Christmas Time is Here

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Originally uploaded by jasonhunter.

Yes it is and nothing says Christmas like a reindeer glass of milk and a plate of cookies. We brought all the holiday decorations out of the attic on the first weekend after Thanksgiving. Since then I've either unboxed or arranged two holiday items per night around the house. Like everything else since the arrival of Dottie, this broke the normal holiday routine. In the past, Dawn put up all the decorations on the first day of winter break from teaching. It's interesting to think that next year Dottie can help with the holiday decorating. That will be amazingly fun.

The Holiday Crush

In our tiny house, space is a premium. With the arrival of our daughter, free space is becoming a scare commodity. The bookcase full of over-sized kitchen items has been replaced with a pack-n-play, a swing, and a stroller. In the past Christmas decorations, especially the tree, pushed each room in the house to it's functional limit. Dottie's bouncy seat, a magical device that calms her fussy moods, occupies the same spot that, in the past, is where the Christmas tree went. So Christmas tree, where do you go now?

Currently the top three places are 1) in the dining room since we never eat dinner at the table anymore 2) in the front corner of the living room supplanting the cat's favorite perch, one of the few comforts he has left after we kicked him out the baby's room/guest room and 3) back in the attic until we move to a bigger house. The problem is I hate all of these ideas - the tree looks terrible in the dining room; I'm loath to take away yet another comfort from out cat; and if we don't celebrate with a tree I'm sure I'll scar our daughter for years to come.

Honestly, removing the cat's favorite perch and sticking the tree there is the only real option. The reason I'm loath to do it is because it's exactly what every baby book said I would do: devalue a pet's once lofty place place in the family. Reading those books, I rallied against that idea, thinking "No way. I'm not going to do that". Yeah, well, too bad. It's time to Think Again.

We're Not Home Right Now: Thanksgiving Edition

We traveled to Allentown PA for Thanksgiving. This was also Dottie's first interstate road trip. I thought we'd have to stop at every reststop along I95, however Dottie only need one stop. In fact on the way back we had to tickle her for 5 minutes just to get her awake. This baby loves car rides!
Thanksgiving itself was a great time. There were lots of family relations to play with Dottie giving mom and dad a chance to rest, sleep, show others how to play the Wii (yes, we brought it) and watch the Virginia Tech at Virginia game (okay, okay only dad did this). Dottie also went to her first restaurant outing in Bethlehem. The table next to us was disappointed that we did not put Dottie between their table and ours. They demanded that we show her to them. Once they saw her the entire table voted her "delicious".

We returned home Saturday night with enough time left in the evening to hang out with uncle Dan and aunt Monica.

The Office

The Office
Originally uploaded by jasonhunter.

The other thing I've been doing aside from raising my baby daughter is working on freelance projects. I've taken over the kitchen table with this fancy set up. Click on the image and take a tour of my office desk.

It's like Three's Company

I should have posted this here on Oct. 24 but we've been busy adjusting to our newest roommate, Dorothy Paige Hunter. For those that have already seen the hospital pictures here is a jump to the Halloween photos.

Happy Halloween

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Originally uploaded by jasonhunter.

Here's a trick for the bloggers since we got our treat early.

If I Had a Hammer

I'd hammer in the morning? No. I had a hammer on Monday though and I used it to hammer apart a giant "trweed". What's a trweed? It was the massive weed that conveyed with the house. and was already 1/3 of the way up the house. As of Monday the tree was almost to the soffit. That is until I took the claw-side of a hammer to it for 5 minutes and then tore it down. Rock!