A Splendid Christmas Video

Merry Christmas!

A developmental milestone...or something

According to one of our child rearing books the above video shows a major developmental milestone. We just think it's cute that Harrison is playing with stuff now.

To make this post worthwhile we'll include a couple of photos.

Cute, but dangerous

Harrison had his two month check up this afternoon and he's doing great. After starting out wiry, he's anything but now. Harrison is now 24 inches long and weighs an even 13 pounds. His length and height are both in the 75th percentile. So while he's kept his pace with his height, he's pretty much exploded with the weight. He's been sucking down 6 ounces at each feeding for over a month now...BUT he's eating less frequently and sleeping for much longer stretches.

We like that very much.


We've alluded to Harrison's violent behavior directed towards Craig numerous times in the blog. We now have photographic evidence. The above photo shows the crazy eyes Harrison makes moments before he attacks and below shows Harrison tossing a punch. We can add that he never swings at Laura. He's a true gentleman.

I'll smack you in the mouth, I'm Neil Diamond!

Harrison has used his strong arm tactics to kick Craig out of the recliner, which he has effectively claimed as his own.

Go get me a beer. I'm busy watching SportsCenter.

Finally, Harrison sitting in front of his first Christmas tree. We're looking forward to seeing everyone over the holiday's, but if we don't see you...Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Willie, The Dude and Lester

Harrison had his portrait taken this weekend by a semi-professional that his Aunt Lizzie knows. Laura says the photo session went really well, which you can judge for yourself by looking at the photos posted below (we have permission to post these, don't worry).



Craig's a big fan of the photos in general, but a little unsure about the Santa outfit, which may qualify as torture under the Geneva Conventions.

Moving along, for no real reason, here's a photo of Harrison and Otis that's cute.


Here's Harrison strapped into his car seat with the hat Laura says is "cute."


We've decided to get a little experimental with the blog. Here we have Harrison cam, life through the eyes of Harrison.



And now, Laura cam.


Finally, people who know Craig know that he loves Willie Nelson.

Willie - along with The Dude, and Lester Burnham - are three characters, fictional and non-fictional, that Craig aspires to be more like.

The Dude

Lester Burnham, at left

Anywho, Craig has discovered recently, much to his happiness, that Harrison is a big fan of Willie Nelson's album Stardust.

Stardust calms Harrison down when he's riled up. Particularly the song "All of Me." Since Craig and Laura often disagree on music tastes it's heartening for Craig to have Harrison taking his side early on.

Person of the Century?

Every once in awhile Harrison would smile, and while it was cute, we knew it was just gas. But now Harrison is either incredibly gassy or incredibly happy, since he is smiling a lot lately. This is the best picture we've been able to get of the smile.

While trying to capture a shot of Harrison's smile, Laura snapped this photo which has Craig thinking big about Harrison's future. Look familiar to anyone else?
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Could Harrison be Time Magazine's Person of the 21st Century?

Gobbles!

We - being Craig and Laura - are generally a pretty thankful couple. We've lived a pretty good life to this point and we know it. But this year we're especially thankful because of the addition of Harrison. He had as good of a Thanksgiving as a six-week old can possibly have. Above, he's hanging out with his Great-Grandpa Corsten on Thanksgiving at Craigs' cousin Jenny's place. Harrison enjoyed his milk while the rest of the Corsten fam dined on turkey. It was a splendid day.

While we were in GB we brought Harrison over to see his Great-Great-Grandpa Jerry, who is quite spry for 96 years. We took a five-generation photo with his Grandpa Phil and his Great-Grandma Jane, which was pretty neat. Grandpa Jerry also gave Harrison a clock that he made, which we'll put in Harrison's room.

Photo break

Bonus Story

If it flies, it dies!

Grandpa Phil recently shot a banded goose. He's proud of almost everything he shoots (except for the time he shot a man, true story) but he was especially proud of his banded goose. After he cleaned it to make delicious goose sticks, he called in the number on the band and the U.S. Geological Survey sent him a neat certificate showing where the goose was banded and how old it was at the time. Phil's goose was banded in Plover, Wis. in 2006 when it was too young to fly. Phil is exceedingly proud of his certificate, which he framed and shows everyone who visits. Harrison included.

The Boxer

Harrison is over a month now, almost six weeks old. He's eating a ton, sleeping a ton and pooping less. He appears to be growing quite a bit as well. And he's strong. Real strong. Harrison is lifting his head and looking around, headbutting Craig and punching him in the jaw every chance he gets.

Harrison is really enjoying his pimp chair. He gets to sit in style and show everyone how strong his neck is. As you can tell by the photo, it's pretty much old hat for him at this point.

We had Harrison baptized Sunday morning at our church and it was a big family affair. All of his immediate family came and so did his great-grandparents. His Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Aaron are the godparents and they're doing a pretty good job so far. I think Laura set the spoiling bar pretty high with the spoiling she did of Abby, so Aaron and Lizzie got a lot of spoiling work to do.


Aaron and Liz with Craig, Laura, Harrison and Pastor Dressel. He did a bang up job with the baptism and even used a clean bowl of water. NICE! I have no idea who the kid is in the foreground. He appears to be contemplating something (maybe his relationship with God?), or licking something off his finger.


Harrison with his great-grandparents Corsten.


Harrison with his grandma and grandpa Franz and his cousins Ben and Abby. They're real gems. All of them.


Harrison meeting his uncle Alex for the first time. I'm sure Harrison is going to be really impressed with Alex as he grows up. We're all very impressed with Alex.

Watching inappropriate tv with Harrison

We really wish we had some cute stories about Harrison, but we don't. He eats, he sleeps, he poops. Occasionally he makes a cute face.


Our friends Chris and Nicole came to visit last weekend and brought their kid Brady. Him and Otis really took a shine to one another, with Brady opening his mouth to receive kisses from Otis and squealing in delight. Dogs kissing babies is fine and all, but we were a little concerned about how often Otis attempted to mount Brady. That should make for some interesting times once Harrison is crawling. Otis used to also enjoy mounting our nephew Ben when he was crawling around in fuzzy little outfits. Must be an inviting target for a dog as randy as Otis.


Here we have a picture of Harrison in one of his adorable baseball outfits. Unfortunately, it's November, but spring training is just around the corner. Craig can't wait to watch a lot of baseball and drink beer with Harrison come spring. Well, Harrison probably won't be drinking much beer, but Craig will.

Finally, since Craig is pretty sure Harrison isn't absorbing much of the language at this point, him and Harrison have been bonding by watching South Park together while mom naps. The steady laughing from Craig rocks Harrison gently to sleep at first, but then jerks him wide awake when Craig launches into a full fledged laughing fit.


Harrison as a South Park character. The resemblance is striking.

AAAAHHHHHH!

Hitting the road for the first time

In case anyone needed to be reminded of Harrison's adorableness, we kick off this post with a really cute photo of him.

Moving along, Harrison and Otis are slowly becoming best pals. This is hard on Craig, since him and Otis previously were best pals. After being somewhat timid the first couple of days, Otis has really taken to Harrison. We even found Otis sleeping under the crib a few days ago, keeping a close eye on the little guy.



Harrison also took his first trip, to visit Grandma and Grandpa Franz up in Ho's Grove. While it was nice to get him out of the house, Harrison didn't care for sleeping while we were there, which made for a long weekend. While he was there Harrison spent a lot of time cuddling with Grandma and got to meet his Great Grandma Franz for the first time.

Cuddling with Grandma

Spending quality time with his Great Grandma