I'm an Uncle!

My brother Brian and his wife Katie just had their first child, a boy, Carson James Thomas. His email to me:

"It's a Boy! His name is Carson James Thomas. (Carson is Katie's maiden name and James is our favorite book of the Bible and Katie's grandpa's name). Carson was 8 lbs. 10 oz. - I say "was" because he's a sow. He's 19 1/2 inches long. I have no idea what this means but I was told it's important to include in this email for those who aren't as clueless as me about babies. He is not fussy at all and looks a lot like . . . a baby as far as I can tell. It's up to you to tell us who you think he looks more like. One thing we both agree on is that he's the cutest baby we've ever seen and we also agree that we have no bias.

Katie was a champ and did the whole thing without meds. I got an epidural for the sympathy pains. We are a VERY happy family and excited to come home to Healy. Thanks for your support and prayers - they were felt and appreciated. Here are a couple pictures of the newest version of the Thomas family with the life-changing upgrade "Carson 1.0". Enjoy the photos check out our website soon (later this week) for some more pictures and hopefully a video. (www.briankatiethomas.freeservers.com)
--Dad"

Sydney ladybug face paint

Sydney ladybug face paint
Originally uploaded by jason_m_thomas

Here's a funny picture of Sydney with ladybug face paint. Our neighborhood had a fall fair where she won some prizes and got her face painted.

Melissa running Denver half marathon

Melissa running Denver half marathon

Melissa running Denver half marathon
Originally uploaded by jason_m_thomas

Well Melissa successfully finished her first Denver Half Marathon! The picture of her running is pretty low quality but I took it off the Denver Marathon website. The other picture shows her shirt which she wore in memory of Kenna. As you can see it was pretty wet during the race and quite cold as well. Due to my mis adventures in parking I showed up to the race about 5 minutes after Melissa had already finished. I guess it serves me right for thinking she was that slow. Since it was so cold and rainly we didn't want the kids out for very long so I was trying to time my arrival perfectly. Anyway, Melissa did great and proceeded to shake uncontrollably once we got to the car. I guess a few hours in the rain at 40 degrees will do that to you. She's now going to scale the training back and let me run a little with her.

Christmas Picture

Goofy Picture Attempt

Christmas Picture Attempt
Originally uploaded by jason_m_thomas

Every year in the fall we go out into the beautiful Colorado wilderness and try to take a Christmas picture. We do this partially to enjoy the scenary ourselves and partially to make all our relatives in the midwest jealous so they'll want to come visit us. This year we went up outside of Nederland to the Indian Peaks Wilderness area to attempt to photograph a 4 year old, 18 month old, and two golden retrievers all by using the self timer on our camera. This usually leads to some hillarious shots and half the time we have to force ourselves to stop laughing when the timer goes off. You'll notice how attentive the dogs are in this picture. This was achieved by throwing rocks out near the camera in the instant before the timer expired. I guess I was a little off because they weren't looking exactly ahead but close enough. Click the photo to launch Flickr and check out some of our other attempts.

Bryce getting his first haircut

Bryce getting his first haircut
Originally uploaded by jason_m_thomas

Bryce got his first offical haircut (they actually cut all his hair not just the bangs) back on Sept 20th so I thought I would post a picture. There are few more in our Flickr photostream if you're interested. He was quite the trouper just sitting perfectly still the whole time. We went to this kids hair place where they let him watch the intro to Cars the whole time. Kids these days ...

Bryce and Jason reading an Exciting book

Bryce and Jason reading a book
Originally uploaded by jason_m_thomas

This picture was too funny not to write about. Bryce gets so pumped when we read books about tractors, fire trucks, contruction equipment, etc. I don't know what little boys did before construction equipment ... look at the big horses I guess. For fun I like to pull up YouTube videos of construction equipment, race cars, explosions, etc. All the stuff even 18 month old boys can appreciate. For starters check out this promotional video for Hyundai Construction Equipment.

Sydney's Soccer

Sydney and her coach
Originally uploaded by jason_m_thomas

We enrolled Sydney in Westminster Soccer this fall for her first time participating in a team sport. She is on the Dolphins team and her coach is the guy wearing the black shirt in the background. I was nominated as the assistant coach which basically means I sit with the subs on the sideline and don't let them run out on the field when its not their turn. They play 3 on 3 girls with no goalie on a 30 yard field. Sydney is not really into it that much and just sort of runs around with the pack around the ball. This last game the ball actually went through her legs as she was running and not paying attention. Two weeks ago one girl on the other team got "hurt" and by that I mean she fell while running and started crying. It was pretty cute because Sydney was the only one of the girls to sit down with her and try to comfort her. I guess she's a lover not a fighter. It seems like each team has about one girl that's really into it and will score all the goals. Our team doesn't really have that girl and we've been beaten pretty handily even though no one keeps score. We've got until the end of October before the end of the season so hopefully we'll teach them to be a little more agressive and make some goals. Go Dolphins! (Never thought I'd be saying that being a Packer fan. Speaking of which: Go PACKERS! 3-0 BABY!)

Dog Day at the Bay

I just created another YouTube video of Dog Day at the Bay. This is an annual event at the local pool where they open up the pool for dogs to swim on the last day of the year. It was held last weekend and we've been going for the past few years. Kozmo and Zoey love it although I think Kozmo likes it more for the people interaction than for the dog interaction.

Bryce's Head Wound

Bryce with his head wound
Originally uploaded by jason_m_thomas

Bryce has been going in and out of our screen door for a while now. He managed to tear the screen away from the frame to give himself a nice spot to move the door back and forth. Hmm, I wonder why we have so many flies in the house. Anyway, he recently took a nice fall off the patio steps and roughed up his left eye. He didn't cry too long and as you can see by this picture he's back to all smiles.

Sydney's First Day of Preschool

Sydney sad at first day of preschool
Originally uploaded by jason_m_thomas

Sydney was pretty sad on the first day of preschool because she wanted to have the same teacher she had last year. Click on the photo to view more pictures from the first day because she warmed up pretty quick once her friend Aiden arrived.