La Junta Xmas 2010

So. This is late. And a little self-indulgent, or at least family-indulgent. But there were so many funny highlights in the album, well, it's my blog, and if you don't have five minutes to spare... spread it out over the week or something.

Watch for cue ball obsession, **evil wooden puzzles**, baby nine ball (and the baby nine ball commissioner), cheetah pants, fetch, and diner dairy product catapults.

(You might want to give it time to load or play it without watching - weird pixellated transitions mean it hasn't fully loaded.)

For my mom

Again, no visual.

Today, Eamon asked a word that my mom has been eagerly awaiting.

"Why"?

I was trying to convince him to quit doing something rude at the table (don't remember what). I answered, he repeated his question.

Mom, I may ship him to you, since you wanted to hear this soooo badly.

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If it's a little quiet here this week: Class starts tomorrow. If one of you wants to get together a lecture on cell structure for me, I'll post more.

No?

Huh.

Eamontropism

A few images from the Grunzinger's visit.

Milestones

No visual for this one, unfortunately.

Last night was the first time I've seen my child with a milk mustache. I told the daycare that we've been giving him water in an actual cup, so they started giving him milk that way. So Ray did it at home. Pretty cute. And frighteningly grown up.

In a separate milestone, E broke out in a full song for the first time (I can't count "Peanut, Peanut Butter, Jelly", somehow.) I'm not sure what Ray or I did to spark it, but, while sitting at the dinner table, he burst into "Shake Your Booty". (Huh, just realized that I didn't know he knew at least two of those words.) Apparently KOSI deems it appropriate work music, so it gets played on the radio at daycare. And if you've spent any time with E, you know he'll dance to anything. That included. The visual is pretty funny (not sure how he knows where his "booty" is, but he does, even though it's almost nonexistent), but I'm not sure if I encourage this one?

Well Trained

Ray's parents came through on their way back to Minnesota. Eamon got a morning while I ran to get a haircut, and by the time I got home he had them thoroughly trained. As you will see, I was a bit slow on the pickup...
I think they did this for about 40 minutes total. I'm impressed by E's attention span. I'm REALLY impressed by his grandparents'.

Angel

I promised snow angel pics. But first, I'm surprised that no one noticed the shovel Eamon chose (yes, insistently, chose).
The "Princess at Heart" part makes me giggle every time. On our way out I saw a (obviously more experienced) mother dash in to a whole other section of the store and grab a shovel with NO licensed characters. I didn't even see that option. But E is happy.

Now, onto the cuteness and snow angels:

Shubbel?

I hope you all had a happy New Year's. One of the reasons it has been quiet over here is because E got an extra Christmas gift.

Snow. Lots of light, fluffy, champagne snow.

When it first started coming down, he was hooting at it, shouting "stoppit" over his english muffin.

Then I took him outside with me to get a few inches shoveled off of the driveway. He was begging for my shovel, which was too heavy for him. I showed him how to make snowballs (sort of - see "champagne snow"). Then we ran to Lowe's to try and buy some needed items and use up a gift card. Turns out, Lowe's was out to dissappoint, and I had trouble finding enough items to fill the gift card. Then, Eamon found one thing that he wanted, just to help me out. We came back home and headed back out after nap.
(The boots are also highly loved. He's pretty easy to shop for. Never mind that that is still last year's snowsuit.)
Mom, I can't put my arms down!
Shubbel!It's actually remarkably effective. I stole it to do the step off the front porch.
It also helps one's supervisory authority.
It does help if you don't throw the shovel-full of snow in your face, though.

See, he did the front walk himself!! Of course, he's non-directable, so this qualifies under "even a blind squirrel...". But he's very very happy with his new "shubbel". Between Thursday and Friday, I shoveled three times and then Ray had to shovel as soon as he came home. And then again after snack and on Saturday. I'm not even sure what they shoveled at that point, but there are some random paths through the back yard now.

And some snow angels - and that's another post. As is all the holiday fun with my family.

I hope you all had wonderful holidays!