"Do Something Cool"

IF Miriam ever became a cheerleader, the first clip would be great to look back on someday. But given her genealogy, that's not ever going to happen.

The second clip teaches two lessons:

1. If you are speaking to your kids, make sure you specify which one you are talking to.

2. IF you ask your 2-year-old to do 'something cool' (which we weren't), make sure his definition of 'something cool' is the same as yours.

#3 celebrates 3 months

We were recently looking through our videos and realized that we didn't have any of Eliza. She must have been feeling the lack of attention, so she pulled out some tricks to show off. This past week she has started smiling, making contact with toys, and she even laughed for (or at) us!



Sidenote: When Alvin was a youth, he attended an activity where the kids were paired up, this song was played ("Baby, Baby"), and one partner had to put a big marshmallow into the other partner's mouth every time he heard the word "baby". Try it sometime!

Cac Resup

A week or so ago Miriam started planning for Mother's Day, and part of her plan was to cook for her mom. She even went as far as to make a recipe book. Today we saw the results...


When you're child goes through all that work, how do you tell them that it won't work and that you won't make it? My (Alvin's) plan was to simply suggest she add a few more ingredients to the ones she already had. So while I looked for a good made from scratch recipe, Miriam went about spooning in the sprinkles and marshmallows. I told her she'd need to add some milk and some other ingredients. While I searched for the other ingredients, she added about a quart of milk. At this point, I decided that it would take so many other ingredients to make the cake salvageable, that it wasn't worth it. We just threw her cake into the oven.

The result has more of the texture of flan than it does of cake, but I kind of like it. I ate most of the missing half of the 'cac'. Miriam, on the other hand, can't stand it. Maybe this will keep her from creating too many things on her own in the future.

Fetching Pails

Our kids were doing this all on their own. Then Tammy brought the camera and eventually a prop.


Thank goodness they have each other for entertainment.

Simple Pleasures

Here are two short videos from last month.
1) Is it true that if you focus on one spot, you won't get dizzy?




2) Popcorn ball anyone? Actually, I think they said they were gathering the petals to put on top of their fairy sandcastle. The quality of the falling petals/video goes waaaay down when we post it to the blog. Sorry. [Update: If you saw the original post the flower petals were going from the ground to the tree, as Tammy didn't realize that Alvin had been playing with the reverse video feature. The gibberish words did not tip her off, as we don't really pay attention to our kids anyway. ]

Old College Tricks

Alvin's freshman year, he and his roommate taught themselves how to juggle 3 balls. As his college education progressed, Alvin and his future cousin-in-law taught themselves how to juggle 5 balls between the two of them.



Some of the most important things you learn at school don't happen in the classroom.

Backyard Bully

I was getting dinner ready last night and was taken aback by what I saw out the window. It took me several looks to figure out exactly what I was seeing.

I called the kids over and we all watched transfixed as a really big bird plucked and ate a smaller bird. He eventually flew away and took his kill with him, leaving no evidence except a yard full of feathers. Cool!

ps. I know it's not the greatest picture, but do you know what kind of bird this is?