History of the J Man

We’ve just finished our holiday letter.  Only a few days left till Christmas but we’re sending it electronically this year so most everyone should have gotten it already.  For those only on snail mail we’ll send them out. 

If you didn’t see our letter come through your inbox, just email Chris or Julie or leave a message here and we’ll send you a copy.

Happy Holidays to all!

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.

I’m sorry we haven’t posted in quite some time, but we have been quite busy the last month or so.  If you haven’t heard, Julie and I will be expecting our second child in May 2010 (official due date: May 7)!  Obviously we are all very excited, and so the “History of the J Man” will need to be expanded to include the history of another little one in about six months.

Julie is doing relatively well in her pregnancy, which means that there have not been any complications.  However, the first couple of months she battled some severe nausea that has finally subsided.  But now she has been battling a cold and was recently diagnosed with a sinus infection.  Plus she hasn’t been sleeping that great lately (part of which can be blamed on my snoring).  But the good news is that the cold seems to be going away and the nausea also seems to be a thing of the past.  Hopefully this winter will be smooth sailing.

In case you’re wondering, no, we don’t know the gender yet, though that visit is next month.  I think the plan is to find out, so once we know, we’ll post the result.

As far as Jonah goes, he continues to grow like a weed.  We have been particularly impressed by his comprehension of language, which seems to have exploded overnight.  It is now not rare for him to string together four or five words to get his point across and he also comes up with words that I didn’t know he knew and don’t know where he picked up.  I’m sure this is just the beginning as far as that goes.  He also will parrot back almost anything you say, which is a recent development.  For example, we are trying to get him to say “Happy Turkey Day!” to surprise everyone when we host this Thursday.  As for his size, with doctor visits not coming nearly as often, I assume he’s still big for his age.  When we wrestle, he’s pretty strong!

The only other newsworthy item to report is that he seems to be having trouble sleeping lately.  He likes to go to sleep now with the lights on and his music off, and gets really upset when it’s time to be left alone for the night.  Not sure if he is afraid of the dark or monsters or what, but it means his bedtime seems to be stretched to 9 p.m. or later, which is frustrating.  Hopefully it’s just a phase he will grow out of by May 2010, if not sooner.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Jonah and I made a pumpkin the other night after work.  Instead of trying to get a 2 year old to carve or dealing with knives we used the Mr. Potato Head-like pieces that my friend Rachel gave us to decorate our pumpkin once we scooped the seeds out.  I should say once I scooped the seeds out, Jonah didn’t want anything to do with sticking his hand into the pumpkin. 

So we put the face on it and when we were finished Jonah said it needed shoes.  Below are some photos of Jonah and his pumpkin with shoes.