Someone's ONE!

But I don't want to believe it.

I'll try to post some more pictures of the birthday boy today.

Meyer wishes his Grandma Sue a very Happy Birthday too!

The Fireworks That Weren't

Just found this photo from 4th of July weekend. This was the closest the boys got to lights in the sky on that night, thanks to rain and storms. Bit grainy, but it was the effect I was looking for.

Ta-Daaaa!

Meyer's getting pretty good at eating anything he can get his hands on, even stuff he's actually supposed to be eating.  Bananas are a bit tricky, but he figured out right away how to get down there and just slide 'em in.  It works pretty well.  Most of the time.

The Cobapple Brothers Invade Castlio

No, this isn't the story of the time Andy and I crashed that billionaire's ball at that nightclub on the Amalfi Coast (although - heh heh - that was awesome). No, it's time for Logan and Liam to go to school!





Liam's first day of kindergarten and Logan's first day of third grade. They've both been fairly excited this week, although Liam probably moreso. Logan knows what he's in for.

They have new backpacks and new lunchboxes, which Jill outfitted with some sweet nametags so they don't have to mark them up. (I give that maybe one more year before it's too dorky and Logan refuses to use it.)

Liam has the same kindergarten teacher that Logan did (Mrs. Bertino), and she was a great teacher for him. Nice to have Liam in good hands. We're anxiously awaiting news of how the first day went!

Nothing Below Waist Level is Safe

You always like it when your kids get old enough to feed themselves...but this is not really what I had in mind.

In Which the Parents Have the Last Laugh

A couple of weeks ago Logan's Scout pack put on a little Rain Gutter Regatta for a couple of the dens - sort of like a Pinewood Derby, but with boats and far, far less involved. There isn't much to do with a balsa wood boat other than paint it, but Logan went all out on the spy boat theme and named his vessel the "Sneaky Shadow". I thought it turned out pretty well.



The Regatta consists of the boys blowing their boats down a couple of 8 foot sections of rain gutter filled with water. The one rule is that you're not allowed to touch your boat at all, and the one rule lasted all of about 2 seconds. But, it's not really much of a serious race, more for fun, so nobody really minded.



Logan won his first race, but was just edged out in the second one. Which I'm not all that sure he was upset about, as he was able to get back to kickball.

As for the parents getting the last laugh, well...what do you do with a couple of gutters full of water? I think the rest of the photos make that pretty clear.











More photos soon!

Out with the Wolf, in with the Bear

Despite the threat of cataclysmic thunderstorms, Logan's Scout advancement ceremony was held at a local park last night and he graduated from Wolf Scout to Bear Scout. Only three more years until he's a full-fledged Boy Scout, should he decide to continue that long.

There are a few summer activities he'll be involved in, such as the Rain Gutter Regatta coming up in a couple of weeks and Cub Scout summer camp later in June. We'll try to get some pictures of his advancement last night up shortly.

Video Issues

I have heard from some readers that the embedded videos are not working quite right for them. We're viewing them here in both Internet Explorer and Opera with no issues. If you're having problems, please post a comment and let me know what's happening and what browser you're using. I am just copying the YouTube HTML embed scripts, so I'm not sure what I'll be able to do, but I'll try.

Happy

Don't want to forget about the little guy.

Crash

Ride

He Gets It From Me

This morning Logan asked me to get him a fork, and I told him "Why do you need me to get you a fork? You know where they are. Just open the drawer." He was standing about 3 feet from it.

His reply was, "But--oh, yeah. I just have a lot of short-term memory loss."

A Half Decade of Liam

We tried to get Liam to leave a message on our answering machine yesterday announcing his birthday.  He's such a goofball, but get some attention on him and he starts cracking up.  He barely made it through takes 1-3, finally on take 4 he calmed down enough to leave his message.  If you haven't heard it yet, give us a call.  But only when we're not home.  It ought to be up for another day or two.

For his birthday Liam got a donut party at preschool, a cookie cake, dinner at Red Robin complete with ice cream sundae and birthday serenade from the staff, and a few fun presents to keep him busy - a new DS game, a new Tom & Jerry movie, a new scooter, and a new bike!  He's also starting to see some additional presents slowly trickle in from UPS and FedEx - if your gifts were a little late, don't worry.  It's just turning into a week-long birthday bash.

No pictures of the scooter and bike yet, but we do have video I'm working on getting up.  In the meantime, a couple of photos from last night.

Hello, Goodbye

During a van trip last night, we had the radio going softly in the background and Logan called out from the back, "Hey Mom, can you turn this up?"

Jill looked sideways at me and says sotto voce, "It's Miley Cyrus."

She turned up the radio, and I switched it to the back speakers to they could hear it better. Logan listened for a sec, then asked "Who is this?"

"It's Miley Cyrus."

Without missing a beat, he yells out "Oh Mom, can you turn this back DOWN again?"


[sniff]...That's my boy...

P.S. Although he may not realize it (not recognizing the bands), Logan's favorite groups are The Beatles, Rush, and Journey. At least I know we've done ONE thing right.

A lot

It turns out that three kids are a lot.

A lot to feed, a lot to clothe, a lot to bathe.

A lot to schedule, a lot to corral, a lot to transport.

A lot to teach, a lot to entertain.

A lot to love.

A lot to love.

Pinewood Derby 2: Electric Boogaloo

As fans of this site may recall, 2009 was Logan's first year at the Pinewood Derby. It was also Logan's (and my) first attempt at making a Derby car, and well...it rolled. I mean, it went in the direction it was supposed to, but that's about all I can say that is good about its performance. Still, Logan did a lot of the work and came up with the paint scheme himself, and even helped paint it quite a bit.

