Happy New Year!

What better way is there to start the New Year than to catch up on my blogging?

Let's see...starting back in Nov:

-Julie and I successfully completed a half marathon! 13.1 very cold (19 degree wind chill) miles of way more hills than we had trained for. :)

-Jason went deer hunting and shot an 8-point buck! It was very exciting (sorry to any animal activists who read our blog, but he doesn't just hunt for sport - we really do eat the meat!).

-Had a fun dinner with our friends Heidi & Ben and their twin sons (who are a day older than Josiah) Connor & Jacob.

-We spent Thanksgiving weekend at home and ended up processing Jason's deer ourselves...picture us in the kitchen with a meat grinder, sausage casings, a jerky gun, and piles of raw meat. Feel free to laugh if you want to (it was pretty comical) but we are very proud of how good the sausage and jerky turned out!

-Got to see our friends Natalie & Gabe who live in Virginia and recently got hitched!

December was definitely eventful:

-Josiah turned 1 on Dec 6th. We had some family & friends over to help us celebrate. Josiah was a little freaked out by all the people at his house, but he had fun and enjoyed the cake we gave him (well, mostly just enjoyed the frosting).

-Dec 7th we had his 1 year pictures made. He was starting to not feel very well so he wasn't his smiley happy self in the pictures, but they still turned out great.

-Dec 8th Josiah and I were out Christmas shopping...and he started puking everywhere. He wasn't acting sick but I still felt like I jerk for having a sick baby out in publilc...which I of course would not have done if I had known he was sick. The next day we had the 1 year doctor's appointment with several shots - this did not help him feel better. That night Jason caught whatever Josiah had, so he was throwing up too. The next day I was taking care of the boys and trying to avoid Josiah's open mouth kisses, but to no avail. That evening I was also praying to the porcelin gods. It took us almost 2 weeks to feel like eating again was a smart idea. The good news is that we didn't have to worry too much about gaining weight over the holidays!

(lucky for you I don't have any pictures regarding the paragraph above)

-Dec 13th weekend we had Christmas with my family and despite not feeling 100%, still had a fun time seeing everyone.

-The next week we were battling colds. We were thankful for a sickness that still allowed us to eat.

-The week of Christmas we spent with Jason's family, and we were feeling much better by then. Josiah was finally back to his normal happy-go-lucky self, and enjoyed playing with all his new toys (and trying to eat the wrapping paper). He also really loved his Grandma's sugar cookies!

(notice his new cowboy boots above)
Here is our little cookie monster in action:

-We spent New Year's eve hanging out with friends and playing games. We had a lot of fun and did end up staying up until midnight, but since a lot of us there had little kids, we realized exactly how much we enjoy our sleep!

We hope you all enjoyed your holiday season, and that you have a great 2009!