A Kentucky Christmas

For years Chrystal has talked about how great a Kentucky Christmas is.  This year Spencer and I got to experience it.  We got into Louisville on the 23rd and were greeted by the channel 11 news team.  They interviewed me and caught the moment when Alex and Mimi came running up to meet us (Alex had White Castle in hand for me!).  Our Christmas and Food Tour had begun!

That night we ate at O'Charley's, a must for any Kentucky trip as the baked potato soup is amazing.  It was a very low key evening spent watching movies and relaxing after the long day of traveling.

Christmas eve day rolled around and we started it off with a White Castle brunch!  We then headed from Corydon, IN down to Louisville to spend the afternoon with Poppa.  We were treated to a ham dinner and of course presents.  

Poppa and Spencer.  Spencer loved the dog naturally and also the trains.  We may be investing in one to go around the Christmas tree for future Christmases.

We headed back to Corydon and spent the night at Mimi's while watching multiple loops of A Christmas Story.

Christmas morning started around 8:00am (having a little one not adjusted to the eastern time zone was a blessing!).  We opened presents and got cleaned up (well some of us did) to head down to London, KY for the Crawford Family Christmas Party.

The Santa pjs still fit!  

We zipped down to London in a speedy 3 hours to arrive on-time.  I know I know.  I was able to get 3 women and a baby to a family function on time.  Please hold the applause until the end.

Family picture with the Coca-Cola Santa.

The Crawford Clan from left top to right bottom: Wilma, Judy, Ethel, Geri, Bobby, Jay, and Johnny.

The Crawford Kids from top left to bottom right: David, Nicholas, Carla, Alex, Katie, and Chrystal.

The Crawford Grandkids from left to right: Damon, Carlin, Cortland, and Spencer.

After the amazing food spread (there were left overs for weeks) and the family pictures, the presents began.  The wrapping paper flew as 29 family members opened presents.

There was no doubt who this present was for.

We stayed the night in London at the Hotel d' Johnny and Paula who have hosted us every trip down there.  We spent the evening eating more food, including the traditional Papa John's Christmas Pizza thanks to a craving from Alex and playing games.   

Spencer cruised around in Johnny's classic Chevy.

On the 26th, we cleaned up and headed up to Lexington, KY to see Robbie, Dana, and Hayden.  On the way we stopped by the mall to load up on UK gear and of course Gold Star Chili.  Hayden is about 5 months older than Spencer and the two of them got a long great while Robbie and I told Chrystal stories, including one from earlier that day involving the Great American Cookie Factory.

I promise this wasn't set up.  It just happened and we got it on camera.

After spending the afternoon with Robbie, Dana, and Hayden we packed up and headed back up to Corydon.  We made a call and met Mimi and Alex at our final Food Tour stop, Frisch's Big Boy.  Chrystal believes their ranch is the best in the world and no trip to Kentucky is complete with out it.

Mimi, you have to watch his sneakiness.  He is never out of reach of the Christmas tree.

After another low key evening we got up, packed and headed to Louisville to catch our flight.  Chrystal had hyped the Kentucky Christmas up a lot before the trip and it lived up to every bit of it.  A huge thank you to everyone for the hospitality, great food, and presents.  We all had a blast and look forward to making it out for another one.

A trip to Omaha and an early Christmas

Our trip to Omaha got delayed a week due to an unavoidable work conflict, but we were able to make it out to see the newest member of the Troy family.  Spencer and Landon hit it off.

Homies

Mommy suggests Spencer wants a little brother...

Landon's personal body guard.

We had a bit of a cold stretch here leaving him to barely fit in his car seat all bundled up.

With our upcoming trip to Kentucky, we went ahead had Christmas this morning.  Spencer has fallen in love with his inflatable Nemo ball pit.  We can't get him out of it.

He finally got the unwrapping part down.

We had to give him some presents in the ball pit so he would open them.

Snow White from Great Grandpa Johnny and Great Grandma Liz!

Building and learning blocks from Nanny and Pappaw.

I have a feeling we will be finding plastic balls all over the house.

Thank you Nanny and Pappaw and Great Grandpa Johnny and Great Grandma Liz for the presents.  We have Christmas with Nana and Mr. Townsend this afternoon.  We are off to Kentucky early Wednesday morning.  More Christmas posts to come!

A lot to catch up on...

Not too terribly long ago we had a good snow that stuck around for a bit.  We took the opportunity to bundle Spence up in his snowsuit and let him have it.  There wasn't a lot of mobility but he enjoyed playing for a few minutes.

Sort of a snow angel

OK I think I have had enough of this!

We have been introducing the little man to all kinds of new foods.  We have found only one he isn't a fan of, green beans.  He tries each one, makes a funny face, and then puts it down.  Fruit on the other hand is his favorite.

MMMMM bananas

Now that crawling is too easy, Spence has taken to the stairs.  Chrystal and I learned very quickly not to turn our backs on him as he can really motor up the stairs.

Busted!

