A Partially Handmade Christmas

Every Christmas, I like to give the kids something I make. I know I can't really compete with toys and I really don't try and consider my gifts more like stocking-stuffers, but I enjoy it and I also hope that as they get older, the kids also enjoy making gifts. This year I made satchels (which I mostly made from a pair of my old jeans, which means I am totally trendy because I "upcycle") and car wallets for the older two kids, booties for Hannah, and am now working on carseat ponchos. There is always a learning curve for any project and these are no exception, but everything is turning out reasonably well except the booties were too small so aren't usable. I had hoped to have all the ponchos done by Christmas, but my new goal is New Year's. However, I will finish Hannah's today. As the first one, hers is the prototype so will be the least good one, but I bought enough fabric to make her another one if it's too imperfect. I like working on my projects and creating stuff that actually gets used. I am pretty excited about having the ponchos done. It's been cold and current carseat safety rules say no jackets in carseats so the ponchos will be a way to keep them warm without having to do the jacket shuffling we currently do.

Later, Sooners

No one likes the Oklahoma Sooners.  Well, I guess some people like them, because they do have fans, but no one I know likes them, and I'd like to keep it that way.  Pretty much everybody I know is anti-Sooner.   Today K-State had a huge game in Norman. K-State was undefeated coming into the game and is ranked #15, but Oklahoma is #6 and has only lost three games at home since Bob Stoops became the coach in 1999.  K-State was going to need some things to go their way and play a nearly perfect game, and they did!  Collin Klein was great, John Hubert did his thing, K-State won the turnover battle 3-0, and they came out on top, 24-19.  Joanna is in town, so we had her as well as Julie and Andrew over to watch the game.  K-State's season is off to a great start, and I'm excited to see how far this team can go.

A Lifestyle Improvement

Our house came with a dishwasher, but we are pretty sure it was original to the house and wasn't that great to begin with. It was really almost a constant source of frustration to me because I loathe rinsing dishes and it not only didn't do a good job cleaning dishes unless they were rinsed, but also got rust on many of our white dishes, so actually made them more dirty than they were when I put them in. So we decided to get a new dishwasher, which was installed today. I am really excited about it because it is the newer model of the one we had in our last house, which I loved. I never rinsed anything except egg and very rarely had anything that wasn't spotless so I am super excited to try it out. Joshua is also excited about it and seems to think the brand label on the bottom is a button. Here he is pushing "maytag" to see what happens.

Work in Progress

I am mostly, but not completely done with Joshua's room. The main things I still have to do are to sew a chair cover and find some curtains for him. Unfortunately, he is in a not-so-delightful new climbing phase and has broken his lamp during one of the many times he has been hanging out on top of his dresser when he should be napping, so we will also buy him a new lamp but maybe wait a bit for that. I am hoping he gets sick of the climbing once it is no longer a new thing.

Even though his room is not complete, the walls are. Here are the ones we used decals on. I am fairly happy with how they turned out, though I probably will move one of the pictures a couple inches over at some point. And it has been very good timing that when I chose to do some transportation decals, Joshua wasn't terribly interested in vehicles, but almost overnight they have become an obsession. So now he is pretty excited about all the cars in his room (and when he says car, he means all vehicles including ones that fly or float).

Faster, Higher, Stronger

I love the Olympics.  In general, I love pretty much every sport and every competition in life, and I really like learning about new sports.  The Olympics brings all of this together, as they give me exposure to a lot of sports that are never on TV at any other time (which is true for pretty much everything but basketball, really).  So it's interesting to me to learn the nuances of things like gymnastics but also the general rules of things like competitive kayaking.  And really, it's the way it should be for some of the lesser-known sports.  I can't invest time in following each and every obscure sport out there (I have to admit I didn't happen to know the latest news from the world of water polo, for example), so it's sort of nice to boil down four years of work by the best athletes in the world into an hour worth of programming for a given sport.  Convenient, right?  And having it all topped off with some pretty serious drama makes for must-see TV for me.  I went on a Facebook, Twitter, and espn.com fast all day each day until after the evening broadcast of the taped-delayed events from London, so I didn't know the results until they unfolded in front of me, which made for great TV.  The games are almost over, but they've been very memorable thanks to Gabby Douglas and the rest of the Fierce Five, Missy Franklin, Michael Phelps (sorry Ryan Lochte), Missy and Kerri, David Boudia, Usain Bolt, and multiple electric sprinting events.  Here the kids join me during tonight's telecast.  Joshua seemed to like to the diving more than anything else, for some reason.  The Olympics will be over soon, and I'm sad that I'll have to wait another four years for the next Summer Olympics.

