History of the J Man

Hanukkah and Christmas shared a weekend this year so needless to say we’re still digging out from all the new toys.  Below are some photos of Hanukkah at Nana & Papa’s house on Christmas Eve.  Highlights were the ride-on Thomas train for Elliott and the pirate ship for Jonah.  Julie was also excited about her new Kindle Fire and Chris put his Leatherman too right to work.

I think Uncle Tim’s shirt in the photo below says it all.  

Hello Family and Friends!

Our biggest news for 2011 is that we moved to a new home.  Not only a home, but a house this time!  It’s big enough to give each boy their own room and also leave space for an office for Chris and me.  Plus there’s a family room separate from the living room and a small family area in the basement.  So far there’s a lot of unpacking yet to do on the house and an endless number of projects, but we love all the new space.  An added bonus is that it’s located almost equidistant between both sets of grandparents, so that’s been a new convenience for everyone.

Come visit! Our new address is 8050 Lowell Av, Skokie, IL 60076.

The family is also doing well.  Jonah is in his second year of preschool.  He started at a new neighborhood school once we moved.  He did well with the transition but we’re happy that this school also houses the kindergarden that he will attend next year.  He’s making new friends, working on learning to read and write and his vocabulary continues to grow.  Outside of school, he enjoys taking swimming classes and loves to play knights, dragon trainers, pirates or anything else he can think of involving a sword.

Elliott is growing like a weed.  He wants to do everything and play with everything that his big brother does.  They get along really well, though, and seem to enjoy each other’s company.  Like Jonah, Elliott is also very active.  He seems fearless when it comes to climbing but he is also turning into our musical kid.  Elliott likes to get the whole family moving with his demanding cry of, “Let’s dance!”  He’s also our go, go kid.  Any time anyone makes moves to head out the door, Elliott is there passing out shoes and standing at the door shouting, “Let’s go!”

Chris continues to like his job working for Experian Automotive and received a promotion mid-year.  Julie started a new job in May for a company called Neutral Tandem.  Though she didn’t love having to go to the office every day again after working from home for 2 years, it is nice to be a full-time employee again after contracting since 2009.

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2012,

Julie, Chris, Jonah, Elliott (and Bianca) Diehl

We did Halloween last night in 2 stages.  Jonah is at a stage where he doesn’t want to do anything so when we were ready to go trick-or-treating he didn’t want to go.  I think he was having too much fun passing out candy to the kids who came to the door.

The last thing I was going to do was force him to go get candy so we said fine and took Elliott out.  Elliott walked around holding on tightly to my hand on one side and holding a piece of candy firmly in the other hand.  When we got up to a new door he’d put the piece of candy from his hand into his bag then reach for a new one which he would hold until the next place.  He was reassured that he could keep it as long as it was in his hand.  I’m not sure if Jonah knew really what candy was when we took him out at this age.  Elliott certainly knows already about candy.  Fortunately I was able to swap out some all-natural fruit snacks for him after dinner, instead of candy.  Not any better for his teeth I’m sure but at least they had a full serving of fruit.

Then once we got in from trick-or-treating with Elliott and showed off all his candy guess who decided he was ready to go?  So out we all went again, this time with Jonah AND Elliott.

We should make Elliott walk a couple times around the block each night before bed.  The kid actually slept this morning until 6:00!  He usually wakes up around 5:00am.

Over the holidays we decided to take the boys bowling.  This new alley actually had a “mom & tot” time in the morning so we went, bowled a game then had lunch.  Well actually we played some indoor bocce ball first, or pretended to.  Jonah just liked to roll the balls down the court and run up and down.  He liked that much more than the bowling.

Here’s a short movie of Chris helping Jonah bowl. 

Jonah Bowling from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

I’m not sure what it is about the holidays for us.  If it’s all the new junk food that’s introduce to our diets, seeing more friends and family than we usually do in such a small space of time, or if it’s the cold weather somehow but it seems to get us every year.  First there was the day after Christmas that we spent in the ER with Jonah when he was about 1.5.  Then I think it was last year sometime when we went back to the ER to find out he had croup.  This year it was Elliott turn to get sick during the holidays.

