The Choo Choo Puffs Back Into Town

We made another Gingerbread Train this year (click here to see our train from last year). We had a few tweaks to our technique on the frosting but it was largely the same, as traditions should be. Last year I told AJ that the hard candies included in the kit to load into the boxcar were candies that could choke him and that he had to be bigger to eat them, which caused lots of upset. This year he remembered about the "choky candies". Five minutes later he asked me to get out the measuring tape and see how tall he was. When I said "40 inches--wow! you've grown!", he asked hopefully "am I big enough now for eating choky candies???"

The Godmothers Part II

As an update to my earlier post about the Godmothers coming and working on Julia's room, here are a couple of picture of the beautiful tree that AJ's godmother painted for Julia's room. While my friends were here I was feeling ambitious and we bought some pink and green paint for me to add some birds and leaves to the tree, but who was I kidding? With 3 kids 3 and under, that was never going to happen. So when I was buying some Christmas gifts at Pottery Barn Kids and spotted some stickers of birds and leaves while I was standing in the checkout line, I decided to cheat on the painting and added the stickers to my basket as well. But I love that the tree and flowers are originals and think of Kim every time I walk in the room.

Now that I have a daughter, I think about what I need to do to raise a strong, confident, happy girl. I like surrounding her with the women in my life who are all of these things, so I want her to spend as much time as possible with her grandmothers, her aunts, her aunties (my friends), and our nanny, Linda. I also chose Julia's godmother, my friend Ali, because she is all of these things. Ali lived abroad for many years in Honduras, Colombia and Paraguay, and loves to travel internationally to see the world. She is a teacher who gets kids to love learning like she does. And she is an avid reader. I hope she will infuse her enthusiasm for these things in Julia as well.

Brothers Behaving and Playing Together Without Hitting

a.k.a. the best 2.5 seconds of my day.

Game Night with Grammas

AJ is starting to get to the age where he can play board games--woo hoo! Playing games of any kind--board games, card games, even the occasional charades--is a big part of my family's culture, so I am very excited about this development. I have fond memories from my childhood of playing games like War, Sorry, Parchesi, On the County, Hearts, Spades, Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, Yahtzee, and Boggle, and then as we got older, games more focused on strategy like Scotland Yard (referred to as "the Fox and the Hounds" in our family) and Risk. Some of my fondest memories of my grandparents came while playing On the County with my maternal grandparents and all versions of rummy (Gin Rummy, London Rummy, Barnyard Rummy) with my paternal grandparents.

I love games for the time spent with family and friends and the casual conversation that goes with it. My sister, who is an early childhood ed major, also tells me that games are good for developing skills in kids like taking turns and following directions, as well as for developing an understanding that you can't always win and some frustration tolerance (which is always good for the three year-old set). So far AJ can do Chutes and Ladders (provided that the game moves quickly) and a little bit of Memory. Here is a picture of AJ playing chutes and ladders with his grammas on Thanksgiving. I get ridicuously happy just looking at this picture. Let the gaming begin!

Daddy!

The other day I read in a parenting magazine that kids can usually start to draw people at age 3. I have never seen AJ draw a person, so I asked him to give it a shot. This is what he came up with--I was pretty impressed. I asked him who he was drawing and he said "Daddy!" As he was drawing the hair he said "Daddy has a little bit of hair." This observation came with no prompting from me--you really can't make material up that is as good as the spontaneous original :)

Ready for Snow

Winter jammies? Check. Snow boots? Check. Toothbrush? Check. We are prepared and ready for snow at our house.

A Photo Summary of Life at Our House

This photo summarizes life at our house right now. And probably for the next five years or so. Yes, that is a wayward pea smashed under my wine glass.

Two Pots, No Waiting

Papa calls this scene at our house "two pots, no waiting." Don't get too excited--so far, Davey is just playing at potty training, but at least we are in the ballpark.

My Curly-Haired Monster

Look at this guy--how cute is he? As Davey quickly approaches turning 2 at the end of this month, I want to remember little details about him at this stage in his life.

David has this halo of crazy strawberry blond curls that float in the air, a quick smile and blue eyes that turn down at the corners and crinkle when he laughs. He is friendly with everyone he meets and is quick to make buddies with adults and kids. I jokingly refer to him as the mayor of our town because he knows way more people around town than I do from his outings with our nanny to preschool, story time at the library, the local pet shop, etc. More than one time someone has recognized Davey around town and said to me, "Oh, you're David's mom!"

