Christmas With the Kunz/Gammon Family

We spent Christmas Day in Waukesha with dad's family. Silas loves the wooden train stacking blocks Grandma G got for him! Also pictured are Silas with his Grandma G, dad, great-uncle Larry and great-aunt Barb. Auntie Amy and uncle Jeff's house was all decked out for the holidays. Silas loved meeting them, as well as his uncle Steve.

Grandma G and Merlin came to Grandma and Papa's house a few days after Christmas to spend more time with Silas.

Although Silas was at times overwhelmed by the amount of people and commotion at our family gatherings, it was wonderful for everyone to get the chance to see him. Most of the time, he was a very happy smiley boy who really enjoyed the attention everyone wanted to give to him!

Christmas with the Bryant Family

There's no shortage of Christmas photos to post, thanks to Auntie Jennie's constant picture taking, and the several other cameras that were in frequent use as well. These pictures give you a glimpse of the Christmas Eve gathering at Grandma and Papa's house. Great-Uncle David gave Silas the beautiful wooden rocking horse. Also pictured: family shots of Silas, his mom, auntie, grandma, and cousins, papa, and great-uncle Bob, and Silas playing with the cool new puzzle Auntie Jennie got for him. What a day we had!

We spent Christmas day with dad's side of the family. We'll post these pictures soon, so stay tuned!

his 1st drawing

Christmas Through the Kaleidoscope

Choo-Choo: trip to WI

With all of the visiting we've been doing since arriving in WI, we are a bit behind on blog posting. We will have to catch up later this week. First thing's first, though: Here are some pictures taken from the train. Only the last blurry one will kind of give you a rough idea of what our sleeper room looked like. I'll post some of the pictures Drew took of the views from the train another day. For now, a few brief things about our trip east:

We had our own room complete with an upper and lower bunk (converted from a large couch during the day) and our very own bathroom, with a toilet/shower all-in-on (no joke). This was totally living it up compared to coach seating, let me tell you! The dining car, and it's sub-par offerings, was just the next car down from ours. We met some intersting people (curlers, musicans, race car people) while eating. Other than eating and a brief trip to the observation deck, we stuck to our room, entertaining Silas and watching the countryside. Silas enjoyed looking out the window, but also spent much of the time admiring himself in the big mirror across from our couch. He did very well on his first train trip (slept better than his parents). We'll see how he manages his return trip, as a seasoned traveler!

Silas has seen a bunch of his relatives since arriving in WI and yesterday got to meet his friend Alden for the very first time! Alden and Silas share a birth-week! Wow, it was so much fun to see them together, and so wonderful for the parents to all catch up on life, parenthood, etc. I'll try to post a picture of them together later this week, but if you don't want to wait that long to see them together, check out Alden's story (a link is on the side) and look at the posting for 12/23. So cute!

9 months old! --baby on the move

Jill took these pictures yesterday at our fabulous Stitch 'n Bitchers' Holiday party. They show clearly that this baby is ready to crawl! He's up on all fours and is scooting back a lot. We're guessing that he might really crawl for the first time while we're in Wisconsin. We'll see.

Silas is on the move in another way too. We leave on the train in just 2 days! We can't wait! Make sure to check in to Planet Silas during the last few weeks of December as we will try to post while we are away.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Oh tiny tree, we love you

Here's our tiny little tree, all decked out for the holidays. It's a living tree and will spend most of the year outside. Then, if we can keep it alive, we'll bring it in once a year for the holidays. Hopefully, it will grow from it's current hight of perhaps 14 inches to a nice big tree. We've decorated it with a string of popcorn and cranberries, and a dried flower for a star. It may be tiny, but it is the perfect tree for us, especially in light of the fact that we won't actually be home for Christmas (6 days till we leave for WI!).

Dad's Birthday

Dad's birthday was yesterday. Here's how we spent the day:

Silas made art by using his feet, which we dipped in pureed blackberries and yellow vegetable paste. Dad then made a tiramisu cake (mom helped a little) for his birthday dinner. After a lunch out at a local cafe and an afternoon relaxing at home and trimming our teeny tiny live Christmas tree, we celebrated with a dinner at Shannon's and enjoyed the tiramisu for dessert. Yum!

That's the brief recap. Happy birthday, dad!

