At the Lake

I'll try to do a "real" update with a bunch more Christmas pics soon. For now, here are a couple of cute shots from Laura and Brett's home on Ross Lake.

Christmas with the Olsons

On Saturday we spent the morning having brunch at cousin Nancy's house and then headed over to cousin Andy's house for Christmas with the Olson family. Here are a couple of cute shots from the festivities.


Getting some cuddles with Nancy after brunch on Saturday morning.


Hanging out with Nick and Laura. That big arm looks pretty comfy!



Perfectly happy snuggling with Auntie Gerry.


And because I know they read the blog, I had to put in this (blurry) gem for Brian and Jamie. Don't take it personally, Brian!

Amery and Santa

Amery met Santa today! Amery and I, along with Grandma and Aunt Laura, bundled up and headed downtown to Macy's to see the annual Christmas display and visit with Santa. Amery's still not so sure about all the layers that are required for an outing in Minneapolis.

We have a picture with "awake Santa" but I haven't had a chance to scan it yet. I was able to snap a picture with my own camera of Santa goofing around.

Greetings from the Great White North!

Amery and I made it safely to Minnesota yesterday. He did pretty good on the two flights although I pretty much had to bounce him non-stop or he would fuss at me. Luckily I had grandmothers next to me on both flights.

While the flights were relatively uneventful, the drive from the airport to my parents' house was another story entirely. It was a total nightmare. We left the airport at 3:30 and it had just started to snow. The snow combined with rush-hour made for some of the worst traffic I have ever experienced in my life. Ever. Ever. It is a half-hour drive from the airport to my parents' house. It took three hours. Amery was starving but was so upset at all the travel that he would not take a bottle all bundled up in his car seat. I didn't want to take him out to nurse him because obviously that's dangerous, and that would have been really hard anyway. After over an hour on the road, I couldn't take it anymore. We were going 2 MPH or we were stopped so I finally pulled him out of the seat for 5 minutes to strip off his fleece snowsuit and give him the bottle. After that he calmed down a bit. I had to rock the car seat constantly for the rest of the trip home.

Today has been a much better day although he has decided grandma and grandpa's house is way too interesting to take a nap. Awesome. We managed to capture one happy moment:

The Year of the Dragon

We celebrated Christmas with Jon's family on Saturday since we will be in Minneapolis on Christmas day this year. After a big lasagna dinner (yum) we exchanged gifts. Amery received a vintage 1960s rocking dragon that was restored by our sister-in-law, Jennifer, and her mom. It's too big for him right now of course, but how cool will it be when he's big enough? I'll tell you now, it will be very cool.





The rest of the evening was spent hanging out with cousins Jax and Jade. Sorry Jax, I had one good picture of Jade and one good picture of you and Jade won this round:


We also spent some time giggling at Grampy:

He loves the hat. He hates the hat.

Amery got a new hat for our Christmas trip to Minnesota. He's hot-cold on the idea.




He also decided he wanted Papa to join him in the bathtub this morning:

Long Johns

Since it's pretty chilly here for Texas this morning (36 degrees!) Amery decided to get ready for our trip up to Minnesota in a couple of weeks by sporting his raccoon long johns from Aunt Laura and Uncle Brett.

We put up the Christmas decorations last Saturday and Amery was clearly stoked about it:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's a collection of pictures from Amery's first Thanksgiving (and he just turned two months old!) hanging out with mama, papa, and his cousins Jax and Jade.

Eight Weeks

My favorite time of the day is right after he wakes up. That's when I get a good half hour of solid smiles and laughs.

Seven Weeks

These are a week old already, but they are too cute not to post so I'm playing catch-up.




Amery has this toy cell phone that he thinks is hilarious.


Once in a while, mama gets a nap too.

Call me crazy

Who wants to weigh in on what these little white bumps look like?

There's an old wive's tale that says early teething is a sign of intelligence. Something tells me when those bad boys start poking through we're going to wish for a very dumb baby.

Lazy Sunday

Amery is going through his 4-6 week growth spurt right now, which means he wants to eat all.the.time. Apparently yesterday it also meant he needed a lot more sleep, because he spent most of the day right here (why this doesn't happen for mama on the weekdays, I don't know):



A cute close-up:



He woke up long enough for a picture with papa:



And this morning I was finally able to get him back into his baptismal outfit and get a picture since we forgot to take one the day of:

And just so there's no question

My favorite part of this picture - the baby arm chub that you can barely see on his right arm (thanks crappy Blogger for randomly cutting all my pictures off lately). This chunky monkey was up to 8 lbs 8 oz at his last appointment and that was one week ago yesterday.

Amery's First Halloween

Amery spent his first Halloween at his cousin Jax and Jade's house. We cruised the neighborhood with the big kids for a while, but Amery's lack of teeth left him uninterested in the candy treats.

Meet the Grandparents and Amery's Baptism

Amery had a big week! My parents came to town on Tuesday to meet their first grandson for the first time. Sorry for the quick captions. I'll try and post more baptism photos if I get time.

Hanging out with grandpa. He even babysat a couple of times!

Grandma was a huge help. We miss her around here!


Amery also met his godfather, Drew.

Jon's favorite picture from the baptism. We like to call it the Reservoir Dogs shot.

I'm trying to update, I really am

I have a bunch of cute pictures from my parents' visit but blogger will not let me upload them for some reason. Keep checking back and hopefully I will get it figured out soon!

The Rest of the Pro Pics

Here is a slideshow with a bunch more newborn pics plus some family photos. I love them all, especially the ones of Jon and Amery together.

http://www.lifeinmotionphotography.com/slideshows/amery/

POST UPDATE!

Huge congratulations to our photographer, Lyndsay Stradtner, for being named Critic's Pick for the Best Kids Photographer for 2008 by the Austin Chronicle!! What a huge and well-deserved honor.

First bath and snuggling with papa

These pictures are already a week old, but I just now had a few minutes to upload them.



Amery's first bath at home.

My two boys.

A few more

These are from Lynday's Flickr photostream. Bask in the cuteness.

Sneak Peek: Professional Newborn Pics

Amery had his own personal paparazzi yesterday morning. After a fabulous photo shoot with Lyndsay Stradtner of Life in Motion Photography and my good friend M.C. Urban, I think his head may be a little big for his britches. We may need to take away his platinum card and the BMW for a weekend to bring him back down to Earth.

Lyndsay posted a couple of teaser pics on her blog last night. Click here to see them (scroll to the bottom of the post).

Here's one that M.C. took and sent me last night. She's on her way out of town this morning, but you can bet I will be hounding her for the rest when she gets back!

One Week Old

Amery was born one week ago today!