Last Post of 2009

This will be the last post for 2009. Can you believe it? Tomorrow we leave for a 2 1/2 week trip to Texas. We are going to visit with some of the families we adopted with and go to the beach. We are all very excited about going on vacation.

I decide that I was bored with the layout of our Blog so I decided to change it a bit. Over three years looking the same was to long. It needed a change. I hope you like it. Basically, it's the same with a different layout.

Anyway, Christmas was crazy as always. Poor Josh had four days of presents. He is so abused. It was awesome to spend so much time with our family. Unfortunately, we couldn't get together will all our friends, but we will do that when we get back from Texas.

We went to Christmas at the Zoo. It is always beautiful with all the Christmas lights. Matt couldn't go with us this year because he had to work. Bummer!

Mom and Josh

This was my favorite light display. It looked like a water fountain, but it was made of lights. Beautiful!

Santa came on 12/24 at our house because dad had to work. These are Josh's new LeapFrog Tag books. He is starting to parts of words together amazing. Maybe all the reading we do is starting to pay off.

Santa did bring Josh his Toyota monster truck, but Josh wanted a "real" monster truck. Can you believe that? A REAL monster truck.

Josh's big gift - a Cars bike

After a little bit of practice he will be riding it like a pro.

I'm gonna get you Mom!!!!

Christmas at Aunt Lisa's

We all went up on 12/26. We had a great steak lunch and then it was time to rip and tear. This is Marianna with her favorite gift. A Touch and Brush. She has been wanting one for a long time.

All the kids ripped open every gift first and then decided to play with them. What a joyful mess!!!

Alex got a new train table for Christmas. It was a big hit for both boys.

Christmas at Matt's mom and dad's

Josh loved the new garbage truck and crane he got. The books we a hit a few days later.

Knock down that building!!!!

This got out of order but anyway, it snowed while we were at Lisa's and Josh loves snow. The kids went outside to play. That is grown and little kids a like. Josh got extremely upset when I went chasing after my sister when she got me in the face with a snowball. He thought we were fighting. It took a long time for him to calm down from that. Such a tender hearted kid.

Josh loved driving the gator in the snow. Maybe Santa will have to work on one for next year. Hopefully, a gently used one since they are so expensive.

Our snow angels!

The past few days have been spent working at our jobs and working around the house. We have both been working hard to get everything done before our trip. Unfortunately, Matt called earlier and said he was coming down with a cold. Nooooo!!! I think I'm gonna beat it out of him. All I can says is he better not get me sick.

Tomorrow, mom and dad are bringing over Long's donuts for breakfast. Yum!

Happy New Year Everyone,

Matt, Jenny and Josh

Ready, Set, Christmas

We're sure that everyone else is just like us, getting ready for the craziness of the holidays. Fortunately, Matt and I were able to get away for the weekend without little man. WooHoo!! Josh stayed with grandma and grandpa and then his cousins. He loved it. We went down to Bloomington for a IU game, ate lots of food that we didn't have to share and saw a movie. Unbelievable I know.

Josh is super excited about Christmas this year and very into the Santa thing. It is a lot of fun to see how excited he his. We went to the Children's Museum to see Santa this year for their Jolly Days. The best part of the whole trip was the slide. It was super fast and we all loved it.

What would like for Christmas? I want a Toyota monster truck. We don't know where he comes up with these things, but his new favorite thing to do is "crush" his cars like monster trucks do.

The slide was awesome! It was super fast. Of course, we had to ride it more than once.

Do you think Josh liked it?

Josh said he was in his "nice quiet warm spot." Of course that spot is warm he is sitting on the heater vent.

Most of the grandparents, Josh and I went to Christmas at the Zoo. Unfortunately, Matt had to work. The lights were beautiful.

Josh's newest thing to do is try and write his letters. Right now each letter comes out like a squiggle, but I guess it's a start.

Today Josh and I made cookies for Santa. He got bored with using the cookie cutters to make cookies, but he loved icing the cookies. After 45 minutes of icing I had to put a stop to it.

As far as our holiday plans:

Dec 24th - Christmas at our house. Matt works Christmas day so we asked Santa to come early.