This year, I was determined to at least try to be mildly competitive. I'll save shots at winning for future years, I just wanted it to hang with the pack. I got the feeling that Logan was a little bit disappointed last year, and Wolf Scouts are still too young to really be able to do much about how well their car races.

This year, Logan came up with the idea of an alligator, and I suggested just doing an alligator head. With some input from him, we came up with a pretty cool car. We drilled holes for weights in the bottom, and tried to keep it aerodynamic, and this year his car did much better.

This is not a great video, because I'm still trying to figure out how to get something usable out of Microsoft's completely useless Live Movie Maker, but at least it works for now. Logan's car is third from the right, the green one with the yellow sticker right on the front.



Logan still finished closer to the back, but I think he liked the car, had fun and is getting a better feel for Derby car making. I'm excited to see what he wants to do next year.

Holidays 2009

I've been thinking about the usual sorts of things that I write in these holiday letters, and it occurred to me that most of you a) read this blog fairly regularly and b) already know most of the things that I would normally put in a holiday blog post. It's typically a recap of the year for our family, but I could just as easily say "go read the 2009 Blogspot archives for the site". Mission accomplished!

But I suppose that would make for a decidedly short and uninteresting holiday recap, so I find myself forced to come up with things that we haven't already written about. So, in no particular order:

- I think we already covered it a bit, but the big vacation for the year was a hugantic (the boys like that word) family trip to Colorado back in June. We spent a long week in a couple of cabins up near Grand Lake, CO, with lots of hiking, fishing, and ice-cream-consuming. It was a great time, and it will be too long before we do that sort of thing again.

- Logan and Liam also took swimming lessons this summer, and did pretty well. They didn't have a chance to get out to the neighborhood pool all that much, since Jill was majorly pregnant in the summer and I was always at work. But, they did a good job with the basics.

- Logan advanced to Wolf Scout earlier in the year, and has still been enjoying Scouts. It remains mostly a Second Grader Social Hour, but there have been a few fun projects and community service days that kept things at least somewhat Scout-oriented. The holidays will find us preparing the Fire and Flames MkII for the 2010 Pinewood Derby, or as I like to call it, "Pinewood Derby 2: The Redemption". There will be payback, OH YES.

- Liam has made great strides in learning to read, thanks in large part to Green Eggs and Ham, the first book he was able to read nearly cover to cover. He still has trouble with bigger words, but he can do a passable job with Mercy Watson books, road signs, cereal boxes, video game text, and pretty much everything he can get his eyes on.

- Meyer has spent the last four months mostly porking up. And practicing for his future as Senior Chief of Drool Manufacturing. He is excellent. I predict a Vice President slot by the time he's three.

So that's about it, folks. Nothing really earth-shattering has happened, other than Meyer joining the family. Otherwise, it's been a fairly tame year. Life goes on. I'm still working at Boeing, finishing up my slot in Propulsion. I had hoped to stay on there permanently, but budget woes are preventing that, so I'm still working on just what I'll be doing next year. Haven't figured it out yet, but I should have a good idea by mid-January. Jill has given up her wedding coordinator gig at church to be able to spend more time with the kids and not give up so many Saturdays.

Hope to see many of you over the next couple of weeks. As always, keep in touch and best wishes to all.

- Jason

Who Wants New Pictures?

Here you go! (Some of these are "newer" than others...)

Ye Merry Olde Hallow's Eve

For Halloween this year I was expecting more Star Wars or super heroes, so Logan surprised me when he said he wanted to be Robin Hood. I think it must have come from a recent bout of repeated viewings of the Disney Robin Hood movie, which was a favorite of mine when I was a kid as well.

Jill and I decided this would be pretty easy. It's easy to imagine making a lot of the costume out of fabric and felt, and I've already got the archery equipment. But then I decided I needed to make him a sword, and things started to get serious after a long morning fashioning that with Dad's help back in KC.

What followed was a bow and quiver full of arrows, a shirt and tunic, hat with feather, a scabbard for said sword, a couple of belts and straps, and some cool-looking but ultimately non-functional leather bracers. The end result was pretty good, if I do say so myself.



The Thursday before Halloween Logan's Scout Pack held their monthly meeting, complete with costume parade and judging. It was broken up by Scout rank, but Logan managed to win one of the costume prizes for the Wolf Scouts. I consider that redemption somewhat from January's Pinewood Derby fiasco.

Liam decided he wanted to be Robin. As in Batman's side-kick. Hmmm. Jill, in a brilliant bit if diversionary shopping, convinced him to be a knight instead.



This was great, because now we had Robin Hood and a medieval knight. What do you get when you mix those? Why, swordfights, of course!



Meyer's still a bit young for the candy, but he made a pretty cute monkey. Even if he did spend most of the trick-or-treating fast asleep.



All the boys had a great Halloween, despite the fact that we seemed to have very little time to prepare for it. Hopefully that's not a sign of the even busier times to come for the rest of the holidays.

Hehehe...umm...what?

The other day we were sitting down to dinner and I had Meyer on my lap. The boys were clowning on him a bit, laughing at the things he was doing. He had the chubby cheeks and double chin going pretty hard, and Jill started laughing at him too. The boys were trying to come up with funny names for him, and mostly just being silly. Jill was trying to keep things at least civil - "he looks like a chunky monkey!" "He's a chubby cheeks!"

Logan was laughing and then said "No, he looks like a sheriff."

"..."

"From California!"


Coming soon...the costume that redeemed the great 2009 Pinewood Derby Fiasco!