First Pizza Taste

Matthew had his first real pizza tonight. He loved it! It was a multi-grain organic cheese pizza by Earth's Best so I don't feel to bad about feeding him something too unhealthy. He couldn't get enough pieces into his mouth fast enough. It is fun watching him explore new taste and textures.

He Crawls!

Finally Matthew has cracked the code...He is now crawling at 10 months 1 week. Our life as we know it has changed. Grammy and Papaw coaxed him with Papaw's blackberry, and lo and behold he took off crawling after it. This is just one decent video of him crawling...

Christmas Movie Slide Show

Yes, yet another movie slide show. This one set to Jacob Ronan's "One Star" song. He wrote it himself and recorded it with our worship band at church. Love it! Hope you all enjoy a small glimpse of our Christmas...

Christmas with Grammy and Papaw

My parents arrived today from GA. Matthew had another fun time opening more gifts. He loved playing with all the toys, and being a ham as usual. He was quite fun to watch opening all the gifts...

Christmas Day 2

At noon we headed over to Grandpa and Grandma Doherty's for the big get-together. Great food and family time. Matthew got a whole bunch of gifts from all his aunts/uncles, and cousins.

Christmas Day 1

We had a blast Christmas morning with Matthew. As predicted he went wild over all the wrapping paper. One of his gifts was a "puppy" hooded towel.

Christmas Eve

Chris made it home from his trip just in time to spend our first Christmas Eve together as a family. He read the Christmas story from Luke to Matthew, and he listened well for a bit, then he was more interested in the pages of the Bible than sitting still. It was cute.

Gingerbread Cookie Helper

Matthew "helped" me make some gingerbread cookies a couple days before Christmas as we were snowed in, and daddy was on a 4 day trip. We had fun!

Christmas Eve Thought

There was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7


Before He was even born, our Lord was rejected and turned away. In the lives of many people today, He's still being crowded out. As we celebrate His birthday, let's welcome Him into our thoughts, our daily lives, and each activity.

10 months old

Today Matthew is 10 months old...wow, in two months he will be a year! He is doing great. This past week he has learned to pull himself up on everything he can think of. He loves his new climbing ability. He is still not crawling, but man is he mobile! We are having to watch him like a hawk around the tree... :o)

A Chicago Christmas Tradition

Matthew didn't quite know what to think of all the window displays and people...
Outside Macy's, and the tree this year in the Walnut Room.
Mmmmm, I am ready to eat some yummy Mexican food!

Ok, so I had to go to the old Marshall Fields/Macy's to let Matthew see the window displays before Christmas. It was something I enjoyed whenever possible growing up, and I wanted to carry on the tradition. They have been predicting a horrible winter storm all week, so when we got up this morning, we decided just to get in the car, drive the almost 2 hrs. downtown, view the window displays at Macy's, and eat at Frontera Fresca on the 7th floor. (By one of my favorite chefs, Rick Bayless, of Frontera Grill/Topolobampo.) Then we came right home to beat the weather. Crazy yes, worth it, ABSOLUTELY!

Life Group Christmas Party

We had a great time at our Life Group (from Church) Christmas Party on Wednesday evening. Big thanks to the Rossol's for hosting, and for a fun evening playing Wii! Here are a few pics of the group having fun, and Chris trying out Guitar Hero...

Rock'in Around the Tree

OK, So I won't bore you all with another "movie" slide show for awhile. I just am having fun making them. This one is cute, but the pics are not the best quality.

Tree Trimming

If I shake it, they will fall...

Hmm, let me investigate this thing over here...
A couple of the tree. (Sorry they are blurry...)
Matthew loves the tree!

Yay! The tree is finally done!

Extreme Bedhead

Baby mohawk...


Matthew has awoken from some naps with some pretty funny hair lately...so I had to post some pics. :o)

Christmas Card/First Movie Attempt

Well, this is my first attempt at making a "movie" using Picasa, complete with a song and all! I decided to use some random pics from our Christmas card folder. Many thanks to Cathy for taking the pics, my friend Stephanie from college for photo shopping one photo, and to Debbie for telling my about the movie maker on Picasa. I am slowly becoming more computer savvy! I finally have the majority of our cards done, always a milestone during the Christmas season. Now I need to decorate the tree...I know, 10 days before Christmas, I better get on it, ha!

Williams Tree Farm

Today we went up to Rockton IL, to Williams Tree Farm to pick out our Christmas tree. Here is their website: www.williamstreefarm.com It was cold, but alot of fun. What a neat place! They had a big ski lodge/barn place to sit by the fire and get refreshments. They had tons of pre-cut trees, and if you want to go and cut your own you could too. Many friendly and gentle dogs roaming around that Matthew enjoyed watching. There were some cool real trees they had sprayed either black, white, or pink with sparkles...sounds odd but they were neat looking! We hope it becomes a yearly family tradition. When our tree is decorated I'll try to post a pic of it...ha...

He Claps!

Matthew has learned to clap, even when asked to do so. It is so cute! (Pardon the messy room and the less than stellar steadiness with the camera; I was trying to make him laugh while filming.)

The Reason for the season...

Is Jesus! I hope we all pause to remember God's greatest Gift to us... I, like so many others can get caught up in the whole hub-bub of the Christmas season and forget the whole focus of the reason we celebrate this blessed holiday. Decorating, gift buying, food, parties, etc. can all take center stage, when all we really need to do is thank God for sending His Son to the world to be our Savior. Don't get me wrong, all that stuff isn't bad at all. We just need to keep everything in proper perspective. Which brings me to my next point: We will not be doing "santa" at our house. I know, you must all be thinking "evil" mommy, not wanting to let my kid believe in Santa. Of course we will "play" santa, and tell Matthew about the story, but that is what it will be, a cute fun story for Christmas time. Just like the Easter Bunny is a fun character for Easter. Here are my other reasons for not "doing" Santa:

• It basically is lying to your kid, no matter how you slice it, and I don't like the idea of lying to my kid.
• I don't want anything to take the focus off of Jesus and His wonderful story of coming to earth, being born in a manger, etc..., and a kid so focused on Santa coming, can sometimes lose focus of the Reason for the season.
  
• I wouldn't want any confusion between the Santa story not being real, and the story of Christ being real when they are old enough to start understanding.
• It was how I was raised, and believe me, my brother and I looked forward to Christmas morning just as much as any other kid!
• You shouldn't have to hold being good for "santa" over your kids if they are misbehaving before Christmas...we should expect good behavior year round!

To sum up: Santa- a fun Christmas time story, but not real in our household...
OK, now I am off my soap box. I hope I haven't offended too many people with my rambling! Just putting in my two cents into the blog world...lol :o)

Weighing in at...

Matthew had his 9 month check-up today. He had two shots (one was for the flu vaccine), and was a trooper. He is 28 inches long, and 20 pounds 4 ounces. 50th percentile for both. He was in the 75th percentile at his 6 month check-up, but the doctor says he is doing great. I forget his head measurement, but it was in the 60th percentile. He is a happy, normal boy! Mom also had to forge through the 4 inches of snow we got last night...happy December 1st in Northern Illinois!