Christmas in WV

We left a day later than planned, thank goodness we saw at least 20 cars in a variety of ruins from the major ice we missed.
A real car companion so we relaxed and had some fun at the hotel in Champaign. Especially in front of the full length mirror.

From Christmas 2008

Gingerbread house final touches with Great.

From Christmas 2008

Up there, Grammy.

From Christmas 2008

Silly GrandPaw hugs.

From Christmas 2008

Smoothie?

From Christmas 2008

Or Tea? With Great and Great Great, good sports!

From Christmas 2008

Bottoms up.

From Christmas 2008

Auntie fun.

From Christmas 2008

A real Fire Fighter Experience, bringing out the Hook and Ladder Truck, awesome fun for son and papa.

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

A new girlfriend? (Note the paparazzi in the background)

From Christmas 2008

Clay Center Children's Museum, all sorts of fun!

From Christmas 2008

Our final meal together, yes, that's right December 27th and we're outside in short sleeves grilling hot dogs with Custard Stand chili. 70 degrees!! Too hot for us Minnesotans.

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

Snow Garden

Just give some magic water and create a "snow garden" lots of warm snow day fun.

From Christmas 2008

A Christmas Tree with a Train

It doesn't get much better than this. Brad loves that is plays Christmas songs too!

From Christmas 2008

Special Day, Day III: The Christmas Tree

First, I finally finished making umpteen dozen chocolate truffles.

From Winter 2008

And then the decorating of the tree, no ornaments broken, so far, knock on wood.

From Winter 2008

There's a giant cluster of ornaments on the last row of branches, I wonder why? Hey, West Coast friends, yes that's a Tillamook Cheese Factory ornament in the front!

From Winter 2008

From Winter 2008

And after, hot cocoa, with marshmallows and . . .

From Winter 2008

whipped cream!

From Winter 2008

An "I love you" moment . . . ahhhhh.

From Winter 2008

Special Day, Day II: Orchestra hall Nutcracker

We got up fairly early and headed for Minneapolis to see the Minnesota Orchestra perform for one of the free Target Family concerts. We didn't have tickets so had to get there early enough that we could pick up returned tickets, we didn't have any troubles getting them and in fact found excellent parking and was inside the lobby for the before the concert events. Magoo got to walk around to each of the musical stations. Whether it was initial shyness or interest taking over he really enjoyed the last booth we were at where he got to actually play the violin and cello (at least those are the instruments I think they were, I'm quite musically illiterate as many of you know . . .). He had a much harder time playing with the jingle bells, but really loved the ratchet and thought the boards were ok too. Not so into the water xylophone or conductors instructions, maybe next time.

At the end of the concert we asked him what his favorite parts were, the Nutcrackers, I assume the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Rose Petal dancers, when they came out I opened our book and pointed them out to him, their costumes were very similar to those in our book so I think he really got it. They were all terrific performers and the music was also a delight. And they finished off the concert with what is now one of my favorites, Sleigh Ride!

The Ratchet, "I can crank really fast."

From Winter 2008

Future cellist?

From Winter 2008

Or future violinist?

From Winter 2008

Before concert excitement!!

From Winter 2008

Many of the musicians warming up, we had pretty close seats this time. It was nice to be able to identify some of the instruments. He pointed out the harp, a violin or two, and a few horns.

From Winter 2008

Series of Christmas Special Days, Day I

Drove all the way to Hastings for groceries right over lunch so after shopping got to ride the pony for a penny and then lunch at a fast food restaurant, a rare treat. He enjoyed three of his four chicken nuggets, offering to share the other with mama and I "accidentally" left more than half the fries in the kids meal bag. Thank goodness he's an easy kid, otherwise these special outings could be potentially miserable and then non-existent.

From Winter 2008

From Winter 2008

Note the new toboggan from his great Aunt, he was so excited when he opened the package and hasn't even considered wearing his other hat!!

What've we been up to . . .

A nice quiet Thanksgiving and even got some projects around the house and for Christmas done or worked on.

We enjoyed a gorgeous November day, including a photo day and the Holiday stroll. Note the photographer's skills of the pictures of all three of us go to Auntie Decker.








Santa, reindeer, candy, lights, ice fishing float, wow!!

Reading

A little quiet time after wrestling before bed with Papa.

From Fall 2008

Toilets!

We're pretty much trained on getting to the toilet, but I'm not so sure we know how to use it correctly yet!

There's only so long I can sit in the bathroom and wait while he takes 20-30 minutes in the bathroom, so occasionally I leave, I (actually papa) paid the price tonight.

From Fall 2008

Snow

Waking up this morning to a light dusting of snow and a little more coming down I instantly felt the quiet of winter. There's a sense of peace for me that I get from the snow, until about February, then it's just bitter cold, unless it's snowing, then the peace even takes away the bitterness. Hmmm, the first snows, waxing nestalgic.

