Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas, both on our own yesterday morning and with family yesterday afternoon and today. Lots of fun, presents, and great pictures - so check out our Picasa account! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wow, the time does fly!

It has been over a month since my last update, and I apologize! We've been busy with the kids and my work, plus Rose has started going to Bible Study Fellowship and is leading up the crafts team at her MOPS group. We had a great time last week with Thanksgiving at my parent's house, and earlier that week it snowed a bunch. That is rare for Seattle at any time, but was especially odd so early in the year; it isn't even winter yet!

I love both our kiddos dearly, but they give us a hard time at night. Gus will put himself to sleep eventually, but gets up a few times first to turn his light on and start playing with toys around his room. Ruby on the other hand will simply *not* put herself to sleep at night. She does fine at nap time during the day, but somehow she seems to sense when it is time to sleep overnight and she refuses to do so. We've pretty much only been able to put her down by feeding her or patting her till she drops off... and then sometime in the night she'll wake up and need the same treatment again.

Our church is doing the Advent Conspiracy this year, which is a really neat program that encourages us to take the focus of Christmas off consumerism and buying bunches of presents, and instead to focus on spending less but giving more important, relational gifts as well as reaching out and loving everyone around us. For that reason, along with trying to get our finances in order, we have drastically cut back on presents this year - and it takes a ton of pressure off, which is a nice break given the other hectic activities we have going on.

I'll try to post some more pictures soon, but Rose keeps up better on that over at her Facebook page. Check it out if you have not done so! (free Facebook membership required)

Puyallup Fair

This past Saturday my mom took Rose and me, and of course the kids, to the Puyallup Fair. It was a lot of fun, and we saw all sorts of cool things for sale and neat projects people had submitted as exhibits. Rose particularly liked the quilts and other hand-made items, while I enjoyed looking at the photo galleries - not something I would have enjoyed much a decade ago, but as I've gotten more into taking pictures myself I have gained an appreciation for the art form.

Gus of course got to go on some rides, though he is still too small for most. We have pictures of the rides, along with some other things we saw, on our Picasa account. Not pictured there are the fun things we got to eat: scones, elephant ears, fried pickles, funnel cakes, and Hawaiian shaved ice. Bonus points to those who can guess which of us ate each of those items :)

We ended the day with a train ride. Gus has been *loving* trains recently, thanks in large part to Thomas & Friends and a little train set he got for his birthday. It was a nice end to a nice day.

Gus' Second Birthday Party

We celebrated Gus' second birthday today - a couple of days late, but weekends are much more conducive to getting folks together apparently ;). It was a little stressful getting ready for it, but a lot of fun. Thank you to everyone who came; to those who weren't able to make it: we missed you!

The party was held at West Fenwick Park, a nice mid-sized park a couple miles south of our apartment. I've posted pictures I took there on our Picasa account in case anyone is curious. Thanks go out to my mom for providing the cake and sandwiches fixings, and my lovely wife Rose for planning it all and not killing me when I went into overdrive trying to get ready for it this morning :)

Seafair - Pictures and More

Whew - it has been a bust summer! We've been kept up late a lot of nights with Ruby, who doesn't like to sleep most of the time... but she is such a sweet kid that I can't hold it against her.

Rose and the kids went to Seafair this past weekend, when it was free entry on Friday, and had a blast. There are bunches of pictures up on our Picasa account of it, along with some new general family ones listed under July and August.

My aunt and uncle are in town this week as well, and we had fun hanging out with them last night. I'll be taking my uncle, who used to be in the Army / National Guard, to play paintball this Friday after work - I'll try to take pictures to share, if I can remember to bring my camera with me. On Sunday we are getting together with some other family to celebrate a birthday (one of my other aunts) and have a big family dinner... I'll be posting some pictures from that as well!

Active Family!

This week I've been getting to hear a lot about the fun things my family does during the day - trips to the park, friends' houses, and the like. I am really glad that Rose is able to get the kids out so much these days, and I am sure it is as good for her as it is for them. I do wish I could be with them on some of these outings, though, and I'm really looking forward to when we can start going on weekend adventures again.

Ruby - 2 Months Old!

Happy (belated) 4th of July everyone! We had a good time celebrating with friends this past weekend - you can see pictures of Gus trying out some sparklers - and I really enjoyed having a three day weekend, as it is a rarity with my work schedule.

Today is Ruby's 2-month birthday, and I figured it was time to upload some more pictures of her. They are in both the June and July folders on our Picasa account.

