A Few Christmas Photos

We're home from another trip out east to celebrate Christmas with my extended family. Here are a couple photos...I'll try to post some more once we finish unpacking and I find the digital camera cord!

My Dad's Parents with Justin

We were able to spend some time catching up with friends Alison and Dominic in Cleveland on the way.

Justin Learns About Hanukkah

Justin likes Daddy's new glasses.

We had a nice trip, although Justin has turned into a Stage 5 clinger. If I'm out of the room, he is completely fine being with anyone else. But, as soon as he catches a glimpse of me, he will start whining and will not be satisfied until he is back in my arms. Although it's nice to feel special, I do hope he grows out of this soon!

It was so fun to see Christmas through his little eyes. He, of course, loves Christmas trees, lights, and ripping wrapping paper. One of the funniest events was Justin getting a sheep skin from my grandparents. This was a strange family tradition that I never really understood until now. As soon as he saw it, he started cooing, petting it, and rolling all over it. Hilarious! Bill and I determined it was like cat nip for babies. :-) He also started taking a few steps...so far he can do 3 in a row. But, who knows when this will turn into full-fledged walking. He had taken a step or two when he was 9 months old, and then seemed to forget it all until he reached 11 months. :-) We hope you all enjoyed the holidays and wish you all the best in 2009!

Merry (early) Christmas!

Dear Friends and Family,

As Advent draws to a close and the words of “Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel” reach their culmination, we pray that you open your hearts once again to the birth of the Christ Child within you. And, may you all know how much you are loved and appreciated throughout the coming new year.

With Love,
The Osmun Family

We get together with our friends from high school for a Friends Thanksgiving every year the Saturday after Turkey Day. Here's a photo of Heather, her daughter Nora, Justin, and I from that day.

Sleep Update

A couple weeks ago I blogged about Justin's sleep issues. Well, here's where we're at. Justin may cry for half a minute (but usually no longer) when we put him down. The amount of crying is greatly reduced if there is an exciting toy in the crib that he can play with until he wants to sleep. Lately, the favorite toy has been this plastic school bus that makes sounds when you press various buttons. He still won't sleep through the night. Out of his 10.5 months of life, he has only slept through the night for about a month (if I remember correctly). Usually he just wakes up once, but this depends on teething pains, sickness, extra hungriness during growth spurts, etc. After I feed him, he easily goes back to sleep. Getting him to sleep longer in the morning has been MUCH easier due to the fact that it is super dark at 6AM. Maybe I'll get some of those light blocking curtains for the spring. We no longer need to do daily baths (yay!), but he's on a nightly nebulizer (since the doc thinks he has asthma), so that gives him the same calming effect. He's definitely not great sleeping in strange places, but if we bring his space heater that helps a lot. Then we can get things to his comfortable temperature and the white noise is a MUST for this boy. We also had a lot of luck putting him to sleep in his sleep sack, but have started getting away from this, since now he trips on it trying to walk around his crib and bashes his head on the crib walls. Yikes! The warmed, footed pajamas are a nice replacement though. Things are still going relatively well!

Winter Fun

Justin Meets Prancer

Sledding with Daddy

Snow Bunny

Sharp Teeth

When my friend Kerry and I were little kids, our families went to the circus together. We kept pointing at the elephants and tigers, exclaiming "Sharp Teeth!" And that's about all I remember.

Now, Justin's 1st sharp tooth is emerging! Yes, up until now he was still a muppet baby. But, a couple days ago we felt the first little sharp point had broken through on the bottom and it's fun to watch it slowly turn into an actual tooth. Justin has also become much happier, now that it's broken through the skin. We thought for months he was going to get a tooth any day with all the drooling, chewing on anything, and wines of pain. Little did we know it wouldn't come till now (at 10.5 months old)! Poor Dad has been empathizing, as his wisdom teeth have been acting up. Bill actually took Justin's Baby Orajel in a moment of desperation and accidentally poured a little too much in his mouth, numbing the whole thing. Needless to say, there was a lot of poking fun at the big, bad football dude with the crazy lisp. :-)