Christian: Four Months Old

Christian is now four months old, and this boy just keeps getting cuter and cuter! At his four month appointment, he was 18 lbs. 13 oz. and 26 inches long. He's a big boy, and growing quickly!

I'll start with the cell phone pictures that Chandra sends me first. Christian likes to be read to. Here he is with two books: Bony Legs and The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear. Bony Legs is a book that we first became familiar with when I bought it from a book order when I was in kindergarten or first grade. It's a great book, and one that we loved hearing my mom read when we were kids. The strawberry book was one of Chandra's favorites when she was a little girl, so I bought it for her a couple Christmases ago. I'm glad Christian is getting to know and love these books!

Christian was able to meet some very important people over the holidays… some of his cousins, and boy, were they excited to meet him! They all loved holding him, hugging him and kissing him! Sometimes they gave him a little too much love, but Christian was a good sport! Five-year-old Matt would try to protect Christian by saying, "You're overwhelming him!"

I can't believe with all of the pictures we took, that I didn't get a single shot of Sarah holding Christian! She was there, and she did meet him, although I don't have the photo to prove it!

Christian was asleep when it was time to open presents after dinner on Christmas, so his cousins helped him out. Here is a picture of him waking up, just in time to glance at the camera. I'm sure he'll love his presents.

This was a picture of Christian and his dad, Joe, on Christmas Eve. And to all a good night!

The Christmas Flood of 2015

I have lots of posts to catch up on about all of the Christmas festivities when my sister's family was in town for the holidays. But first I thought I'd write about something that made the holidays memorable.

On Christmas it started raining in the evening and it kept on raining for the next three days. Even though it's winter, the weather has been very mild thus far, so we were even having thunderstorms as well, which are pretty rare in December. Thank goodness we were spared from the tornadoes that many places in surrounding states experienced. It rained and rained over the weekend, and when the ground became saturated with the moisture, there was nowhere for the water to go, so some people's houses started flooding, as well as the roadways, rivers and creeks.

I wasn't too worried about things until I had to go out to an eye appointment the Wednesday after Christmas. Traffic was pretty bad since many roads were flooded, and there was even talk of the highways closing, which almost never happens. Fortunately, my eye doctor's office isn't too far away, so my mom and I were able to go and get back without any trouble. A few hours later, however, the water in the Meramec River had risen so much that it was starting to cover Highway 55, so they shut it down, along with several other highways/roadways in the area. I saw people making comments on Facebook later that evening saying how their commute home from work took them two or three hours (or more), when it usually takes them a fraction of that time. The next day the only way out of Jefferson County (where I live) into St. Louis County was over the Telegraph Bridge. Many people posted memes on Facebook that talked about "Jefferson County Island" since there was so much flooding.

This is a picture of Highway 55 in Arnold, MO. I've been over this stretch of the highway hundreds, if not thousands, of times in my life. I've seen it pretty flooded in my 31 years, but never this flooded, to where the water from the Meramec River is actually coming on to the road. Craziness! I went over this stretch of the highway again yesterday, and while the river is still flooded, the water has receded a lot in the past week and is much closer to its normal level.

This is a picture of the back of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper last Friday:

I thought this picture above was interesting. It shows how much snow we would've gotten if all of the rain that fell had been snow. I heard on the news that the St. Louis area got between 8 inches and 12 inches of rain, depending on the area. That is a lot of rain for 3½ days!

The rivers crested on Thursday, December 31. The Meramec River crested at 47.3 feet; 2 feet higher than the previous record, which I believe was set back in 1982. This recent flood was similar to the memorable flood of '93, and was even worse than that flood in some areas. This 2015 flood brought back a lot of memories of the flood of 93, when I was just nine years old. The 2015 flood came and went relatively quickly, whereas the flood of '93 seemed to last all summer.

Christmas Cards: A Thing of the Past?

One of my favorite things about the holiday season is getting Christmas cards, newsletters and/or pictures from friends and family in the mail. I've noticed that over the years we've been receiving fewer and fewer Christmas cards/letters/pictures, and that makes me sad! Is the tradition of sending Christmas greetings to friends and family becoming a thing of the past? I hope not, because I love seeing pictures of my family and friends' families and hearing what they are up to.

I love photo cards from places like Shutterfly, for example, but they are SO expensive! I would love to send photo cards out to all the people we send cards to, but it's just too expensive when you're looking at between $2 or $3 for EACH one! For several years Cardstore sold their cards for $.50, which included the price of postage for each card. That was a killer deal, since stamps were $.44 at the time. I suppose that amazing price was just to lure people in while they were getting their business going, and then after they had success, they jacked up the prices. (That's my guess, anyway.) I haven't been back as a customer, but since they are still in business, somebody must be getting their holiday/Christmas cards from Cardstore!

I think someone needs to start a holiday card business and sell their cards for much less than all the other companies out there (no more than $1 per card including postage). They would have a monopoly on cards, so even though they might not make as much money as they could if they charged as much as competing companies, they would make more money in the long run, since they would have more business.

I saw this picture of Prince William and Duchess Kate on the news this morning with the adorable George and Charlotte. They sure are a beautiful family, and I'm glad they send out a Christmas card!

I also heard about this mom on the news this morning. There has been some controversy over the picture she recently posted to Instagram where it shows her Christmas tree almost hidden by a stack of 300 gifts for her three children. People have been making negative comments, telling her that she is "materialistic" and that she's turning her kids into "spoiled brats." The mom defended her decision to buy so many gifts for her kids as well as her decision to post the controversial picture on social media, and said that if she had to do things again, she wouldn't do anything different. It does seem pretty excessive, especially since the point of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, but I suppose to each her own!

Christian: Three Months Old

As of today my nephew Christian is now three months old. He is growing so quickly! Here are some pictures from the past month:

Christian on his first Thanksgiving. No turkey for him this year. :) I had my mom take a few pictures. When I looked at them I realized that Christian was spitting up in the pictures. Oops! Oh well. He's still a cutie.

I had Chandra take a few pictures when she came over last week since Christian's outfit was so cute. I liked the moose on his shirt with his puffy vest.

The rest of the pictures are ones Chandra sent me from her cell phone. Here are some bath shots. I love his adorable little bathrobe!

Here he is in his lumberjack sleeper. He makes a pretty cute "slumberjack" if you ask me. 

Chandra made a wrap that she uses to keep Christian with her when she is doing stuff around the house. He's happy, so she's happy! She also has both hands free to do stuff with.

I think the middle picture below is so funny. It looks like Christian is plotting something diabolical in his sleep. ;-)

Christian is starting to become interested in toys. He likes his monkey rattle that I bought him.

Here's Christian with his dad on his dad's 30^th birthday:

It doesn't take much to get a smile out of this little guy. Seeing him smile makes me smile!

Christian has also become aware of his toes in the past month, and has started reaching for them:

He loves his doggie stuffed animal:

And that's a wrap...til next month!!