Holiday Greetings 2006

So what with all the holiday planning and baking and task-taking-on, Jill is left with nary a free moment to do the annual "holiday Christmas letter", and frankly we don't have time for yet another round of envelope stuffing, so that means you're left with me to give the holiday greeting.

Bwa ha ha ha...

Yeah, sorry. I have a hard time remembering what I did a few days ago, so remembering what we were doing all year is pretty much right out. What I can do is talk about what's been going on lately, so if we haven't talked to you in awhile (Matt and Shelly, I'm looking at you) you might have a bit better idea of what's going on.

First off, everybody's doing well. Logan just turned five a few days ago, and Liam is approaching two. They’re getting to be pretty good buds, and it’s kind of funny to hear Logan mimicking our “baby talk” to Liam. There are occasional fights over who gets to sit next to the faucet during bathtime, and one or two biting incidents (Logan actually made a sign for Liam to hang on the fridge that said “No Biting”). For the most part, they get along well and it’s nice that they can entertain each other. Liam has had some of the same respiratory issues this year that Logan has had, but lately he's been pretty good and his cough seems to have mostly gone away. Logan's doing great, although he's become incredibly picky about meals and often refuses to eat anything at all. We haven't yet resorted to forcing him to clean his plate, but he loses out on a lot of dessert and snacks. Liam, on the other hand, is like a little 30-inch Hoover. He eats pretty much everything we put in front of him. The rest he throws around the kitchen. They also like to play a game called "Let's Bang our Silverware on the Table and Make it Look Like an Antique from the 1860's". Seriously, here's a tip - don't buy a nice wood table and then have kids. You're just asking for it.

Logan's been doing preschool three days a week this year, and lately seems to be pretty blasé about the whole separation issue. He used to be a little basket case when it came time to drop him off, but lately he just gives a quick hug and goes off to join the class. He seems a little somber when you leave, but he's handling it pretty well. He'll be starting kindergarten next July, which still just blows me away. Especially since they go from like 9am-4pm. What kind of boot camp kindergarten is that? At least give them time for cartoons in the afternoon. Liam's been doing Mother's Day Out, which from Jill's perspective has apparently been more like Mother's Day to Work Hard, Run Errands and Clean House. I have no idea how Liam does these days, I don't ever drop him off. The best, BEST thing about being gone all day is coming home, driving into the garage, and seeing the boys fling open the garage door and yell "DADA!" while they do a little happy dance. Really, it's hilarious. It appears I am quite the rock star in our household. I'm not sure why.

Liam's getting a serious case of big brother hero worship, and anytime we go visit their cousins Jack and Alex Liam is always trying to get right into the thick of things. He's also getting to be pretty fearless, and he LOVES to climb around on stuff. He's old hat at climbing up onto the kitchen chairs, we've also found him on Logan's bed, the end table in the living room (he likes to reprogram the answering machine), the coffee table, and once I found him dancing on Logan's train table. So far he hasn't fallen and hurt himself, so he must be pretty good at it. He's starting to actually talk a bit, and the previous posts below detail some of his words. Jill reminds me that we left out quite a bit of stuff that he actually can say correctly, like "yes" and various parts of the body. (One bit of advice - be careful asking about eyes, because Liam likes to touch everything he's talking about, and yes he will jab you in the eye socket. "Eye?" -poke- "AUUGH!") Lately Liam's been big on reading, he loves the book "Moo, Baa, La La La", "Mr. Brown Can Moo", and pretty much anything with a duck. He also gets insanely excited about brushing his teeth, I think mostly because it's doing something Logan does. Somehow I doubt that'll last.

Logan is your typical five-year-old, although he watches too much TV and plays too many video games. In a misguided father-son bonding moment I introduced Logan to the Playstation 2, which he is now completely addicted to. What can I say? He is his father’s son. He still loves to read and color and play games, although as a typical boy his games are often well into the “let’s see how fantastically we can smash THIS!” realm of entertainment. I’ve been picking up a few of the more well-regarded kids’ board games and so far he’s really loving those. It helps that he usually beats us. Logan is beginning to remind me of myself at this age, although granted – I can barely remember being five. Let me put it this way – he seems to be growing into the type of kid that I was. We’ll see how things turn out.

