Thanksgiving 2008

We had another great year at Thanksgiving (BTW this is Sydney reporting!!). I had SO much fun. My Thanksgiving started by staying at Grandma and Grandpa Egg's house the night before Thanksgiving. I had a great morning and then when I got back home my other grandparents were there as well, we have a very large family!



My whole family seems to love Thanksgiving dinner. I made sure to take a picture of everyone at the table enjoying their meal.



Sorry I just had to throw in my John Travolta imitation (don't know how to have one hand up and one hand down yet :) but I love to dance!)

I had dad take a video of me with Grandpa to show how smart I have gotten with numbers (pretty good huh?).




And if I get a video with one Grandpa I had to have dad get a picture of me and Riker with the other Grandpa.



I was so full of energy that I ran about 30 laps around the circle in the house and dragged my Uncle Trever with me. Hear is my point of view on one of these laps, try not to get sick watching it. (Later we played this game again, and again -- Uncle Ben is good at it too!)




After dinner I setup the tripod and set the camera to take multiple pictures, and then I even figured out how to put them together in a collage (aren't I an overachiever)


Grandpa is a goof


Don't I have a great smile?

I thought that Mom deserved to be in a photo since she did 90% of the work to get the meal ready so here is a nice picture of Mom and Riker.



At about 5:30 the grown-up girls all left on a little adventure (SHOPPING), there was a one place that was open on Thanksgiving night for 3 hours and they were going for the sales, but I stayed home with the guys and Great Grandma. This is when they decided to get the Nintendo Wii game system out and play. Boy did things get competitive. Here is Grandpa Egg and Papa (Grandpa Fritz) playing Wii







Things turned ugly at this point. The guys played a game of tennis, Uncle Trever and Uncle Ben against Dad and Grandpa Egg. All was going well until Grandpa Egg had to hit a backhand, and not kidding the whole room heard him hit the backhand into Daddy's head, and then Daddy said he saw stars.



They then got a bowling game going and got GREAT Grandma Esther playing (she is 87), hear is a video of her doing a round in bowling.



I am so proud of my Great Grandma.

A little later the girls returned from their little adventure with their treasures.



Thanksgiving was a lot of fun for me (so many people to play with and entertain!) and I think everyone else had a blast too, can't wait until next year!

I hope you have enjoyed my blog about Thanksgiving half as much as I enjoyed Thanksgiving.

Riker's First Haircut

Yes, you read the title right...a haircut. We decided that Riker's hair was getting a bit long and it was time to cut some of it off. But before anyone blames Dad for this it was MOM'S idea. (Even she thought that 5 inch long hair on a 6 mth old boys head was getting excessive!)

Here is a video and picture of what the little guy looked like before his haircut:






We sat down and dad held Riker while mom chopped the hair off. Mom was hoping that when she got done there would still be lots of curl left in his hair (Dad was sort of hoping it would not). Dad won.

Here is what the little guy looks like with his hair wet down right after the haircut. Yikes! No more fro!




Here is how much hair that was cut off of his little head.




And here is the final result after the hair dried. It's straight and lighter than the rest of his hair!



Mom is trying to get use to the new non-curly haircut. She said we need to get him a briefcase and suit and it will fit his new look.

Rollin' Riker

Riker recently discovered he has the ability to rollover - both ways! And within hours (or less) he decided he LOVED rolling around and that he could actually use it to get to things! Yep -- Riker is MOBILE! And so proud about it. Even big sister Syd was cheering him on (and demonstrating how to roll over). Here's a video of Riker in Action!

The Tire Rack

The Eggleston household stress level has dropped about 90%. DANNY HAS A JOB! YEAH! Ok, now for the story. When Danny worked at Manhattan Associates he worked on a software called LOGPRO and TMS. This product is used to run warehouses, so one of the first places Danny started looking for a job were companies that used LOGPRO and TMS. He found out that "The Tire Rack" used the software and they are located in South Bend, he knew some people at the company so he got his resume in through them. About a week later he recieved a call that they wanted to give him an interview.

The interview went great, in fact it was only 45 minutes after the interview that they called and said they wanted him to come back in to discuss an offer. The whole family was very excited since they were only a 20 minute drive from our house! No moving!

Danny plans to start his new job on December 29th of this year, which means he gets to spend all of the holidays with his family, instead of working -- its an extra bonus! And when he starts work it will be a for a great, growing, local company! WooHoo!

Jamie even made Danny some brownies as a congratulations.



Thanks again for all the well wishes and prayers. We are truly grateful everything worked out so well, and so quickly. Keep all the other Manhattan displacements in mind still!

Sydney goes to the Dentist

We took Sydney to the dentist for her first visit. Basically it was what they called a "Chair Ride" - just to get used to things. At first she was not too thrilled to be there. It reminded her too much of the doctor's office. But the hygienist rocked! She helped make everything go so well.

The first thing they did was use the little tool that sprays water to spray water into a cup, and then they gave Sydney the little sucky tool to suck the water out of the cup. She immediately thought this was very cool!



