New Local Reporting Tandem

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday season. Jacob certainly did. We think he has just about everything that Fisher Price makes now.....and he's working on Playskool.

The holidays have been very good, and very busy for us. We did Christmas at our house for the first time this year, which was really important to us as we try to start our own traditions for Jacob. Thankfully, all of our parents were still able to make it down at some point as well. Be sure to check out the website for a bunch of new pictures from the last week or so.

On Saturday, we did a little bit the DC tourist thing and went on a tour of the Capitol and then visited the Newseum. Both were really cool, especially with the Capitol's new visitor's center and the Newseum with a huge new location on Pennsylvania Avenue. While at the Newseum, Courtney and Jacob filmed their own live report from Nationals Park. Check out the video:

Ho, Ho, Ho!

Jacob thought this was hilarious. Seriously, we got him to crack up at this all day. Maybe he was just in a really good mood, maybe we were just really funny that day. It'll be interesting to see if he'll still think this is funny tomorrow.

Mobility

We are on the move people! By we, I of course mean Jacob! He has been SO close to actually crawling for over a month now and finally he put all the pieces together and is moving. Grant it, he only goes about 3-4 "steps" until he gives in and army crawls the rest of the way. Still though, he is moving and growing up so very very fast.

Also today, his daycare told me that when she went in to the room to get him up from his nap, there he was standing and holding onto the rail of his crib. Just as soon as the crawling came, so did the interest in what else he could do and he's been trying to pull himself up on things at home too. He hasn't actually done it by himself but I can attribute to that without being to wrap his hands around something to pull on (like a crib rail) it's otherwise very tough. He can't pull up on his crib at home because we have a bumper and we also lowered his mattress. We are still one step, er crawl, ahead of him : )

And now, the evidence!

New Ventures

Wow. We haven't blogged in a very long time. I am sure we have lost a few readers : (

Anyways, the reason we haven't blogged that much is because well, not too much has been going on (until the last few weeks or so and now we have a few topics to cover).

The first bit of news is that I have decided to finally take the plunge and start my own business! This business has been in the works (in my mind anyways) for quite some time now. I decided that the middle of a recession would be a great time to start up!

Therefor, A Sweet Soiree Events was born and I began my event planning business. We have a website and I have started the tedious process of all the legal non-sense to get the business licensed. This will be a very slow process as I need to develop a portfolio which will be coming along over the next year or so. Once that is complete and I have some more money to invest into the business, I have plans to begin actively recruiting clients, hopefully enough to make this a full-time venture. For right now though, we are starting slow and I am only accepting clients by referral. If you know of anyone needing assistance in planning any type of event, please visit my website at www.ASweetSoiree.com!

I appreciate everyone's loving encouragement and support thus far and I should have more business related announcements forthcoming once I hit some milestones.

Check back for some more updates on Thanksgiving and a recent trip to Richmond!

Cheers,
Court

Happy Halloween!!!

From Jacob

Trying to crawl

As you can see, Jacob still has a ways to go before he's crawling, but we're trying to help him figure it out.

Our Anniversary... 2 Years!

We celebrated two years of marriage yesterday. Still going strong. Two items of note:

1. I'm pretty sure I have the best wife ever. For an anniversary present, she got me a banner that was hanging in Shea Stadium all this year (Shea's last). I didn't even know that they were selling this stuff, but on her own she came up with this idea, figured out how to make it happen, and then made it happen. Apparently, they are selling everything they can carry out of Shea. She knows me so well!


2. To celebrate, we went to the Original Steakhouse and Sports Theater. Normally, going to a sports bar for your anniversary might not be all that glamorous, but this was the restaurant where Courtney started going into labor almost exactly 7 months to the minute before our dinner last night. This was our first time back there since, to eat the dinner that we missed that night. We brought Jacob along this time as well. I had wanted to bring along the camera so that I could take an updated shot (Courtney and Jacob together) of this infamous picture of Courtney going into labor as we waited for our table, but alas, I forgot the camera at the last minute. By that look on her face, two years is a miracle.

-Mike

Laughter

Jacob recently had one of my most favorite milestones; he laughed at something that was situationally funny. While we have been able to make him laugh for quite a bit by tickling him, the other day was a completely different story.

I was feeding Jacob dinner and as I cleaned up afterwards, accidently dropped his spoon right on top of his highchair tray. I immediately sayed, "UH OH". What followed was the most adorable noise I have ever heard; little baby giggles! So, while the neighbors probably though I was the crazy lady next door, I continued to drop the spoon and express my dismay while my little man laughed his little head off.

As soon as Mike walked in the door from work, of course he had to show him too!