Not as much to tell about Jill and me. We're still "training" for a triathlon, although with the onslaught of cold weather that training seems to involve far less exercise than it used to. Hopefully after the holidays we can get into swimming and figure out a way to keep the running and biking muscles in shape (I absolutely hate being out in cold weather, so this is a real challenge). I've been doing some more traveling for work, with trips this year to Australia, New Mexico, and Maryland. In another month or two I may get to go to Japan, which might be a work trip I actually look forward to. My Japanese is a little rusty, but I'm working on it. Ganbatte! Jill's been keeping up with the boys and all of her church activities, and at times I think she's probably on a busier schedule than I am. We're still planning on a trip to Italy next year, sometime around late May into early June, for our ten-year wedding anniversary (man, we're getting OLD). We have a few destinations in mind, and thanks to work trips I've picked up enough Italian to hopefully make things more interesting for us. It'll be our first big vacation since our trip to Canada a few years ago, and Jill's first big trip overseas.

So that's a quick wrap-up of our current situation. Here are a few more tidbits that I couldn't work into the narrative so far:

- We bought Logan his first real bike this fall, he rode it once for about 30 seconds. Maybe he's still a bit young?
- The board game collection, for those who keep asking, stands at 67 games.
- Liam learned how to say "Yes" awhile ago, but the form keeps changing. First it was "Yah", then Jill taught him "Yessh", now it's "Yup". I think I’ve also heard his “No” changing into a bit of a “Nope”. I hope we’re not raising a hillbilly.

For the Christmas holidays this year, we'll be back in Kansas City to see family and friends. Jill and the boys are already there, and I'll be heading back tomorrow. We should be in KC through the new year. If we haven't seen you in awhile and you'll be in the area, please get in touch. We'll get together, have some good food, maybe play a game or two. For those of you we won't see, have a happy and safe holiday we'll hope to talk to you soon.

Speak Liamese? Apparently Not.

Well, a week ago I posed several sayings from Son #2, and apparently they were all stumpers as nobody posted any guesses. Since I'm sure this has been tormenting all of you for the past seven days, here at last I can set your minds at ease.

Here's what Liams' been saying:

1. "Eh? Cah." - this is Liam's way of saying "car". He precedes nearly every word with "eh?" or "uh?", although Jill thinks this might be how he says "I want".
2. "Eh? Emmo." - suspiciously close to "Elmo", but he's actually asking for milk.
3. "Bah" - numbers three through five are all similar, and tough to differentiate in spelling. This is "ball"
4. "Baaa" - this is "sheep"
5. "BAAAAAAAHHH!!!" - this is "Bath?! Did you say bath!!? BAAATHH!!!"
6. "Huck." - this is "I'm stuck" or "some part of me is stuck". Not to be confused with "hock", which is sock.
7. "Pua pua." - this is apparently the sound Logan makes when he spits after brushing his teeth, so this is now the word for "brush teeth".
8. "Hapa." - Liam likes to pull the zipper of his pajamas way down and walk around like some 70's disco king. "Hapa" is zipper.
9. "Juuuu." - this is originally how he says "juice", but sometimes it's just a catchall word for "drink, please".
10. "nnn -click- " - this is (seriously) how Liam says "Logan". He says "nnn" and then sort of clucks his tongue.
11. "Buh." - one of Liam's first words, "banana".
12. "Cheryo." - Jill thinks "cherya" might be closer, but either way we know he's asking for cereal.
13. "Haht." - At some point Jill taught Liam that dinner was oftentimes "hot", and he started calling all meals "hot". As in, "hey, I'm hungry, how about some hot?"
14. "Hafwafa." or "Hafafa." - this is hard to spell, because Liam's pronuniciation of this is really growly and gutteral. Either way, he's asking for a "hot waffle".
15. "Pfoof." - one of Liam's favorite foods, "fish" (i.e. Goldfish crackers).
16. "Cooooo!" - for awhile Liam was walking around calling everything "cool".
17. "Uh? UP!" - this one was pretty obvious. Up in your arms, up in your lap, up on the couch, up on the chair, wherever he needs to get up to he knows how to do it.

