Christmas 2009

Better late than never, I suppose. I have been attempting to get a picture off my phone to the computer before I wrote this blog but it doesn't look like that will happen anytime soon or maybe ever. Anyways, we had a great Christmas season. It started on the first weekend in December when we found and cut down our Christmas tree. Ryan even tried to help Marc with the cutting :)




I can't believe what a difference a year makes...Ryan is our little boy now.



It was a very nice tree until it tipped over or more accurately came crashing down to its side on December 23rd! I was in the kitchen and Ryan was taking a nap when all of the sudden I heard a loud crash. As I walked into the living room I spotted the Christmas tree laying on its side...the tree trunk had not moved in the stand and the entire tree was now rotated 90 degrees to the right. The water was running everywhere - all over the gifts under the tree. I didn't know what to do so I called Marc at work. Here is how our conversation went:

Me: The Christmas tree just fell over
Marc: What do you mean the Christmas tree fell over?
Me: I don't know how to say it more clearly, the Christmas tree fell over. I will send you a picture on the phone.

Hence, the picture I was trying to retrive from my phone for this blog. Oh well!

Our families arrived around noon on Christmas day for a day of relaxing, snacking and opening gifts. The cousins had a great time playing together. It was a good day!



The stunned look on the boys faces is because Uncle Art was running around chanting and dancing with a shovel.

Climbing the Stairs!

Ryan has been able to climb the stairs for quite awhile now. Going down has been another challenge. Around 13 months Ryan began to go down the stairs independently. It was rather scary at first. He would crawl up to the very edge (and I mean VERY edge) of the top step, place his fingers over the edge and only then would he turn around to come down backwards. Early on he would slowly come down the stairs, reaching out with one leg and when he felt the step under his foot, he would bring the other leg down too. It was a slow and tedious process. With every step he would grunt and at times, he would stop, turn around and check out how much farther he had to go.


With practice, he has become an expert in descending stairs. The technique is now frog-like. He still keeps his same approach-crawling to the very edge, fingers wrapped around the top step and then turning around. However, now he descends like a frog. Both legs come off the step together in a frog like pose, then he extends his legs simultaneously to reach the step below and repeats the process quickly until he hits the bottom. Once at the bottom he is off in another direction. I love all of the energy he possesses.