****BEFORE YOU CLICK PLAY****

You've got to watch (or re-watch) this great video of Wes from March 2007...Wes was 2 years old.

Done? Okay. How funny is that!

Now please note the striking similarities in vocabulary and creativity between Brad's TWO-year-old and my ONE-year-old. Basically, Jack is a genius. A little one track minded...but still.

Work shut down a little early yesterday...and then all the snow and ice melted. Good call!

But before it all went away, we spent a few minutes with Jack out in the white goodness. I pulled him around on the sled for a bit. He didn't seem to sure about it...he was in this position the entire time!

This is my favorite snow pic so far!

I'm hoping to post some snow pictures soon...so far we just have some video of Jack face planting into the snow and crying (not the heart warming footage I was hoping for), but I found this fun series of Jack decorating the tree until then.

His first ornament...so exciting!

Finding just the right spot to put it

Realizing that you shouldn't give a ceramic ornament to a one year old and the results of taking it away.


Just so we end a little more happily...here he is very satisfied with some more child friendly ornaments. Phew!

Since Mommy and Daddy have been a little slow in posting lately...I thought I'd do my own post. Things have been busy getting ready for Christmas and my birthday, but a few weeks ago we went to cut down our Christmas tree. It was a lot of fun.

Here I am ready to go (note Minky in my right hand Grandma JoJo. Mommy let me take him in the car, but I guess a tree farm isn't a great place for a Minky to go). Mommy and Daddy bundled me all up, but turns out it was a sunny day- so we ditched the coat and hat when we got there.

Aunt Sarah thought that if we took a picture at the beginning of the fun- we might be more cooperative for a picture. I like this one the best (it shows how cooperative we were).

Nina and Poppie came too.

Yeah, it was a really cool place. I ran all around, and it was funny to watch mommy and daddy chase me through the trees. Drool? What drool?"

Mommy and daddy were lucky I was there to help them find our tree. I knew right where to go.

Silly Mommy though she could cut down the tree. I was proud of her for trying, but it was pretty funny.

Daddy jumped in and I offered to help, but they weren't excited about me using the saw for some reason. Maybe next year.

After all of the fun, it was time to go home. Don't worry...I've been helping mommy decorate the tree- everyday I rearrange the ornaments for her so it looks its best. I love Christmas!

I got lucky enough to capture this impromptu moment tonight between my wife and her baby boy. The camera angle was not intentional, just incidental. But as I recorded, I realized that I didn't even need to see their faces to experience the joy that they were sharing. I'm blessed to see this relationship in action every day, and this candid moment just gave me a deeper appreciation for the gift of being a husband and father. For those of you who also love Becky and Jack:

Our joy...

It's no surprise to anyone who knows me...but I am a competitive person. I'm sure it's obnoxious from time to time, but I always want to do well at whatever I'm doing. Ever since my last Nike+ competition ended, my running has tapered down to once a week or so. It surprised me how quickly my motivation waned in the absence of external pressure...hmmm...I guess maybe I don't love running as much as I love competing. So with this knowledge, I joined another challenge with my friends at work. We've got a 44 day timeline (yesterday through New Years Day) and a goal to pack in as many miles as possible.

Since the competition spans Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, I named it the New-chris-murkey-trot. And, of course, had to design a little mascot!

It's going to be interesting, since the weather is turning here in Oregon, and I'm not a fan of running on a treadmill. But I guess with the proper motivation, I'll be able to keep it up!

As usual, we had a great visit in Wenatchee last weekend. I took a few days off, so we really got to stretch out our time. I guess I was having too much fun and didn't get the camera out much, but I did get a few.

Brad and I went on a quick hike, right out the front door. 30 minutes later, and this is the view. How cool is that.



On the way up the hill.

Jack had a great time playing with the boys. It was sure fun to see him up on his feet interacting with the big kids. He seems a lot older than 11 months to us. Special shout out to Elliott, Wesley and Spencer for playing so well with Jack. They did a great job of looking out for him!



Of course, the weekend was FULL of Wii time. We had some special bowling moments, but luckily, this time, Brad didn't hurt his arm.

I'm sure the Bjournal will have some updates soon as well!