He has an adorable habit of scrunching up his lips and wrinkling his nose when he is mad or doesn't want to do something. The face reminds me of Arnold on Diff'rent Strokes, the tv show from the '80s, when Arnold would say "What you talkin' about, Willis?" to his older brother.

David also has a hilarious laugh. He has been quick to laugh since he was 5 months old and is still this way. His laugh takes people by surprise, though, because the first time you hear it, the laugh is so boisterous that it is often mistaken for crying or him being upset. "What's wrong with David?" someone will ask when they hear it, and we explain that he is just laughing. It is a bit of a maniacal laugh that reminds Joe of the comedian Jim Carey's crazy laugh. It wouldn't surprise me if Davey ends up being a class clown some day.

Davey definitely marches to the beat of his own drum. He is amazingly able to focus on whatever it is that he finds interesting despite repeated interruptions from his brother, and he can play alone for 30 minutes to an hour at a time, content to amuse himself with various toys around the room. I often find AJ imitating some play that David has initiated.

In terms of interests, this one is easy--Davey is obsessed with trains, and specifically with Thomas the Train and all its characters. He knows them by name and squeals with delight as soon as he hears the theme music from the cartoon. He asks us to turn it on for him by singing "deet deet!", which are the first two bars of the theme song. He enjoys music and will often start dancing as soon as he hears a tune. One Saturday he amused himself for a half hour by playing his toy guitar, clapping for himself and saying "yea!!!!" after every song finished. Maybe a future rock star?

He is also pretty people savvy for his age and is focused on making people happy and making sure he is in their good graces. When he gets in trouble, he quickly comes over to whomever is disciplining him and pats their arm while saying "nice, nice" in an attempt to make up for his bad behavior. I think this is partly his sweet, peacemaker temperament and partly the beginning realizations that he can manipulate people with sweetness. If he had a motto, it would be kill 'em with kindness. He is often a peacemaker with his brother and will offer AJ trains and other favorite items in an attempt to calm AJ down during tantrums.

Speaking of tantrums, despite his generally sweet demeanor, David is capable of some legendary tantrums. When he gets going, there is no stopping it. The other day he had a tantrum in music class and was hitting our nanny. She took him in the hall to calm down, then outside, but it raged on and on as David threw himself off a park bench onto the ground and flopped down boneless in the middle of the street. He raged all the way home and after being deposited in his crib, managed to muster some herculean strength from his rage to climb out of his crib and thump onto the floor, still screaming and raging 45 minutes after the tantrum started.

Quirky things that I want to remember about him always include the way he claps his chubby little toddler hands and says "yea!" whenever he hears applause (even if he has no idea what is being applauded), the merry look in his eyes when someone tries to make him laugh, his love for snuggling while rubbing someone's arm, his over-the-top enthusiastic squeals and leg hugging whenever I walk in the door and his obsession with getting "agua" 10 times a day by pulling open the freezer, loading ice into his cup, supervising the pouring of the water and slapping the cap on his cup with deep satisfaction at a job well done. Things I am looking forward to him growing out of include the tantrums, his dogged focus on applying stickers all over our hardwood floors and his drama king tendencies when he is in a certain mood to scream melodramatically when AJ even looks in his direction (it's as if he is trying to say "mom, he's looking at me!"). As he progresses from single words and a couple of two-word phrases into more language in the next year, I am so curious to hear more of his thoughts and to see how he changes and grows.

Stash

AJ has a secret stash. He keeps a pile of trains hidden under a pillow on his bed and guards this stash with his life. If Davey so much as starts up the stepstool to AJ's big boy bed, there is trouble as AJ tries to protect his hidden treasures. He keeps his favorite trains there, which is a little silly because then he can't play with them, but he likes the arrangement because it means that they are his and only his. I guess this is not unlike 50 year-old men who have vintage collector cars that they keep in their garages and don't drive.

Interestingly, having his own private set of trains in his room seems to have made him more able to share other downstairs trains with Davey, maybe because (1) they aren't his prize trains and (2) having his own off-limits toys makes letting go of some others easier. In the past few weeks, AJ has offered Davey the old-but-still-coveted Gordon train on multiple occasions, at least 10, and each time it continues to surprise me because this is a huge, huge, step for someone who previously preferred to take multiple time outs in a row rather than even share one lowly boxcar with his brother. Whatever developmental milestone this is, I love it. It may also have something to do with our nanny's recent discussion with AJ about how Santa takes toys away from little boys who don't share with their brothers and her threats to call Santa on the phone and report bad behavior.

