A quick dance

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ok, so it's February, and I am just now going through our photos from Christmas. Well at least I am finally getting to them, right?

Power tools! YES!

We went to Uncle Fred's for Christmas Eve. Sean loves it there. He also provides entertainment for everyone else there!

Saying hi to Piper, the new pup.

Sean received two battery-powered trains for Christmas. These go lots of places with us.

Here I am receiving the evil eye for giving Jeff a manual coffee grinder for Christmas. Just call me old-fashioned (not cheap!). :)

More power tools. You'd think he has too many, but no, he does find a different use for all of them.

I'd say we got enough new toys to last us at least another year! Thank you everyone!

*****

Here are some post-Christmas tidbits....



"The Look"

Here is Sean watching Oliver eat his dinner. Oliver, being the scaredy cat that he is, could only tolerate a few bites before he ran away, even though Sean wasn't doing anything. Well I guess to Oliver he was - anyone getting within 5 feet of Oliver scares him!

I guess you could say that Sean's first "chore" is feeding the cats. He generally enjoys doing it, so I try to always ask him if he wants to before I do it myself. He's a good helper for being 2, I think. Here he's getting serious with his "smokin' pipe," an old Mr. Potato Head pipe we found at Grandma H.'s house.

Playing with the Legos from Christmas. And, of course, a cd in hand. Sean loves to play music all day on the cd player.

I have no idea how I got him to sit still for this one. So cheesy. So cute.

Sean often helps me cook when I am making dinner. Here he announced that he made a sculpture - his fist one ever! So of course I had to take a picture of it.

Catching up a bit

So, it has been a while since I have updated the blog.... since returning home to Ohio we have been busy visiting family, cleaning and organizing the house, etc. Anyway I am going through my photos of the last month or so. Here are a few pre-Christmas highlights.

Some of you, probably the Domers in the audience, may remember the oh-so-awesome voice changer that I had during my college years. (And if you also had one at ND, I hope you kept it because one day when your child is two he will love it!) Well, it has made a comeback. I will have to dig up a video of this - it is very entertaining.

We got our house insulated in the hopes of not paying $500/month for utilities (and wearing hats and three sweaters all the time) this winter. Come on, foam! Work for us here!

Just a friendly reminder to not buy a house with a flat roof, no matter how cool the rest of the house is. It will cost you.

Playing peekabo in the kitchen.

Orange popsicles are a favorite after-dinner treat.

Sean was very excited the first day we got a bit of snow. He likes to shovel it into a big pile and sit on it.

More to come....

Favorite things

Nothing better than being at Notre Dame, wearing beads, and standing on a fire truck.

Last California mega-post

Here is a summary of our last couple of weeks in California. Things got kind of busy there for a while, so I now have more catching up to do on the blog.

In preparation for leaving California, we decided to run the hot tub for a while to make it at least look clean after we left. We found that there were two frogs and several GIANT slugs living in it. I caught one of the frogs. Sean was very interested to see it, but not touch it. A few days later he agreed to hold it. That lasted for about ten seconds. I wish I had recorded the look on his face. He did not like holding something wet, cold, and jumpy!

Sean claimed this suitcase as his own when I got them all out and started packing. One afternoon while I was making dinner he just sat in it and looked at his books all by himself. So cute. Luckily he moved on to something else by the time I had to actually pack stuff in it.

Grandma and Grandpa S. sent Sean this truck and trailer in the mail. He was SO excited. He loves things that hook together.

Just before Halloween we went to the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa for some kids' activities. This is the most impressive product of the day. Can anyone tell that Dada helped out on this one? I think he secretly wants to put a glitter pen on his Christmas list. ;)

Sean shows off his blue tongue after a popsicle. And I'm glad we have an abundance of address labels, since so many end up on his shirt instead of our envelopes!

More indoor playground fun.

Sean discovered the foosball table at Dada's work. (Yes, that's right, all you accountants and engineers out there - some workplaces actually have games! Whoa!)

Sean found the Crazy Taxi game too and was hooked. Especially when he realized that it takes place in San Francisco - there are even cable cars!

Speaking of cable cars, we went into the city to do one last ride. We got a day pass and started out on a streetcar.

We stopped at the Streetcar museum, which was a huge hit. They had a hands-on area where you could play with the bell, levers, etc. from old streetcars.

Future streetcar operator?

Next we stopped at Rasputin where we picked up some good deals on some cds. They also had wheels bolted onto the stairway, so of course we had to check those out too.

Next we rode the cable cars down to Fisherman's Wharf.

Man I miss that California sun.

Sean wanted to see how the cables work. They are just endlessly fascinating.

We went to Ghirardelli Square but weren't really in the mood for a huge ice cream sundae, so I just bought a bunch of chocolate to bring home. You will be amazed to learn that I have not opened any of it yet. I guess I just want to make sure it lasts until we get back to SF again, and who the heck knows when that will be?! Well anyway here is a tired Sean by the Ghirardelli Fountain.

We had one last dinner out at Mary's Place, which is Sean's favorite restaurant. I don't think he really cares about the food, he just likes to play with the truck/trailer they have there. The food by the way is really good.

Sean and I made a stop at the Novato History Museum. He was not really excited about it, but luckily they had a couple of hands-on things.

This is the view from the front of the museum. That's the old city hall building which is currently being restored. In the background, Mount Burdell.

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but we only had one car while in California. We managed just fine (and I really wish that in Ohio we lived within biking/walking distance to the library, grocery store, church, etc). I would drop Jeff of to work in the morning and pick him up in the evening if I needed the car, but for the most part I got myself into decent shape towing Sean (and library books, groceries, etc.) around town on this. It got great gas mileage.