February 2009 Archives

Oh, BTW — that picture of Daniel with the chef’s hat on in yesterday’s post is an adult hat. Yes, he has a big head. Will has a big head, Daddy has a big head, but Daniel takes the cake. He already fits Will’s 5- to 8-year-old bike helmet (that Will just graduated from).

To keep today’s posting a little more light-hearted, we’ll hit you up with some trivia about various Sesame Street and muppet characters.

And once you learn the little tidbit about Elmo in the previous link, you should really listen to this blurb with the puppeteer (Kevin Clash) responsible for Elmo from Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. As they note in the intro, he’s probably the most successful and widely known African-American performer on TV, but you’ve never actually seen him. And he’s really impressive switching from his normal voice to his Elmo voice in a split second. Just give it a listen.

That’s the only way I can describe today’s precipitation. You’ve heard of a sun-shower. Well, we got hit by a sun-flurry. The picture to the right really cannot do it justice. (I don’t have the camera or the know-how to take the shot properly, but clicking on it will allow you to see the flakes.) But I was walking around the house, with the sun shining bright outside, and looked out a window to see large snowflakes falling. And they were sticking to the ground!

We still haven’t had a good snowfall yet.

The weekend has been a good one. Will had another good outing of swim lessons this afternoon. He’s really trying more and more stuff. It’s really cool that I think he may finally be willing to try more of it and get a little better at it each time. Could be an interesting summer of swimming for Will — which would be a good thing to have him swim more independently. That will allow Kellie and I to focus on Sean and Daniel, who will probably really want to take to the water this summer.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any video of Sean and Daniel dancing to the music on the Weather Channel forecast. The boys have taken to another skill instead — vacuuming up their mess under the table after a meal. Well, at least they do it sometimes. We also give you a ball throwing exhibition, with a touch of twin-on-twin “violence.”

Hope you have a good week ahead.

I think everyone knows that today is St. Valentine’s Day. The kids got to dress up in red, exchange cards, and have a good time. The chocolate and cookies actually were not finished off tonight, which is probably a good thing. They’re getting into it.

The kids do send out their Valentine’s wishes to everyone today. We hope you have a good one. Of course, I’m not sure what to make of the fact that all of the boys (even the young ones), are actually wishing you a happy Valentine’s day. After all, Daniel and Sean both said goodbye to a fake tree in the foyer of the doctor’s office on Wednesday. (Yes, they really did, without prompting. I still crack up remembering it.) I guess they know it’s good manners to do it, just like wishing you a happy day.

Not much else to report at this point. They’re predicting a light dusting of snow for Sunday night, but Monday is a school holiday, so there’s not much that we have to worry about there. The kids were already on schedule to go to daycare that day.

OK, it’s been a while since I checked in. Things have been busy, but not hectic. I think that’s a good indication. My parents visited this last weekend, and with the abnormally nice weather (mid-70s), we were able to get outside for some stuff. Nana, Kellie and Will also went to see Hotel for Dogs Saturday night (generally decent, according to them).

I hope my parents get to rest this weekend. They had been traveling to California the previous weekend — for my dad’s uncle’s 100th birthday. Congrats, Uncle Charles.

The kids are definitely growing up. Sean is in full-bore potty mode. We don’t even need to bribe him (like we did with Will). Not enough to keep the diaper dry, but he generally lets us know if he needs to go potty, and at daycare, where they keep him on a regular schedule, he has gone every time this week. Daniel — eh, not so interested yet.

Sean is definitely Mr. More-Independent now. He often insists on putting on his own pants and shirt (with a little not-so-obvious assistance from Mommy or Daddy). Definitely growing up. Sigh, what are we going to do?

Will is big-time into his bike now, when it’s warm enough outside. He has a new helmet that looks much better than the one before. Maybe this is the year the training wheels come off? Who knows — though he is always a little cautious about things. Will also starts weekly swimming lessons again this Sunday. That should be fun for him.

That 70 degree weather really stuck around for a while. Even today, it was in the mid-60s, though incredibly windy. Unfortunately, Punxsutawney Phil may be right in that spring isn’t coming early this year. It’s going to chill back down this weekend. I still haven’t seen a robin yet this year — that’s abnormally late, compared to the past few years. And the crocuses are just starting to pop through the ground — again, late. That January cold snap was definitely worse than normal (as my gas bill also shows). So stay warm, and keep in touch.

We have lots of video and picture clips of the kids from last month, but I’m finally getting to play some catch up. (Never mind the photo and video projects remaining from Thanksgiving and Christmas, still.) You got exposed to Daniel’s singing skills previously. Well, he continues to expand his skillset — this time adding the piano.

The first part of the video was from last week Monday, when he was still home sick with walking pneumonia (though largely over it). You get some ABCs in there, followed by Baa Baa Black Sheep. The second part was from last Saturday, when he decided to practice some more. And there is no posing going on here. Daniel just crawls up on the piano and starts playing and singing. This was actually the first couple of times we were able to get the camera in time to catch him singing and playing.

We hope you enjoy it.

Wow, that was quick. We actually got snow last night, and it actually stuck to the ground pretty well. Not very thick, but it was wet and packable. But by daylight, it had stopped snowing. And schools were not even delayed; the roads did not ice up at all, so the buses were out on their normal schedule.

And by midday, despite it being mostly cloudy, the snow had largely melted from the ground. Will did say that they got to play with some snow during recess, but where I worked, it was gone by shortly after lunch.

They say we may get some more tonight, but still not enough to make a difference. But at least Will got to see a little snow. No, we didn’t get to build the snowman that he so desperately wants to build (he remembers the one from last year — pictures of which were lost in the computer crash last year), but I think he’s happy to see a decent snowfall finally.

The Super Bowl certainly had an interesting finish. Not sure if it made up for the first three quarters of uneven play, though they did have their moments. But the game certainly struggled to get any sort of flow to it, whether with the replays or other timeouts.

And of course, lots of commercial breaks. If you missed some of the commercials, NBC has made all of them available online. (See the bar above.) Personally, I thought the commercials were pretty mediocre this year. I’m not sure there were too many horrible ones, but nothing really stood out to me, either. When the topic came up this morning at work, I struggled to come up with a memorable one. Maybe I’m just getting old and forgetful.

Or maybe they just weren’t memorable. See for yourself.

The kids enjoyed the Super Bowl. Will was looking forward to it all day, and he stuck around to watch much of the first half. Sean and Daniel also got into it, once it came on. They’re still very intrigued with watching football. Unfortunately, there won’t be any football on TV for a while. Unless I drag out a recording. (Thank goodness for the DVR.)