We went over to my parent's house for Thanksgiving.  It was a packed house with my siblings, Christina and her two daughters, a friend of Kristen's, and a coworker of my dad and his son.  Christina bought Spencer an outfit and demanded he wear it for everyone.  She has good taste.

Ladies man

The kid is clearly about to fall into a food coma.

Helping with the Christmas decorations

We are headed to Omaha to meet Spencer's best friend Landon Troy this weekend.  We are also attending the yearly Christmas party and celebrating a 30th birthday.  We will squeeze in some time with Chrystal's family out there as well to make it a well rounded, busy weekend.  Pictures will follow.

Haircuts and Halloween

Chrystal set up our family picture shoot for the Christmas cards this year so that meant we needed to cut this kid's mane.  We went to Kiddie Kutters, a place my mom use to take us, for the big day.

The Before

The During

The After

We also had our first family Halloween.  Spencer is seen here in his lion costume which was complemented by Chrystal's witch costume and my wardrobe costume.  There are pictures of the three of us floating around on Erin's blog, we just forgot to get one on our camera.  The rocking horse Spencer is on was hand painted by Great Grandpa Johnny.  My mom found it and shipped it to him to have his touch added to it.  Spencer loves it.  Thank you for the gift.

He really loves it when grandpa makes the horsey sound.

This is Spencer's new KY sweatshirt courtesy of Mimi.  He can now match mom and dad.  Thanks Mimi!

9 Months Old!

So it has been a little bit since we last posted.  It's been busy as I had hunting camp and have been spending Saturday's helping Joe with youth football.  Chrystal has been working her tail off and training a new person at work.  So to catch everyone up...Spencer is 9 months old!  His doctor's appointment was this morning.  He is 19 lbs 8 oz (52nd percentile), 28.75 inches tall (80th percentile), with a 17.75 inch head (54th precentile).  The kid is growing like a weed and is lightning quick!

All dressed up like daddy before hunting camp.

Did we mention he has his two bottom teeth?

 MMMM rocks! 

Enjoying a nice fall day outside.

His newest hobby is walking around anything he can balance on.

Other big news this past month:

Welcome to Landon Michael Troy!  Mike and Laura became mommy and daddy today at 4:09 pm today.  Landon is 8 lbs 9 oz and 21 inches long.  Mom and baby are both doing well.  We are sooooooo happy for you all.

I turned 28 this month.  30 is creeping up on me, but Chrystal is closer than I am thank goodness.

Hunting camp was fun, but too short.  No animals this year, but good times were had by all 4 of us (3 Townsends and a Steen).

We will have more updates this week and Spencer is getting his first hair cut and has his Halloween costume ready to go.  See you all again soon.

Bath Times Are More Fun

It has been a while I know.  As we near 8 months, I know 8 months, Spencer has realized he loves bath time.  He can't get enough of the splashing and squirting toys.  

Look at that toothless grin!

He loves to lay back and kick his feet.

Love that post bath hair do!

As you can see there is a nice skidmark on his nose.  Our little man has become quite the daredevil and isn't afraid to take things on head on, literally.  He is faster than we could imagine and gets into anything he can get his hands on.  We are also to the pull up stage.  Anything that will support his weight becomes something to help him stand...this includes poor Winnie.

Cheesing it up.

A face of innocence.

Not a lot of news.  We have purchased the plane tickets for Christmas in Kentucky this year.  We are there the 23rd - 27th.  Not as long as we would like, but we are really excited to take the little man back to meet the family.  We have gotten our first snowfalls the past couple of days.  It seems crazy this happened in September!  I am getting excited as hunting season is only a couple of weeks away.  I won't be up as long as I like thanks to the new job, but fun will be had.  We hope all is well with everyone and will be back to post more soon.

We've got a crawler!!!!

The time we have been awaiting and at the same time dreading is upon us.  The kid is mobile.  We have baby proofed the place as he likes to get into anything he can shimmy over to.  It has been a bit and we have had some fun things happen.  

A couple of weekends ago we all went to Jisun's house for an end of summer party.  It involved games, food (lots of food), beverages, and not a lot of sleep.  The Roschs, Hecks, Brauns (yes Sarah you are included in that), and Townsends all crashed Jisun's house.

Spencer and I enjoying some shade from the scorching sun.  Hottest weekend of the summer.

This was Sarah's game.  It involved walking, water, balancing, and hand eye coordination.  Some the group lacked some of these skills.

This is pretty much photo evidence of Murph being assaulted by Joe, but she had it coming to her.  No one left the yard without being water ballooned.

The morning after the morning after.  Spencer was the best looking of the bunch enjoying his Baby Mum Mum.  A great invention, the dissolving cracker.

We did take advantage of the long weekend and got a trip to the zoo in.  Spencer was very good with the animals being a healthy distance away.

As you can see when the petting zoo was an option he didn't seem to enjoy it as much.

Mimi's Jeep as been a huge hit with him lately.  He loves standing up and honking the horn.

In other news, I started a new job recently.  A company hunted me down and made me an offer I couldn't refuse.  Other than that Spencer has passed the 7 month mark.  Month #8 will be right around the corner.  Talk to you all later.