For my birthday some of my family came over and we played a game of croquet in the backyard. It’s one of my favorite games ever, but it was about 100 degrees outside, so we pushed through the game as fast as we could. I took some photos of us playing, but the little guy on the sideline stole the show.

Today I handed Wes to John so I could make some dinner. When I came back upstairs Wesley’s eyes were glued to the computer screen. Like daddy, like baby.

Can you see our most treasured Christmas gift under the tree??

Today was Wesley’s first Christmas, but I have to say he didn’t seem to care all that much. We opened our gifts to each other while he napped. When he woke up we fed him and made ourselves a nice steak lunch, during which he fell asleep again. When he woke up this time we managed to help him open the gifts he received from relatives before he dozed off again. He wasn’t terribly interested in the actual opening of presents, but he really likes the books his aunt Tara gave him, and his mom really likes the clothes his Grandma Holt gave him.

Really, this is pretty much all Wes did today:

After dinner tonight we took some gifts around to our neighbors. Because it’s so cold outside we bundled up Wes in a blue fleece snowsuit that makes him resemble a blue polar bear. He–surprise, surprise–fell asleep in my arms as we made our rounds, so when we came home I just dumped him (gently) into his crib. And there he’s been ever since. I keep checking on him, just to see how cute he looks in his polar bear suit. He usually has his arms thrust in front of him in some unnatural-looking way, which is funny to me. How can that be comfortable? His physical therapist says it’s good that he’s willing to lift his hands up against gravity like he does, because a lot of Downs babies don’t bother. But this kid sleeps with his arms straight up in the air. His muscle tone can’t be all that bad.

We finally got our tree up today. We had to, since presents from family have begun to arrive in the mail and we had no place for them.

As it’s Wesley’s first Christmas we tried to point out the tree to him, explaining in very excited voices that it’s our Christmas tree and all our presents go under it, but he didn’t seem too interested in either the tree or presents. Give him a couple of years and I’m sure that will change.

In honor of our Native American predecessors…