Here's our little monkey (thanks for sharing your costume Ethan)! We had a great time last night having pizza at mom and dad's house and then heading to BCC's Harvest Party. We've gone before with all the kids, but it was sure fun to have our own guy to take this year. We even managed to get them all on the couch for a little picture. We missed the pictures with Sydney the peapod and Abigail the bunny- they were both adorable- so head to Jen or Sarah's blog soon for some pics.

Jack has made a shift in the last week. Instead of crawling all the time with a few steps in between, now he walks almost 100% of the time when he needs to get somewhere. He's really good at getting up, he doesn't even use his hands most of the time. Here's a little video of the new skillz...plus his current favorite phrase, which is "ducka-ducka-ducka-ducka."

The girl's Cousins' Closet sale is a big hit! They've had 2 days of selling now, and are getting tons of traffic. They're making a lot of money for a lot of moms...its really cool. We're expecting a big crowd tomorrow for the final day...mostly because KGW Newschannel 8 came out and did a story on them today! Jen called me and left a message and said, "Channel 8 is here and they're interviewing your wife!" Crazy!

Here's the story:

I'm so proud of the girls! They quadrupled the size of their business since the summer sale and have done a great job organizing the whole thing. We've had some amazing help from friends and family...shout out to Nina, Jen, JoJo, Steph, Katie!

Oh yeah...and our last name is Bunch...not Brunch. At least they spelled it right.

Oh yeah...and how about that lady who tripped...so sad.

We've been a little wrapped up in the girls' Cousin's Closet prep, so haven't had much time to blog. Still don't, so this is short, but thought I should at least get a few pics up!

Last Saturday we had a great trip to the "Punkamin Patch" for the Thompson's 10th annual Harvest Party!

Jack got his first introduction to chicks (the furry almost-chicken kind). We were a little scared he would go all Lenny from Of Mice and Men on them, so we supervised carefully. Steph endured some chicken pee on her hands for the whole thing...thanks Steph!



Jack loves his Grandma JoJo!

Bapaw and Jack checking out the patch on the hay ride.

Don't worry Dad, I got these two!

This Sunday, I headed down to the nursery to pick up Jack and as soon as I got there the workers were shouting, "Jack walked across the nursery!" They also informed me that he was stealing graham crackers from the other kids....oh dear! Now we have a walking, graham cracker stealing boy on our hands and we couldn't be more proud of him. Here's some video of Jack's progression into walking. The first part is from early last month when he was just at one or two steps, the middle is from a couple of days ago, and the last part is from today.

...the Bunch Bunch

Becky and I decided to paint the bathroom a while ago. At work the other day, I got the inspiration to take out this nasty old heater that we never use, since it's basically just an eyesore and temptation for Jack to play with.

I did all my research on how to deal with the electricity, how to put up the new drywall and finish off the project. Then I went to Home Depot. A couple days later, we've got a clean, painted wall with no evidence of the ugly heater! I'm very proud this is the most complicated home-improvement project that I've tackled.

I forgot to take a picture of the joint compound/drying stage. I hope you'll forgive me.

sleepy baby!

So...after the avocado picture, we realized Jack's hair (although cute) was getting a little out of control :-) We love the curls, but they were getting a bit too long. Today we decided to give him his first haircut (we're not counting the rat-tail that we cut off when he was 2 months old).

Here's the before:

the during:

and the after:

...by the way, you can see Jack's first tooth in the last picture.

...and by the way Steph and Sarah, Becky has already had a few tears :-)

Avocado Anyone??

Jack had a busy play date yesterday, and it apparently wiped him out. I was working away at the computer- getting ready for our Cousins' Closet sale and I looked back to find this:


When I said something to wake him up, it just startled him enough to move and turn on the animal sounds and lights on his jumper- didn't phase him a bit!

Later...I was trying to feed him dinner and just at his last bite of carrots this happened:

We decided it was a day to head to bed a little early.

:::::EDITED BY AUTHOR:::::

Boy - I was TOTALLY WRONG! That's not Steph. But I'll bet if she donned Treky makeup and hair, she'd look just like that!

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For those of you who don't visit the world of Facebook...I just had to share this with you. Yes, folks...this is Stephanie Marr.

that is all, Peaby.