Christmas

I don't like to brag but this was the best Christmas tree ever. I even had to cut part of the top off to stand it upright (Just like Big Bill). I think it took like 900 lights.

They really like each other! And except for the occasional sharing issue get along really good.

Our first little snow. And Santa, who actually made it through winter really well. Who knew?

We dressed up for something but I don't remember what. Ohh, Nutcracker. Which Nyssa and Leila made it through really well. So did I. Nyssa is so pretty.

On Grandma's roof on Christmas eve. We went up to see if we could see Santa coming into Chicago. It was to cloudy.

But the snow was perfect. We used Clementines (Ohh my darling) for the eyes, nonpareils for the nose and mouth, and cooked asparagus for the arms.

Leila doesn't really like mittens so her hands got cold and she sat inside for a lot of the building. I couldn't get a good picture of her slumped like a dumpling against the radiator.

This Christmas Nyssa learned how to worry over and horde her candy. A big step.

Santa brought stuffed animals. Nyssa asked for a "teddy bear" (which was really cute on the heels of her giving grandpa an "adult" teddy last Christmas) and I think Leila just asked for a, present.

On the long drive back to Chicago. Leila loves her Giraffe and it sits at the head of her bed peeking over the railing at her.

Garland Days

I don't know what I am going to do about all of the pictures I would like to post. See, my daughters are so beautiful that it is hard to select just one.

I like that she has a spare passie in her hand. We are down to just one and (mostly) just at bed time.

Recreating your childhood memories is fun but not as fun as you remember it.  I end up standing there with a silly grin on my face.

Leila at work.

Nyssa at work too.

Go on you doodiehead

Finished product. Next year I need to get out the big boy ladder and light the 2nd floor.

Thanksgiving, Making pie. The giantest bird ever is in the oven.

Childserve Christmas pageant. We couldn't get a good picture of Leila but she performed too.

Videos...Keep checking back because I am going to add more. Until I don't.

These are all from the early fall. They've been in the draft folder for a long time. It takes so long to upload the videos I need to find a better way.

It would probably be faster if I strung all the videos together and then published them. But screw that. This way I can comment on them individually. And on you particularly.
The first will be the longest video. I only found it because I promised Bridget a video of the kids playing with their presents. And you'd think a hallow promise from a dad would be enough.?. But no, she badgered me into actually producing them, and it only took me 2 months. This video contains just about everything (even me yelling to loud, sorry).
I should mention also, that a bunch of these were taken with my fancy new telephone. I am not being artsy with my angles, just inept.

That only took about 15 min. Maybe I should do it the way I should do it.  The next two are the kids playing with the cookies Kaitlyn sent and the cupcakes from someone mentioned previously. Go Bucks!

Here is a child playing with another of Bridget (and Paul's) great gifts. When we came to Des Moines for the walk through it was the first time the kids had seen the house (although I think they did tour the house but Katy and I only have a vague memory of that). We gave Nyssa the assignment of taking pictures of the new place, and she used her new camera to take at least 300 pictures of our drive from Roland-o to Beaverdale, and then snapped pictures all over the house. One day I'll download those and turn them into a sideshow. It will be spectacular. And you'se thinking I am exaggerating how many pictures Nyssa took will be in for it!

This here is an oldie but a goody. It was my attempt to document a conversation Leila and I were having...to recreate it, which Katy didn't know about (so she kinda ruins it) and that explains some of my more odd or pointed questions.

You know you are a redneck:

When you park a RV trailer in your front yard:

Usually its bad when you do something and think, "I never thought I would turn into that person." Right?.?

A Fall Fantastic!

What usually happens is that something amazingly great happens and then we go get the camera and it is not as good. Amazingly, this is the case here too. Just imagine!

Just imagine how shaky-shook Leila must have been the first time.

Some Pictures From Our Friendly Harpers:

Greta and Leila--wearing a perfect Iowa farmer glum face

Nyssa is so dainty and I am so doofy.

Halloween at Childserv-Ames. Gwen, Isaiah, Prateem, Judy Jetson

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Greta, Ruby and Nyssa: or a graphing of our love for them.

Our Last Days in Roland:

Umbrella Shoping

Cloudy with a chance for Goofballs

Last day at Childserv. Gwen and Nyssa. Gwen was just becoming a favorite as we left. She is great!

The sweet Avery has stopped trying to get Leila into the picture. She had been with Nyssa from six or seven weeks old.

Watch out, Tigers!

What a Turtledove

The mask seemed to be made for her face

It wasn't shabby on her sister either. But...

Something came over her. Somehow she was not herself.