Dec 25th - Great-grandpa's house

Dec 26th - To my sister's house in Valpo

Dec 27th - Christmas with Matt's mom and dad

We may have forgot to mention early, but on top of all the holiday maddness we are packing for a two week vacation to Texas. We leave New Years Day. Insane I know. Josh is very very excited about going because we are going to stop and see some of the people we adopted with while in Texas. Oh, we are excited too. We're excited that we are escaping Indiana winter for a few days anyway.

We hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas.

Love,

M, J, and J

Lots of Pics and Vids

OK, it's been a BUSY couple weeks!! We had a birthday party, Thanksgiving, and put up the Christmas tree.

Starting with the Birthday:

From aunt Kathy, Josh got a trucks book that comes with a dry erase marker. He loves it and plays with it constantly. Of course, we had to draw on our self at least once!

Having lunch with the cousins at his party

Alex lending a helping hand with the presents - that's what friends are for.


And what else - TRUCKS!

Josh is REALLY getting into the Christmas spirit this year. He's ready for Santa and lights and music and decorations and PRESENTS. He was really excited to decorate the tree on the day after Thanksgiving. He wanted to do everything himself. Santa always brings Matt the Hallmark fire engine ornament each year and they are placed up on the mantle. Nobody could do ANYTHING until Josh got those out, visually inspected them, and placed them on the mantle himself.

I think Josh is trying to tell us he is a gift in this picture but I just think somebody is getting a big, smelly present wrapped up this year.

Another stopping point we had involved the camper ornament we have. That camper could NOT go on the tree without a truck pulling it. We all had to stop while Matt tied up one of Josh's Hot Wheels cars to look like it was towing the camper.

Another of Josh's favorites is those singing snowman thingies that Hallmark has each year. He likes to line them up and start them all up at once. After about half an hour, it's hard to take anymore.

Yesterday, Jen and Josh made some ornaments out of applesauce, glue, cinnamon, and other stuff.

And the finished product:

Some Videos:

There is one particular ornament that when Matt was a kid, the only way to put it on the tree was to stand back and toss it onto it. Where it landed is where it stayed. Here's Josh learning the ropes.




Here's josh admiring his idea of the camper being towed by his Hot Wheels truck





Finally, the Jingle Bell Rock Show!

Written by and starring Josh Partain.

Family Pictures 2009

Well, the business of birthdays, prepping for the holidays, and family picture time is upon us. All of Josh's China friends, as he calls them, are celebrating their birthdays over the next two months, as well as, Josh and I. For my birthday my parents, Matt's parents and the three of us went out to dinner. That's a perfect birthday for me. Josh is having a small, but growing ever bigger, birthday party on his birthday, which also happens to be National Adoption Day. Perfect huh?

Josh has also started a new library time at the Greenwood Library. I like it very much. They teach the kids shapes, colors, counting, letters, and of course they read books. Also, there is a craft to go along with each class. Today's letter was "F" for fall. Josh colored a tree and then glues leaves made of puzzle pieces on. It turned out very cute.

One of Josh's favorite things to do is "help" Dad finish mowing the yard. He loves to drive the mower.

Since Josh likes music so much, I thought it would be fun to take him to the Bands of America competition at Lucas Oil. So on Friday before I went to work we made our way downtown. At first he wasn't too interested, but when the larger marching bands came out he liked those. I enjoyed the bands very much.

The marching band was from Texas and they were really good.

Mom and Josh at Bands of America

Family Picture Time!!!! We are trying to mark the passage of Josh's birthdays with family pictures. Josh was adorable as ever!

The Fame!

Mr GQ!!!

I need more cars!!

We'll post pictures of Josh's B-day party next weekend.

M, J and J

A Spooktacular Halloween!!

It's finally time to reveal what Josh's costume was for Halloween, but first a few cute pictures from the past week.

For some reason Josh decided that this was where he wanted to eat his snack. I'm sure he was mad at me for some reason or another.

The next series of pictures was from when Josh and I went to play in the leaves.

Nothing is more fun then jumping into a huge pile of leaves!

Run, Run!

Finally, the Halloween Costume: Josh was a BULLDOZER!

