Thanksgiving

The 3 sisters



Our attempt at a family Thanksgiving photo


This year, Jeremy happened to have Thanksgiving off. His days off are Wed, Thurs, Friday, which came in very handy! We decided we were going to make the trip over to Arlington to his aunt and uncle's house. Nathan would get to meet Jeremy's whole side of the family.

Since it would be almost a 7 hour drive (with no stops) we headed to Royal Wednesday. There my Mom had prepared a Thanksgiving dinner! She was so thoughtful to use a fake butter in everything so Nathan could eat. So Wednesday night, we had Thanksgiving in Royal with my parents, Laura and were even surprised when LeAnne and Rick showed up! They drove all the way from Boise to see us for the night, so that was nice. We had a great dinner. Getting Nathan to go to sleep in a strange place was another story. My parents had even bought a crib. When we've traveled before, Nathan has slept in a pack-n-play and he's never done well. He did ok sleeping.

Thursday morning, we left for the west side. We took my parents' new 2008 Chevy Silverado over in case there were problems in the pass. That was nice!! They even have XM radio so it was awesome to get to listen to the same channel wherever we were and it never went out of range. Very cool.

We drove to Jeremy's uncle's place in Arlington. Jeremy's Mom's whole family was there. Jeremy's cousin Michele and her husband and baby Aiden were there. Aiden is 6 months old, so when when the two boys get older, they'll be able to play together. Nathan was super exhausted and didn't do too well after 4 pm. He didn't get a nap.

We then drove up to Burlington to spend the night at Jeremy's grandma's house. Again, Nathan had a horrible night and we woke up after little sleep just exhausted!

Friday morning, we drove down to Mt. Vernon to visit some of my Spragg relatives. That was fun!

Then, we drove most of Friday afternoon back to Royal where we visited with my parents again and ate leftovers. We spent the night, and poor Nathan struggled again.

Saturday we left Royal to head for home. There was actually snow here in Spokane when we got here!! There wasn't even any over Snoqualmie. We got home at 3, and Jeremy had to leave for work at 5:00 for his regular 10 hour shift. We were both so tired!!

Christmas Tree Time!

We usually get the Christmas tree out after Thanksgiving. Yes, we have a fake tree. Sad, but quick and convenient. This year, we're going to be gone all Thanksgiving weekend, and won't get the chance to put up the tree for at least a week after that, so we wouldn't have a tree until like Dec 7. That just wasn't acceptable! So we put it up today.

When we were putting the tree together, Nathan was super excited! He kept pointing at the tree and making his happy noises. But the weird thing was, when we turned ON the lights, he didn't even seem to care much. He noticed, but lights apparently do not interest him much.

Nathan got really excited about trying to take ornaments off. He wasn't too interested in putting them on. So I put a few non-breakable ones down at the bottom. He loves that!

Link to Article about Jeremy

Jeremy had a scary call a few weeks ago. It it now public knowledge, so I'm posting the article from the newspaper below. It's a good thing he's a supercop!



Prosecuting Attorney Tim Rasmussen 12.NOV.08
An affidavit of probable cause was filed last week alleging that Rudy Daniel Rodriguez of Nine Mile Falls was arrested and charged with several felony and gross misdemeanor charges as a result of a recent investigation related to child abuse allegations and the events that transpired in that investigation.

On November 1, after gathering information from the victim, Deputy Wakeman contacted the suspect at his home. As he was being placed under arrest, Mr. Rodriguez began to struggle with the deputy. He was tazed but managed to escape. He went into another room in the house and armed himself with a shotgun. Deputy Wakeman retreated outside and called for assistance when he heard the suspect rack shells into the weapon. Deputy Wakeman heard him go into the attached garage and prevented him from closing the garage door. Mr. Rodriguez eventually got outside the residence into his truck (an AT&T service truck) and then led the officers and WSP on a chase. The chase eventually ended on highway 395 after the WSP put stop strips on the road and disabled the vehicle. Inside the vehicle the officers found the loaded shot gun with the safety in the “fire position”. Other items of potential evidence were seized from the truck.

A subsequent search of the residence revealed that a computer had been taken into the basement, shot open, and the hard drive shot with the shotgun. The computer will be examined at the crime lab to see if useable evidence remains in the memory drives. Other evidence including drugs and pornographic materials were found in the home.

Mr. Rodriguez will be in court this week for preliminary matters in this case.