My parents and brother are getting ready to take a trip to the Grand Canyon next week, so we'll miss them for a bit but I'm sure they will have fun. I look forward to seeing all manner of pictures, and hopefully being able to make a similar trek with my family when the kids grow up a bit. There are a bunch of places I want to take them: the GC, Yellowstone, the redwood forests of California, and many others. Here's to hoping Gus and Ruby like car trips... :)

June 2010 Update

Hey folks! I'm sorry I let a whole month go by since my last post, but we've been busy here at the George household. Ruby is 6 weeks old now, and Gus is closing in on 22 months; between them and our normal schedule it is hard to keep up with life.

Rose's birthday was earlier this month, and we had a nice dinner while my mom watched the kids. Our six-year anniversary was yesterday as well, and we are having a get-together with my family later today to celebrate 3 birthdays, 2 anniversaries and Fathers Day all at once. Whew!

Anyways, I hope you are all having a nice start to the summer. Here are some new pictures of the kids from this month as well.

More Pictures of the Family at Home

Its been a few days since I posted, but we've been busy getting used to having our new daughter at home. Rose's mom has been here since a little after she was born, and has been invaluble in helping us get settled in and taking care of Gus. I haven't taken many pictures since we got back from the hospital, but Rose has takens a few - which I just finished posting to this month's Picasa folder.

I think we'll be getting back to church this coming week, and we'll be looking forward to seeing all of our friends there and showing off Ruby. I'm also beginning the process of hunting for a new place to rent - something larger, hopefully a house this time...

Easter 2010

Happy Easter everyone! Praise the Lord for His love for us, and his resurrection from the grave!

We had breakfast at church this morning, followed by a small Easter egg hunt there. It was a lot of fun, and then since there were a fair amount of young kids in the nursery Rose and I stayed down there to help out (Gus being among them).

After church, we headed over to my parents for an afternoon of family time. We had a great dinner, and then celebrated my aunt's birthday (a little late, but my family tends to lumb birthdays and holidays together since we only meet up a few times each year). I have put more pictures online under the Easter 2010 category on our Picasa account.

Gus' First Movie

Our family took an outing today to see How to Train Your Dragon - the first movie Gus has seen in a theater. He's been watching a few full-length animated movies at home this past month, most notably Finding Nemo (which he loves), so I thought we should try and see how he handles a theater.

The movie itself was great, but Gus did have a few attention problems. There were some slightly-scary fight scenes, and the overall length of just sitting in one place was also getting to him. We all had fun, though, and he ate a ton of craisins, graham bunnies, and popcorn. Check out a couple of pictures Rose took during our adventure.

Back from Vacation

We arrived back in Seattle today, after an almost 2-week vacation to the East Coast. For those who were not aware of our plans, we headed out to Raleigh, NC to visit some of Rose's family that she hadn't seen in several years. Her sister Nora and brother-in-law Ivan were also there, with their son Jax who is just a few weeks younger than Gus. We spent several more days with them in their South Carolina home, which gave us a much-needed rest from our normal daily routines, and for part of that time their mom was there too. We got to see Charleston and the Cypress Gardens, and I took lots of pictures. I'll be posting those on Picasa in the next couple of days.

After that, we stole away to Orlando for a short trip to Disney World - and my mom and brother met us there. I didn't have as much time as I'd hoped to take pictures there, but what I did get I will post with the family pictures. Gus was a great trooper there, better than Rose and I expected, and while he probably won't remember any of it he had a great time (and we've got pics to prove it).

Anyways, it is good to be home!

Videos of Gus

It has been a while since we posted on here, but I wanted to let everyone know that Rose is into taking short video clips of Gus now. She posts them on her MySpace and Facebook pages, and for those who don't have either you can go directly to her MySpace here:

http://www.myspace.com/rosegeorge

From there, follow the "Video" link under her name and you'll see the clips she has uploaded. Enjoy!

Oh, Gus has also started crawling this past week - and after a couple months of teething his first tooth finally broke through a day or two ago.

Gus passed the 1 month mark!

Actually he did that a few days ago - I am just a little slow about posting updates :/

Other interesting things that have happened recently:

- We went out for Gus' first dinner out, and he slept through it (thankfully). My aunt and uncle took us to the Cheesecake Factory, which was a lot of fun. If you read this, 'thank you' :)

- Bible study has started up again at our church, and it is very nice to be spending time with other folks in the same stages of life that we are in. All of the folks in our group are young married couples, some with kids and some without, and it is a great time of fellowship and learning. We are going through a book right now called The Life You've Always Wanted, which looks like it should be very interesting and helpful in cultivating our relationship with God.

- My parents are finally getting high-speed internet, which should let them follow this blog (and my others) more closely. Welcome to the 21st century, dad! ;)