What a Wonderful 2007!

We are trying to get back to the swing of things here in Michigan. I can't say that I am anxious to get back to the EST schedule. I love that the boys are sleeping in past 9am. Bedtime isn't even that much later than usual. We'll have to shape up by Wednesday since that's Lathan's first day back to school.

We had a wonderful time over the Christmas holiday. There are so many cute photos to tell the story, so I will leave it at that and let you look for yourself. Some of you may have noticed that I didn't post any pics to highlight our 2007 yet, but I will do it this week - I promise.

These are pics from Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.



Lathan finally got to go fishing with Uncle Peter.

At Dito's place in SF

A fun-filled day at SF Discovery Museum!

Jay just hangin'. Notice Lathan's name in the background (he realized he didn't have enough room to put his full name, so he improvised and put "Lathi." Do they teach preschool kids that at school?





An man making art out of rocks, bricks, etc. and teaching Lathan how to do it.

The boys "swimming" w/ the shark. The beach was so much fun and SO beautiful that day!


Jay flying high! Finally, Christmas Day!!!

Christmas at home in MI. Arriving at the airport BEFORE our flight and the boys were already tired.

I saved my favorite video for last... ENJOY!

We hope your Christmas was awesome and we hope for an even better New Year!
HAPPY 2008!!!

Dave's Take

Hello Michigan.....Goodbye California.

Anyway, we had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed our time with family and friends. Due to our limited time we apologize to anyone that we didn't get to visit with. With both Griselda's and my families in town there was a lot of catching up to do. Of course you are all more than welcome to make the trip out to Detroit for a fun filled reunion......hehehehe. Not many takers I presume.

Jeydan just hasn't been the same since our trip. He is much more active. Always wants to be standing. Always trying to grab something, do something, say something. He is just a cute chubby little boy and not so much a baby anymore.

Kaelan is doing great making it now more than two weeks without any night time accidents. This includes the three days that he has slept in until 10 am since getting back from California. I think that towards the end that he was starting to get quite attached to Kathryn and loved her attention and kitty.

Lathan is rapidly becoming a great counter and constantly working on his spelling. Lathan's dream came true when he was able to go fishing with uncle Peter. Unfortunately they were able to catch anything; however, Lathan got a chance to reel in the bait a couple of times.

The boys all love their presents and were very sad that they had to come home from California. They all loved their aunts and uncles and especially loved playing with the cars at Nana's and Pop's house. They also got to visit the Discovery Center north of San Francisco with Dito and Lucy and truthfuly could have spent the whole day their at any one of the exhibits.

Griselda had a wonderful Christmas as well. She didn't get much sleep in California because Jeydan got his internal clock so messed up that he was waking up every two hours having to be fed. Luckily she got to go to the beach for a beautiful sunny day of pick me up and sun exposure. It was a December Detroit dream come true.

I too had a great Christmas. I don't know how people travel with multiple small children. If you get to the airport too early they are crabby and all over the place in the airplane. If you get there too late you are high tailing it through the airport trying to make your flight. Neither of which make for a fun five hour plus flight. Griselda got me a lot of stuff to help me work out especially in the cold. I got a heart rate monitor, apple ipod shuffle, winter bicycle gloves, and cleats for running in the ice. I think that she is trying to tell me to exercise or something.

Anyway, the holidays have been kind to us. I hope that everyone else had fun this holiday season.

Dave

Week of December 10th

Two things...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEREMY!!! We hope you have a wonderful birthday. It's a perfect birthday day for us, even though no one here has a birthday until February. Why you ask?

It's a SNOW DAY! We woke up to about a foot of snow everywhere, so the bishopric canceled church for today. That's rare. It's a mixed thing because I do enjoy church, but I am loving a whole day just for family. It actually a 2-day weekend!

We woke up this morning and shoveled the walkways and driveway. I pushed all the snow off the trampoline so it wouldn't have all that weight. That was much more difficult than I anticipated because we have the mesh fence that surrounds it, so I had only one little doorway to push all the snow out. A surprise workout for a Sunday morning. We have a fire going now and I am loving a relaxing day without having to get dressed up for church.

This past week was full of late nights as David mentioned earlier, but now I think I'm over the "hump" of Christmas planning. I just have to worry about a few more things before we head off to Cali for Christmas break. The week was pretty mellow, but the boys did get to participate in a service activity with the Primary at a local retirement community. They sang songs and ate lots of cookies. At one point Lathan gave me a scowl and said that "Only Primaries can sit and sing songs." He wasn't too happy about Kaelan sitting in and joining in on the merry Christmas carols.

This weekend has been full of fun activities. Friday Dave and I were able to go to a fancy Christmas party put on by the hospital. We went out to dinner with some friends beforehand and were mostly unable to eat all the delicious desserts they had because we were so full. We did take home lots as they provided to-go boxes to fill with their yummy treats. Then on Saturday we went to Cheeseburger in Paradise for a dinner with my co-workers at the gym. It was just a couple of the swim instructors, not the entire gym staff or anything. We brought the whole gang since we left them with the babysitter the night before. They loved it and did very well considering how long we were there. They are very well behaved when fries are in front of them.

