It Never Ends

In our house, that is whatever house we are in at the moment, and in our family, extended and nuclear, the game of football permeates all boundaries.

We watch it.
We eat to it.
We listen to it on the radio.
We play it.
We act it out in the living room.
And we coerce our Uncle Brad in his pajamas to play it in the side yard during lunch.

Wald Park

We met our friends Stacy, Chris, Luke and Caleb at Wald Park today (Henry calls it Luke-and-Caleb's Park). Henry was a little confused as to why Luke and Caleb were our friends and not our cousins...I think we've had a little family overload (IN A GOOD WAY) over the past few days.

It was a little crowded and hectic in the actual park area so we ended up down on the diggers:



Before everyone arrived, we got some good swinging in though. Here's Henry supporting the BSC football team (though he told Chris that his shirt said, "GO ALABAMA!"):



And Svea with her three-finger clasp:

Yeilding Lake

We went to the lake with Bobbie and Pops on their anniversary and Lydia and Henry threw rocks in the water while Svea slid down the overturned kayaks and canoes.
Fun for all. Especially when Pops started asking us if we remembered certain episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. Ummm.





Then we started skipping rocks like Barney Fife, ate some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and threw some more rocks.



It was basically Henry and Svea's most recent version of heaven.



Lydia's too.

Watching "Cars"

Lydia came over to Mimi and Papa's house the other night and she and Henry got to watch "Cars" in Mimi's bed.

Here they are giggling:



And Lydia pretending to sleep:



They watched about 10 minutes of the movie and spent the rest of the time running up and down the hallway, trying on Mimi's slippers and Papa's dress shoes.

One of my Favorite Pictures

Aunt Beth took a bunch of good pictures, which can be seen here.

Christmas Morning

Henry and Svea woke up Christmas morning - very early - wanting to go downstairs and see Santa Claus. Henry informed Brian and me that, "Santa Claus came and brought two present and they are AWESOME."

What else do you need to hear to get out of bed?

Svea found some goldfish in her stocking and was set...



...until Aunt Beth gave her a tea set and then she was REALLY set.



The tea set goes perfectly with her new kitchen:



Henry got a new circular saw, with protective eyewear, of course



and a tool bench with a tool belt that matches his new TOUCHDOWN ALABAMA jersey:



Then Henry stole a place at the kitchen,



as Svea borrowed the protective eyewear.



Nothing but fun around here.
So far.

Birmingham 500

Racing cars with Pops in the driveway:

Visiting With Uncle Brad

Svea and Uncle Brad had some catching up to do over some books and the Cookie Monster bag...

Playing Ball

In Indiana, Henry likes to play football incessantly and scream TOUCH DOWN ALABAMA FOOTBALL GO JOHN PARKER!! all in one breath.





Since we are in Alabama for the holidays, he likes to play basketball outside with Uncle Brad. Makes total sense, Hoosier son.





Svea, sweet angel, is coming into her own so well and chases the ball with Henry and even pushed him down with one arm yesterday. Hmmm the next few months are going to be AWESOME.

Henry's getting into the Christmas spirit...

HERE he is!

Just Passing the Rainy Afternoons

Apple Eating in my Christmas Dress

The Thoughtful Reindeer

More Sugar Cookie Party Pictures!

Check out Leta's site!

Conversation with Henry

Henry: Daddy, I ate a booger and it made me sick.

Daddy: Uh. Well, what would make you feel better?

Henry: Ummmmm probably a cookie will make me feel better.




Seriously.

Sugar Highs All Around

We had sugar cookie party!!

It could have potentially been the biggest disaster, but it was actually a blast. The mess was a given, the kids were delighted and the cookies actually tasted good.

Here are the results:



Here's Calvin saying WOOOO HOOOOO:



Here's everyone hard at work:



And Henry's fine sprinkling skills:



I think it's our new tradition.

I LOVE CLEAN CLOTHES!

Bubbles, Henry, and the Movie Star

The Newest Jazz Musician in our House

That's a "trumpet" that he's playing, though it looks suspiciously like the microphone stand on the keyboard Aunt Meredith gave us.



The hat was Papa J's and Uncle Johnnie handed it down to us.

The music he was dancing to was Blue Mother Tupelo.

The dance moves and the rest of the wardrobe are all Henry.

Not to be Mean, But...

I really do appreciate when ANYONE teaches art to my children. Not even teaches, just has the patience to allow artistic expression with crayons and markers and paper and glitter and stuff. But this craft is really ugly:



He brought this home from school last week and I love his teachers, but I think I did a double take when they handed it to me. I think it's like a manger scene or something...and maybe Jesus is the cotton ball with googly eyes and then the Christmas tree that was at the manger and all...or something. I hope he had fun doing it - really - and I hope he really did get to glue some things and color and all. That would be the point here...right?

When I Can't Hear Henry Playing...

Our house is loud. Very loud. And constant. And messy. And many other wonderful things, but when it gets quiet that means I have to get up and go looking.

So Henry was playing in the play room the other night and got quiet to I whipped around to make sure he was still alive and he was doing this:



There's a mirror on that panel on the walker. And it never gets old sticking out your tongue. Or wearing mismatched shoes with your dinosaur pajamas after giving Ollie the Octopus two drinks.

our very own little Smooth Criminal

In the Final Minutes Before Brian Comes Home

Last night Henry asked me to, "go get camera and take picture of Henry and Svea laughing and being silly?"



I wonder what taking their picture every day is really doing to them...

Details

In the morning, Brian and I are often too fried to do anything other than pour OJ and dry cereal and turn on cartoons for the kids. There is this fluorescent-colored awful version of Mickey Mouse that comes on sometime around 7 that Henry usually doesn't watch, he just runs around to its background music. A friend of our's let us borrow an old-timey Mickey Mouse cartoon VHS and it has had this affect on my kids:



Thank goodness for the old-school Mickey.
They LOVE it and ask for it several times a day. We did make it through today with no TV which is a major feat considering it's so cold outside, Henry's on the tail-end of a head cold and Svea and I both have the head cold. But WE DID IT.

When I put in the movie the first time though, Henry scooted right up to Svea - logically in her booster seat in the living room:



The #15 socks he has on are actually Svea's as he loves to change his socks every 10 minutes. I've stopped putting any socks in drawers and they are just in a basket in the playroom. Also under every pillow...in every corner...on chairs...

The bandaids are real, but the boo-boos underneath are not. I'm out of cute Sesame Street bandaids and thank goodness he doesn't seem to care. Before the movie break, Henry was actually being John Parker Wilson and got sacked after a big throw that led to a touchdown that meant Alabama won the game. All right here in our very living room.

He doesn't have on pants because he won't wear them. UNLESS they are football pants and I can only do laundry so much. No clean football pants, no pants at all he says.

Svea has on her "new" size 6 Nike shoes that Lydia handed down to us and her sippy cup of "molk" attached to that left hand. The hair just keeps growing in the back, but not the sides. There's a place for the mullet in Indiana, I guess.

The christmas pillow on the futon is one that John Stewart made probably in the mid-80's. In the bottom corner, he wrote in pen "JJ to Mollie." "JJ"? What?

The basketball goal keeps getting scooted from corner to corner as we are trying to avoid the ball getting thrown into our big, twinkling tree. Elmo, too, is getting scooted around since Svea has recently fallen in love with him though she won't watch Sesame Street.

So, M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E to all of you out there.
See you real soon...