Snow, Snow, do you like the snow? Yes or no?
Do you like it in your face? Yes, Yes I like it any place.
Thanks--P.D. Eastman

Fixing my tractor

We finally put batteries back in Magoo's remote controlled tractor but as it was played with outside a little this fall it wouldn't drive straight. I said, "Let me take a look at it and see if I can fix it." Magoo said, "Let me get my tools, I'll fix it." So I looked at it saw that one of the tires was slipping from the "gear" and so the other tire would go consistently causing the tractor to turn, there didn't appear to be a fix so I tried messing with it and tested it out and it still drove all crooked like. So Magoo picks it up, says, "I need my screwdriver." Find it from his tool kit, flips over the tractor and begins working on it. Gives it a test drive and it drives straight. Dad, if you're listening, thanks for sending him mechanical skills!

From Fall 2008

From Fall 2008

Halloween: pumpkins, friends, tricks and treats!

We had a great family evening watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and carving our pumpkins, complete with pizza! Magoo had been asking for a month or more what's in the pumpkins we got from the garden. When we cut his (from the orchard not our garden) open and he had to reach in to get out the guts he wasn't so sure, in fact needed a lot of talking into it.

From Fall 2008

But after a while, he finally got into it.

From Fall 2008

The best part was of course, getting to carve it. He knew exactly what he wanted, "a rectangle here"one "here" and "a big circle here, for the mouth."
What's in there?

From Fall 2008

From Fall 2008

Then a "little circle, right here [between the eyes, despite my suggestions]."

From Fall 2008

Voila! the finished product. After they were placed on the steps and lit, Brad said, "I love Magoo's, it looks like it's yelling, "Get off my lawn!""

From Fall 2008

The next morning we had invited some friends over for some pumpkin fun! We had ghost peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches, spooky party mix, juice with eyeballs (grapes), bone (string cheese) fingers, pumpking popcorn balls, a little candy, and a friend brought a wonderful plate of Halloween cookies and another brought a wonderful caterpillar! We had a "Haunted" hallway with a cave in the back (and some glow sticks to see the way, lots of dress-up hats, we made clothes pin ghosts, felt jack-o-lanterns, and ended with trick-or-treating to each of the moms to fill up our bags and get in some practice for the big event!

After a much needed nap and dinner we were ready for round two, tricks or treats in the neighborhood. Mama and Papa had tried to convince Magoo to be Bo Duke AKA a race car driver (as he was very resistant to the "Bo Duke" idea), he had also mentioned, an elephant, a tomato, a construction driver, an egg. We had a bug costume from a month earlier but that never seemed to be of interest. Then I was talking to his daycare teacher and she said he had been saying a bug all week! In the meantime I had been building a race car hoping at the last minute he would go for it, and if not we'd figure out something else. When I asked him if he wanted to be a bug or a race car driver he said, "A bug driving a race car." Finally we had a costume!

From Fall 2008

A very big ostrich

From Fall 2008

Magoo and I were drawing on a white board this morning when he decided to draw a "mana" (banana) you'll see one on the bottom. The second mana was then turned into a robot. Then he deliberately and carefully drew a round body, two legs coming down, a neck or tail to the left, a circle wing in the middle, and another line off to the right. He had been asking me to draw a giraffe so that's what I was expecting, but instead he said, "A very big ostrich, don't ever touch it unless you ask a grown up." He later added claws to the legs so "be careful, there's claws." I can't tell you were he gets these ideas but I'm glad he's obviously soaking up a lot from somewhere!

Fall Orchard

Magoo has been learning a ton at school. I'm sure it's due to both a mental growth spurt but also exposure to new and more things at school. We asked him today if he knew what an orchard was he said, "Yeah." a typical answer to this type of question, then foolishly we always ask him the follow up question, "What is an orchard?" Today he surprised us, straying from scripted, "I don't know" to "Where fruit grows on trees." What a smarty.

We both had a half day off of work today and being a nice day took him up to Afton Apples. We had a fantastic time, though, I was a little disappointed in the orchard, I think of it as being a little more expensive but you get more out of it, you did get tractor drawn hay rides and both an orchard and a pumpkin patch, but other than that I'm not sure it was worth it. I hope I remember this in the future and stick with the more local homegrown, not bigger-more-expensive-is-better orchards in the future.

None-the-less we had fun, we road the tractor hay rides around, picked apples, walked through the pumpkin pasture (as Magoo called it) and each selected a pumpkin, then played on the swings a little, finally fed the animals. I have to tell you it was hilarious, the donkey started coming to the fence when he saw Magoo had food, when I bent down to take a picture the donkey let out the loudest, longest bray I've ever heard from donkey. Magoo buried his head in papa's lap but didn't cry, just said, "That was loudest I ever heard."

From Fall 2008

Is that a worm hole?

From Fall 2008

Look I picked an apple.

From Fall 2008

Need I say more

From Fall 2008

Picking a pumpkin from the pumpkin pasture