon everyone who was coming had arrived- now its time for prizes!  all of us gathered together in the living room and barbara took her traditional spot: right next to the tree, playing the role of gift hander-outer.  she had a bit of competition this year though, both ledger and tavish wanted in on that job too!  within minutes the unwrapping frenzy began!  barbara, mom, and david all got the boys some pretty amazing gifts- stuff that they will love to play with right now, and even stuff that will last them straight on through till summer!  they got fun toys, some crayons and coloring books, even some play-doh to make their own creations.  it was really fun to see the boys get so excited about everything.  after the weekend opening gifts at my parents, ledger took quickly to unwrapping all his own stuff.
thanks again, grandpa and grandma for all the great gifts!
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lucky boy!

after all the christmas fun with my family, we headed back home and had a grand old christmas with diana's family too!  ledger was thrilled that there were even more presents to open!  alanna and tavish had come to visit once again, this time it was so that we could have a fun christmas together as a big family!  one of the amazing gifts that ledger got he didn't even have to open- in the morning he woke up and as we walked into the living room he got to see it- a rocking horse!  he was so excited i thought he was going to explode!  at first he wasn't quite sure what to make of it: a giant horse in our toy room!  he walked up to it and started petting it.  i asked him if he wanted to get on and he wasn't entirely certain what i meant.  i scooped him up and put him on the horse and he was thrilled!  he rocked on that thing for about a twenty minutes straight.  as soon as he got off of it, he wanted to go back on.  he probably spent an hour or two on that thing the first day he got it!
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games and memories

after sporties, we headed back to the cabin.  adam had been thinking and brought a really fun game for us to play together.  it was one he had never played before, and it was a super blast!  all of us were doubled over laughing for most of the night- so fun!  by the time we wrapped that up everyone was exhausted, so we spent the rest of the night just chilling out and chatting.  most of the talk was pretty nostalgic, remembering our time in grade school and middle school.  needless to say, it probably got pretty boring for rex and jeffry lee, the two guys who didn't go to the same grade school as us.  sorry!  eventually we all crawled into our sleeping bags and beds and called it a night.  in the morning we took our time a bit in getting up, soon packed up, and wrapped up another year of cabin fun.  as a group, we rarely get a chance go all get together through out the year, so its a little bittersweet to say goodbye to everyone.  well, at least we will have next year!
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one eyed neil young

another great tradition of our cabin visits is heading out into the baldwin nightlife.  we always go to the local bar which used to be called 'sporties'.  its called something else now, but i've never bothered to learn its new name...  one great thing about sporties is that you never know what you are going to get when you walk in.  some years the place is completely empty, other years its full and offering a strange sort of creepy buffet.  each year you can plan on the fact that there will be some strange new feature to the place that wasnt there last time.  one year it was a gigantic wooden fish hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the restaurant, another year it was a karaoke machine (which adam was totally game for!).  this year we got a live show from a local baldwinian who had some very 'colorful' songs that were something else...  now that was a real treat!  even with all these strange goings-on at sporties, one thing has remained the same: the hamburgers are amazing!  that's the reason we keep going back.  this time, after enjoying the live music, adam took some time to enjoy the parmesan cheese (on his beard), we saw a calvin college grad, and marveled at all the seating in the bathroom.  all of which, i think, is best left unexplained...
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blaze a trail

one nice thing about the cabin is that its so far away from civilization.  one annoying thing about the cabin is that its so far away from civilization...  the path that leads up to the cabin is so remote that its never plowed.  that can be a bit of an issue when there's a foot and a half of snow on the ground.  we parked at the end of the trail, as far as we could go, and grabbed our stuff and went for a hike through the untouched snow.  when we got to the cabin and jeffry lee got the fire roaring, a few of us grabbed shovels and decided to make a walkway from the cabin back to the cars.  by the time we got half way, everyone decided to join in, making a production line of shovelers.  we each took a turn continuing the path.  the snow was really heavy and exhausting.  i kept reminding everyone 'take a break, we don't need any heroes!'
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cabin, ho!

