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We went on a family outing to Costco today and brought along Josh. Among other things he bought a tasty-looking sack of pigs ears for his dogs. Woulda been better for the kids later in the day when there are loads of free samples...

If you happen to buy some beer at Lowertown Wine and Spirits in downtown St. Paul, be sure to admire the Ant Farm prints on the wall! They display art as part of the annual Art Crawl and let me hang some prints over the winter.

For this castle, which took at least thirty minutes for us to build, Art and I used ALL of our blocks. -jess

On Christmas Eve Art, Lewis and I went over to my sisters house with my mom to make cookies and just hang out. It was FUN! Art and Lewis enjoyed playing with her robot collection. This is a wooden one.

Last week, while Ben was out of town, I took the boys to the Mall of America aquarium for our family Nature Day and it was surprisingly natural! Even though we were in a mall, profit based thing, we were still completely focused on the animals and habitats. Here's Art watching a snake, which we watched for about 15 minutes as it inched itself around it's tank. It's funny, but this trip to the aquarium was really focused on the first several exhibits featuring Minnesota native animals.  I usually think those ones are a little lame, but Art and Lewis spent the bulk of their energy there.  Here they are watching the turtles swim around. Finally, we went through the shark tunnels. It was really neat, as usual, but somehow less exciting than watching a snake move slowly in a tiny glass box. Funny.

Devontae came over yesterday and helped make a number of big bricks for the igloo-in-progress. He also made a big pile of snow as seen here. This is a blurry airborne Lewis heading for a big soft pile of snow.

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

We walked to Walgreens and stuffed the boys into the bike trailor with a big down blanket.

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

What a great Christmas.  You know, I've been struggling with the whole secular Christmas idea all of my adult life (a whopping 17 years as of today!  Happy Birthday, ME!) and Ben and I had talked a fair amount about how to reconcile our Christmas feelings now that we are passing traditions on to our kids.  I had resolved to keep Christmas in the context of Jesus's birthday, even though I am not a Christian.  But still to acknowledge that it is because this person named Jesus was born, a person who inspired people to love each other and be good to each other, that we celebrate and share gifts.  And then the holiday got closer and I realized that my true feelings were just about PRESENTS! I was SO excited to give Art and Lewis some really fun toys!  I was really pumped to decorate the tree and pull out the red cardstock stars Ben and I made our first Christmas together and the little Christmas VIllage light-up house my cello teacher, Sue, gave me that says, "Parker's Pet...

It was 7am this morning and Jess and I were laying in bed and heard a single "vrooom" coming from Art's room (the chain saw sound). It was a wonderful thing to hear, knowing Arthur had woken up next to his dear toy and made it go. Jessica has noticed that Lewis seems to understand the toy is not his, and (after some parenting discussion) we've decided it's entirely up to Art whether or not he's up for sharing. And so far he's not. But Lewis has other stuff to play with and he's plenty happy.

Today we had a wonderful Christmas with the kids and with a hoard of family who joined us at our home for dinner and joke gifts and fun. Lots more photos and notes tomorrow. Merry Christmas!

My brother Josh teaches Latin at Nova Classical Academy in St. Paul and the other day when my pops was in town we went to observe. He's a superstar! The kids all adore him and it's clear he loves the students and loves teaching them. Here's a little video from our time there. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnSXiR_9Btw&hl=en_US&fs=1&&w=640&h=385]

Just today Jessica reports that Arthur wanted to see a photo of Mira and then asked, "Can we see Mira again someday?" That's funny timing because I've been out here in North Carolina visiting with them and their mom and pops Jenny and Sujit (my step-sister and her husband). Anyway, for Art's sake, here are some photos of the friends he hopes to see. and here's a wonderful photo of Arthur and Mira last summer from the archives:

I just can't resist sharing this wonderful little story even though it has nothing to do with the kiddos. I just watched a spot on the Rachel Maddow show about two high schools in Washington State who challenged each other to a YouTube music video battle. They're just super fun! (from the local TV station) SHORELINE, Wash. - It began in November when Shorecrest High School produced a music video to Outkast's "Hey Ya!" The students banded together, performing for four minutes as the camera operator walked the halls of the school while students lip synced to the song. The video was shot with one take, meaning that there were no video cuts. It was all-or-nothing and it became a YouTube hit. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPTd8MgAeqI&hl=en_US&fs=1&&w=560&h=340] Their longtime competitors in football and band, Shorewood High School, weren't going to be one-upped. Shorewood has just released their competing video to Hall and...

