Cars and weddings

We actually had a whole day without plans today, so we took advantage of it and headed downtown to check out the AutoRama at DeVos Hall. Normally, this is something that we're really not all that into, but we thought it would be a fun way to get out of the house on yet another snowy Michigan day. The cars, trucks, motorcycles, and even bicycles were really quite impressive. These people really put a lot of work into their vehicles.


Jason enjoying the great variety of cars.


Such beautiful cars!

Of course, Jason was particularly drawn to the 1930's, 40's, and 50's "vintage" cars.

Even Hannah had fun checking everything, and everybody, out.

It just so happened that in the hall next door was the GR Bridal Show. Although we're obviously not in the market, I thought it would be fun to check out. Apparently the show only ran through the early afternoon, and by the time we were leaving the car show they were no longer charging admission to the bridal show. Perfect! The three of us headed in and cleaned up on all of the free samples that were available at the booths! You'd think that people would figure that with a baby and wedding bands on both of our hands that we weren't shopping for ourselves, and yet I was amazed (and amused) by how many vendors assumed that we must have been an engaged couple with a baby getting ready for a wedding. After several vendors asked us if we'd like more information, we finally started answering that we already had whatever service they were offering taken care of! I will say that if you're looking for a place to have a wedding, GR would be a great place. There are a ton of vendors with beautiful pictures, great food, and delicious cake (we know first-hand now!).

What Hannah's up to these days

Hannah has discovered a whole new world since she started full-on crawling this last week. Of all of the toys that she has, she now finds the most interesting thing to play with is anything having to, and including, JJ. Thank goodness for a very patient dog!


Hannah discovered how much fun it is to splash in JJ's water bowl this week while we were downstairs doing laundry.

She loves to play with Mama's kitchen utensils.

Hanging out under the Christmas tree.

Daddy's little assistant.

With her newly found mobility, we've had to get creative in keeping her in the living room. This will have to do until we get a baby gate for our stairs. Yes, that's the at the very top of our to-do list!

My first dolly

Hannah received one more Christmas present this week. Due to illness in our babysitter's house, my dad came over to watch Hannah while we went to our small group Bible study Thursday night and then when I went to work on Friday. He brought along with him a gift for Hannah from our good friend Julie. After all of her gifts at Christmas, she's a gift opening expert. She tore right into it and was very excited to open her first dolly! Surprisingly, nobody else has gotten her a doll yet. It never even occurred to me to get her one. Leave it to Julie to think of it!


Hannah tearing into her gift


I think it's safe to say that she likes it. Thank you "Grandma" Julie!!

#3

Tooth #3 (top front) popped through last night. Tooth #4 is not far behind. Her poor upper gums are just bulging. She's actually cried a few times today b/c she's bumped her gums on things, but overall, she's her normal, happy self. We're so blessed with her easy-going temperment.

Splish splash

Hannah loves bath time. She especially loves playing with the new bath toys that she got for Christmas.


She gets so excited that we have to hold her back from taking a dive!


She is one happy little fish :-)

So much change

The last 2 weeks have been full of change at our house. It seems that nearly every day Hannah is doing something new. She's now officially crawled (although only a few "steps"), started randomly waving and saying "ba ba" (we're not sure this means bye bye, but we're going with it!), and started pulling herself up on her play table. We've been experimenting more and more with "real" food and letting her feed herself. She's finally getting the hang of grasping her puffs and getting them into her mouth. Peas, on the other hand, are a little trickier. One thing is for sure - she's definitely keeping us on our toes!

Happy New Year!

Hannah had her first slumber party away from us to ring in the new year. Jason met his parents half-way in Ionia on New Years Eve day and dropped Hannah off with his parents. They have been having a great time with her, and we've been enjoying some couple time.

After I got home from work and Jason returned from Ionia, I made a nice prime rib dinner for the two of us. We got out the China, candles, and all. It was so good. We had great conversation and really felt like we had a nice date night.



Around 10:00, we bundled up and headed downtown to check out GR's first New Years Eve on the Grand (neither of us could remember the last time that we actually headed OUT at 10:00 at night!). We had intentions of trying to get into one of the downtown establishments, but we didn't feel like waiting in line. Instead, we checked out the activity in Rosa Park Circle.



This is where the ball was when we got there...



...and this was how we watched it drop...



We decided it was too cold to hang out around town, so we came home and watched the ball drop from the warmth of our family room :-)


Happy new year! We wish you may blessings in 2009.