Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Last May, Elijah was chosen from his swim class to participate in a photo shoot for some marketing material. We agreed to do it and he had a blast spending hours in the pool with Tyla, an instructor and a photographer in scuba gear. They promised to send us one of the photos as a thank you for participating but they ended up sending us a bunch (it just took a very long time.) If you go to the Water Babies website, you can see they even chose one of the photos of Elijah to use on their site. If you’re looking for a swim program for your kids, Tyla and I both recommend this one!

Voila! There is our 2016 Christmas card. This year as I was addressing them, I thought it would be fun to put all of the addresses on a map. I used the mapping feature of Excel to do it in case you’re curious.

Elijah loves music and regularly bursts out in song when you least expect it. If you’re shopping at Safeway at the same time as us, you might hear Jesus Loves Me or Jingle Bells (at any time of the year.)

I thought it would be fun to look back on these songs when he’s older so here’s a list of what I think are his top songs right now. The first three are from the Cars soundtrack.

• Chuck Berry – Route 66
• Rascal Flatts – Life is a Highway
• The Chords – Sh-Boom
• Peter, Paul and Marry – Puff the Magic Dragon
• Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside
• Away in the Manger
• Jingle Bells
• Now Thank We All Our God
• A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
• Little Drummer Boy

I’m sure I’m forgetting a ton more but this is a pretty good start.

Seattle is a very mild climate. The ocean and the sound keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer. That being said, every once in a while, cold weather aligns with wet weather and we get snow. It hasn’t happened in a few years, but if we get enough to cover the roads, it usually shuts everything down. I made fun of people for this when I moved here, but quickly learned that it really is hazardous. The roads usually start wet, then freeze, then get covered in snow. There are hills everywhere and oh yeah, there are only a handful of plows to cover the entire area. Thankfully a few years ago they changed the laws to allow the use of salt on the roads.

Anyway, we finally got a good snow the other day and it was perfect timing for Elijah to play in it. He has seen snow a few times before, but never at our house. We headed straight out as soon as we were up and he played in the snow with Tyla from 7:30 until noon with only a short break to warm up and change clothes. We had a couple sleds in the garage and those were a big hit. There were some roads in the neighborhood that were steep enough for sledding. All of the neighbor lawns were quickly covered in snowmen. Elijah had a lot of fun telling me about his big snow day!

Every year since Tyla and I met, we have purchased a new Christmas ornament at some point in the year. (And every year I write a blog post that starts with a sentence like that.) This year we took two vacations and bought an ornament from each one. The first was a trip to Great Wolf Lodge and the second was our weekend in a caboose. The Great Wolf Lodge ornament was pretty easy since they had a gift shop full of choices, but for the caboose I had the idea to go on eBay and buy an HO scale version of the caboose we stayed in. It’s not exactly the same caboose number, but it’s the same generation and I’m not a train nerd so that works for me. I’m sure I enraged some of those train nerds when I drilled a hole through part of the caboose so I could hang it from the tree.

You can see our past ornaments in these posts: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2008-2010

Mom was surfing the internet a few weeks back and found some incredibly cheap plane tickets so she and Dad came out here for Halloween weekend. It was a trip that was too short, but you can’t argue with the price. We spent a lot of the time just hanging out at the house so they could get maximum Elijah-time. It was good to see them again, especially since we aren’t going back to Indiana for Christmas this year.

Elijah chose to be a bumblebee this year. I don’t know where it came from but he made a pretty cute bumblebee (and it was thankfully an easy costume to put together!) He got a lot of use out of his costume. He used it at our church’s Trunk or Treat program, a Microsoft family day, a nursing home program, and of course in the neighborhood on Halloween night. He didn’t care much about the candy he receives but he loved being on both ends of trick-or-treating.

Below are a couple photos of him in his costume. My favorite is one from church: he’s wearing a bee costume, wearing some silly glasses that he “won” playing a game and riding a tricycle.

The pumpkin patch is an annual tradition in our house. We’ve visited quite a few different ones but Bob’s Corn is our favorite. They have lots of activities, good food and, oh yeah, pumpkins. Ever wanted to shoot an apple out of a big air cannon? Bob’s Corn has you covered.

This year we snuck in on a day that looked a bit rainy so the crowds weren’t too big. We made the rounds and spent plenty of time watching Elijah ride a bike with training wheels. He’s really eager to get a “pedal bike” but we’re trying to get him comfortable on the Strider and skip training wheels. One of the tricycles was big enough to squeeze onto so I rode next to Elijah for a while and he got a huge kick out of that.

They also have a giant pile of pumpkins next to their barn which makes a great spot for photos…

Elijah started swim lessons a year ago (or was it two?) and he has been steadily moving up through the levels. Tyla is usually the one to take him to his lessons but I go every few months to see his progress. On this latest trip, I took the camera along and captured some video. This is totally one of those “proud dad” posts, but too bad. I love seeing him be obviously pushed outside of his comfort zone, make it through and then realize that he accomplished something he was hesitant about. It’s also nice to know that if he did fall into water, he’d have a chance at getting himself out.

It has been 10 months since the last update on Elijah. He has changed just a little bit since then…

He’s three years and three months old now and boy is it a big difference from a year ago. We’ve finally turned a corner and it feels like things are getting a little bit easier, specifically around bedtime. It makes our evenings a lot more enjoyable.

He just started preschool. We’re thankful that our church has a preschool so Elijah was already familiar with the building, the two teachers and some of the kids. He attends two days a week from 8-12. It’s a good opportunity for him to learn to take instruction from someone other than us.

I find that I’m able to do more activities with him around. The other day I set him down on the floor in the garage with a pile of Matchbox cars (thanks Ken!) and he played happily for an hour while I worked on some shop projects.

I know I’ll look back longingly on these early years, but right now I’m excited to be able to do more activities with him.