Edible toys

Well, the three of us here at the Gorny household have been having quite the "interesting" time this month. Evan has been gaining weight very nicely and is up to 16lbs 3 ounces today. We've been keeping warm mostly, but have been getting a lot of snow up here. I was feeling a little under the weather the last couple of days and that brings in a GREAT story about my dear wife Rebekah. Now most people who live in our area own a snowblower...ourselves included. Up until yesterday I was the only person in our house who used the snowblower as it usually helps me put on my really lifelike snowman suit and all I really need to complete it is a carrot for a nose. Since my loving wife was trying to be so helpful she suggested that she could clear the driveway with our snowblower and I could stay inside since I felt kinda icky. This was great news for me at the time. I quickly got her suited up and went outside to start the snowblower up and show her how to use it. I went back inside when she started to clear up the driveway and I quickly noticed that the motor wasn't quite throttled up enough and it would go faster for her if I showed her how to throttle it up. I went outside and noticed she was pushing a bit and told her that if she picked the front up some snow would get back by the tires and it would spin, but sometimes you do have to push it to get it going. About 20 minutes later Becky poked her head inside the door and said quote "Umm, problem...the wheel fell off".

Yeah, it was a shocker to me too. So I went outside to have a look and noticed the shear bolt that holds the wheel on had broken. That really isn't a big deal as the shear bolts are designed to break so nothing gets damaged in the snowblower if a wheel does get stuck and doesn't turn when it should be. I looked at the other wheel then. That bolt was gone too. then I looked inside the auger, no shear bolts there either, the impeller...yup gone too. So my dear wife was using a snowblower that was not propelling itself forward very well, not churning up the snow in front of it probably at all, and not throwing the snow at full speed either. Basically she was pushing a motorized 200 lbs snow scoop on wheels with a motor running and not doing anything. I think I should put it in here that she did in fact clear half of the driveway. I can't imagine the workout that had to be as we had about 10-12 inches of snow in our driveway.

I went inside to talk to her and ask her a few questions like...was it as hard as shoveling? cause snowblowers are supposed to make this work easier. Also did me throttling up the snowblower make any difference, and her reply was "it sounded better".

I did pull out a small branch that seems to have toppled our snowblower...while I won't equate it to david and goliath, it is pretty similar.

I really do feel bad that I wasn't there to tell her that it's not supposed to be like that, and have taken that lesson to heart and along with it a good supply of laughs.

Enough poking fun at my incredibly strong wife who will eventually read this and come home from work to find me. Let's talk about Evan. He's been doing really well. We recently got loaned a walker from a coworker of Becky's and have been trying to get Evan to use it. I think this clip kinda illustrates his plans for the future

I describe Evan's strategy as kind of like an eel. He sits and waits for his prey to drop their guard, then pounces. I know it's short, but once he realizes the camera is there he kind of get's...well camera shy.

Also we've been having a grand ol time with eating solids. Usually Evan does pretty well with his solids and is usually pretty clean, but not tonight. I know the lighting is pretty bad in this video, but I only really had a very little bit of time to take a video of a somewhat happy baby (he was really hungry).

I think it's pretty self explanatory what went on there.

Evan has also been growing quite the head of hair. The other day while Becky was getting ready for work and blow drying her hair Evan got very curious what mom was up to and I walked over close to her. Then mom started blowdrying his hair...it turned out to be a big spike hair do.

All of us here would like to wish all of you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Jumping Cars

Starting this post out with a picture of Evan and his uncle Jason hanging out together during thanksgiving.

Well, we've been pretty busy here at the Gorny house hold, working, getting ready for christmas, going to the dentist, dr. apts etc. etc. I have the honor of being the maid of honor at one of my best friends weddings. She lives in Tacoma Washington, but can't miss a best friend's wedding right! So stephan and I are planning on being in tacoma for her feb 21st wedding, so been starting to try to think about my duties related to that, and getting excited to go.

We're excited to take a trip down to the cities this weekend. We're planning on visiting our new niece Paige, who was born nov 28th. I'm SO excited, she looks super cute! I got permission from her parents to post a picture, so here she is:

While we are down in the cities we plan on visiting a few friends as well, should be a good weekend.

This past friday I went out to the garage to find our jeep had a flat tire, I notified Stephan, and opted to take the other jeep (the old white jeep as we call it with all of it's 204,000 miles on it), to work. Now most people probably would have turned around when the speedometer wasn't working, but I thought eh...old car, I'll just drive a little slower than usual, and we'll get it fixed later. A couple of miles later I noticed the time was no longer displaying on the radio, then I tried to turn it on and no go. At this point I normally would have called stephan, but of course the cell phone is in the blue jeep at home with a flat tire. So kept going, I don't turn on the heater when I first get into a vehicle...I figure why blow the cold air on myself, so by this point the engine is warm and I tried to turn on the heater, it made a nice whiny noise and then stopped. I was certain the alternator was shot by this point, guessing it probably was when the radio went, but I thought hopefully I'll make it to work. Stephan really doesn't understand why I kept going, and informed me that I am to turn around and come home at the first sign of trouble if this ever happens again....of course he got a good laugh out of the whole ordeal too though. Well, I made it all the way to the intersection of london road and I 35 for those of you who know duluth, and ....YEP the car died right in the middle of london road next to blackwoods. The car was so dead the flashers wern't working, fortunatley there was a police officer in the holiday station that was willing to flash his lights behind my car, and YEP I asked if i could sit in the back seat to keep warm and he let me. The best part is Stephan told me he had to change the tire on the blue jeep because I evidentally drove on it flat the night before....woops! There wasn't any signs of that I swear. Of course the tire low light was on, but that comes on if it's off by even one PSI, and has been for awhile now. (Stephan not happy about me not telling him about this either ...woops ). Anyway, I got to work, the jeep got a tow, it was the alternator, and we have new tires awaiting the blue jeep at sams club, so all is well.

Evan got a couple of new toys this week, We're borrowing a walker from a co-worker, he seems to like it, has only had it 2 days, has definately figured out he can move backwards in it, but has only gone about 6 steps forward once so far. Another co-worker of mine was nice enough to hook us up with a johnny jump-up, Evan used it for the first time to night and LOVED it. It took him all of 30 seconds to figure it out. We took some videos of him to share. Stephan and I both had our favorite video so I'm posting both, one is about half as long as the other.

30second video

awe bummer it's sideways...well use your imagination : )

one minute video

Evan has been Very into his feet for awhile now, I took a couple pictures of him grabbing them while I got him ready for a bath.

Otherwise Evan is doing well, he's up to 15lbs 2oz, my big boy.... I think it'll be pretty cool to see him next to his new cousin....he's not the little guy in town any more!! Evan is being followed by several individuals from a program call birth to 3 with the school district. The early childhood education specialist came out to see him today, and was very pleased with how he was doing...cheer...go Evan! She even forgot that he was born 4months early, and thought that it was 3months early, and was evaluating him based off of being a month older than what he is gestationally until stephan corrected her.