The New Partain Family Adventures...

Hello All--I am transferring this blog to a new one, since I cannot use my new gmail account on this one. Annoying, I know, but, so far they can't transfer them yet! So, here's our new blog address, and I'll be updating that one from now on. Don't worry, though, this one will still be up, for folks to reference, if needed!

NEW BLOG ADDRESS: http://morepartainfamily.blogspot.com/

Christmas Fun!

***Warning: The post you are about to view contains many many pictures of people most of you probably don't know. Feel free to skim over, as it is designed to show our time in Nashville to those who wanted to be there (and are probably related to us) and will enjoy looking at the photos. Otherwise, enjoy reliving our Christmas adventures!***

Christmas Eve in our beautiful chapel, lit by four lanterns to represent Christ as the light of the world.

The next five hours were spent driving to Franklin, TN to be with family. Amos slept the whole way there and was ready to party! We stayed up waaaay too late! Here he opens a box from Great Grandma Sheehan, who sent a new riding toy (from second cousin Danny) and a big crane!

Christmas morning was beautiful, complete with a toasty fire and packages under the tree!

Amos was the only one to receive presents from Santa this year...a cleaning set, cookie cutters, a coloring book and crayons, a wooden doggie and some shakers!







Dad got a remote controlled helicopter that he flew around the living room!





A little people bus from Great Grandma!!







This year was a step up for Joel, who in years past had wrapped presents in plastic grocery bags. This year, he glued the newspaper wrap, using what he had at home!





Amos enjoyed his african drum from Aunt Bethany and Uncle Dan; and just as Joel opened his african chess set, Bethany called from Malawi to wish us Merry Christmas!

Amos went from toys to....tupperware!

Wish you were here...

We spent Christmas night with the Partains and were treated to many more gifts and awesome cooking by Aaron, even on his day off!

Mama P loved her gift from Papa P!

Not taking it personally, Grammy Carole hugs Amos good bye.

The next day, Wednesday, Amos and his Grandaddy began the day by reading "What is the What?".

And after a day of post Christmas shopping, the guys prepare to hook up the new TV.

Mom was quite sad that the TV her parents gave us finally gave out.



Good bye to Uncle Jesse.


Amos' first and second attempts at photography...not bad!!


...play with the new TV box and snow shovel!





Saturday we took a trip to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum downtown and enjoyed the Ray Charles exhibit.






We felt like Nashville tourists, walking down Broadway to Jack's BBQ restaurant for the best BBQ I've ever had!


Amos played his fly swatter guitar that night, thoroughly inspired! And no, he doesn't want flies with that!


Sunday morning we woke up to deer in the front yard!



After a play on the Meeks Grandparents playground, we headed home. After a long nap, Amos tried out his new water paint activity and really enjoyed it!

Mmmmmm...

We've arrived back at home, safe and sound after a day of driving. To tell you the truth, this year, leaving the homestead in rural Franklin, TN, felt like we were leaving home to go "home", as Indy still doesn't have that history yet. I remember this feeling from when I first lived in Seattle, only, that was further away. The only comforting thing about coming back here was that Nathan was already home, since Friday, and was awaiting our arrival. He has been quite lonely, but has worked alot so as to spend more time with us in the next few days! :)
Amos did well with the family, mostly. His pesky tooth to the left of the front tooth finally started cutting through last night, explaining his clinginess and refusal to let me leave the room without sobbing. I am a bit exhausted by it all especially the sleeping on me and in my bed bits (which we shall try to change in 2008!!) and am glad to be back with Nathan, the only other person he's happy with! Other than that, it was great to see our families, the time spent together feeling too short and finding us hoping for another visit! Amos enjoyed Christmas morning, being the only one visited by Santa this year. He delighted in his gifts from all of his family and looks forward to becoming quite proficient in coloring, house cleaning, working with tools, playing the piano, reading and being so dang cute. Thanks to Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Great Grandmas and Second Cousins for making this one so special!!
Photos will eventually be posted of our fun.

Merry Christmas!!!

Today is going to be a day of getting ready to go to TN and be with family tomorrow. Nathan has to work a bit, for the service tonight, and I am going to wrap presents and pack!

So to all of our family far away (sniffle, we miss you Beth and Dan!) and to our Seattle family (we miss you too), we wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy New Year.

with love, the Partains

Merry Christmas with the Partains!

Today we, in our little Partain family, celebrated our own Christmas together, exhanging gifts and hanging out. After lunch we wrapped presents while Amos napped and then sipped hot cocoa, watched the snow flurries whirl around outside and opened gifts. It was a magical afternoon, listening to A Charlie Brown Christmas and other such music. We had a great day together, topped off by dinner and a movie: our favorite pizza and salad and the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (which was pretty good, but very long!). Here's our day in pictures...

Amos and his new favorite toy: the tube of wrapping paper!

Showing off his new shirt; it reads "I am one of a kind!" I thought it was perfect for him!

Amos plays in his new kitchen, beside the new refridgerator!!!!

Thanks, Berends, for such a fun toy!

Checking out the nativity.

The scene from our front porch


Amos helped his Dad unwrap an electric tea kettle for his office.

And Amos got a new phone, with buttons that light up! (What a great find at Goodwill! The sound doesn't work any more...too bad!!)

"Hello...?"

Nathan wrapped my new Portishead cd in a cereal box so I would not suspect anything!