Halloween was so much fun this year because finally understood that if he said "Trick or Treat" that he would get candy. He couldn't get to the next house fast enough. Plus, Josh also figured out that he could "bulldoze" people. He got such a kick out of bumping into people with his bulldozer.

Three weeks from today our little man turn 3! The party planning has already begun.

M, J and J

Fall is a wonderful crazy time of year!

The past two weeks have been a whirl wind of fun fall activities, friends and work. Matt has worked several days of overtime, which makes Josh grumpy from not seeing his daddy. It makes mom grumpy too. Anyway, we have all survived, but boy are we tired!

Children's Museum

On Oct 16th, we went with the Jones to the Children's Museum. Josh, Delaney and Jonah (a little boy Susan watches from time to time) had a great time. The first thing we did was the Tomb of Doom haunted house. (No cameras allowed = No pictures, sorry) It was a lights on, kid friendly time. They loved it and got all kinds of goodies along the way.

After that we grabbed a bite to eat and visited the rest of the museum, or at least the favorite areas. First off was the Dinosphere.

Look at those little dinos tending to their eggs.

Josh took this model claw and then dragged to the dinosaurs me to show me where on the dinosaurs it went. To funny!

Under the sea! The kids dressed up as sea creatures and then danced around on a blue screen that made them look like they were underwater.


Of course we had to go on the carousel.
Josh, Susan, Matt, Jonah (hidden), Delaney and Will


Jenny, Josh, and Matt

Jonah, Susan, Delaney, and Will

Josh loves to get in the race car and pretend to drive.

The Mad Scientist

First, let me start off with Matt and I love science so we hope that Josh will too. Any time we can do a science experiment with Josh we enjoy it. I found a new kids science book at the library and Josh and I made soap monsters. The monsters sure made a monster mess of my microwave and kitchen floor with soap crumbs, but Josh loved watching the monsters grow in the microwave and then decorating them. We made three total to decorate our table for Halloween.

Here Josh is using some orange (his favorite color right now) map pin to decorate one of his monsters.

So scccarrry!!!

Pumpkin carving time!!!!!!!!

On Oct 24th after Matt and I bought new iPhones, I know now we are soooo trendy now, then we came home and carved our pumpkins.

The before shot

The process.

The final results. So spppooookkyy!

Josh was really into carving the pumpkins this year. He helped clean them out and then proceeded to play with the guts for a long time. He drew his face on his own pumpkin and then helped me draw the face on my pumpkin. It was a great time!

ZooBoo

Oct 25th was another crazy day. After church, where the discussion got Matt and I all fired up (Long Story), we went to see some family that came into town from Georgia unexpectedly. When we left there we picked up Josh Halloween costume and off to ZooBoo. The zoo was decorated with skeletons, bats, witches, etc. We met our friend the Jones, again. Josh was excited to see Delaney and had been asking to call her to make sure he was coming for two days. Anyway, it wasn't a very good time because it was soooo crowded and the candy stations were in the back of the zoo where it was narrow and dead ended. Of course, once we got to the dead end Josh had to pee. He and I fought our way through the crowd and made it to the bathroom just in time.

Delaney and Josh petting the goats. Miss Delaney is the cutest Dorthy I've ever see and Josh's Halloween costume will remain a secret until 10/31. I have to say that he was getting a lot of attention in his costume at the zoo. Unfortunately, it was too wide with all the people and Josh couldn't walk around very well.

Josh, Will and Delaney on the haunted Carousel. It went backwards for Halloween.

When we left the ZooBoo it was back to the phone store to get Matt's iPhone fixed. It was my fault, long story. Anyway, after 20 minutes he was up and running. It is going to take us a long time to figure out all the things about these phones. Now we are going to work on combining cell phones, cable , DSL and cancelling our home phone. The home phone goes to offset the new cell phone service. We don't need it anyway. The only people who call are our parents, Amvets, the FOP and IU Alumni Association.

Over the next few weeks I'll be work on Josh's birthday. He'll be three on November 21 - which happens to be National Adoption Day this year. It will be fun because he wants dinosaurs as his theme.

Who knows what the next week or so will bring, but I'm sure there will be some good stories and pictures to go with it,

M, J, and J