have a holly bally christmas

These are the balls our little guy got for Christmas. I know! He totally scored. You would think balls would get old. But no, not to this guy.

We came home to a bounty of presents left by Santa while we were traveling. Every wrapped present was met with wonder -- "Is there a ball in there?" And when he discovered the contents, he seemed unimpressed. Most of the enthusiasm he displayed came from a bag of colorful tennis balls from Norman's stocking. He decided he would SHARE Norman's tennis balls and began tossing them around the room with glee. It was then that I realized we could've saved ourselves a lot of money.

another long-distance dedication to mark and amy

This time it's a drum solo.




Later that same day...

look what we came home to the other day

Let the record show that the babysitter is quite adept at the building of the block towers.

RIP 6FU

I am in mourning. This weekend, we watched the very last episode of the last season of Six Feet Under.

I can't tell you how sad I am that the series is over. I never really felt this way about a TV show before. Sure, I was a little disappointed when they canceled Freaks and Geeks. Then there was that whole Felicity thing. But this was different. No other show affected me like this show. The acting. The writing. It was flawless. Sniff, sniff. Now it's gone! Sniff.

I told Ed that we may as well cancel our Netflix subscription. Oh, how I looked forward to those episodes arriving in the mail.
Ed, if you're reading, this might make a nice stocking stuffer for your favorite wife.

Gotta go, we're going to watch the commentary now. I just know I'm going to tear up. Again.

introducing, rosie

Add Rosie to the cast of characters our little boy can turn into at the drop of a hat.

Rosie is Calliou's sister who had the flu in one episode. Rosie (as played by Raisin) is a very sick and lethargic little girl who has to lie down. She sometimes moans and asks you to rub her back as she coughs and puts on her most sick-looking face. The best part about Rosie is that she likes to snuggle. In fact, she'll lay still in your arms like a little baby as you carry her around and say, "Oh poor, Rosie..."

I think this is by far our favorite character Raisin plays because it's very funny. He's quite the little actor and he slips in and out of character seemlessly. And always, while in character, insists that we call him by that character's name, be it Mr. Noodle, Calliou, Felix or Rosie among others.

Now that I know he is so easily influenced by TV, I need to get my hands on some old Hazel episodes.

i want a do-over

Shoot. I wasn't in love with this year's Christmas card picture. I really wanted a picture of little e on Santa's lap. But anyone who gets our card will see that's not exactly what I got. Close, but not exactly.

But then today Ed was performing some of his computer photo wizardry. And what do I see on his screen? The perfect Christmas card photo. But it's too late now -- the cards are already ordered. Do you know how much this kills me?? Ed does because he heard me whine about it all afternoon.

So when you get our card, just pretend this is the picture instead.*


*(That is, if you ever GET our card because foolishly I ordered from the same place this year and they like to take their good ol' sweet time making the cards -- like they're doing some sort of personal hand-etched interpretation of the photo.)

christmas sentiment

You mean to tell me, you dragged me out in this Bill Cosby sweater to wait in line FOR SANTA?!?!?

tiny little balls

Like the rule goes, the cheap stuff or the stuff you don't buy? That's the stuff kids will play with. Case in point, one of little e's favorite games is "Dote Ball." This is played by kicking or bopping the SPAM beach ball up the stairs (the dotes) over and over until the ball lands on the second floor. Then you climb the stairs to retrieve it, kick it back down the stairs and start over -- batting away until it gets stuck again.

Another favorite toy? Tiny Little Balls. Every time we go to the park, we hunt for Tiny Little Balls. These are colorful little b-b-sized plastic balls that we find in random spots throughout the park. Our trip is not complete unless we find one -- it's like a veritable Easter egg hunt. Once we think we've found them all, we find four more the next visit.

Tiny Little Balls are great fun. You can scoop them up with your toy truck. Dump them out. Build a block chute and chute them down the slide. You can drop them through the hole of your ball-pounder toy and watch them all go down the ramp like tiny little gumballs. You can drop them on the floor and watch them scatter underneath all the furniture... Inevitably, every time I vacuum, I can count on sucking up at least three TLBs. Thankfully we have a bagless vacuum, so I can usually spot them in the clear cannister. In fact, just the other day Ed and I sorted through a few pounds of dog hair and dust bunnies just to save three little tiny balls.

Today, we hit the Tiny LittLe Ball motherload. I think we counted 22. Which if you've ever hunted for Little Tiny Balls is quite an impressive feat. You should've seen us -- cherring every time we found one, digging them out of sidewalk cracks with keys --- Little e was so excited. The highlight of the hunt was when he found a broken one. Because if there's anything he can appreciate more than a ball, it's a broken ball. You know what those colorful circles are in the begining pages of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" are, don't you?" Yes, those would be broken balls.

So we got home, counted our finds and added them to our ever-growing stash. Here they are in all their glory.

jingle balls

Check out those rapper moves.

a little something we did today

Mama did lots of worm and ball making while little e opened as many colors as he could at once.

If you want a serious childhood flashback, just take a whiff of a can of Play-doh.

as seen on tv

Lately Raisin's really into imitating what he sees on TV. Some of his favorites? Holding change, eating a hotdog and playing a drum very loudly just like in one episode of Caillou he has seen over and over again. "Like Caillou" he says.

But this is not to be outdone by "Like Mr. Noodle" wherein he makes his head move in funny ways. Or when Mr. Noodle rolls over his giant ball to pick up his drum sticks.

Then there was the other day, when we saw one of the Harlem Globetrotters spinning a basketball on his finger. With this one, he often hands me a very small ball and says, "Mama, like TV." It never fails to disappoint him that mama can't spin basketballs on her finger.

But it's not just the TV he's influenced by. After spending Thanksgiving weekend at Ed's parents, it was all about his older boy cousins. He would deliberately step on a train track he had just put together "Like Ian." Then, after spending an hour or so with his other cousins last night he wanted to play basketball "Like Lilah" after the two of them had a serious game of one-on-one with the door-mounted hoop.

I get the feeling it might be in our best interest to rent a few DVDs on Mother Theresa.

two more photos that truly embody the spirit of christmas

Someone else who didn't enjoy the decorating of the tree -- because it ate into his walk time.




Someone working their way to Santa's naughty list.

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

Saturday we put up the Christmas tree. Yes, a little early, we know, but we're a family who likes Christmas trees. We like them so much we decided to put it upstairs again. That way, we can go to bed with Christmas tree lights and wake up to them thanks to the handy timer.

We debated putting the tree up while the little boy was asleep like we did last year because that very effectively blew his mind. But we decided that he might enjoy helping us. Because if there's anything that kid likes to do, it's help.

The Christmas excitement began when he spotted the Green Bay Packer football ornament lovingly bestowed upon us by a family member who knows how much we love the game of football. The fact that he spotted a ball ornament may not sound very unusual until you consider that the ornament was still in the ornament box -- and the box was closed. You would've had to get on your hands and knees. And then crank your neck just so. And then squint your eyes to be able to see it. And you would've had to have super-natural ball-spotting poweres. Even then, you probably wouldn't have been able to see it. But little e? He takes one quick look at the ornament box and yells FOOTBALL! and continued to proclaim his excitement until he had it in his hot little hands.

Did he enjoy decorating the tree? Not so much. But we did manage to get this clip that really captures the Christmas spirit. I call it, "Uphill, downhill."