Our Christmas Card!

Almost forgot to post our Christmas card photo for this year!  From our house to yours, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

-EBP-

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Taking Daddy to the Zoo

While JHP and I have visited the zoo several times this year, Daddy has missed all our trips.  Since he was home on vacation, I decided a trip WITH Daddy was something we needed to do.  So Thursday was the day we visited the zoo.  JHP wanted to see the giraffes first, but they've been moved to the back of the zoo.  So we headed back to the African exhibit where the giraffes (and the drums) are.

Since we were there last just a few weeks ago, the zoo has begun offering a new experience:  feeding the giraffes.  While the line was long and the whole experience lasted all of about 30 seconds, it was totally worth the $5 we paid for the three leaves of lettuce we fed to the giraffe.

What trip to the zoo would be complete without a twirl on the carousel?  John insists on it now every time we go.

Another important stop was the petting zoo.  John wanted to see the goats and give them a brush.  After a while, he barged his way into some other people's photo op but redeemed himself when he gave the little boy his brush so the boy could use it.  After that he got brave enough to pet the goat sans brush.

The rest of our trip consisted of checking out the big cats, like the lioness who was pacing the glass wall not 4 feet from us although she acted as if we weren't there, and the lesser cats that I'm not sure I've ever really gotten to see before.  And we saw the primate area where is was feeding time for the mandrills.  Overall, the animals were the liveliest I've ever seen them, which made for a great experience for all of us.  It had rained all day Wednesday which might have explained all the activity - cabin fever, you know.

We made it home just as JHP fell asleep, but he went down for a nap anyway without any fuss.  He had a fitful rest with some coughing that has increased in frequency as the weekend has progressed.  It's not bad enough to see the doc, but certainly something to watch.

The year ended much like the last several - a quiet evening with us retiring before midnight.  We'd stayed home, eating in for supper and put John to bed a normal time.  Really, it was much like any other night of the year.  But John and I both commented on how the year flew by.  I guess that happens when you get old, right?

-EBP-

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Organizing Legos

We travelled home on Tuesday Dec 28. One of the things that we brought home with us was my (and Jimmy's) childhood stash of Legos.  By Wednesday night at 930p, this is how the stash was looking.  We'd put together a couple of the sets and Daddy had single handedly sorts through all the pieces.  We have lots of the old space Legos and an old "family room" set that included figures that aren't so mini.  We've all had fun playing with them!  So much fun, that some of our "need to get done list" still needs to get done.

-EBP-

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The Aquarium

After our last visit to the zoo, I figured that a trip to the Texas State Aquarium was definitely in order during this trip. On Monday we went, getting there just in time to see the dolphin show. We wandered around afterward to see the outside exhibits, including the river otters and the bird show.

This was a cool tank exhibit. It had a bubble in the center so you could "be" in the tank with the fish and seahorses. Unfortunately, John was too short. So, I got in the space with him and he stood on my knees so that he could see. Daddy snapped our picture. Overall, John enjoyed the aquarium, but sometimes he wanted to walk to his own beat, which didn't always follow the rules of the situation. We managed it, however, although Mommy and Daddy were a bit cranky because we were hungry. So we grabbed some lunch on the way home.

-EBP-

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Lots of love

Sunday we laid low and saw J cubed off toward home. JHP took a good nap, but was in some kind of mood when he woke. He required holding for quite a while before his normal self showed up. Since I was cooking dinner, Nana took over for some sweet snuggle time.

-EBP-

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Merry Christmas!

I'm pretty sure John was more excited about having June at the house than he was about opening presents.  She was the first thing he asked about when he got up.  We got up about normal time and John immediately settled in next to June to see what she was doing on her DS.

