Fine Dining November 25, 2008

There is never a dull moment with 2 kids at the table now.  Last week we had Kate, Adam and Abigail over for dinner. After Caleb’s musical prayer (which often sounds a bit like a rap song) we had a nice family dinner.  Anneke was sitting in her high chair babbling and smiling across the table at Kate.  Abigail was making lots of noise, mostly directed at Caleb across the table, but also including occasionally choking noises and clapping.  Caleb was talking at Adam pretty much the entire meal.  Dan and I were alternating feeding Anneke her cereal and baby food while trying to eat our own food before it got cold.  Caleb decided to try salad with dressing and declared that it tasted like paper.  And as an end to our fine dining experience Caleb suddenly declared “oops, I accidentally peed a little bit in my underwear” (it sounds like ax-kidentally when he says it).  I guess the dining experience was not ruined by the fact that I didn’t clean the kitchen.  The evening ended with Caleb insisting on kissing everyone goodnight on the lips, much to Adam’s delight.

Meals are just as exciting and Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  Anneke just finished her dinner, sooner than I expected, because she spent most of the time leaning over the edge of her booster seat to see the dogs, who happily licked her hands.  Earlier, Caleb went downstairs to get Emily for dinner and when she didn’t come right away, he told the person she was talking to on the phone that she had to go eat supper and then pulled Emily upstairs with him.

I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving dinner!

Math Whiz November 7, 2008

Exchange between Dan and Caleb this morning as we came back in the house from preschool:

Caleb: What’s 30 plus 30?

Dan: What do you think?

Caleb: 60?

Dan: Yup.

Caleb: Oh, that’s the same as four 15′s.  [laughs]

Election Night November 6, 2008

We had an informal election results watching “party” with Kate, Adam and Abigail at our house last night.  Of course they were gone and Caleb in bed before they called the presidential election, but living in mountain time zone, we were able to watch Obama’s speech live at 10pm.

The kids were more interested in other things, of course.  Any time Uncle Adam is around, Caleb comes up with some game that involves climbing and/or jumping on Adam.  Abigail took advantage of her new mobility to check out the toy kitchen, and Anneke immediately took to smiling and talking to Aunt Kate as usual. That is Kate’s hair she is playing with in the picture.

Living in Colorado, we certainly had plenty of political ads to put up with these last few months and Caleb easily learned the names of the presidential candidates (although he would frequently mix them up).  We got a fair number of people coming to our door, and Caleb had a hard time understanding that just because someone comes to the door, does not mean we invite them in to see his room, or listen to him sing.  He did do a little song and dance for one person, but was often upset after they left that he didn’t get more attention out of the deal.

We watched the Obama “infomercial” last week.  Caleb watched part of it with us and I explained that Obama was talking about how he wanted to be president.  At one point when they showed a scene of a large crowd, Caleb was clearly impressed and said “is he president for all those people?”

A couple of weeks ago, Dan and I were filling out our mail-in ballots and Caleb decided he wanted to vote too.  He proceded to make his own ballot, complete with little circles next to the words, which he then filled in with crayon.  He declared that he was voting for Barack Obama–to be fair, he did the same thing and “voted” for John McCain the next night.

So, when the presidential election results came in last night, Dan and I were watching the coverage together live.  And, as I mentioned, we got to watch the speeches live as well.  Pretty amazing stuff.  We let Anneke watch the TV with us, which we usually try to avoid, and she did so happily, allowing us to enjoy watching too.   When we told Caleb the results the next day, he was more interested that Barack Obama was a dad (we saw pictures of him with his kids) than anything else.  I explained that they would all be moving to the White House, but decided against mentioning that they would be getting a puppy…

Halloween 2008 November 2, 2008

Welcome to our new Blog.  Dan has had one for awhile, but I thought I would try to start one about the kids that we could both contribute to.

Yesterday was our first trick-or-treating experience.  Caleb has somehow made it through 4 previous halloweens without trick-or-treating, or even having a costume.  I have wanted to get him this monkey costume from Old Navy for the past couple of year, and when I saw the baby banana costume this year, I couldn’t resist.  Caleb enjoyed himself trick-or-treating up and down our street, but is pretty picky about what he will eat, so more candy for us–not that we needed any, most of the hour that people would have been coming to our door, we were going door to door ourselves so we have plenty left.  It was very warm out, and I just carried Anneke along.  She was a hit with the other parents waiting on the sidewalk, smiling at everyone and trying to kick her little legs (a bit hard in a banana costume).

Caleb has been very excited about Halloween this year, mostly thanks to preschool and their seasonal activities.  Here he is with his class at their field trip to the “punkman” patch.  I had the day off, so we all went along.  Caleb got to pick a pumpkin to take home.  The instructions the kids were given was to pick a pumpkin “about the size of your head or a little bit bigger”  Caleb took these instructions very seriously.  We were walking through the field trying to find just the right one when I turned around and saw Caleb doing some pumpkin measuring.  He eventually found just the right one and it is currently sitting on our back porch, probably rotting.  We never did get into the pumpkin carving this year.  Maybe next time.

For more pictures, see our picasa page at www.picasaweb.google.com/danmargaret