- Art observed that there are no purple Christmas lights. "Why are there no purple lights, Mama?" I never noticed that before! Apparently I do not know "all of the things". - Art dressed himself from head to toe yesterday for the first time. Socks, underwear, pants, shirt, sweater. He was very proud and pleased. So was I. - Lewis took off his own shirt yesterday for the first time. He was thrilled to be almost naked. And he is 2 1/2 years ahead of his brother. - Lewis loves to be naked. But most people who have been over know that. - The boys' rooms have been reversed. And now Art has Ben's old dresser, I have Lewis's old dresser and Lewis has Art's old dresser. Art is very confused. But sleeping well. - Lewis likes multiple gackoos. The addiction is in it's most developed form. That's all for now.

I'm out in North Carolina where I photographed the Vikings game last night, but it also happens to be where my pops lives. So he came and worked as my 'assistant' on the sidelines. Here he is with his good friend Brett Favre.

Recently Ben and I were thinking of bringing the t.v. to some other room so Art wouldn't see it and wanna watch nature shows all day.  Then the living room could be more about playing, dancing and reading. Turns out we had inadvertantly made a book nook for the kids when  when we moved the couch for the Christmas tree.  Now we have two rooms in one! Suddenly, for the first time in Art's little life, he is interested in looking at books on his own and even telling the story to Lewis or me!  I tell you, four years old seems to have magically brought a bucket-load of confidence to our first-born son.  Even just a few weeks ago he would have scoffed at reading to me.  "But I don't know how!"  And I would remind him that he could read the pictures or make up his own story.  The last few days he's been doing just that.  Here he is reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear to Lewis in what he has named his "library" after bringing armful after armful of books downstai...

As expected, Art's height and weight were way up there on the growth charts today in his four-year-old check-up. 95th percentile for weight and 98th for height! He cooperated with all the tests. Hearing was just fine, blood-pressure, really good, eyesight was 20/20. While he was trying to read the symbols on the very bottom line (which must have been for people with telescopic vision) he said, "It's so tiny. If I was really close I could tell you what it is." So, he also gets points for intelligent observation.

Buff decorating.

We took the kids to the holidazzle parade last night (or as my mom would say, the 'razzle dazzle' parade). Jess and I noticed many of the floats had some pretty scary stuff that left Art a bit speechless. It was beautiful though and everything had lightbulbs. He ended up not being all that scared. http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Lewis is now a talking person.  Well, most of his communication is in one-word sentences, but he's adding words all the time and can bridge that gap of understanding that so often leads to frustration.  He can walk into the kitchen and say, "Eee!" if he's hungry.  He can ask for "Joo!" if he wants juice or "Stoo!" if he wants to use his stool.  (Unfortunately joo  and stoo  sound very similar and I often say he can't have any more juice when he really wants to get up to the counter.)  He'll say, "Ow!" when he wants to get out of the car or the bathtub (you can imagine the confusion with that one).   He has also started labeling animals by their sounds.  Cat is obviously meow,  and dog is wow wow .  (He must be an international spirit.  Didn't anyone tell him this is America!  Dogs say Woof!!!)  Sheep are ba-aaa, a two syllable word (what a good dipthongy Minnesotan!) and birds a twee.   The weird one is for frog.  We learned t...

