A City Christmas

Last weekend we had the chance to squeeze in a short but sweet Christmas getaway to Philly.  In the midst of otherwise busy holiday obligations it was really nice to take a few days to have fun and get in the Christmas mood.  One of the best things we did was to go to the light show at Macy's (formerly Wanamaker's) a great Philadelphia Christmas tradtion.  It's something that Jen has fond memories of growing up  (and I'm told that I was at also, even though my memories of it are fuzzy at best.)  We also saw a light show at the spectacular and brand new Comcast Center skyscraper- not quite as sentimentaly satisfying, but still pretty cool.

Besides these two events most of our time was spent just walking and exploring, enjoying the city at it's most festive.  We had lunch at Reading Terminal Market, walked through Rittenhouse square at night, and even took some long naps in our hotel room- it doesn't get much better then that.

It's surprising sometime how even a short retreat from everyday life can be so refreshing, and this was that for us.  We came back home rested, relaxed and better able to stare down those few tasks still looming before the 25th.  Five days and counting...

At the Macy's light show.

Yes, we ended up buying Aiden this giant stuffed monkey.  

Cityscapes.

Rittenhouse Square at night.

First gift of Christmas

So, last Saturday, my (Jen's) parents stopped by because they were getting their Christmas tree at good 'ol Produce Junction.  They brought Aiden a gift to kick off the Christmas season.  It took him a LONG time to open it.  In fact, he didn't actually open it himself.  We do have a video of it, but I don't know how to post a video-sorry!  This is also the first day that Aiden officially started crawling.  I am sure there will be many posts to come about that.  Anyway, these pictures were just too cute, so I thought I should post them as Rob has been busy the past couple days with work.  

More interested in the bow, which he just touched very lightly with his finger, even though we encouraged him to rip it off

It's a book that sings Jingle Bells!  Reading/singing the book.....

Aiden enjoying his new book under the tree-thanks Mimi and Pop-Pop!

Home for the Hoidays

This is my favorite picture of all the siblings together, and I wanted to post it in honor of the fact that Gwyn is coming home from Uganda in one week!  

I'm pretty sure that I would echo the feelings of the whole family when I say that it's been hard having Gwyn so far away for months at a time, but knowing that she'll be home for Christmas is about the best present we could hope for.  We can't wait to see you Gwyn!

Just out of reach

I've had a sneaking suspicion that the perfect storm of Aiden's increasing mobility and the sudden influx of Christmas paraphernalia into our home could result in some comedic situations. So far I haven't been disappointed.  One of his favorite hi-jinx is to employ a sixth-sense-like ability to locate any stray Christmas catalogs that arrive in the mail.  Using his tiny but very nimble baby fingers he is able to reduce these to piles of shredded paper in a matter of seconds. 

So far his experience with the actual Christmas tree, however, has been fairly limited.  As an experiment, the morning after we put up the tree I placed him in his bouncy-seat cockpit to see what he'd do.  The tree is pretty close to where the seat hangs, but not close enough to invite major catastrophe.  As expected, it was pretty amusing.

Christmas in P-Ville

If we had any doubt that the Christmas season is here to stay, our holiday-activity filled day yesterday put those thoughts to rest.  

We started things off with that age-old Christmas tradition: the cutting of the Chistmas tree.  Of course, in this case it was less "cutting" and more "picking it out from the parking lot at Produce Junction."  No matter though, the sentiment is the same.  Here are some pictures of us bringing our trophy back to the Abode.

More on the tree later. 

Our other big adventure for the day was the annual Phoenixville Christmas Parade.  The weather was certainly living up to it's wintry resposibility by providing a clear and cold (very, very cold) night.   Pheonixville's citizens emerged  from their warm homes for the festivites and the town looked the part, decked out in all it's holiday glory.

There were lots of firemen in the parade, and some of them got pretty extravagent in decorating their trucks for the occasion.  We cheered the loudest for this one because it's from the station right next to our house, and we could see them working on it from our back yard. Jen pointed out that hopefully there were no fires yesterday, seeing as how if this truck pulled up in front of your burning house it might not inspire a lot of confidence.

Also in the parade were lots of Christmas (and non Christmas) characters.  For example: there was the Grinch.

The three kings.

The Cat-in-the-Hat, and Scooby Do.

And my personal favorite: Elmo in a helicopter.

And who else but Santa would be the finale for this grand spectacle.  Here he is surrounded by some adoring female goupies.  What a life.

After the parade we came back home to finish decorating the tree.  Here are some time lapse photos for you so that you can watch the magic unfold.

The tree is up...

the lights are on...

decorating, decorating, decorating...

the star goes on top...

and we're done!  Whew.

I'm sure that we'll post some more Boy-Meets-Tree pictures later on in the blog.  But for now here is Aiden's first up close and personal experience with a Christmas tree.  Seconds later he pulled off his first ornament.  Awwwww...  

It's a Flop

Maybe we shouldn't find Aiden's very earnest yet very futile attempts at crawling so very funny. But it's not easy... poor guy.  He is just trying so hard, and accomplishing so little- it's hard not to chuckle.

Someday soon I'm sure we'll post a video of Aiden as a crawling zen master: zipping to and fro across our living room floor.   Until then however this is the extent of our son's mobilty: some grunting, a lot of flopping, and the occasional boogie-woogie dance move.  You'll see what I mean...

It's Turkey Time

Whew!  Well, in the blink of an eye Thanksgiving has already come and gone.  Our's was a good one.  Mostly because  we got to spend lots of time with family, both at big group get-togethers and the occasional quiet moment for our little family of three.  The food was as festive and delicious as ever, and it was great to just have some peaceful time to relax with everyone.

Since we're lucky enough to live close to both of our parents and lots of extended family our Thanksgiving stretched into a multiple day celebration as we made the rounds from house to house.  Some might see these holiday obligations as something of a burden, but as I see it: twice the obligations equals twice the turkey, and you can't tell me that's a bad thing.

It should not come as a big surprise that most of our pictures of this holiday center around our son.  It's pretty much how we do things around here, and if you haven't figured that out by now perhaps it's time to move it along.

Anyway.  Presenting the Jones Abode Thanksgiving 2008...

Something that we were extra thankful for this Thanksgiving is that we got the chance to visit with our California friends Mike and Rhianwen Benner.  

Rhi and Mike, it was great seeing you guys.  We are already looking forward to the next time!