A Happy Day!

A few months ago, the extended warranty on my laptop ran out and also my laptop started smoking every time it powered on so I could no longer use it. In the interim, I have used Jason's laptop. Though it's really nice that I had something to use and that he could use his work laptop as his primary laptop during this time, it has been far from ideal for either of us. The processor Jason thought would work best for me became available so we could finally get my new laptop. It is so great to have it! I love being able to set up all my software and organize all my files exactly the way I like them and also have a very thin and cute laptop again that I can easily lift with one hand. I am really happy with it so far. I also love that Jason is at least moderately interested in the specs of laptops, because even hearing the words processor or RAM makes my eyes glaze over, so I just told him what I wanted and then he chose the one that worked the best for my needs. I got most everything I wanted with only a few compromises (for some reason the exact thing I want in electronics whether it is a tablet, laptop, or cell phone very rarely exists and I feel like I don't have that high of standards, so I am always a little disappointed in manufacturers). And, it's still shiny and new, so no dog hair under the keys on the keyboard and no keys removed by Joshua and no fingerprints on the screen because he believes all screens are touchscreens. I am sure that part won't last all that long, but it's really nice for now.

Marshmallow Pug Vultures

Sometimes for a snack Joshua gets a mini cupcake liner with a few mini marshmallows.  He knows to go sit at his little table and chair set while he eats them.  The dogs know this represents an opportunity, as Joshua is sometimes generous with his food. So as soon as he sits down, they go in vulture mode and lurk near the table waiting for a marshmallow to accidentally or intentionally come their way.

A New Look

My weekend project this weekend was to paint Joshua's dresser. It was previously brown and had knobs that matched his nursery theme. However, he hasn't had nursery bedding for almost a year so he needed something a little more classic. I painted it black and put on silver knobs. It is hard for me to be satisfied with any of my projects, because you are always really aware of any flaws when you do it yourself. This is no exception and I see some brush marks for sure. But overall I am fairly happy with how it turned out. I put some poly over the paint in hopes that will help it stand up to Joshua for awhile. I was able to do this project myself (except for the moving of the furniture) since we used all latex/water-based products and those are safe in pregnancy, so I was glad to get it done while Jason worked on other things.

California Weather in Kansas

The weather has been great all year.  When it was supposed to be cold, it was mild.  Now, when it should be getting rather warm, it's still mild.  We love it.  Since we have our nice backyard, we're trying to take advantage of it.  Plus, Joshua loves being outside more than almost anything else.  Here we are enjoying the weather, as Terrence and Natalie roam around the yard, Joshua enjoys playing with the mulch, and Meghan supervises.

Substitute Laptops

Meghan makes heavy use of her laptop. In addition to it being her work computer, she does everything at home on it too, from projects to e-mail to texting (thanks to Google Voice) to watching TV shows online, etc. Because of that, different parts of it have worn out here and there over the three years that we've had it. We have Dell's in-home service as part of the warranty. So in the past when it needed to be repaired, I'd call Dell, they's ship out the replacement part, and the next day someone would come to our house and make the repair, and we'd be done.

This time, though, the problem was seemingly a little more severe. When she opened her laptop to work on it, smoke started pouring out of the vents, first just a wisp, but then full-on pouring smoke. When I called Dell, they said it was too much of a risk to repair it in our house (I suppose they realize I would probably sue them if they set our house on fire), so they said we had to mail it in. So for the next couple weeks Meghan is without her laptop. I'm letting her borrow mine, so I'm using my work laptop at home, but she's also supplementing it with the use of her tablet, as she's doing here.

Ah-Boo!