Jump for Joy

Silas loves the Johnny Jump-up that Grandma G got for him. After all, bouncing up and down is one of his favorite activities. Mom likes to put the thick hat she made for Silas on him when he's bouncing as a bit of added protection for his head. This is because, as wonderful as the Johnny Jump-up is, it is not a risk free ride. Basically, a big person must hold on to Silas the entire time so that he doesn't bounce his head right into the door frame. It's worth it though, since Silas has so much fun. I've included a short video of the bouncing baby boy in action. My apologies for the fact that you will have to tilt your head to see it properly. I had the camera turned when I shot the footage and then realized that I'd need video editing software to turn it. Oh well.

Jump for Joy --the sideways video

Head Shoulders Knees & Toes

Head: Silas and mom survey the damage from our recent storm while dad snaps a few pictures. Our road was completely flooded during the storm but mom's car managed to traverse several feet of gushing water on Monday to make it home safely. And it wasn't just our road. In Silverdale, where mom works, many streets and parking lots were completely flooded. Salmon actually swam across the main thoroughfare, Silverdale Way, when their stream flooded!



Shoulders: Rides on dad's and mom's shoulders are a new experience for Silas. He loves being up that high and also enjoys the opportunity to get in some good hair pulling.










Knees: Silas isn't crawling yet, but he REALLY wants to. He lunges forward from a sitting position onto all fours, then promptly flops over. It is frustrating to him that he is so intellectually ready to explore, but isn't quite physically capable. The more he practices though, the closer he gets (mind you, mom and dad really aren't complaining that he still isn't too mobile). As you can see from the picture, he really can balance on those knees nicely.

Toes: Post-bath is a perfect time to play with those toes! Actually, bath time is a great time to play with them too. Silas loves to grab onto both toes while in his bath chair, and then throw them both down into the water and splash. Mom is often just about as wet as Silas is by the end of the bath!

That's our boy, from head to toe!

First Snow

Snow is a rare treat here in the Puget Sound Region. Usually, we only get a tiny bit, perhaps a few times a winter, if that. Silas got to experience it for the first time yesterday afternoon. How beautiful it was, and Si had so much fun! We've posted a video as well (below). Like the other videos of Silas that we've posted, this one is an "old school" home movie as our little camera has no sound capabilities. So, do not attempt to adjust the volume on your computer when you play it. Just enjoy!

Let It Snow

Pajamas on Parade!

Pajama Parade! Sleeper Spectacular! Pictured above are a few of the sleepers we have known and loved and (sigh) are just about too small now for our big little bear. Thank you to the mommies and Grandma G who gave us these particular pajamas.

Art Museum, etc.

What have we been up to this past weekend? Well, we hung out as a family quite a bit, did the usual: eat, play with the baby, do laundry, sleep, repeat. On Sunday, we had a big outing. We took Silas to the Seattle Art Museum. While mom and dad tend to prefer the more abstract pieces, Silas gravitated towards the more representative images. He particularly liked a horsy sculpture and an Egyptian cat head. He also enjoyed bouncing up and down and vocalizing about how much fun he was having. We look forward to bringing Silas back to the art museum in the years to come.

Silas got to try out the new hat mom whipped up for him on Sunday as well. Mom has lost track of how many hats she's made for him (around 7 maybe?) and she's going to make yet another one this week to match a sweater she finished over the summer. Well, you can never have too many hand-made hats, especially if you're a baby with a fast growing noggin!

Also included in this assortment of images: a picture of Si
wearing, yes you guessed it, another one of mom's creations. Mom's got more images of this sweater on Flickr, Ravelry, and soon she'll post more on her knitbook blog, in case you're interested. And, in case you are reading this from WI and you'd like to see Silas wearing this sweater in person, never fear: we'll be packing this one for the trip, for sure.

Our Family Thanksgiving

Did you all have a wonderful thanksgiving? We had a great day and we hope you did too! Our little family visited with friends and neighbors, all of whom were charmed by Silas. Dad baked a sweet potato pie and a green bean casserole. Silas got to eat a bit of baked sweet potato (loved it) and boiled potato (not so much). Mom is enjoying getting to spend four days off in a row with her boys! Today we talked to our families back in Wisconsin. We will be seeing them all next month when we take a cross-country train ride to the Midwest for the Christmas holiday. Wow, Silas is already looking forward to it!

One more thing: All of our Silas-supported charities, toy registry and a book wish list are now posted on the sidebar on your left, right under the links to other blogs/web pages of interest.