Take note of the new scratch across John's forehead in the photo above.  It wasn't there when we'd put him to bed the previous night.  The first time we put him to bed, anyway.  All three of us were sleeping in the guest room.  We'd brought along JHP's bed mattress and put it on the floor.  When Daddy headed to bed, he found John in bed, but John told him, "I hurt myself with your thing!"  As Daddy drew closer, he found one of my necklaces on John's neck.  Suspicious.  Daddy asked John what "thing" he was talking about.  John led him to the attached bath where he pointed out Daddy's razor amidst our toiletry bag totally emptied out on the counter.  I was summoned to visit the scene where I discovered that John had tried to use Daddy's razor, the wrong way in the wrong place.  He had four neat little slices across his forehead.  Thankfully that was the worst of the damage, although he did manage to unwrap all the cough drops we had in a baggie and get Vaseline smeared all over lots of stuff, including himself.  I had feared that John might go "exploring" if he didn't go to sleep right away.  I should've listened to my instinct.  After this incident, we opted to check on him multiple times after we left him for naptime or bedtime.  Unfortunately, he's got a thick skull and he managed to earn himself a spanking more than once for getting out of bed.  Monday night he decided to empty a drawer in the dresser and squeeze a whole mini tube of toothpaste all over one of Mom's white towels.  I can honestly say I was happy to be going home the next day just so I didn't have to deal with whatever else he'd get into.

John found his stocking which contained a few small things from Santa.  The most notable was the self-inflating whoopee cushion.  THAT got lots of mileage.

We opted to get breakfast in the oven and open presents before we ate.  We'd made a poor decision to bring all of John's presents with us.  Combining those with what the Grandma and PawPaw sent, what Nana and Papa Jim gave him, and what Jimmy, Jane, and June gave him made TOO large of a pile of gifts to open.  But John loved them all and couldn't wait to open the next one.  And get them out of their packaging.  We did manage to wrangle some of them and put them away, but eventually he wanted some "new" to play with and they all came out again.

Dinner was planned later than normal.  So the kids needed a snack.  Making use of the one chair left in the kitchen, they shared it and no one managed to fall off in the process.  My son should not have been standing in the chair.  Often, taking photos seems to rank above parenting.  Not right, but it happens.

Dinner was delayed alot as Betty and Ed had car trouble and the rescue squad (Jimmy and JNP) went to help.  All did not end well, as Betty and Ed didn't get to join us and we ate without the rescue squad who returned much later.  In the mean time, the kids entertained our other guests (Charlotte, JohnO, Lisa, Chrissy, & Tommy) with their new guitars, although no matter how hard they tried, JohnO still fell asleep while they were playing.

The rest of the evening was full of visiting and eventually quiet.  It was really nice to see all my family, but I appreciated the quiet when they all left.  It had been a busy two days.

-EBP-

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Christmas Eve

Historically, when we are with my family at Christmas, Christmas Eve is spent hosting a meal and exchanging gifts with Jim's kids - my step siblings. Now that we all have kids, it gets kinda crazy. Total we had 12 adults and 5 kids. We did manage to wrangle the kids long enough to get a group shot of all the grandkids.

But the craziness started earlier in the day when the power went out for about an hour and a half. Thankfully, nothing was in the oven and it didn't throw a huge kink in any of our plans. John had taken the kids (JHP, B and JW) over to the park. And we worked around the inconvenience of having no electricity. Mom has a gas store so we could do some cooking.

Earlier in the day, I made cupcakes for the evening dessert, to celebrate Jesus's Birthday. My son was so methodical about eating all the icing off the cupcake before he actually ate the cupcake. The method proved wise as he probably got less icing on him than the other kids, but he was the last one at the table, which didn't seem to bother him much.

-EBP-

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Going to Nana and Papa Jim's house

Gotta love the DVD player. It's sad to say, but you can't carry on a conversation with him if he's watching it.

When we arrived, we found a little care package from Grandma Pitcher. In it was this lovely headpiece. I suppose this will become a regular part of Christmas now. Is that how traditions are born?