now that christmas was over, its time for one of my favorite traditions: the cabin trip!  a bunch of friends and i get together every year to go up to a cabin that my extended family has up in baldwin, michigan.  we've been doing it for so many years that we cant even remember the first year we started- really, we try and figure it out every year and end up no closer to figuring it out...  some years we go up for a couple nights, but this year we're just going for one.  because of that, we decide to make the most of it and meet up a bit earlier than usual.  i picked up jeffry lee and meet up with dusty.  we head over to adam's place, where he's got an old friend, sarah, waiting there to send us off.  soon after we pull up, rex and aaron arrive.  now we are ready to roll!  we have the two drivers pick their teams (aka passengers), and off we go!
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round and round

we had some time to kill, and a baby that needed to get out and about a bit, so the family headed to the mall!  mema and papa were along too.  while we were there, ledger spotted the carousel and was mesmerized!  we walked over, got a ticket, and hopped on.  after walking around it for a minute, ledger finally settled on which horse he wanted to ride. we strapped him in, and as the whole thing started up, he got so excited about it!  as we went around he kept smiling and saying 'hosy! hosy!'  diana and i took turns with him, always making sure to point out mema and papa as we circled around.  he would wave to them and say 'hosy! hosy!'  he was having a blast!  when the ride was over he was disappointed and kept asking about the 'hosy' all the way home and for the rest of the day...

christmas prizes!

though it had been a long time since ledger had last unwrapped a gift, he took to it fairly quickly!  it didn't take him long at all to figure out what he was supposed to do with a wrapped present!  as the festivities got underway he did a great job of allowing others to have turns with opening their gifts, with only the occasional tug on someone else's wrapping papered gift.
it was a lot of fun getting to give gifts to the family and receive gifts in return.  for years and years everyone in the family has been saying 'we really need to cut back, we always over do it with gifts!', and this year it seems like we actually meant it!  diana and i cut back and were hoping that jill and mom were serious when they told us they were going to as well- otherwise we look like the cheapskates!  fortunately, everyone kept their word, and the only ones we spoiled were the kids- you know, the way it should be!
each of the kids had the chance to open one gift before dinner, and then we took a break to enjoy my mom's delicious food.  she often tries to do different things for christmas, one year it was a six foot sub from subway, another year we did the fondue thing.  well, this year mom just wanted us to have our favorites- each of us!  she spend a bunch of time making our favorite foods- i got deviled eggs, jill got a salad bar, tim got ham- each of us were totally thrilled by what was prepared!  what a wonderful treat!
after the meal we all headed back in to the living room to finish off all the prizes under the tree.  ledger was amazed that he got to open even more gifts, so he was all set.  as the night went on his pile of gifts just grew and grew!  each one that he opened he was thrilled with and wanted to open immediately.  everyone was so pleased with the gifts given!  as the pile under the tree was just about done, we got a call from chad!  he spent christmas in japan with his girl, but they did get the chance to skype with us for a little bit.  the two of them were doing great and we got to share with them all the fun we had been having.
as the night came to a close, tim and jill and the kids gathered up all their loot and sleepily said their goodbyes.  it was a really fun day, but boy was it exhausting!  good thing christmas is only once a year!
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christmas afternoon

after a bite to eat, we put ledger down for his nap.  while he was sleeping, tim, jill, and the kids came over- time for the fun to begin!  they had already done their christmas gift giving, but were thrilled about the prizes that were still in store for them at mema and papa's!
eventually ledger got up and was thrilled to see his cousins again.  they immediately busted out all the toys from the toy room and tried to get out their manic gift anticipation by being silly and hyper throughout the house.
we were able to calm all four them them down long enough to have them sit with mema and papa by the christmas tree for a family photo, but it took a lot of work! (this particular photo is, i think, the 7th one out of 15!- they were wiggly!)
while the kids did their thing, us adults did ours.  we were able to just hand around and catch up with each other.  it was nice to talk like adults to adults!- ah, now this is what christmas is all about!
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christmas morning church

its christmas morning, and that means its time for church!  we were all up and at them nice and early, getting ready and putting on our christmas best.  its always fun to get ledger all dressed up for church!  we had the opportunity to go to friendship crc with my parents, tim and jill, and the kids.  everyone was looking so nice that i wanted to get a picture!  unfortunately i forgot the camera at the house, so i had to just take a few when we got back.  look at how beautiful my wife and child are! arent i such a lucky guy?
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snow place like home

its christmas break, and we are off to mema and papa's house!  its been a little while since our last visit, so its great to be heading back up.  i am especially thankful considering that this means i get two weeks off!  we aren't staying for the whole two weeks, but we are going to make it a long five day visit.  when we get there, ledger is super excited to see his grandparents again- and their toys...
i'm kind of curious to see how the whole gift thing goes.  last time he opened gifts was his birthday- 9 months ago!  he had no idea what was going on back then, so it should be a lot of fun to see him try and make sense out of unwrapping gifts.  well, knowing my family, he will get a ton of prizes so he will have many opportunities to get used to it!