1. FREE.
2. Little or no wait. There’s no snaking line full of screaming, antsy children. You wait with a few other parents and in five minutes or so, it’s your turn.
3. You get a free 4 x 6 print. They take four or five pics, and you pick your own.
4. They also email you a copy.
5. Amazingly, they do not use your e-mail address to spam you with ads for Bering’s. Or if they do, Google’s spam filter is killing them softly and silently.

So anyway, you may remember last year’s horrifying / hilarious Santa shot, with Patrick seeming to cry and point, “J’accuse!”

Hilarious.

This year he was a bit more sanguine about the whole thing. Pleased, even. He even told Santa he wanted a fireman hat for Christmas. I think he’s much more likely get what he wants when he can relax a bit. Not sure about Santa though. He looks like a cry for help.

We should also note that we’ve been updating our Flickr a bit more often these days. Including adding a few shots to our much beloved (by us) photo set, Patrick’s Greatest Hits. I think two of the more recent ones deserve brief explanation.

Earlier in 2011, our friend Bev Caplan fell in love with Patrick and “his Stryper hair.” So much so that she vowed to make Patrick a Stryper Halloween costume. Specifically, Patrick would embody the blonde bomber, Stryper’s drumer, Robert Sweet. We sorta thought Bev would forget, but she actually kept reminding us about it. So on Halloween, her black and yellow dream came true. The best photo we have (above) is the one Bev took herself with her Android phone. But there are quite a few more on our Flickr, here and here.

You might have noticed my supporting costume, but I cannot take credit for owning a vintage Stryper tee. It actually belongs to Bev’s husband and all around legend, Ty Mahany. I don’t have time to tell you how awesome these two people are, but you can see the photographic evidence. Thanks to Ty and Bev for the best Halloween memory ever.

When we went to Sea World, I took a ton of photos, but none were as good as this that one Jordan’s sister took. Is he looking at sharks? Rays? Those fish that look like Nemo? I dunno. We were too busy looking at Patrick and Gage as they had the time of their lives.

Last, but certainly not least, you should head over to Framed By Fletcher. We had Jonathan Fletcher take a ton of photos with us and Patrick in Hermann Park, and he’s put up 15 of the best shots on his blog. He just posted these this evening, so Jordan and I haven’t even seen all the photos, but we’re very happy with how these pics turned out. Patrick was so patient and happy as we walked all around the park taking photos for an hour and a half.

We can’t speak for him, but we think it was worth it.

That’s me at the top of a brand new Creative Playthings slide.

Today, courtesy of the Daddytypes blog, I came across a web site hawking a vintage 1950s model (not a replica). The price? $1700.

Not sure what my parents spent on ours, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t $1700. Even adjusting for inflation, that would have been pretty steep. I’m thinking somewhere between $30 and $50 bucks. This page from the 1979 Sears Wishbook backs me up with a similar model priced at $29.95.

Ah, nostalgia.

I can only afford the pictures.

He doesn’t really know about Christmas, or why Mommy and Daddy put up a tree. And then took down the tree. Or why he received a bunch of presents. Or what presents are.

 
But he’s got a lot of potential as for as Christmas spirit goes. At the very least, he’s got the good cheer part down.

Patrick plays his first piano with some help from Uncle Scott.

We’re excited our picture quality should be improving considerably in the new year. Jordan’s dad bought us a new camera: a Nikon D5000, and while we’re still learning the ropes, even its autofocus function is a big improvement over our old Canon point-and shoot.  Witness the great shot above, which is probably the best pic from our batch of holiday photos.

We were pretty excited to spend time with our extended family, in Bastrop and in Houston, and as expected, we had a blast:

 We wore awesome new Christmas / Winter clothes.

 
We met some new friends.

We ate like kings (and queens).

Jordan baked dessert.

 
We opened presents. The grandparents got just what they wanted: PoP (Pictures of Patrick).

And we bridged generations, with great-grandsons and great-grandmothers.

Pretty great, huh? But it’s always a stressful time, too, during the holidays. And sometimes money is tight. And sometimes it’s hard driving around to see everyone and deciding where to spend that first Christmas morning with the baby.

And sometimes the wind blows so hard that it threatens to wreck your temporary outside dining room, where you were planning to feed 25 people who came into town for what might be her last Christmas.

But as we’ve seen recently, nature can do much worse.

Here’s to you and yours. From ours. Blessing your first Christmases. And your last.

Before we left.

With our pal Janess, who was also our hostess.

Notice the Manny Ramirez costume in back? Nice, huh?

Jordan baked a few cupcakes, as well.

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What’s that you say? You’d like more pictures? We’ve updated our Flickr site with tons of new pics, including some new additions to Patrick’s Greatest Hits.