Today since we have so much extra time as a family, we decided to open some presents as it is very "Christmasy" with the snow and Dad being home and all. We opened Dito & Lucy's backpacks for the kids. We will be brining those along on our flight to Cali. They love them and do not part with them easily. We also opened our books from Nana & Pop. We love them, thank you! We hope to bring those along as well. We realize the only way we could break them out on the flight is if we drug our children, though. Wishful thinking. Finally, we opened the hand puppets from the grandparents also. They love them (see picture). Thank you guys for your thoughtfulness. We are stopping there with the presents until our return (though I must say it was difficult to stop).

Later tonight I will be posting the "Best of" highlights for 2007. It will be just pictures mostly. We look forward to hearing from you and have a wonderful New Year!!!
Hot chocolate got the best of Kaelan after the snow fun. Lathan has a slight sugar high from the hot chocolate and chocolate advent calendar we've been using, so he couldn't stand still.



Love to you all,
griselda

Dave's Take

It is snowing outside right now. There is probably about 1/2 a foot of snow on the ground. Yesterday I finally raked up all the leaves in the yard. A harder job than it sounds because once leaves get wet they get matted down and then they freeze and it is like chipping ice off the lawn. Not a pleasant experience. To make matters worse, it was below thirty degrees and started to snow at the time. It sucked. Last time I procrastinate.......well ......

Jeydan is still the same little giant. He finally started to occasionally sleep through the night this week. Unfortunately, Griselda was working hard at getting Christmas cards and presents finished and was up at all hours anyway. Too bad.

Kaelan is our little old man. He is soo pensive and quiet....ok maybe not SO quiet but at least he is pensive. Well, at least he appears pensive. He ALWAYS bites his fingers while eating at least once a day. He just loves his food. Keeps chomping away. Then, BAM, biting and crying. So sad but soooo funny at the same time. His greatest accomplishment is making it through the night with a dry pull up diaper. Some times he is great sometimes not so great.

We made Lathan learn how to count to twenty this week. He has always been very good with letters and can sign his own name if asked, but he has always struggled a little with numbers. At his school his friends all stay until after lunch but lathan goes home right before lunch.We made Lathan a deal that if he could count to twenty he would be able to stay for lunch one day. After two weeks and really no interest on Lathan's part, he came home, rattled off the 1-20 count and said that he wanted to eat lunch with his "buddies."

Griselda has had a few late nights this week to say the least. She is constantly doing something. Cleaning the house so the baby sitter doesn't see our mess. Searching online for the perfect gift. Trying to cook dinner so the boys are fed. This weekend she finally got to sleep in (still sleeping right now in fact), got to go out with her work friends last night for dinner, and also got to get dressed up and go to my company's Christmas party. A little reprieve in a tumultuous pre-vacation melee.

I am the same old Dave. Working plenty. Sleeping little. Enjoying the family and job. Excited to go home. Anxious for warmer weather. Awaiting the day when I can move from Michigan and get a real job.

Hope that you are enjoying your holidays. Enjoy whatever vacation you can. Look for further updates in a week or two.

I'm going back to Cali, Cali, Cali....I am going back to Cali.......

Dave

Dave's Take 12/9/ 07

So, there has been some exciting news in the Michigan Skeehan family. Thanks to Griselda's hard work and long hours searching on the internet she found tickets to California for something significantly more reasonable than what has been offered in the past. To make a long story short, we are flying to California for a few days this Christmas holiday. We will be leaving on the 20th and flying home late on the 25th. Everyone is very excited.

Lathan is probably the most excited. First, he gets to see Nana and Pops, our new names for Grandma and Grandpa. Second, he gets to see uncle Peter. He has been praying for about two years now that uncle Peter will take him fishing. I think that we will have to set up a day in Santa Cruz so that Lathan can fish off of the warf.

Kaelan is Kaelan. A little bruiser. Still picks on Lathan occasionally with his hitting and throwing. Lathan gets tired of it after a while and yells at him but for the most part those two play very well. Kaelan is starting to get a little disappointed everyday when Griselda drops Lathan off at school. He is dying to go with him and keeps insisting that he needs to go with Lathan to school. Griselda is starting to agree with him.

Jeydan is still eating, sleeping, and growing like a weed. Still one of our biggest boys yet. True to the Skeehan boy mold, he has no interest in crawling, hates belly time, and would rather stand or walk wherever he needs to go (not that he is walking yet.) Anyway, he is a big boy. Loves to eat people's hair, including Lathan and Kaelan's.

Griselda is on a natural high right now. She has been looking all over online for two things which she managed to find this week at incredible deals. The airline tickets you already know about. The other thing is a dress. She has been searching for new dresses for a while. She went to Nordstrom Rack last week and found some cute ones but took most of them back after the in house modeling episode. She then went online and ordered a bunch. They arrived Friday. She tried them on. She liked a few but then the size or length wasn't quite right. Anyway, she ordered four dresses and kept one. We took the rest back to Nordstrom yesterday. Afterwards we happened to stop in Macy's found a dress far better than any she had tried on for exactly the same price. Then she found one that she had liked from Nordstrom but return because she couldn't justify the price. Now she found the same dress in Macy's for half the online price. So she ran to the register and found out that both dresses were another 60% off. She was jumping up and down like a cheerleader at a football game. Smiling from ear to ear. Then she got to go out with her girlfriends last night for dinner and had a blast. She is definitely in good spirits in spite of the gloomy Michigan weather.