This incident points out the potential danger that our Law Enforcement officers face as they go about the business of keeping us safe and investigating the crimes that occur.

- The Outpost Newspaper

My Little Helper

Nathan is just too funny! The other day, my parents were over visiting. My Dad and Nathan were in the living room. I told my Dad I was running downstairs to throw a load of laundry in the dryer. Usually, Nathan throws a fit if I leave a room and he can't see me. However, he didn't cry and I wondered why. I'm coming back up the stairs when I burst out laughing!

Here comes my little man trying to drag his laundry basket down the hallway! He's huffing and puffing because it's almost as big as he is!! He heard the word "laundry" and knew what he had to do! It was SO cute..boy I wish I could have got that on video!

Nathan's Self Portraits

Nathan is obsessed with anything that has to do with cameras, camcorders, telephones, remotes, etc. He always wants to grab the camera when I'm trying to take pictures of him. We think he's going to be a technology geek. However, I'm guessing this love of shiny electronics is not too uncommon in kids! So I decided to let him take a few pictures! He loved it! He pushed down the button (with a little help from Mom of course). Here are his self portraits!

Oh, and apparently I did not do a great job wiping his face off after dinner. Well, it was almost bath time anyway.






Also, we had two Halloween costumes for Nathan. We had a bee and a chick. We thought the chick one was cuter, but he absolutely HATED IT!!!! He would not keep on that head part, but it was absolutely hilarious, so I thought I'd post a picture of my very unhappy baby chick. So we went with the bee. He still disliked it, but tolerated it.

Happy Birthday Jeremy-A Scorpio You Are!

Today was Jeremy's 29th birthday! We didn't do any celebrating today as Jeremy had to work tonight but will have some time this weekend. Jeremy has had a difficult week! He had a call a few nights ago that was quite scary. He went to make an arrest and things did not go as they should have. It turned into a pursuit, but luckily ended up ok. However, Jeremy now has TONS of paperwork to do with the case. He's hoping that the person will be going to jail for a long time.

I was looking at the MSN page the other day and noticed an link to find out more about the "Scorpio" astrology sign. Jeremy is a Scorpio, so that is likely why they are featuring an article on that sign. I was amazed at how much Jeremy really does fit this sign! I'd never paid much attention to those kinds of things before. It made me wonder if I went and looked at the "traits" of the other signs, if he would match all of them to an extent. So I went and looked at many signs and it does seem he fits Scorpio best! It was really interesting. Of course, some things don't fit him, but alot do! I thought I'd list some of the highlights since it is his birthday.

-Controlled cool exterior
-Doesn't show emotions readily but there is alot going on inside
-Excellent leader and resourceful
-strong commitment to family
-doesn't worry about making friends on the job, but gets job done well (perfect for a police officer)
-a career Scorpio does well in is police officer or detective
-good money managers
-most compatible with Cancers and Pisces (I'm a Cancer!! It is meant to be....)
-has an intense look in the eye

Haha! That was fun! I checked out mine too, and I'm a really good fit with Cancer, so who knows, maybe these things are more accurate than I would have thought.

Here's the link to the page (making sure I list my sources)

http://astrocenter.astrology.msn.com/msn/ArticleAstrologyHomeV2.aspx?sd=20051018>1=21001

Halloween

Nathan managed to survive another Halloween! Last year, he absolutely HATED his Halloween costume. We had high hopes that this year would be different. NOPE! He hated his costume this year too. Last year, we had a screaming teddy bear, and this year we had a fussy bumblebee. He especially doesn't appreciate the hood over his head. We have high hopes for next year.

This year, we actually took him out to trick r treat. Some of the people that knew us were prepared with fruity candy. Thanks Lindsay and Amy. In the future, I'm not sure exactly what we'll do since Nathan can't have any chocolate or nuts. It seems most Halloween candy has one of these things, so I'll have to figure out some system of taking the candy away when he gets home and substituting it with candy I've bought or something.





So I was looking at last year's Halloween pictures and could not believe how tiny he was back then! He was about 8 weeks old last Halloween. I had to post a picture just to show the difference. See the cord in plugged into the wall? That is the vacuum. We had the vacuum on for the pictures. He used to stop screaming when the vacuum was on. Otherwise that would have been one unhappy bear.



My big 14 month old bumblee...still not happy



He didn't smile once while the costume was on




The highlight of Nathan's Halloween was the pumpkin Daddy carved him. He LOVED it! When he sees it lit up, he claps and smiles and runs to it. Very cute.