He was also very excited to receive the gray scarf that he picked out at Old Navy yesterday, wrapped up!

Amos got a cool new bathtub xylaphone from our family in NY. Thanks Kaynard Walls!!

Nathan wrapped my lovely new pink hat in the butter box...the sugar box was yet to be opened!
Mmmmm...hot cocoa in my new pink hat and scarf!


Our budding musician, mastering one instrument at a time and being so cute about it!

Daddy unwraps a big box and takes time to play in the wrapping paper!

"Ooooooooooooo..."

And to go with the tea kettle, a very masculine and asian-inspired tea set for his office so he can have hospitable meetings there!


Another present from Meryl, Gerry, Rebecca and Emma: hand puppets for the bathtub!!

...lovin' the xylaphone!

....And time to play with the trash...classic!


Amos enjoyed hitting the water with the drumsticks and didn't really play the xylaphone in the bath. Oh well, there's always tomorrow!

One more thing: today is my Grandma Sheehan's 75th birthday!! I am so glad we get to celebrate another year together and look forward to our next visit!

Merry Christmas at the Children's Museum!!

Amos and I had such a fun day, going to the Children's Museum to check out their special Christmas set-up. I know, I thought too that it would be crazy today, but it turned out to be fine and lots of fun.

We started up at the special Christmas section, Jolly Days. There were many strollers parked outside the door, so I figured it would be quite busy. I was right. There were kids running around everywhere and the line to see Santa was really long. So, we walked in and went to the "ice" castle first, that had a cool slide. Since Amos has worked on his sliding skills since our last visit, I thought it would be fun for him to give it a shot. After almost getting run over by many rambunctious older and bigger kids and then being helped at the slide, by a lady who thought she was helping (she wasn't), we decided to head over to the ice fishing display where Amos pretended to catch a giant fish!

We then saw where the sitting on Santa's lap area was but, Amos was more enthralled with the train that was set up in a plexiglass box, that had buttons for you to push and make it go!

I decided that we wouldn't really need to sit on Santa's lap and decided to head for our favorite part of the museum, Playscape, where they have tons of fun things for you to do, play with and crawl over. When we first walked in, we saw the water section, which made Amos very excited and say please, emphatically. We spent half an hour there playing, and he got super wet! But because of the special Christmas stuff going on, this part of the museum was quiet and not very busy at all, so we took advantage of that and played for a long time.


After the water play, we went over to the slide, which again, was totally empty. Amos had fun going up the stairs and down the slide, remembering to "turn around" and go down on his tummy, feet first. He loved it and it was a very fast slide!

He made a pit stop and pretended to be a little birdie!

And then it was down to play in the garden, which had puzzle-like pieces with veggies on them. He did a very good job putting the right shapes in the right holes.

There was a stop in the Hoosier dog house...

And the playhouse kitchen, complete with fake food and baby dolls.

Then we found the lawn mower, which I helped him stand up to push. He really loved this toy!!

And a stop in the mini bull dozer.

He rocked on the little airplane a bit and then crawled over to the padded crawling area for babies, which is also very fun (not pictured).

I looked that the time and saw that it was lunch time. I thought that maybe the line for Santa might be shorter and decided to go check it out. The wait only took five minutes and after debating on whether or not to order pictures, I decided not to, that I would do my own! :)

When it came to be our turn, as soon as Santa turned Amos around to sit on his lap, Amos arched his back and started screaming. I think it was a combonation of being tired and hungry, and the fact that it wasn't me, and some strange bearded fellow, didn't help. So I grabbed Amos, handed the camera to the photographer and posed with Santa, too. This helped a bit, although, I don't think Amos was convinced! After viewing the pics later, I was glad I didn't order any, as this was fun to capture, but not something I would want to pay money for!

The look on Santa's face is priceless!

...doing somewhat better!

After seeing Santa, we headed down for lunch, figuring that if we took long enough, we would be able to pick Nathan up from work and then run errands, hopefully with a sleeping little guy in the backseat. Our plan turned out to work and after lunch and finding a lost shoe, we met up with Nathan and drove up to the mall area, while Amos was fast asleep. Now, talk about crazy, the traffic up there was awful! I guess it is the Saturday before Christmas...I'll enjoy it while it lasts!
Our day ended with dinner with the Berends, which was so great. Having them into our house, finally, was so much fun. The kids played all over the house as we sat and caught up. We had great wine, dessert and tea and loved being together again.

17 months, 17 lbs!

Today we went in for the RSV antibodies shot and found out that Amos is 17 lbs, 3 ozs in weight! Which matches the fact that he'll be 17 months old tomorrow!
He is healthy otherwise, finally kicking the cough and runny nose that were holding on. We are going to begin daily steroid treatments to maintain healthy lungs, so hopefully that helps this winter.
He has been super interested in the Christmas tree, but not naughty about it. He sits and asks politely to do an ornament and waits for me to come and help him. I am actually really impressed that he hasn't taken all of the ornaments off or knocked the tree down all together! The few phrases that we have taught him seem to be paying off. He likes to stand up on the couch, to which we say, "On your knees!" and of course, going off of or down high things gets a "Turn around!"
The funniest thing today was watching Amos with the TV cords that you use to connect the DVD or VCR player to the TV. He had the cords out and amazingly, was trying to plug them into the right holes on the side of the TV. He is our little genius (thanks Meeks and Partains for such great genes!) and we look forward to trying to keep his little brain healthy and challenged!