Also, last night, Patrick rolled over for the first time. We captured it on video, and uploaded it to our new YouTube page*.

*Please note, we’re turning off YouTube in favor of Vimeo. We’ve replaced the video on this page accordingly. Also, we’ve added links to our other videos on the right-hand sidebar of the blog.  Yay!

Here she is “performing” with her spiritual predecessor, Madonna.

Goofy? Yes.

Fun? Absolutely. We dig it.

And although I don’t have a sanctioned clip, her musical performances from last night were what really impressed. Kids these days could do much worse as far as pop stars go.

Now, you probably weren’t expecting a short review of SNL when you fired up our blog. And we’re not here to disappoint. We know who you want. You want this guy right here:

He’s 5 1/2 weeks today, and as the title suggests, we’re gaga over this kid.

I know you’re probably thinking, “is he old enough to sit in one of those things? He can’t even hold his neck up yet, right?” Yes, you’re right. It was only for a moment. But these Bumbo things actually provide a bit more neck support than you remember. And his neck is crazy strong. In fact, at 12 lbs 4 oz, he seems to be extra healthy and strong. Able to hold his neck up for long stretches and use his powerful legs to push away from my belly.

Anyhow, not much has been happening. We’ve had a fairly uneventful time since Patrick’s birth. Which is a good thing. We’ve not been getting much sleep. Sometimes he sleeps well during the night. Sometimes not so much. Jordan has been a champ about doing what it takes during the difficult nights and letting me get some sleep.

She’s still breastfeeding almost exclusively. And Patrick’s only had breastmilk from a bottle a few times. Once was on my birthday when Jordan’s folks came over and babysat so that we could have sushi at Osaka (OMG, best sushi in town).

The next day we had all the grandparents over for Patrick’s 1-month birthday party (and my 35th birthday, I guess). That was a great time. My Mom made spaghetti for everyone and my dad and step-mom forgot the dessert they made, and got stuck in two hours of traffic on the way over to our house. On their detour through the Heights, they ended up driving by Dacapo’s Pastry Cafe and getting a Pecan Brownie Pie that was the best pecan anything I’ve ever had. Holy moly that was amazing.

Aside from that, we’ve had a pretty quiet time.

We still walk Hank twice a day.

We’ve been watching a ton of football on our lazy weekends.

And I got a new iPod touch for my birthday (thanks Grandmama and Granddaddy). It’s basically an iPhone except it doesn’t have a phone or a camera. But it’s great for checking my email or Facebook when I’m on the couch. It’s particularly useful because I only need one hand.

The other one is holding a much bigger miracle than any thing Apple could dream up. 

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If you want the latest photos of Patrick, you should totally keep up with our Flickr account. We’re adding photos all the time. All Patrick-related photos are available here. You can check out his new Greatest Hits set here.

The same photos are also available via our Flickr site.

1. We don’t know the sex.
2. We do know the baby seems very healthy in all regards, and for now it appears we’re in for a relatively normal birth.
3. Jordan is ready to get this kid on the outside.

To provide some incentive for the baby to get here sooner, we have tried to communicate to him or her that he / she has a very nice room all ready. We’ve only recently finished it all up (thanks to generous amounts of help from the grandparents). We think it looks fantastic.

Here are some pics:

The color is a soft yellow; I picked it out. Booyah.

The wall hangings and crib bedding are all from a set we found at Babies R Us.

The furniture is also from Babies R Us. The crib is one of those convertible lifetime beds.

Jordan was surprised she liked the white furniture so much, but it turned out pretty well.

Jordan and her dad found these great shelves at the container store.

That A-B-C thingy is another part of the bedding theme. It’s actually a rug.

It looks better on the wall. Where it can’t trip us up in the middle of the night.

The bed is the only piece of furniture left over from what was my office.

It actually came with the house and was in this room when we moved in.

Yes, Yoda was on our Target registry. Three people purchased us three Yodas.

This is my grandmother’s rocking chair. It should come in pretty handy.

Pillow came from Pottery Barn. Because Pottery Barn is way into The Force.

Cute, huh?

This magazine rack had also been installed by the home’s previous owners.

Works great for baby books, too.

_____

So, that’s the whole tour.

Hopefully, the next post you see will introduce you to a brand new Preddy. I will post the news here as soon as I can.

Until then, we appreciate all your well wishes and prayers.

Cheeseburger Cupcakes from Marshall Preddy on Vimeo.

We also took a few pictures, which you can also view on our Flickr account.

The last photo is the bacon. Actually, it’s made of something like fruit rollups. They’re called Kellogg’s Yogos Rollers ( I guess because they’re “yogurty”).