I'm Not New Anymore!

A month or so ago, David gave AJ a big chomp on his back after AJ attempted to swipe a train from Davey. It was a pretty vicious bite, and it left a red mark on AJ and broke the skin. AJ was very upset about the bite, and at first we thought it was because it hurt so bad. But even after he calmed down and no longer seemed to be in pain, he kept wailing "Davey took a chomp out of me! I'm not new anymore!" over and over again. We thought this was a funny idea that he wasn't new anymore, but AJ was very upset about it and kept repeating his lament throughout the day and into the next day or two as well. He was only comforted when he finally got a bandaid for his back and was told he was as good as new.

Yesterday AJ got a papercut on his finger and kept repeating the same thing--I'm not new anymore! I didn't understand why this upset him so much until we watched Toy Store 2 again tonight. There is a scene where the cowboy toy rips his cloth arm and then has a nightmare that he is thrown in the garbage because "he is not new anymore" and is broken. It seems that AJ was worried that he would be thrown in the garbage because he wasn't new anymore! A good reminder for me that he is still learning to differentiate between ideas in movies and real life. I think we will wait a few more years before tackling the scariest movie of childhood, the Wizard of Oz.

The Godmothers, Part I

AJ's godmother and Julia's new godmother came together for a visit a couple of weekends ago, which made me very happy since they are two of my closest friends who I have known since childhood. Julia was treated to lots of cuddle time with her godmother, Ali, and even got to read her first book, Good Night Moon. Ali loves to read, so I am hoping Julia will catch Ali's love for books and be a lifelong reader. AJ's godmother was an art minor in college and painted an awesome tree mural on the wall in Julia's room. I will post pictures of the finished room soon.

Overheard

The other night at dinner, Joe picked up Julia, who was hungry and rooting around for some food of her own, and started talking the type of nonsense to her that adults tend to lapse into when we talk to babies. He said to her "Are you hungry? Do you want to bite me even though you don't have any teeth?" As he held Julia near his face she tried to nurse his nose and he said "Are you going to gum my nose? I'll gum you!" AJ heard this and quickly said "Dada, sissy is just little and doesn't know who's who or what's what yet. You shouldn't turn her into gum! We have to protect her." In his mind, gum is chewing gum and he was worried that Joe was threatening to turn his little sister into a stick of gum. I laughed at the statement that Julia didn't know who's who or what's what yet, which Joe said is a Papa special, an expression that his dad says often. Very sweet to see the big brother protection instincts coming out.

I'm Stuck!

Davey has had his "language explosion" as our pediatrician calls it where his vocabulary starts to expand rapidly and he adds several new words a day. One of my recent favorites is "yuck!" which he now says when pointing to his diaper to tell you that it is dirty and he wants it changed. He is also just starting to do a couple of two word sentences. The other day when our nanny was waiting with Davey in the stroller outside of AJ's preschool classroom, Davey was trying to climb out while buckled in and after several frustrated attempts said very clearly "I'm stuck!!" He also yelled "that's mines!!!" at the top of his lungs yesterday when AJ was trying to confiscate a train Davey was playing with.

In addition to adding new words, Davey is also proud to show off his language skills. Every evening at dinner he will do a roll call of who is present at the dinner table, pointing to each person and stating their name. "Dada!...Mama!...JJ! (his word for AJ)...DeeDee! (pointing at his own chest. DeeDee is his way of prounoucing David/Davey). I remember AJ doing a similar roll call when he was learning to talk. AJ is definitely noticing all of the attention that Davey is getting for his language and seems to be jealous. He has reverted to repeating whatever Davey says in baby talk pronunciation in an effort to get the same attention. We keep telling him that we want to hear his big boy words, but he is intent for the time being on using some baby talk as well.

The Different Ways We Play

This toy highlights the different developmental phases the boys are in right now. It is a sorter toy that I decided to find after seeing it at the local preschool. AJ is able to pick through all of the little items and sort them by color or by type of vehicle. Davey enjoys spreading them all over the floor as fast as his little arms can fling them and likes seeing the chaos that results, as well as piling them all into a single bowl and pouring them out.

Captain Underpants

Say hello to Captain Underpants, or as Joe calls him, my future blackmail victim.