Although we are terrible parents and did not get that moment on video, we did capture his tickle induced laughter for your viewing pleasure.

-Courtney

Baptism pics

Again, as promised, more baptism pics are on the website. Click here to view. Special thanks to the Godfather and his photographer.

My first 5k

After getting my feet wet (with mixed results) with a 3.5 mile run in June, I decided (at the urging of Courtney) to try another race. On Saturday, I ran my first 5k.

It was right here in town, so it's not like I needed to go out of my way. It wasn't a huge race, just 128 people finished, but I think I ended up liking that about it. I had three goals going in:

1. finish without walking
2. run 10 minute miles or better
3. beat at least 10 people (I really didn't want to be last)

I finished without walking and ran a 31:09 (slightly slower than 10 minute miles, but close enough for my tastes).

I came in last in my age group (20-29). I was 10 out of 10. The #9 guy beat me by more than 2.5 minutes. Though really, I was also the old man of the group. I beat a 31 yr old guy by about 10 seconds and I beat a 30 yr old guy by more than a minute in the next age group up.

There was a really old guy who looked like he could barely walk, but he stayed just ahead of me the entire race. I was kind of demoralized that I could never catch him. He was 74. Actually, all three guys that were 70+ beat me. I came in 55 of 67 guys though, so I did beat >10 guys.

I would have come in 30 of 61 women. I would have been 6 of 15 in the women's group of my age. So combined, I came in like 15th of 24 people in my age group. Sure, I only beat women, but that's not all that bad.

Overall, I came in 84 of 128. I beat 44 people. I'm okay with that for my first 5k. In fact, I am so okay with that, that I think I am going to try to run a couple more this fall. Though we'll see how that goes.

Mike

6 month pictures

As promised, we were able to get some the pictures that we had professionally taken up on the website. These are soft copies that they gave us to preview, not the pictures that we bought scanned, so they have the stupid logo thing over them to make you buy from them rather than printing, but this was a lot easier and good enough quality. I didn't put all of them up. To see some of the better ones, you'll have to stop by the house. We can't show you everything or else no one will ever come to visit!

Jacob's half birthday

Yesterday was Jacob's half birthday. Six months has just flown by and been some of the happiest of our lives. Coincidentally, he is also up to six teeth. This fact impressed the doctor yesterday during his routine visit for some shots. She said that she couldn't ever remember seeing a baby with that many teeth at this age. I guess that's a good thing? He's up to 22 pounds now, which keeps him in the 95th percentile. He's in the 75th percentile for height, down slightly from his last visit.

To celebrate his half birthday, I picked up some cupcakes on my way home from work. For half a year, he got half a cupcake, of which we allowed him to eat about a finger full. He seemed to really enjoy it....not eating it so much, but playing with it definitely. As you can see from the picture at left, he's also been eating Cheerios. He had a few from Courtney's bowl over the weekend, and yesterday we caught him picking them up and eating them all on his own. Very exciting stuff.

After our little "party," Courtney left for the gym and Jacob and I had ourselves a little "guys tonight in." I can't understand how this baby is so happy all the time. Sure, he has his moments, but they seem to be becoming fewer and farther in between. Instead, he fills his day with playing and laughing (he's been laughing for a few weeks now. He started giggling a couple months ago. The laughs started right around the time we discovered him to be extremely ticklish) and flirting with women (he loves to smile at women when we are out) and smiling and just being a really happy baby. Between him and Porter (fast becoming one of Jacob's best friends), it's hard to get too upset about anything anymore when you are surrounded by a baby and dog thrilled to be around you every waking moment. So we had a great time playing and laughing last night....just the guys. Then he went right to sleep when I put him down without crying at all. Such a great baby. Could Courtney and I really be responsible for this?

Last weekend, our family came into town for Jacob's baptism. He also got his first haircut and his "6 month pictures" taken. I've posted pics from some of these events on the website, but we still need to get our hands on some of the better pics from the baptism and perhaps scan and post some of the professional photos we got...that might take some time, but I'll be sure to let everyone know when those are up.

Mike

We're back!

Needless to say, we've had some issues with the WordPress blog. After switching formats earlier this year, things didn't exactly go as planned and now no one seems to be able to tell us where our old blog went. It just disappeared and no one wants to take responsibility. It looks like we are never going to find it, which is disappointing to us, but we can't let this slow us down any longer.

If you've been following the pictures on the website, we've been up to an awful lot over the past few months. We'll try to come up with some form of update for everyone ASAP. Going forward, be sure to check back here often as your new way to keep up with all the goings on for Team Swierczek.

Mike

PS- Sorry to keep switching up the blog on everyone.