A tradition at Papa Jim's house is to put up Pete the Penguin. All the kids love him! Papa Jim and the penguin!

Thursday Dec 23 was full of travel and low-key visiting. The weather was pleasant so JHP could expend some energy once we got to our destination. Thankfully, we managed to fit the tricycle in the van at the last minute. It was a popular outdoor toy!

-EBP-

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Just a swinging

At dinner tonight:

Momma:  Do you know what happens when we get to Nana's house?
John: Christmas.
Daddy: Do you know what Christmas means?
John: Presents.
Momma:  What kind of cake are we making at Nana's house?
John:  A birthday cake for Jesus.
Momma:  Did you know that Christmas is just another name for Jesus' birthday?

I was surprised that he knew that Christmas was coming after we go to Nana's because he hasn't really talked about it, but a little disappointed that he thought of presents before Jesus' birthday.  Nevermind that we've got several nativity scenes in the house and he picked out the flavor of the frosting for the cake.  When we talked about making a cake, he pulled out his pretend grocery list and listed off several things we needed to make the cake - strawberries among them.  We settled on strawberry frosting and white cake, which I might just tint green to be festive.

John and I went to SNBNA's house after nap to enjoy the last rays of sun on this very warm December day.  It was almost 80 today here.  Since discovering A's new play structure last Friday, John's been chomping at the bit to go back over there.  He spent a large amount of time today on the tire swing.  He couldn't get enough of it!  And from the action today, I can say he doesn't get dizzy easy.  He was having too much fun going round and round and round.

I used the big lens I rented today for the last time.  I'll send it back tomorrow.  It's a nice lens, but at almost 3 lbs, I think I'll be happy with my smaller ones.  The sun set fast and I wasn't so sure I'd get anything in focus with the shutter speed I was using, but I think the best shot of the day has to be this one of Andrew enjoying his swing.

Lots more photos from today on the WebAlbums.

-EBP-

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Relief

After tiring of answering the question of when we are going to Nana's house, I decided we needed to make a visual reminder so JHP could reference it any time he needed to and we didn't have to say anything more than "Go look on the fridge!". So on Saturday morning I made this high tech, fancy chart for John's viewing. Each morning at breakfast we cross off the previous day's box. John gets the concept of taking one day away (subtraction) and even this morning decided if we took two days away we'd only have one left. I'm not sure he associates our trip with Christmas yet, but he's darn excited to see Nana and Papa Jim and the fact that June will be there too is just icing on the cake. I should note that Daddy and I endured the same constant questioning before our trip to Indy at Thanksgiving, but I wasn't smart enough to make a chart then. I guess I'll make a cuter one that we can use anytime he's waiting impatiently for something to happen, like his upcoming birthday.

He's been really good about the presents under the tree. He saw me wrap most of them so I guess they aren't of too much concern, except when they impact his airplane ornament inspection efforts.

The Christmas cards are in the mail! YEAH! I'm not thrilled with how they turned out. Shutterfly managed to make us redder than we really are. While John "worked" on the computer today, I stuffed, addressed, and stamped envelopes. When John saw that I had "stickers" (address labels) he wanted one. At one point it ended up on his forehead, telling me that he was a doctor. Funny because all the doctors we see don't have those funny do-dads that doctors always have pictured in the cartoons.

I did survive my first wedding (and likely last) as a photographer. Overall, I think the photos are pretty good, but I haven't spent lots of time on them, yet. Once I got started, there wasn't much time to think about being nervous. Just had to do my job.

-EBP-

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Randomness

We got new library books yesterday. So we read a lot of books today. The boys are reading one of our favorites series: Poppleton.

John wasn't real excited about starting the bath routine. He was even less excited about brushing his teeth. Lately he's gotten into a phase where he'd rather be lazy and just let you brush them instead of giving it a try himself first. Daddy wasn't playing that game tonight. He had to count. He's at three here and John's telling him to stop.