My Airplane

Both of the boys are in a tinker toy phase. AJ likes to build things with them and Davey likes to put them in their storage case, dump them out all over the floor and put them back in again. He also does some of the basic putting a stick into a wheel building. Here is a picture of AJ's creation, which he called his airplane that was going to fly to the moon with a space guy in it. They did a unit on outer space at his preschool recently, so I would guess that was the likely inspiration.

Princess Leia's Ear Shells

Here are Julia's EarWells, or Ear Shells as we call them at our house. So far she doesn't seem to mind them and we think they may muffle some of her brothers' shouting and screeching. She is still sleeping like a champ 22 hours a day.

Princess Julia Leia

Julia was born with an ear that is folded over--the medical diagnosis was a combination of cupped ear and Stahl's ear. It has no impact on her hearing and is just a cosmetic thing. Someone pointed out that it would also make wearing eyeglasses or sunglasses difficult because the folded ear wouldn't be able to hold them up.

Of course, she is perfect to us and I find her little folded ear to be adorable, but after discussing it Joe and I decided that a 12 year-old Julia would probably thank us for correcting this and giving her a "normal" ear if the option exists. Fortunately there is a new product called EarWell that was just filed with the FDA this year as a class I medical device, and from what they have posted for other kids, the results are amazing. Copy and paste this into your internet browser if you would like to see the website: http://www.earwells.com or this if you would like to see a youtube video about it. http://www.bodysculptor.com/facial-surgery-chicago/earwell/
The device benefits from the fact that babies' ears are extremely malleable immediately after they are born due to high levels of estrogen in the baby's system from its mother's body during the pregnancy. Babies have ears and noses that are made of very soft cartilage at birth that hardens into regular cartilage in the first 4-6 weeks as the estrogen leaves their body. Apparently quite a bit starts to leave in the first 7 days, because the results with this device are best if they are applied by the end of the baby's first week. We learned this when Julia was 6 days old and then did some quick research and got an appointment with a plastic surgeon to install them last Thursday just as she turned a week old. (Don't worry--no surgery or anesthesia is needed to put the devices on, but the manufacturer said they prefer to use surgeons instead of pediatricians because plastic surgeons are more used to installing devices/reshaping/molding body parts.) So just wanted to explain why blog pictures of Julia will have her looking a bit like Princess Leia for the next 4-6 weeks as she wears her "ear shells" as we have described them to the boys. Here is a before picture as well of Julia with her cute little folded ear.

The Space Explorer and His Sidekick, the Train Conductor

We had a good neighborhood trick-or-treat outing this year. I took the boys around and was only feeling up to doing a few houses, so we visited about eight neighbors on our block and a couple of blocks south. AJ is still getting the hang of how Halloween works, so he insisted on pre-filling his bucket and Davey's bucket with candy from our house. I kept trying to explain that the idea is to take an empty bucket that you fill up as you go, but this did not make sense to him when there was prefectly good candy here for the pre-filling. When we went to ring doorbells, AJ and Davey would get their piece of candy and then thought they were supposed to give one in return and would pick one out of their bucket to offer the person who had answered the door at their house. I thought this idea of a candy exchange was pretty charming and much better than the gimme gimme attitude that can sometimes come with trick-or-treating, so who knows--maybe we will adopt this as our own little custom of candy sharing.

Davey was willing to put on his Halloween costume for trick-or-treating, which surprised me. I think it helped that we showed him his Thomas the Tank Engine candy bucket right when it was time for trick-or-treat. He was so excited about Thomas that he didn't protest when we tried to put his costume on. He dutifully trudged around the neighborhood with the huge Thomas bucket bumping along the sidewalk beside him, too heavy with the loot that AJ pre-filled in it to lift it off the ground.
AJ had a hard time keeping his hands out of his Halloween bucket. Joe estimated that AJ ate about 15 pieces of chocolate, which may explain why he had a hard time sleeping tht night. Davey was also a sneaky one with the candy and was caught twice trying to eat mini candy bars still in their wrappers.

The Existential TV Watcher

The other night when AJ was in bed trying to fall asleep, we had this conversation after a day when Joe imposed no t.v. due to AJ not listening to his instruction to stop eating Halloween candy.