Is it just me and Jess that get such a kick out of how google voice transcribes her messages? I think this one is likely the funniest so far: "Hi, I'm getting shot. Hello, flavorful blacks. I'm just calling because you know what standard time and we think that you do insurance. We'll talk to you in tell you what's going on, and I need the lemon sure rented it and that coffee stuff I'd left outside school. Now it's so hard that i can work with it so there's warm up again. It's console eat and I'm just kinda wanted to say low. Ohh and he ask you sheet so I don't remember out. Alice cute. Okay bye"

I've been stopping by bookstores lately (this barnes and noble at the mall of america) to make sure the Ant Farm book is displayed well and also to sign a few copies (they can't return signed copies to the publisher, a little author trick I've learned!).

Today both boys wore Ben's clothes.  The rise on Ben's jeans is the length of Lewis's entire torso.  Then Lewis took Ben's shirt off of himself all by himself.  He's so good.  And Art buttoned the first button of his pajamas all by himself.  He was very proud. That took a lot of work and he didn't get frustrated.  Well, he may have, but he didn't give up.

"I want something long... like tights... with socks in them!  Who can give me thaaaaaaaaaaat!!!??"   As my Aunt Deb said tonight, it must be so hard to be Art.  Well, at least sometimes...

Today I spent a chunk of time with the kids as Jess ran some errands. I had hoped to get both kids down for a nap so I could get a little break. Around one I tucked them into their separate beds. 10 minutes later I heard laughing and running and went up stairs. They had gotten out of bed to goof off. We compromised that they could sleep TOGETHER on our big bed. I knew this would not work, but figured I could at least finish a couple things downstairs while they goofed off. I came downstairs and noticed it was very very quiet. This usually means they're either sleeping or doing something they know the ought not. It was the latter. 10 minutes later Art came walking downstairs and looked at me with this face pictured here. My fears were realized when Art showed me the permanent marker he was using. I was quite scared, imagining that our kids would have scribble tattoos for the next couple weeks. But luckily most of it came off with a little warm water and scrubbing. I couldn't qui...

First overcoming the fear of not being able to draw a face, now laying down in the water with his ears SUBMERGED!?!?! What's gotten into our boy!?

Art's friend, Evva, has always been good with her fine motor skills ever since they met barely over one year old. She can tie knots and likes to wrap things with strings and scarves. The other night we were over at her house for dinner and I took these pictures. Apparently she had been quite busy.

It's been hovering between 10 and 20 or so this week, but we still walked to Walgreens! Wouldn't you just love to be in this little trailer all snuggled?

Art, Ben and I went to build "gingerbread" houses (out of graham crackers) recently at a local school.  Our initial attempts at a classic cottage with roof and chimney failed. After the umpteenth collapse we redirected our efforts.  We turned it into a mobile home complete with broken down car: T.V. antennae: And sleeper compartment extention (on the far right).  Art provided moral support and a tiny bit of landscaping.

We were watching Mr. Rogers and a neighbor, Bob Treau, came over to give Mr. Rogers a gift - a portrait drawn with pastels of Mr. Rogers himself! Mr. Rogers was all aflutter and said again and again, "I didn't know you knew how draw like that!" Then Mr. Rogers drew a childlike rendition of a face saying that when he was a child that's how he would draw a face. Bob said he did, too, but then he learned that eyes go here and the mouth goes there, and so on, until he was drawing a rough sketch of Mr. Rogers again! I said, "Let's go draw a face!" and Art said his usual, "But I don't know how." I reminded him that neither did Mr. Rogers or Bob Treau when they were little, and they both learned over time by trying again and again. Look! Art did it! He drew a face!!!! The face Art drew has arms and legs, coming out of it's head of course, and the mouth has teeth. I'm so proud of him! And grateful to Mr. Rogers for his compassionat...

Art and Lewis really love going to our ECFE class. When Jess and I left to go chat with other parents Arthur was standing near Lewis and yelled loudly, "BYE!". Such confidence in separation is rare and to be celebrated!

--Sent from my handheld device.--