Jeremiah's First Haircut!!

As mentioned before, Jeremiah was born with TONS of thick, brown hair. Obviously, it just kept getting longer and longer and longer. I love his hair!!! But, I was so tired of complete strangers walking up to me everywhere we went saying, "My, what a beautiful little girl you have!...Your little girl is so adorable!...How old is she?...." Everyone we would meet would mistake him for a girl, even if he was dressed in blue/boyish clothes. The long whispy hair and big blue eyes made him look too girly I guess! Plus his hair started to curl a bit in back, which didn't help with the confusion at all. So we decided it was time for a haircut! The week that we came back from break, we made an apointment with Kristal Layne at a salon called Tangles in Chesapeake. He was exactly one week shy of eight months old. Above are some pics of before, during, and after. He did a great job, as long as we had his bottle close by. He especially loved playing with a huge, red can of hairspray. His hair is still kind of long in the front (but finally out of his eyes) and is short in the back (no longer half-way down his back when wet!). The cool thing is that you can see that the new hair coming in is a lot lighter and feels courser than his orginal "baby hair." Maybe he'll be blonde? Who knows! We just love his adorable new haircut! There's no way he'll be mistaken for a girl now!

Christmas Break 2008!!! (December 19th-January 4th = 16 days!)

Christmas Break 2008 was a blast for our little family of three! ASCS was out for 16 days, and miraculously Jeremy was able to take that entire time off from work. God is so good! Really, instead, I should call our break, our "Christmas Road Trip," as we were on the road for about 45 hours during our 16-day vacation. I had a half-day of school on Friday, December 19th, and Jeremy only worked until 2:00 that day, so we left around 4:00 and started driving through the night, on our way to Wisconsin. Jeremiah was awesome! He slept almost the entire way, and when he was awake, he watched Baby Einstein on his new portable DVD player. What a good baby! We arrived in Madison (southern Wisconsin) on Saturday afternoon (23 hours later) and stayed the weekend with my brother Jake and his fiance Calle (known to Jeremiah as Uncle Jake and Aunty Calle!). Thankfully we missed the snow storms that were coming through. God kept us safe! Praise the Lord! Jeremiah had a great time playing with their dog, Hubert Pewee (a beagle/pekinese mix). So cute! On Monday morning (the 22nd), we drove three hours to Grammy and Grampy Stults's house in Sturgeon Bay (north-eastern Wisconsin). We stayed with them through Wednesday, and were able to attend the candle-light Christmas Eve service at First Baptist Church. This is a special family tradition, and it was extra special to be able to share it with Jeremiah for the first time. :) On Christmas morning we drove another four hours to Chippewa Falls (western Wisconsin) to see Grandma and Grandpa Gerdes, Uncle Caleb, Aunty Jessi, and Uncle Gabe. We tremendoulsy enjoyed the next four days as we ate Grandma Gerdes's yummy food, went to movies, opened tons of gifts, met up with some of my college girls, took family pictures, and spent tons of quality time as a family. On Monday morning (the 29th) we started the long trek back to Virginia. Poor Jeremy was miserable the whole way, as he had that nasty flu bug that is going around. This time, we stopped half-way in Ohio, to spend the night in a hotel. We arrived in Manassas (northern Virginia) Tuesday night, and had a blast hanging out with my sister's family, as we all got ready for my nephew Bronson's wedding the next day. On New Years Eve, we celebrated Bronson and Samantha's wedding. What a special way to ring in the new year! Jeremiah was up really late that night! We spent the next day hanging out with our family again. Then we headed home on Friday (the 2nd). Needless to say, we were so glad to be home! We spent the rest of the weekend unpacking, doing laundry, and trying to relax. What a great Christmas Break....or shall we say Christmas Road Trip!

Jeremiah meets Santa!

Just a couple weeks before Christmas, Jeremiah had the opportunity to "meet Santa" for the first time at a local church's toy train show. My camera died, as soon as it was our turn, so I had to take pics on my phone. That's why the pics are poor quality. But at least we captured the moment! Aunty Tiff Tiff let us take Alia with us to the train show and to see Santa. We all had such a great time together that day! Fun memories!