Tale of a First Haircut

We've got a little man now. And we discovered he has a neck. He was FANTASTIC during the cut... the animal crackers given to him by the stylist didn't hurt! We celebrated the surprisingly positive experience with a visit to Leapin' Lizards.

Here are some BEFORE shots:

Sporting the new Elmo slippers

Fun with static electricity

With Dad right before the cut

The cut, by a sweet lady named Jenny

AFTER - The MAN

The man with a NECK

Post-haircut fun at the Lizard

Tomorrow's the Day

Poor Andrew's hair is now just wrong. It's only curly in humid weather. We've been in denial about the mullet, too.

Lately, it's been very A Flock of Seagulls.

We're having it chopped off tomorrow.

Times sure have changed

Our friends Mike and Kara drove up from Summerville this afternoon for a visit. We had a great lunch at Chili's and then, what else?.... were off to the zoo!

Mike is Jon's great drum corps buddy and played marimba at our wedding in 2003:

He and Kara have had three gorgeous kids since then - Sydney, Lauren, and new little David.

It was a fun day.

Retro Christmas Posting

Just back a few days, that is, before and during Christmas. Things have been way too crazy around here lately for a decent posting of some holiday shots, so here they finally are.

We traveled to WV before Christmas, and hung out at Aunt Phyl and Uncle Jack's in Morgantown.

Then it was off to Ritchie County to be with Mom and other family/friends.

This is my high school friend Michele and her boys posing with Andrew and me.

Andrew and Great Grandma DoakOpening presents with Grandma Diana

His first trip to the 100-year-old Berdine's 5 & 10

We also hit Charleston, WV to see Aunt Rena, but Andrew was Captain Phlegm by that point and we opted to go ahead and leave the camera in the diaper bag.

We were back in Columbia in time for a good ol' nuclear family Christmas eve and morning.

Benny Goodman he's not, but the interest is sure there!

Our three children on Christmas morningChecking out his new super cool train table
Of course... Elmo Live

And, of course, Christmas morning, the video. It's his first sight of the goods.

Brilliant Observation

The amount of time spent blogging directly correlates to the amount of unfolded laundry.

Ridiculous things we learned the hard way. This weekend.

(Probably not a very entertaining read, just true, and a necessary therapeutic posting, with hopes that I can wind back down and get some shut-eye...)

• Running Andrew's vaporizer every night for two weeks in his dimly-lit bedroom leads to the discovery of a gross bunch of mold behind his stuffed animal hammock and wall-hangings. The daughter of a science teacher should have known this would happen.
• Washing and drying an entire gaggle of stuffed animals takes about one million years.
• As if the mold in the baby's room wasn't enough, removal of the Christmas tree introduced us to another patch that stained the wood floor of our rental.
• Moving a piano across the floor by oneself is also hazardous to the health of the aforementioned rented wood floor. Major grooves are now hidden by a large rug.
• Forgetting both the stroller and the monkey leash on the way to the SC State Museum today led to very sore biceps from carrying around a tired 30-pounder for two hours.
• Andrew's not yet ready for a toddler bed. We converted his crib this afternoon and it only took one hour before he fell out of it. Awake. Screaming. Terrified parents falling all over ourselves to get into his room. As soon as we were assured he was okay, Jon converted the bed right back to a crib in the next five minutes.
• Leaving a vaporizer in the hallway to air out overnight is not smart. It will resonate like nothing you've ever heard when you trip on it at 11:00 pm. The baby you just calmed down after the crib fiasco will wake up. Again.

Had better weekends. All in this house but me are finally down for the night, so I'm off to join them. Hope I can keep from injuring myself or others on the way back to bed.

Bye-Bye... Back to Reality

It was a nice visit in SC. The coolest thing of all was that Jon's mom didn't know her daughter Christina would be here at all. Christina arranged to surprise her and end up in the seat beside her on the Houston-Charlotte flight last Saturday. It all worked out so well. And, at this precise moment, Andrew's auntie and grandma are together again, probably both in the air somewhere above central Texas, eventually landing in the separate destinations of southern TX and CA. We took a million pictures during the week and these are my favorites.