Joshua has been getting much better recently about saying words.  Recently he decided he loves apples, but when we give them to him, he actually doesn't like them all that much.  But he seems to forget every time, so when he sees one he excitedly says, "Ah-boo!" which is how he says apple.  We've noticed he's not quite sure what's an apple, so anything that's about that size that's red or green (from tomatoes to green peppers) is an apple to him.  He says "gung-gung" when referring to any beverage, as I think that's his best interpretation of the sound he hears in his head when drinking. Here are most of the other words and phrases he's said so far, roughly in the order they happened:

Ball	Ball!
Daddy	Daddy
Mama	Mama
Hi	Hi
Bye-Bye	Bye-Bye
Please	Zzzzz
Help	Hep
Share	Zhohm
This	Dis
What is this?	Wudiss?
I know	I know!
Book	Ghoul
Apple	Ah-boo
Uh oh	Uh... Ohhh
Shoe	Zhoo
Hello	Hewoh
Vitamin	Eye-nee
Ice	Eye-eee
Oh buddy	Ohbuddy
Banana	Ah-neenee

Fun with Crayons

Joshua really loves the crayons he got for Christmas, but he doesn't yet like to color. He will occasionally make a few scribbles on the paper, but he really isn't very excited about it. Instead he just loves taking them out, putting them on the paper, and then putting them back in the box. He likes to do that several times in a row. And then he gets a little bored and tries to throw them instead and then we put them away because they have to stay on the table for him to be allowed to continue playing with them. But he really enjoys this routine and asks for the crayons almost every day. Sadly, this photo was taken shortly before Natalie ate the tip off the brown crayon. This now makes Joshua upset every time he sees it. But he cheers right up once he focuses on the other colors. I like to think he learned a valuable lesson about keeping the crayons off the floor and taking care of his personal property, but I am pretty sure he actually learned nothing.

Two Girls Playing

Today Clara was playing with her pink bunny on her blanket when Natalie decided to bring her own pink octopus onto the blanket and play too. It was cute to see them playing together (in a very parallel way).

Concurrent Food Consumption

When we just had Joshua, it wasn't too hard to organize our evenings.  The addition of Clara has made things a little more tricky, as she needs to eat at certain times that we can't really control.  Ideally those don't overlap with when we need to eat, but sometimes they do.  And when that happens, we have to improvise.  Fortunately, I've become proficient with feeding her with one hand, which is really useful for times like tonight when she needs to eat at the same time I want to eat.  Rather that starve for awhile, I decided to eat while feeding her, which actually worked out fairly well.

Starting Early: A Novel Concept

I have a big demo coming up on Friday, and it's going to take a lot of preparation.  I realized my traditional strategy of waiting until the last minute wasn't going to work very well, so I decided to start preparing early by doing some work during the evening tonight.  Here Clara and I get to work as Natalie arrives to lend her expertise to our team.

Playtime Outside

We have not been able to go outside tons recently even though it has been warmer than average because it is still quite chilly. However, today it was sunny and warm and we got to go in the backyard and play. Joshua loves throwing balls and he also did a little kicking, which is a new development for him.

Lazy Saturday

Tonight we had plans for some friends to come over, but they unfortunately had to cancel at the last minute. This left us with a rare Saturday with nothing scheduled. We got some small things done around the house, but mostly we just hung out and spent time together as a family. Here's a representative view of the day, with Joshua and Clara playing, each in their own way, Meghan and I (not pictured, due to the fact that someone had to take the picture) supervising while chatting with each other about whatever, Terrence and Natalie sleeping on the couch, and Alex aloofly lounging elsewhere in the house. It's been a fun day, making me realize that maybe we should try to specifically block off some free days more often.

Learning to Catch

One of the things that excites me most about having a son is playing sports and doing outdoor activities with him.  Since Joshua could sit up, he's liked to throw things, and he's always had a good arm and can throw things quite far.  I realized recently that I've never tried playing catch with him.  So today I worked with him on catching things, and he picked it up almost immediately.  He'll stand with his arms at his side, I say, "Okay, catch the ball," then I lob a ball towards him, and he catches it.  I'm very excited about this development.

No One Likes Arkansas Anyway

K-State football had an excellent season and was chosen to play in the Cotton Bowl against Arkansas.  We decided to incorporate the watching of it with the normal post-Christmas get-together that my siblings and our spouses have with my dad and Deb.  So we had Joanna, Julie, Andrew, Dad, and Deb at our house.  We watched the game, but it didn't go well, as K-State didn't play like they had for most of the season, and the 'Cats lost by 13.  Aside from that, though, we're having a fun time, and it will continue on into tomorrow as well, as we have plans to play board games, which we all love.