Baby's first abacus

For Christmas, Dad made a few neat items in the basement. First off, he made a nutcracker for each family (and brought a bag of assorted nuts) - us, Doug & Sarah, Krista & Abe, and Becca & Josh. He also made a little rolling toy for Jacob and one for Toby. And for Reed, he made this block toy, to which Reed has taken to playing.

Christmas was fun; we went to Doug & Sarah's for Christmas Eve. The next morning, we had our small family gift opening at 6:30am. Since the boys were up, we all were up, and we figured we might as well start it off. (I gave Andrea a nice vacuum-insulated travel coffee mug and some Caribou Coffee grounds; she gave me a zafu.) Later on, my parents came over and we had a huge breakfast -- some egg bake, Hungarian Coffee Cake, venison and pork bacon, and so on. Yum. After noon, we all went to Doug & Sarah's house for social time, some drinks, and later dinner. It was a great day.

New Year's Eve, we're planning on hosting my family (including Nate and Lonnea), but no spectacular plans. Probably dinner and a few drinks. Last year, we didn't stay up very late (11pm, maybe?). We'll see about it this year.

Ah, I see you have the machine that goes "PING"!

My car was making a rather loud noise when traveling above two miles per hour, so Dad and I went about fixing it tonight. He guessed it was a rear wheel bearing gone bad, so I picked up the whole hub assembly for $100. The only problem was that we didn't have a clue which one it was -- neither of us could tell whether it was the driver's or passenger's side that was all hosed up. We guessed on the passenger's side, and - lucky for us - we were right.

The four of us headed out to Mom and Dad's place, but it started to get late, so Andrea took the boys home, but not before Jacob was able to lend a helping hand.

I still need to replace the timing belt; while I have no clue whether it truly needs it or not, the car has about 110k miles on it, and I think it's about time to do it.

Getting the Christmas tree

Today we went to Jan's Tree Farm to go Christmas tree hunting. It was a bit cold out for Reed to go, so he and Andrea stayed back at Mom and Dad's house while Jacob and I went with them. Since we have an artificial tree at home, Jacob won't be doing this unless we go with my parents. I have fond memories from my childhood of going out (often behind our house on long walks) to find a tree, then we would cut it down and haul it back to the house. (I'm sure Dad did 99% of the work.)

Dad, Jacob and I played for a bit on a pile of straw that was half maze, half climbing structure. He loved it. Then we went on a horse-drawn carriage ride around the tree farm. It got a bit cold out there, but it was definitely worth it. I'm looking forward to bringing Reed out in a couple years as well.