So there you go. Next time you see Liam, try talking to him in his own tongue. Just don't be surprised if he corrects your grammar.

Logan Turns Five

So tonight was the big birthday bash for the birthday boy. Logan turned five today, and I managed to swing a day off so I could stay home and help him celebrate. He opened a few new presents this morning, some new pajamas, a new game and some more track for his Geotrax stuff. He mostly just took it easy today, the boys and I played outside in the freak 65 degree December weather, played with trains, played some games, and generally had a fun day.

This evening was Logan's birthday party for him and his friends that Jill's been preparing for like a fiend for the last few days. She always goes all out for the party stuff, and this year was no exception. She went with a "Go Diego Go" theme for the evening, replete with fancy-pants cupcakes, Diego toys, invitations, decorations, and even Diego on the TV at some points. It was a fun evening, although for anyone considering the idea of gathering a dozen 4-5 year olds and feeding them a meal of sugar in a confined space, you'll get the same effect if you just run a 10K during a heavy metal concert then go out and bang your head against the driveway repeatedly.

Heh, I kid.

Sort of.

Anyway, it all went pretty well, Logan had a great time, and everyone else seemed to enjoy themselves. The train set was a big hit, and Jill even got in a couple of party games that the kids seemed to enjoy.

Jill's fancy-pants Diego and Baby Jaguar cupcakes

See, Logan's an ostrich, trying to get his egg to the nest, but he has no hands...you kinda had to be there.

The party gets off the hook with House of Pain's "Jump Around".

Do you speak Liamese?

Liam's hit that age where he's talking - we're just not always sure what he's saying. It's beyond toddler babbling, he's definitely using words. They just tend to be words that only he knows. So here's a little pop quiz - see if you can deduce what he's saying. Answers to follow soon...

1. "Eh? Cah."

2. "Eh? Emmo."

3. "Bah"

4. "Baaa"

5. "BAAAAAAAHHH!!!"

6. "Huck."

7. "Pua pua."

8. "Hapa."

9. "Juuuu."

10. "nnn -click- "

11. "Buh."

12. "Cheryo."

13. "Haht."

14. "Hafwafa." or "Hafafa."

15. "Pfoof."

16. "Cooooo!"

17. "Uh? UP!"

In all fairness, some of his words are fairly clear - he can say Dada, Mama, Papa, choo-choo, hot dog, and his favorite word, "yup".

Sometimes I feel like we need a translator, though.

Blowing right past November...

...and into December! Cobapple's getting a new look for the winter and hopefully a resurgence of photos. Which might be tough, given that this is the time of year when we tend to just sit inside and loaf. But we'll see what we can do.

In the meantime, Logan and Liam have had a chance to get outside and enjoy the snow after the "big" storm we had last week (true to form, St. Louis forecasts were for 6"-10", so all we got was about 4". I'm surprised it was that much.). We got them outside in the cold and onto the sled for awhile - the slope behind our house is fantastic for sledding, and neither one of the boys could get enough. We were quite literally sledding until the sun went down.

Dude, we're totally hitting the slopes.

Bad photo? No, it's blurry because we're doing about 65mph down the hill.

Liam wanted ride after ride on "the car"

Jill drove slowly, but she looked good doing it

Jill's uncaptionable photo - the face speaks for itself

Logan raced me back up the hill each time, and he always won. Hey, I had the sled.

This is Liam yelling "Hey, get the car back up here! It's my turn!" Except it just sounded like "Caaahhhh!!!".