The hygienist tried to use some other tools to "count her teeth", but Sydney was to smart to let anything into her mouth. They did not want to push it so she just got to keep playing with the sucky tool.



Right before we got out of the chair the hygienist got a cookie and gave to Sydney (yes gourmet cookies from the dentist!). That sealed the deal, Sydney thought she was cool and was willing to give her a big hug and thank you. So overall we think it was a big success!

Dad's "Free Time"

With Dad having some "free time" on his hands (being "between jobs"). He has found some interesting ways to fill his time. Not sure if we will need to get him some professional help or not.

For his birthday Dad got Mario Cart for the Wii and so he has been playing it quite a bit, but the big surprise is getting Sydney to play as well (even though she has no remote just the empty wheel).



Here is a short video to show that she even knows how to work the buttons while playing.




Syd knows how to drive from experience(Syd and Grandpa Egg in North Carolina):



Playing video games is a fairly normal thing for someone who is off of work to be doing, but from here things headed a bit South, at least as far "South" as the Macarena goes.







With all of this hard playing Dad has gotten to be quite tired :-)

Halloween 2008

Halloween is getting more fun each year as Sydney gets a little older and soon Riker will join the fun too, when he starts to get older. This year we went to a pumpkin patch and took the kids. Sydney liked looking at the rows of pumpkins.


(which one?????)

Eventually she picked out her favorite.



Of course we had to get pictures of both kids in the BIG pumpkin





Sydney's costume this year was a toss up between two options a duck or a dog. Here was the attempt at wearing the duck costume (Donald duck to be precise).

(Just a little big)

Then we put her in her doggy costume that fit MUCH better

(doesn't Grandma look happy?)

Sydney was a very smart doggy, she took "speak"ing very literally.



Daddy, Sydney and Grandpa Egg (all in costume) with Grandma's help visited Uncle Ben at work (Bethel College) and Chik-fil-A and Office Max and handed out candy. Campus security at Bethel got a call from President's office about a Large Duck, Mouse and a baby dog handing something out on campus...busted by the fuzz! Made for a fun day!

But you can't have Halloween unless both kids (and DAD) are dressed up, so here is Dad and Riker getting in on the fun.

Aren't they handsome (Riker is a Dalmatian pup by the way.)

We took Sydney trick-or-treating to a couple of houses. Here she is at Grandma and Grandpa Egg's house. We don't think she did too bad at all.


Hope everyone else had a fun Halloween too!

Egg Creative gets noticed...

Jamie recently had the opportunity to be interviewed for being a small business in Osceola, IN. The South Bend Tribune Business Weekly did a nice little article on her for this weeks issue. Here is a link to the article: South Bend Tribune Article

Because of this article Jamie decided to rush and give her website a face-lift and did a total redesign. Click to check it out What do you think? I think it is pretty snazzy?

Old 2004 Design:


New "snazzier" (or as Jamie says - lighter less clunky) Website:

Amish Country Shop Hop 2008

Every year (excluding right after Syd's birth) for the last 5 or 6 years, I (Jamie) have been able to go on a great girls-only trip. It is a trip to the BEAUTIFUL Ohio Amish country to go to 12 quilt shops. Pastoral scenery, awesome shops, and even BETTER company (my mom and my mother-in-law) always make it a great time.

Its always so great to get out with us 3 girls...and a baby!? Yep, this year it wasn't a girl's only trip...Riker joined us. I was thrilled that they didn't mind a baby coming (of course they are his grandmas after all!) because it meant I could come!



How the trip works is we drive to Ohio Amish Country and you get a "passport" to have stamped at the 12 stores (then it is entered in a raffle when complete -- we are hoping Riker gave all of our passports good luck!).

Then we visit all the shops- you can get a quilt block kit at each store, and every store finishes the yearly theme quilt differently (also on the passport is a vote for your favorite quilt) it is always amazing to see what beautiful variations these talented quilters come up with!

You can buy the pattern/kit to duplicate your favorite quilt and this year all three of us agreed is was Vacshak's quilt! This is a little shop in with a vaccum store in a strip mall. THe first year we stopped there we thought "We won't lose much money here..." it looks so unassuming. But we were wrong! They have a great selection and really nice staff. They even do a little babysitting... Riker, as you can guess, was getting lots of attention and even helped stamp and hand out passports a bit (with a smile of course!).






Special thanks to Riker's buddy and everyone at Vacshak for a fun visit and a little break for mommy's arms!

We made it through 7 shops the first day. We were all pretty tired from all the shopping and laughing. Even Riker was tired from all that smiling and being cute!




The next day we got right back to it...but it seemed that all this time in Amish Country was rubbing off on Riker...doesn't he look like a little Amish boy in that hat!



Riker and I had fun finding interesting things to look at while the Grandmas paid for their treasures! Riker was in the baby carrier most of the time -- what a lifesaver! Definitely better than carrying him the whole time!



All in all the trip went great, Riker was an angel, and we can't wait to go next year! But sorry Riker -- next time -- no boys allowed!