I am still doing the same thing. Hot lights and cold steel pretty much is my job description now. Looking forward to finishing this residency year and being the top dog next year. Better hours, more cases, and more control.

Anyway, this is our last post probably for this year. We will be seeing a bunch of you at Christmas. Our Christmas cards should be going out soon. Love to you all and Happy Holidays!

Dave, Griselda, and the Boys

Finally some new photos and stuff

Kaelan after several swigs of hot cocoa. I had to get in the picture to assist Santa.

Jay with Dave's headlamp. The boys at the end of our Thanksgiving weekend.

Kaelan sick at Judy's house. Kaelan wearing Dad's shirts after puking on his own clothes.

Jay with Jacie giving his bro some love.

I wanted to post some new photos of our Thanksgiving holiday and stuff, but don't really have time to elaborate about my week. It was busy in mostly a good way, but hectic nonetheless.

Our holiday was great. We went to a good friend's house and loved the food and company. Couldn't really ask for more, except maybe a few more deals on Black Friday. We did well, though. Poor Kaelan was sick that morning and Dave was a sport and looked after him while he puked. In the interim he wasn't suffering too bad as he spent the majority of the time playing video games with his buddy and allowing Lathan to participate in the not-for-little-kids ultra-violent game. Now all my precious baby wants to do is shoot to kill for fun. Let's just say that Mama wasn't pleased with this decision; but he did take care of Kaelan. You win some, you lose some, right?

This past week the kids and I hit the local city center to celebrate the Christmas season and to see Santa while David was moonlighting. It was so cold! Luckily we saw some friends because every one of the boys was crying (the shriek-scream crying, too) - all for different reasons. Jay wanted to nurse AND his hands were ice-cold. Lathan was upset because his hot chocolate got knocked over and Kaelan wanted a refill on his hot chocolate. I couldn't satisfy any of those needs because we were waiting for Santa outside with no hot chocolate and it was too bitter cold for Jay to nurse. Once we made it inside in the line, my friends took the two big boys and I nursed Jay in the back. It was quite the scene.

We had Steven's parents come over for dinner on Friday and let the boys play. It was fun for everyone, but always awkward with tired babies. Dave knew how hard I had worked without him around for the whole week, so he let me try on dresses at the local Nordstrom Rack for fun. I bought David's gift while I was out, too. It was a great afternoon. David gets muchos creditos for getting invited to a Red Wings game with his buddies and turning it down (of his own volition because I said it was fine) while I was out for "me" time because he felt that I was solo-parenting enough as it was. What a guy (thanks Bill and Lynda!).

Today was rough with the boys overspent in many ways. I fell asleep in the cushy chair nursing Jay and didn't notice anything apparently for about 40 minutes. Dave said he read the whole Friend Magazine to the boys right there next to me and I never flinched. I had several epiphanies this evening that I wanted to share, but so much for my brain function. I can't remember not even one right now. Perhaps some other time. We were happy to catch the Christmas Devotional tonight, even amongst squirmy, impatient children. It was lovely.

I am so excited to have our Christmas cards sent out this week. You will be hearing from me if I don't have a current address. Please email me if you know I don't. Love to you all,

-griselda

Dave's Take

Winter is definitely here in Michigan. We finally got our first ice , and snow storm, although a small one, and then today came out of church to a pretty heavy down pour. There is an old saying in Michigan that if you don't like the weather just wait a minute or two because it will change. Anyway....

Jeydan is growing up pretty quick. Still loves his baby food. Can't stand any belly time. Wants to be held as much as possible. And is now starting to tilt his head to the side whenever he is trying to flirt with someone.

Kaelan is our problem child right now, although Lathan is not too far behind. These two are masterminds at disobeying recently. You say to not do something and the next thing that you know, one or both of them is/are doing exactly what you don't want them to do. Hopefully it is just a phase but man is there going to be some purchasing of big wooden spoons to start carrying around the house, if you know what I mean. The bigger the spoon the better the spank is the philosophy that my mom used to have.

Griselda is doing great. She is about to lose it on the boys though. If they don't shape up I feel that they are going to get a glimpse first hand what kind of passion and anger a latina girl can bring to the table.

I am doing great. Trying to get into shape. It is a lot harder than I seem to remember. I got to spend a lot of time with the boys this weekend and was able to let Griselda get out and shop a little. Griselda has decided to wrap any package that comes to our house right now. That means that I have no idea what package has come and which package hasn't because Griselda wont share that kind of info with me. Should make for a pretty fun Christmas. Wish that you all could be here, but we understand that Christmas in Detroit isn't exactly what people would picture the ideal Christmas as being. Anyway, your loss.

Hope everyone is doing great.

Love,

Dave