AJ: Mama, what's tomorrow?
Me: A Tuesday. You have your preschool class with Mrs. M.
AJ: Mama, what happens when there are no tomorrows?
Me: (Pause) What do you mean, no tomorrows?
AJ: What happens when we run out of tomorrows and there are no more?
Me: Well, there is always a tomorrow. Tomorrow's another day. And there are always more days. (I was thinking to myself that it would be too abstract to explain anything else.)
AJ: After tomorrow is another tomorrow and after that is another tomorrow and then tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow?
Me: Yes, that is how it works (At this point, I was thinking to myself that this is getting pretty deep.)
AJ: (Pauses for a few seconds) So there will always be more t.v.?!? If I can't watch t.v. today, there will always be more t.v. tomorrow?
Me: Yes, AJ, there will always be more tomorrow when you can watch t.v. again.

Just when I was thinking that a three year-old mind is amazing (and it is) he brought things back to the practical level. Glad we got that one cleared up.

And Then There Were Three

Miss Julia Frances made her appearance Thursday afternoon at 4:31. She weighed in at 9lbs 3oz and is 19 inches long with chubby cheeks--definitely takes after her mama in that department.

My delivery was easy and the hospital offered to discharge me after just one night. I was anxious to get home with the boys and foolishly took them up on it--what was I thinking??? There is a reason why Congress passed a law that requires insurance companies to provide two night minimum stay after delivery! I think there must have been a large lobbying group of moms with two other little boys at home who were behind the bill. Last night Davey was crying at bedtime, AJ couldn't fall asleep until 11 with all the excitement and then was up in the night again from 3-4. Julia so far is playing the part of the ideal third child who sleeps a lot and is relatively mellow. We'll see if this lasts. I know from having the other two that babies all sleep a lot the first week and then the real trends start to emerge.

In terms of the boys' reactions, AJ is very interested in Julia and wants to help take care of her. He asked to hold her last night and likes to count her toes and fingers (and very sweetly comes up with a different total each time--"Now she has eight fingers! This time she has eleven fingers!") He is also fascinated by her umbilical cord stump and the idea that it will fall off. I explained to him last night that when he was tiny and in mama's tummy, he had a cord that connected his belly button to me and that it fell off after he was born and no longer needed it. He was obsessed with this idea and explained it back to me 10 times last night, including once at 3am. "When AJ was a tiny baby in Mama's tummy, he had a cord that connected his belly button to mama's and after I was born, it felled off because I didn't need it anymore! Baby Julia's cord is gonna falled off on Halloween and then she will be like the rest of us and just have a bee bo (belly button)."

Davey has ventured over to take a few peeks at Julia and seems most interested when she cries. He has added a new word to his vocabulary--baby. So far no "baby down!" or "put baby down!" like AJ used to say about Davey.

Here are a few quick photos. More to come.

Happy Jack

We had beautiful, unseasonably warm October weather this weekend that was perfect for carving a jack-o-lantern in the backyard with Papa. When Papa asked AJ if he wanted to do a scary jack-o-lantern, AJ's response was that he definitely wanted a happy jack-o-lantern face, so we found a good template and they set to work sawing through the top, scooping the seeds and making some strategic cuts. I think it turned out beautifully, and AJ was very pleased with getting to use tools and the end result. He was even more excited when Papa told him we needed a candle to put inside for Halloween night--tools and fire!

Our Great Pumpkin

We did a quick trip to a local pumpkin patch in town this year. By pumpkin patch, I mean lot on the corner that has piles of trucked-in pumpkins and some Halloween decorations. This particular one benefits a local youth group, so it eases a little bit of the guilt about not making it out to the countryside to pick one off the vine.

I suggested that the boys wear their Halloween costumes to the patch to make it more festive. AJ was all over this idea, as he is enthusiastic about any excuse to put on his Buzz Lightyear costume and shout "To Infinity and Beyond!" at the top of his lungs. Davey was about where AJ was on Halloween a year or two ago, which is to say he wanted nothing to do with it. No costume, no pumpkin patch, not even an interest in the pumpkin stickers the patch workers were handing out. He did rally for about 30 seconds at the patch when it was his turn to pick out a pumpkin. He choose a small one, declared it a "ball!" and threw it as if it were a baseball into the wagon we were using to cart the pumpkins around. It somehow miraculously survived the violent attempt at pumpkin smashing, so it is now his lucky pumpkin. AJ chose a small white pumpkin for his pumpkin and a larger, slightly lopsided pumpkin for the family jack-o-lantern. We'll see if AJ and Papa are able to find a side straight enough for a good looking jack-o-lantern when they do the carving.

Wheh ah youuuuuuuuuu?

