Meet the Fullers

My cousin Darren and his wife Annie welcomed their new son, Jacob Stephen Lawson, yesterday, August 27, at 4:02 a.m. He beat out his second cousin Jack for title of "Smallest Peanut" with a birth weight of 5 pounds, 6 ounces. Congratulations, Darren and Annie!

We traditionally went to both Rockford and Peoria for Christmas; it was a lot of packing and hauling and travel, but it was fun and we did it knowing that we'd eventually want to have Christmas eve and morning at our own house when we had children. That time is here! We have tentatively set up a plan where we spend Thanksgiving with either John's parents or mine, and then the parents who hosted Thanksgiving are invited to join us at our house for Christmas eve and morning. Then we travel to the other parents' house either later in the day on Christmas or the next day. This year, we hosted John's parents and his aunt and uncle. It was a great success, and we had a lot of fun!

After Christmas morning with John's parents and Aunt and Uncle, we did a bit of cleanup, fed the cats, and then packed up and headed out for Christmas round 2 with my parents in Rockford. We arrived about 4 pm...

On the afternoon of the 26th we stopped over to see my Dad. He was supposed to come in and visit us on 12/23, but he was ill and couldn't make it, so we got together in Rockford instead. He was impressed with how much Jack has grown (he weighed 15 pounds, 4 ounces at the Doctor on 12/27! Way to go, Peanut!) and how active he is. John and I joke now that it's less like having a baby and more like having a baby badger. He's very active and twisty-a fact my Dad found out first hand trying to hold him.

We exchanged gifts, and also tried to help my Dad set up his Tivo we gave him-there have been some technical difficulties, but hopefully he's on the path to getting it set up and joining the "tivolution".

We went out to Rockford and Nana and Grandpa Rich's house for Easter. We headed out on Saturday (after a stop to buy our new car, a la Nana and Grandpa). We had dinner with my parents, and then John and I got to go out with Falconers, et al sans baby.

Sunday John's parents came up to Rockford as well, and we had Easter dinner with everyone. Jack got to wear his adorable little Kenneth Cole blazer from Suzanne, and generally was the entertainment for us all.

We visited two beaches in Florida: Vanderbilt Beach in Naples

and what seems to be called the "Resident's beach-South" on Marco Island (per Gino's reco)

The weather was beautiful-high 80s, blue skies, sunny. I never used to see the point of a beach vacation (so much to see! why lay around?) but I could have drifted in the ocean for hours quite jhappily. As it was, we immensely enjoyed our beach visits. Jack liked playing in the sand, and lloved the seashells. In fact, we found one in his mouth (!) at Vanderbilt that he managed to sneak in when we weren't looking. Guess that which does not kill him makes him stronger...

A one act play starring Sophie le Giraffe from The Fullers on Vimeo.

Happy First Birthday, Jack! You are such a light in our lives, and we love you so much!

Some pictures used with permission from Andrew Falconer and Richard Tomlinson.

We're a bit behind in posting this...at least we got it up before July!

Jack's first birthday party was on Sunday, June 1 at 2 pm. John designed the invitations, and he made Jack a fancy t-shirt with a "1" on it to wear. John's parents, my mom and step-dad, my dad, and the Tomlinsons, Falconers, Goodnights, and the Gilchrists joined us for a beautiful afternoon of grilling out, playing with the kids, and celebrating.

Jack's First Birthday Party from The Fullers on Vimeo.

One of the really nice things about going on vacation to Door County again with John's family was that they offered to babysit Jack a couple of nights. John and I got to go out to Trio for dinner on tuesday night of our week.

We planned two vacations at once in February—one for Florida and another for Door County in July with the Fuller grandparents and Aunt Marge and Uncle Don. We finally got to July and it was time to go! Here's some photos and a video from a fish boil at the White Gull Inn—a Fuller family tradition.

Jack at the White Gull Fish Boil from The Fullers on Vimeo.

Grandpa Rick came in August and we went to the Brookfield Zoo for a visit. We took advantage of our member tickets and went to see the Dolphin Show. Jack liked it fine, but loves to watch them swim underwater best.

John and I celebrated our fifth anniversary on September 6th. It was a lovely day, and we started off with breakfast at Blueberry Hill in La Grange with Jack. We went spur-of-the moment iPhone shopping for John's upcoming birthday, and my parents came to babysit while John and I had a nice dinner out. We all had a nice day at Brookfield zoo the next day. Jack loves the dolphins!

Continue for video of Jack "brushing" the goats...

I went to our friend Erin's baby shower on October 11th-it was a beautiful day! When I got home, John was just about to take Jack to the little corner park on our block, Hessler Park. I joined them, and Jack had a lot of fun sliding and running and learning how to drink out of the water fountain. We met another little family who had a 21 month old son as well; they live in the neighborhood, and had just moved here from the city. Hopefully we'll run into them again!

We stopped into the Pleasant Prairie Jelly Belly distribution center for a tour and some samples-Jack seemed to really enjoy it!

Several years ago, we bought a Lomographic Action Sampler camera to play with. John took some great pics of me at the apple orchard, so we thought we'd get it out again and try it with our new favorite model. Check out the fun results!

We took a trip out to see Nana for her birthday and make our annual pilgrimage to Edward's Apple Orchard. After we bought our cider donuts (and ate two each, natch) we took Jack out to the pumpkin patch to run around a bit.

We have a lot of trees in our yard. Every year we bag more leaves than the last, it seems, so this year we recruited a "little" help. Jackie even got his own little rake, and it was cute to watch him try to put his leaves in the bag. He took his helping very seriously, and didn't really want to even stop to jump in leaf piles.