Elliott helped me welcome in the new year by puking on me and the dinner table just after our dinner on New Year’s Eve.  He’d been pretty sleepy that day and had already had a blow out at the restaurant at lunch so I was already a little worried about him.  It was justified because he ended up having diarrhea for the next 48 hours.  I called the pediatrician’s office (of course closed for the holiday) and got the recommendation to give him pedialyte and no formula. He was nursing too but doing more comfort sucking than actually drinking and I was worried he’d get dehydrated.  The pedialyte was a no go though.  He wouldn’t drink it.  Not the flavored kind, not the unflavored kind, not mixed with formula or juice either.  After a solid day I went out and bought him some lactose-free formula, just so I could make sure he was taking in some liquids.  After the first night he perked up again so I figured he was doing ok.  Then he peed in the bath on the morning of Jan 2nd so I took that as a sign that he wasn’t dehydrated and was on the mend.  If I hadn’t seen that we may have headed to the ER later that day. 

Of course this always happens at times when Chris and I had plans to go out.  We didn’t bother trying to make New Year’s plans but we did book Grandma and Grandpa to babysit on the 2nd so we could go to dinner and a movie.  That didn’t happen though because Chris started feeling sick that morning.  We revised our plans and asked G & G to come and take Jonah, the only one feeling fine, out for a bit so Chris could rest and I could shower.

That’s about all I got do to though because I answered the phone after getting out of the shower to hear, “We’re coming home, Jonah just threw up in the car.” Our car that is, the one with they took because it has the car seat in it. 

So fresh from my only shower in 2 days and feeling crummy myself I strapped Elliott on and helped get Jonah into the house, stripped down and into the bath whild Chris and Grandpa attended to the car.  That night we all took it easy and had only a few handfuls of dry Cheerios for dinner with lots of water to drink.

I expected a rough night from the kids after that.  Figuring I’d be cleaning up more puke or comforting sick children but miraculously everyone slept the whole night.  Everyone but me that is.  I was up and down to the bathroom myself LOTS of times from 9:30pm to 2:30am when I think my fever finally broke.  What is it about a mom’s mind/body that allows us to not get sick until everyone else is taken care of? 

We spent the next day drinking more water and Gatorade and hanging out watching movies.  Trying to get Jonah to relax and rest was a challenge.  Luckily we’re all feeling better now, this must have been more like a 24-48 hour bug.  Not so fun though.  Not a good way to ring in the new year.  What is it about the holidays?  Next year I need to beef up our vitamins or hand washing or something!

Jonah had a great time on Easter this year.  He woke up to go potty on his own and found his Easter basket on the dining room table.  He came into our room in the morning saying, “Mama, look!”  Then we took him out to the living room where the egg hunt was already set up. 

Later that afternoon we went to Grandma & Grandpa’s house and it was so nice we were able to another egg hunt there outside.  Here’s a short video of him hunting for eggs in their back yard.

Easter Egg Hunt at Grandparents from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

We colored Easter eggs too and Jonah LOVES hard boiled eggs.  I think he ate almost the whole dozen himself.  He even got good at cracking and peeling them on his own.  He doesn’t like the yolk though so Bianca’s gotten spoiled lately with that treat lately. 

We’ve taken a bunch of holiday related video lately so I have a few more to upload but this one is ready today.  I doctored it up a bit by pulling out the best parts of a bunch of short videos we have of Jonah baking and decorating cookies and cupcakes.

Holiday Baking from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

Here’s a short video from our trip to Goeberts Pumpkin Farm this year.  Jonah had a great time running around playing with the pumpkins and climbing on all the gear there.  We went early in the season so we had the place more to our selves than in years past.  That was nice. 

Pumpkin Farm 2009 from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

This past weekend was Easter and Passover.  The park district up the street advertised an egg hunt open to all kids so we decided to take Jonah with a family from next door.  We all walked over there on Saturday morning in time for the 11:00 egg hunt.  The day was sunny but it wasn’t as warm as it looked. 

A ton of kids showed up for the egg hunt and, long-story-short, there weren’t nearly enough eggs for all the kids.  Jonah is too young to really know why we were there so we opted to just play in the park and let the older kids try to find any remaining eggs.  (I felt bad for them, some were in tears because there weren’t enough egs to go around.)

Jonah’s favorite activity at the park is to swing anyway so that’s what he did.  By the time it was time to leave he was pooped.  Don’t ask me why swinging makes you tired but you can see from the photos below that it did.  That and the fact that he still takes 2 naps most days and that day we spent the morning in the park instead.  He crashed the minute he hit the stroller I think.