Attack! Roarrrrrrrrr!

Some random photos:

When we were just getting usetta the new house Katy and I came into our bedroom (nice wallpaper), and found these jokers feeling at home.

Eating the dinner our friend Mimi made for us. (Anyone else notice Nyssa sometimes looks like Shining Jack.?.

New living room (Kant you tell) with Katy's favorite hat bought at the Hotel Boulderado last summer.

And to think I was mean enough to say she couldn't buy that wedding magazine two days later.

Nyssa, almost unrecognizable, hand dancing with me to Justin Roberts (who aunt Elizabeth went to college with). The King with face paint is our friend Cainin.

I just happened on this. It must be from June?, her hands are a portent of things to come.

Mostly Halloween:

After Trick or Treating with our friends Oscar and Louis, we came back to serve the neighborhood (and meet it). Leila's hands were stuck in the constant gesture of "more" for 3 days. They might have been candy-stuck that way.

A Renaissance queen? A gospel singer? Or Janis Joplin? The accompanying D&D board gave it away.

"Hey! Hey! Trick or Treat." Nyssa was very excited to give out candy, even pointing out trick or treaters when she was on the prowl herself. "Dad! Here Comes Some One."

In Des Moines it is tradition that you offer a joke for your treat:

We did not know this. So halfway through our 'treating I made a joke up Nyssa could remember, quickly (quickly I made up a joke, quickly she could learn it, quickly she could repeat it) Some people scoffed at me.

Knock, Knock. Whose There? Scare! With Jazz hands (see below) (unfortuently it took me 2 more days to solve the scoffers issue. "scare who?" "Scare YOU!" ...Genius is not quick)

Ruby--resplendent in leather and lace (and leopard print tights) and Nyssa at their first ever Princess Party. EYE did Nyssa's hair (and Ruby's) and affixed Nyssa's crown while mommies slept.

It might look captured, but Nyssa was posing her hands for every picture I took (2. Plus one attempt as the camera died) that afternoon. The grace of a Princess (and even before she bought that cruddy Royals book).

I am the luckiest boy in the world.

By Further Demand

We just moved from Roland on down to Des Moines. One of the carrots we gave to Nyssa before the move was that in Des Moines we'd have room for her to have her own desk. A desk we believed to be in our storage unit. I could visualize the dam desk in the dam storage unit. Needless to say on the day we moved the desk was nowhere to be found.
Kathy, not wanting me to be a lying no good two-bit father, stepped in and sent Katy's girlhood (as if she wasn't still in it!) desk, which we received in a gigantic truck two days ago. Below is the picture of Nyssa coloring at her desk before it found its more final resting place (For you other nosy people out there, that is the eat-in portion of our kitchen and back door. The kitchen is off to the right. Directly left is the side door and basement door. The hallway behind leads to the front door, steps upstairs, and with a quick left, the living room).

Look at those feet. Lookit!

Nyssa was really excited to get her desk. She asked us, "what are these for?"And we said, "drawers to put your stuff in."
And she said,"What is the hole for?" and we said, "that is for your legs so you can scoot right up to the desk" [editors note: you can see her utilizing this deluxe feature in the picture above.]
And she asked us "what is this for?"
And we said, "that is the desk top, it is where you will do your work."
And we thought she was so smart! she doesn't even know what the flat surface on a desk is for.



About the video, I heard her singing this song--made famous, to her, by Elizabeth Mitchell, and went to get the camera. Nyssa kept singing and let me record some. Elizabeth Mitchell recorded the song because she heard her daughter singing it coming home from school one afternoon when she was four or five, Nyssa singing here, then, is, as Walker Percy would say, a rotation.
The other great thing about the video was that Nyssa was not singing like herself, but rather to herself in a joking falsetto (like her old man). Needless to say, I am very proud.

Just now at bedtime for books, with Leila trying on Kaitlyn's old cheeks.

Katy's first post

Leila saw this picture and said "sick" b/c it was taken one day when she stayed home from daycare sick.

Before I had kids, I would have thought a good general rule of thumb might be: if a child can say "choking hazard" then the child is probably not in much danger from the object in question. Yesterday Nyssa wanted to hear the ocean with some seashells that we'd picked up from our trip to North Carolina for Jess and Matt's wedding in 2008. So Nyssa got some out and handed one to Leila, warning her that they were a choking hazard. Leila repeated "choking hazard", took out her pacifier and proceeded to stick the shell in her mouth. I guess she was thinking it wouldn't be a choking hazard if it wasn't something you were supposed to put in your mouth.


Look at how cute they are. They had a great dance party that night.