Dr. James Jastifer M.D.

Jim is offically done with Medical school!! I am so proud of my husband!! He doesn't graduate until May 2nd, but he has done all that he needs to do and now he gets to spend two and half months with us!! It has been a great four years and it went by so fast! We look forward to residency and all that it has to offer for our family and Jim as he enters the world of orthopedics. It really hit me the other day when we were looking for houses (which we saw 30 in one weekend!) and the real estate agent gave us our itinerary for the day for "Dr. and Mrs. Jastifer M.D." How weird it was to see!!

Happy Easter

Ethan and mom decorating Easter Eggs!
I was trying to get a picture of Ethan with his egg, but he just wanted to eat it......go figure!
Ethan's Easter Eggs!
Ethan digging into his Easter basket.

"Hmmm what is all in here??"

Ethan had a fun first Easter. He enjoyed the art of coloring Easter eggs, finding all the fun stuff that the Easter Bunny left in his basket, and of course a yummy meal prepared by the Long family here in Marquette. We hope that you all had a great Easter as well!

We are heading to..........

Here we are minutes before finding out where we are going:)

KALAMAZOO!!! We are so thrilled words can not explain it!! Jim asked me to open the envelope and I was shaking the entire time, but once I saw "You matched in Kalamazoo", a sense of peace came over me. Thanks to everyone for all their support, thoughts and prayers, it means so much to us. Hopefully next weekend we will be looking for a house!

The Shirt Says It All...

This is definitely an appropriate shirt for Ethan! He wore this to the pre-match party yesterday.

Just for you Aunt Keri....Miss you!

We Matched!

Yesterday we received the confirmed e-mail that Jim matched for a residency spot! Now the waiting game to find out WHERE he matched. The wait will not be too long since we find out this Thursday at noon where we are heading for the next five years. Cross your fingers that it is close to home! I will post as soon as I can after we find out.....thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!!

Happy Birthday Grandma Jastifer!

Not only is it St. Patrick's Day, but it is also Grandma Jastifer's birthday! We miss her and hope that she has a wonderful day!! Ethan has something he wants to tell her......

"So Big!"

Okay you HAVE to watch this video until the very end....funniest home video material!!:)

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!

Ethan just wanted to say.......HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Haircut (by the professionals)....

So mom has been trying to cut Ethan's hair, but it is just not working when you have a curious 9 months old watching your every move with the scissors. So I took him into the salon and they did a great job and so did he! I just fed him food the entire time and the best part is it only cost me $5 with tip :=)

Life is Good.....

As I sit here at the computer a lot is going through my mind. First of all our son is going to be 10 months here in a couple days and I just can't believe how time flies when you are having fun! We have LOVED being parents to such a great kid and I look forward to all the adventures that lie ahead with him. I also ponder what the next moth holds for our family. In just one week Jim finds out if he matched with a hospital for his orthopedic surgery residency and then three days after that on Thursday March 20th at noon, we find out where we match!!! It means so many things and it is weird to me how one little envelope and letter can mean so much. It is where we are going to live for the next five years, where we are going to buy our first home, where we are going to meet so many new people who may end being important people in our lives, where Jim is going to be trained as an orthopedic surgeon, there are just so many things to look forward to!! As soon as we know something, we will let everyone know the great news!!:)

Have a great week!

Snow doesn't stop a Yooper!

The other day I took Ethan to the park near our house. Even though it was cold and snow covered the ground, he still enjoyed swinging and going down the slide with mom:) Gotta love the UP and the Marquette winters (although I must admit that I am ready for spring!!).Yesterday Jim and his buddy Toby took the kids out on a hike up Marquette Mountain and had a great time. Dad said that Ethan didn't make a peep for two hours, he just enjoyed looking around and getting some fresh air, even if it was cold!!A wonderful view of Marquette.

Sporting the Speedo!

I know what you are thinking....why is Ethan wearing a speedo in the middle of the winter?? Well the answer is that Ethan and mom are taking a swimming class together at the YMCA on Saturdays. I thought that it would be something fun for us to do together and he loves the water, or so I thought. After screaming for 10 minutes, he finally calmed down and started to enjoy the pool. At least he was not the only baby that was crying. I think that the pool was overwhelming at first and that next time will go much better (I hope)!!

Ethan Loves His Marquette Friends

Ethan has some great friends here in Marquette (as well as mom!!). We have play group every Tuesday and Ethan enjoys playing with all of his friends and mom enjoyed talking with hers:) We are going to miss everyone come May, so we are getting together as much as possible before we all go our separate ways!! Elise, Charlie, and Ethan having fun! Charlie and Ethan sharing pretzels:)Maren and Ethan playing together.

Grandma and Grandpa Visit

Ethan LOVES when he gets to see his grandparents! This weekend Grandma & Grandpa Jastifer visited and Ethan enjoyed playing and showing them all of his new tricks! In fact, mom and dad went out to dinner just the two of them while grandma and grandpa watched Ethan. Thanks for visiting grandma and grandpa!

Silly Hat

The other day Ethan had this silly winter hat on and thought he was hot stuff....

Experimenting

Here I took the color out of the photo except for the the pumpkin and the hat.
You can fade out part of a picture so you can journal.

Here I turned a photo in a charcoal drawing.

I have been using this new photo software for my scrapbooking and I have had fun playing around with some of the things that you can do. Here are a few of the things I have learned...what do you think??

Little Presquile Hike

Beautiful Lake SuperiorLoving Marquette!

You can see how the waves washed up on shore were like glass.

Ethan and dad checking out the view.

Last weekend Jim and I took Ethan on a little hike along beautiful Lake Superior! The waves that were washed along shore had froze and then melted some due to the warm weather and then melted again, so they were like glass and felt as if you were walking on glass too! We had a great time and it is times like this that we are so happy to be living in Marquette.

"Monkey"

Jim and I had company over the other night and they brought Ethan a "monkey". It is really a gorilla, but somehow it was called monkey and it has stayed. Anyway, Ethan LOVES this monkey and especially loves giving it kisses!!

Ethan giving monkey some loving!

UP 200

Once a year Marquette hosts the "UP 200", which is a dog sled race that starts at 7pm on Friday and the dogs and their mushers head a total of 200 miles to Grand Marais and back and end back up in Marquette around noon the next day. It is a big event and everybody who could stand to be out in the cold weather headed to downtwon Marquette to see the start of the race. We headed down there with our good friends the Longs and had a great time. We put Ethan and their 2 year old daughter Elise in our jogging stroller to keep them out of the cold . They fell asleep and snuggled together for quite some time, it was so cute!The bright spots are the dogs eyes. There is about ten pulling one sled. Marquette brought snow in so that they could make a trail in the middle of the streets for the start of the race.

Elise and Ethan snuggling together....that is Andrea and myself behind the stroller.

We have a walker!!!!!

That is right.... at 9 months and 2 days old we have a walker on our hands. I was washing dishes in the kitchen today and Ethan was standing, holding onto a ledge by the window. I turned to see what he was doing and he was walking to me!! He just took right off all by himself and walked straight across the kitchen=:)

Here is some video that we took when dad got home...enjoy!