Casey loves his Christmas presents

Erika finally had to draw the line: "No more fire truck until you eat breakfast."

Snow Day!

They say we have 12-18 inches already, and it's still snowing (although it looks pretty light right now). It was 32 degrees when we got up this morning, and the temperature is supposed to plummet today. I thought we could go play in the snow for a bit before it got too cold, but there's a really a biting wind. We only stayed out for a few minutes, long enough to see that there's no way we're getting out of our parking lot until it's plowed. Then Casey wanted to go back inside, and we had some cocoa. Chris is working from home, so we're all safe and warm. And it looks like the snow will stop today, and then there will be a couple days of decent weather for the state to clean up before we have to fly out on Saturday.





Darby was a little better sport about being outside today. That kid's up for anything.

Darby's First Haircut

The new haircut makes Darby look so much more like a little boy now. That, and he's not nursing anymore, and he's toddling around everywhere with sudden confidence--he's so grown up all of a sudden!

By the way

a belated happy Thanksgiving!

We had a nice trip to see my folks in Indiana. Fun was had. Mistakes were made. Lessons were learned, as follows:

1. The correct egg nog-to-Bailey's ratio is not half and half. That's what they get for letting me be bartender. I eyeballed the situation, and figured that half a jingle bell mug was about equal to one shot. Everybody else thought that was a really bad call and let me hear about it for the rest of the night. Talk about drunk and disorderly! It was as if this was the worst batch of mixed drinks anybody had ever made in the history of getting wasted. I didn't think it was that bad.

2. Don't put your 3-year-old in the middle of a merry-go-round and trust that he'll remain stable while you spin it. I won't name names, but let's just say it was one of Casey's parents, and it wasn't me! Casey shifted, lost his balance, and succumbed to the centrifugal forces. He wasn't injured, but he landed on his face and got a full mouthful and a noseful of playground dirt. His tongue was so caked that we couldn't be sure he still had a tongue. Poor kiddo was so unhappy. Then he sneezed, and ... well, I'll spare you the grisly details. But suffice to say, we had no tissues with us, and there was one mitten that had to go into the washer immediately after we got back to the house.

3. Never go looking for a gas station in rural Indiana. On our journey home, we didn't realize we were so low on gas until we had passed the point of civilization. Our GPS told us the best option was five miles off the highway in a little town (if you can call it that) named Thorntown. In the spot where it told us Joe's Marathon would be was a hollowed-out carcass of a building with a few ancient-looking pumps outside. We drove around a little, thinking every small town, no matter how microscopic, must have a functional gas station. Not true. So I ran into a convenience store, where an employee told me the nearest gas station was about six miles further into the cornfields, in Dover. Thankfully we made it before hitting empty. But Chris complained that the whole experience hearkened a little too close to the plot of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Not to complain too much. Sure, Darby ran a fever between 101 and 102 the entire long weekend, and it took us 10 hours to make it back to Madison. But dinner was fantastic, family was all around, and my Mom took the kids so that we could sleep in a few times. And, we have much to be thankful for this year. I hope everyone had as good a holiday as we did.

First Snow of the Season

It started snowing up a storm this afternoon, and Casey watched in awe through our balcony door, waiting impatiently for Darby to wake up from his nap so we could all go out. He's young enough that snow still seems new and interesting each year.



I think this counts as Darby's first official snow, since last year he was still too new to notice. I remember that Casey kind of freaked out the very first time I took him out in the snow, when he was about this age. But Darby took it in stride and was quite happy. He loves to be outside, and he's a good sport in general.



Look, snow sticks to mittens. Amazing!



This is a pretty slippery sidewalk to be trying this maneuver (that is, standing). But no children were injured in the making of this photo.



Or this one, for that matter.