This morning I was woken up by Davey shouting from his bed at 6:30 "Mamaaa, wheh ah youuuuuuuu?!?" (Where are you?) This is the first full sentence that I have heard him use, so despite the early hour, I excitedly scooted out of bed (okay, I am 39 weeks pregnant...it was more of a roll and a lumber) and went to greet him. He seemed pretty pleased with himself that his talk got a good response from mama, so we will see if this results in more chatter out of him.

Think Pink

With 10 days to go until the baby's arrival, we have been working on getting our act together over here. It is much more laid back the third time around, to say the least. We figure we have everything that we need for baby gear or will have plenty of time to go out and get it later. I asked Joe to pick up newborn diapers at the store last week, but he said "nah, I can just get them when the baby is born."

One area that has been getting a lot of effort is turning the nursery into a little girl's nursery. We are going with my friend Kaitlyn's advice to just go ahead and embrace pink. She said she initally tried to come up with a color scheme that was something other than pink when she was planning for the arrival of her twin girls but realized it was much easier in the end just to drink the kool-aid and do pink. She ended up painting her nursery walls Paris Pink, if I am remembering the color name correctly. And her girls' nursery is gorgeous.

This turned out to be good advice, and we are thinking pink over here. I made a trip to the local fabric store with my mother-in-law, who is a champion sewer and excited to be able to use pink after years of sewing and shopping for her own four boys. The results are pink infused curtains, rocker pillows and bed skirt, which I will post a photo of shortly. If you are wondering whether it looks like a Pepto Bismol bottle exploded in there, we tried to show some restraint and incorporated some yellow and green as well. We are well outside the territory of Shelby's wedding from the movie Steel Magnolias where her colors were blush and bashful, or for those who don't speak interior decorating, dark pink and light pink. Now I just have to convince Joe to help me hang some pink, yellow and green butterflies from the ceiling.

Even AJ is thinking pink. The other day when I asked him if he wanted to get his baby sister a gift, he came up with "I'll get her a pink toothbrush so that I can brush her teeth for her!" I started to explain that she won't have any teeth when she is born but the sentiment was so sweet that I just said "good idea!" And so this baby has a pink toothbrush waiting and ready for that first tooth.

I have also been picking up a few little girl clothes here and there. The funny thing is that when I had baby boys, I always thought the baby girl clothes were so much cuter (and they are), but while shopping I keep noticing how much more stylish all the little boy things seem to have gotten since I was shopping for baby clothes for AJ and Davey. As Joe will tell you, I managed to find enough cute baby girl clothes to do a little damage on that front as well.

Nesting

Guess whose nesting instinct has kicked in? Unfortunately I channeled it to do things like bake an apple pie and plant new flowers in the garden instead of actually prepping for the baby's arrival. I have a list of baby prep stuff that needs to get done, like digging the baby swing out of storage and replacing the batteries in the infant seat, but I figure we can do that after we bring the baby home. I guess that is how it goes when you are expecting your third baby.

Night Game

We decided to take the boys to one Northwestern football game this season and went for this week's night game against Purdue. We lucked out with weather in the 80s yesterday, which made the night game doable in a long-sleeved t-shirt without bundling up. We made it through the first half and the boys did pretty well. They were enamored with two girls sitting in front of us who looked about 8 years old. The girls lent AJ and Davey their purple pom pons and the boys were grinning from ear to ear. Their other favorite highlight of the evening was definitely the food. We did pizza and hot dogs for dinner and for the grand finale introduced the boys to funnel cake. Needless to say, it was a hit. (See the powdered sugar all over my jeans in the picture?) At one point, AJ tried to close the funnel cake box when there were only little pieces left and Davey responded ripping it back open and stuffing the bits into his mouth with both hands.

In terms of the actual football watching, Davey is at a stage where he loves to clap his hands and say yeaaaaa!, so he would cheer along for both teams whenever anyone else in the stadium would cheer. AJ was able to be slightly more selective and cheer on cue for the wildcats, but he was overly generous in pronouncing everything from a field goal to a first down a "touchdown!!!" Turns out the Wildcats could have used an extra touchdown last night, but we had a good time anyway.

Davey Bear and Pops

Pops and Susan came for a visit last weekend, and little Davey really took to my dad. Here are some great pictures, especially of my dad and Davey since capturing my dad smiling on camera is only slightly less challenging than getting photographic evidence of the Loch Ness Monster.