"Those are Good Reasons"

Anyone who has an affinity for Lucy and Linus from Charlie Brown will get that title line. Lucy has had it, as usual, with Linus, and threatens him with five good reasons why he should turn his behavior around. She counts down all five fingers on one hand and then proceeds to wave that fist under his nose. His eyebrows go up into his bangs and he quips, "those are good reasons!"

I'm telling you that because the kids and I have been listening to some songs that we dance to in my Zumba class. One is Don Omar's "Danza Kuduro", but I digress. I told Carrie that she can join us when she's 13. I told her, "you'll like it. We'll have fun."

She said, "and you'll be old."

Then she saw me coming. With a sotto voce "oh dear" that was followed by "those are good reasons" she slid off her stool, giggling.

That kid!

Down on the Farm

I am trying to clean, so we got out the farm and all the Little People in hopes that he'd stay busy. It didn't work for long, but he WAS pretty cute... the second one looks pretty tentative, but he was trying to say, "cheeeeeeeese" and smile at the same time.

This one he's impersonating Swedish Chef. Just kidding. He was ready to throw the ladybug which migrated down here from the bathtub, and it was quickly followed by the windmill.

Baby Belly

Damon has quite the physique and we're always giggling about his squishy legs and belly and the fact that he actually has a butt, as compared to his poor sister who can't find pants that stay up. We thought you'd appreciate some body-in-motion pictures.

Cardinal and Super Hero

Lookie who came to visit! Mama Cardinal proved more elusive. I guess she's camera shy. This guy wasn't afraid to ham it up, though.

And then there's THIS guy. "Why, YES, that's my Super Hero Cape, thank you. And don't make fun of my remote control. ALL the powerful guys have one..."

"Whaddaya mean, 'it doesn't have any batteries'?!"

Linebacker

Sorry; action shot. That one's all blurry because he was in the process of tackling our pretty girl. I think he's practicing the Playground Rules: if you like her, knock her down and kiss her!

Begging Bowl

Trying to get a start on spring cleaning, I'd amassed a pile of stuff to give away. Damon, naturally, kept finding my pile of "treasures" and helping himself. He would rummage through it, arrange the articles all over the floor, and steal this basket. How he got it on himself, I'll never know, but it was pretty entertaining for us to watch him try to get it back off.

Success!

Coke is it?

No way, dude. We're Pepsi people around here. So refreshing. ;)

"...not the one who needs defending..."

If you haven't already heard this story, you'll be glad you came to the blog today. Carrie's best gift this Christmas was a sword. Yes, you read that right. Her friend Isaac, who moved away at the end of the second grade school year, found this sword and told his mom he wanted to get it for Carrie. His mom, Rebecca, contacted me and we okayed it. When she found out it was an actual stainless steel blade, she obviously contacted us again! EEEEEEEP. We agreed it'd be a splendid piece of decorative art for her bedroom wall ONLY. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and you can decide what she thought of Isaac's gift. It is an exact replica of the sword used by Link in the Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. If you remember, Carrie was Link for Halloween. Thank goodness Christmas comes AFTER Halloween is all I can say!

Balls and Beaches

Since Damon's first word was "ball", we figured a set of his own Nerf balls would be a great gift. I, however, and forgotten how my brother had munched holes in his own Nerf balls as a kid. The football ends lasted all of 10 minutes, if that, before Damon had chomped them off. =/

Dada's biggest surprise was the painting Care Bear created at her December Girl Scouts meeting. She'd done a Hawaiian beach scene, and we hid it in the garage up high so that Dada wouldn't accidentally find it before Christmas. He was thrilled! She's quite a talented artist, and she was delighted to give him a meaningful gift. It's already up on our wall, which is saying something because there's been an ever-growing stack of framed photos in our hallway just waiting to be hung!

Liam was very absorbed in every gift, and Carrie had to physically grab his head and jerk it up for him to break his gaze away from everything. =)

I must have been a good girl this year! 0=)

The kids, playing Santa Claus, kept running up and down and up and down to distribute presents. They were so excited and so noisy that I'm pretty sure you could hear them. We thought for sure Liam was going to just combust. With every gift his voice got higher and he shook with anticipation. It was SO funny!

See?!

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

As you can see, the kids got Lego Star Wars and Lego Harry Potter for the Wii for Christmas, and you can tell from Liam's body language that he was over the moon about them. They want to play every single day.