I wrapped presents today. As I was passing through the house, I caught site of the tree aglow with presents under it and felt moved to photograph it.

Bathtime sillies.

-EBP-

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Practice, practice

On Monday we went to a service our church holds for developmentally and intellectually disabled adults so I could document the ministry. They always start the service with shakers. John loved that!

Afterwards I spent some time working on some test shots for the wedding this weekend. The lighting in this sanctuary is rather challenging. Again, I was shooting at high ISO. And John, well, he used the tripod to pretend to take pictures, like he'd learned to do the day before when we took family photos.

-EBP-

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Playing around

We stayed home today.  All day.  I was waiting on a package that had to be signed for.  In the package was a rented toy for my camera.  It's a Sony 70-200 f/2.8 G lens.  It weighs more than my camera.  Seriously.  When it's on the camera, you hold the lens, not the camera, so that it's balanced.  That's how much it weighs.
Since this is a different beast from what I'm used to and I needed to get comfortable with it, I put it on the camera after lunch and we played.  I practiced shooting wide open at high ISO with this monster of a lens.  I need to get comfortable since I'll be shooting a wedding on Sunday.  Yes, I said wedding.  I'm shooting it as a way of sharing my blessings with someone less fortunate than I.  I'm nervous as all get out, but I have faith that God will support me in my endeavour.  And I'm pretty sure this will cement my previous statement that I never want to shoot weddings, should I start a business.  So these photos are all shot at ISO 1600 or higher, f /2.8 without flash.  I've made minor adjustments, but for the most part they are SOOC.  A tad noisy in spots, but overall I was happy with them.  And a little less scared to crank up the ISO.

  

John's still inspecting the tree frequently.  And sometimes, he feels the need to move things around.

For once, he stopped to show me a nice smile.  The rest of the time, I saw a hand.  "No, don't take my picture!"  Or if he got real close to me, the comment was, "Let me take a picture."  He's liking that a lot these days.  I guess I need to find the old point and shoot for him.

It was nap time soon enough.  We moved into his bedroom where the light was quite dim.  I cranked up the ISO some more and begged and pleaded for a decent look.  As you'll see on the WebAlbums, a range of emotions confirmed that it was indeed time for a nap.  But I did get one.  One thing I'll say, a little noise in a digital image makes for a good B&W.  I already feel the pull to make this one B&W.

-EBP-

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The Christmas Story

The Christmas program at John's school was Tuesday. The two and a half yo classes had to wear yellow because they were Stars. John actually wore two yellow shirts because he refused to wear the one I wanted. So we compromised and he wore both (until he got one wet at school). I got lucky and sat on the correct side of the auditorium, near the front. So John spotted me right away and waved. He'd been singing his songs at home for almost two weeks. But, just as I figured, he didn't sing much when he was up there. There were too many people to see, including me. And he refused to wear his little star sunglasses, too. They sang two songs. John decided he needed to sit for the second one.

Later, when all the children sang together, John came out of his shell a bit and danced around.  This is a relatively new thing for him.  Lately, he's been dancing when he hears music he likes.  Not just bouncing around, really moving to the music.

He passed right by me when all was done, stopping to pose for me.  How the teachers and staff managed to corral all those kids and no one fell off the stage is beyond me.

And when I picked him up a few minutes later, I discovered they'd had cupcakes to celebrate - at 1145a. Lunch, what lunch?  Good thing we were headed to the park for a picnic/playdate with some friends.  He got to run off all that sugar.

Finally, about 100p, he decided to eat something nutritious.  This photo was a bit overexposed and when I played with it in PSE, I wound up with this kinda funky looking treatment on the photo.  I think I like it (for this photo, anyway!) 

After nap, John found his sunglasses and wore them around for a while.  He showed them off for Daddy when he got home.  And then when it was mirror time (aka time to brush the teeth) before bath, John modeled them so I could get a photo.

-EBP-

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