the balloon

last week tuesday we went out for our annual fat tuesday celebration at pete's brass rail with the rest of the gang. as soon as we got there the kids got beads and balloons, including gerrit and the balloon has been his favorite ever since it lost some air and came down to his level. so it might not be the most child friendly, but it is keeping our little sickie quite content. so we keep a close watch on him as he bites and even lays on it, just waiting for it to pop, scare him, and come in for the quick take away. so far, so good.

what have we been up to?

obviously we haven't been blogging, but we have been busy. we have been to the park, taking walks (or naps for some) to the library, visiting with friends, finding a new fascination with toilet water, and learning how to wave, make fish faces, and high fives. see the slide show below of all we have been up to.

not so small

a few of us have recently formed the 'big baby club' and the newest member is lincoln brooks weighing in and taking the lead at 10lb 2oz! not small, but quite cute and shelly is looking fabulous! i got to visit the latest addition to the brooks family in the hospital yesterday and gerrit can't wait to meet him and play with the rest of the gang on saturday. check out the photo of mommy and baby lincoln.

sun & fun, puke & poop

we survived our first padmos christmas vacation with a baby in tow. definitely different from past vacations, but it was fun watching gerrit eat sand, splashing in the pool, and playing with his cousins. in the midst of all the fun, we also had a little sickness. gerrit had his first bout with the flu and we had our first experience with puke. and in the midst of all of this he got his first two teeth.

our days mostly consisted of sitting by the pool or down at the beach. as predicted, gerrit went straight for the sand, but we found the pacifier limited the intake and spent more time in the pool. breakfast was at whichever room was up and had food for us, lunch and happy hour on beppe and pake's porch, and dinner was typically out (with beppe keeping the kids occupied with presents, crafts, or other activities).

we took a few day excursions. one was to the rain forest where hugh got to test out the capabilities of his new camera while a gondola took us through a wet rain forest. we also took a day trip to soufriere--the day included our first taste of johnny cakes (fried goodness), getting a back massage from a water fall, a drive-in volcano, lunch between the pitons, lots of rabid dogs and of course there was the memorable blow-out which took three people to change on the side of the road.

we had a great time with family, but we are also glad to be back to the old routine. i have included a slide show of a few of our pictures, but check out all the photos here. we hope everyone is enjoying the new year!

last blog of the year

it is busy here in the johnston household as we prepare for the annual padmos christmas vacation. we are off to st. lucia this year and gone are the days of no worries as we sip grant's rum punch and watch our brothers and sisters chase after their kids. now we are already worried about whether we have enough baby food and diapers and we haven't even left the house yet. it will be an adventure, to say the least.

as i was getting out our passports, i had a little chuckle as i looked at gerrit's picture and thought the rest of you might enjoy it too. hugh and i took gerrit to the post office to get his first passport when he was about 6 weeks old (going on 85 in the picture). if you look closely, you will notice it is actually a picture of hugh and gerrit as hugh is holding him up against the backdrop. the funniest part is that he will have this picture until he is 5.

we have had a busy weekend of basketball games, packing, dinner with friends, and a web cam christmas with the johnstons and sharps in colorado on saturday morning. we hope each of you has a very merry christmas and we will be back with more monkey tales in the new year.

technology these days

this past weekend we celebrated "christmas" with the padmos family with a gift exchange. our tradition is to draw names between the kids and grandkids and then open them when the den dulks arrive in california from michigan. we had a bit of a dilemma this year as the den dulks aren't making a trip out to california, but meeting us all in st. lucia. so we had to get a bit creative this year for our gift exchange--in comes the christmas web cam!

all those in california gathered around beppe and pake's computer while the den dulks gather around theirs in grand rapids and via the web cam we watched everyone open each others gifts. it was chaotic, but not necessarily the same chaos that occurs when six grandchildren (now seven with gerrit) open presents in beppe and pake's living room leaving behind ribbons, boxes, tissue, and opened toy boxes. check out the photo of arie opening his gift in california as ellie watches in michigan.

we even got great-grandma padmos talking on the web cam. if it boggles our heads, i sure would like to know what is going on in her mind. on the right is a picture of grandma padmos talking to ellie, abel, and peri.

gerrit enjoyed his first "christmas." of course, he probably enjoyed eating the tissue, chewing on the ribbons and climbing in the boxes a little more this year. he is looking forward to another web cam christmas this coming weekend as we exchange gifts with the sharps and oma and grandpa in colorado.

no stopping him

there seems to be no stopping gerrit now. he has mastered the crawl, is on the move, and seems to want to, and can, get into everything of mommy and daddy's. it is like babies are born with this inside knowledge of what is a toy and then a radar to find everything that isn't. he still gets excited when he spots something, like he did when he was "creeping," but now we just have a little less time to get between the object and the crawler.

check out a rather lengthy video of the crawler below.