More Formal Holiday Photos

Because Christmas just isn't complete without multiple visits to the local Spend-Mart for pictures.

Zach, Phoebe, and Ben pictured with and without their holiday-themed stuffed animals:

Santa Picture

Yesterday, Linda got the kids dressed for pictures with Santa, and I snapped a few shots of them on their way out the door.

And here's the big payoff:

Couch Potato Prevention

With soccer now over, it's time for Team Houserspawn to take up another sport.

For the next three months, Saturday mornings will be about coaxing three reluctant kids into the van and taking them to the local community center to learn how to play basketball.

Decking The Halls

Much to the kids' delight, we pulled our box of holiday decorations down from the attic over the weekend. The house is now sufficiently decked out in angels, candles, advent calendars, and stockings.

But no tree yet. I usually like to hold off until just a week or so before Christmas before putting up a tree. For the kids, this is much too long to wait. After fielding the question "When are we going to get a tree?" for the 53rd time, I started to insist that we were not getting a tree this year, but would instead just hang the ornaments on the vacuum cleaner. The kids thought this was funny at first, but as I persisted with this story, they started to wonder if I might be serious.

That night, after the kids went to bed, I followed through on my threat. The kids woke up the next morning to vacuum cleaner perched up on the tree stand, wrapped with lights, and topped with a star. Seeing their astonished reactions was most amusing, as is listening to them explain the Christmas vacuum when their friends come over the house to play.

The kids most likely suspect that we'll replace the vacuum with an actual Christmas tree at some point, but I like keeping them guessing.

Fly, Eagles, Fly

I took Zach to his first NFL game yesterday. The cold, rain, and wind (along with the poor play of the Eagles in the first half) made it feel a little like an endurance test, but it was still a good time.

(It helped that the Eagles ultimately won the game.)

I'll leave the rest of the synopsis to Zach, who posted an excellent summary of our experience over on his blog.

Zach's Random Blog

Zach started his own blog this week, influenced primarily by the Purple Bird's blog. He was so excited about this new endeavor that he was up before 6am on Tuesday morning, blogging away.

Now if only we could get his teachers to allow him to submit his homework via his blog. We fight with him about sitting at a table for ten minutes to do his homework, but if it involves sitting in front of a computer, he's all over it.

The Purple Bird

One of Phoebe and Ben's favorite toys is a purple bird puppet. They play with the puppet by chasing each other around the house with it while squawking at the top of their lungs.

For this reason, I hate the purple bird.

But a few days ago, a strange thing happened. The purple bird disappeared. Of course, I have no idea where it might have gone. All I know is that the wallpaper on our computer has been changed to an image of the purple bird, and this link has appeared on the desktop.

It's fun to watch them as they discover new Purple Bird posts, and maybe this is wishful thinking, but Phoebe might even appear to have some added motivation to learn more reading words so she can read the messages from Purple Bird.

I like this game a lot better than the one that involves the running and the squawking.

Let The Good Times Roll

Zach took a school field trip to the local skating rink last week.

Despite falling approximately three hundred times, he reports that he had a good time.

(After a while, he switched to roller blades and seemed less prone to falling.)

Ouch!

Ben had a routine checkup at the doctor last week. We knew he was going to need a shot, so we gave him a little pep talk so he'd be prepared.

This news did not go over well with Ben. He was stressed about it all morning.

And it only got worse. As it turned out, he needed five shots. The poor kid had bandages all over his arms.

He did seem to take some solace in showing me his battle scars later that evening.

Halloween Night 2007

Zach, Phoebe, and Ben on the night of the traditional neighborhood candy redistribution ritual.

We now have more candy in the house than we can reasonably expect to finish before Easter.

Halloween Parade III

Noble Knight Sir Benjamin (in flightless mode) marches in his pre-school Halloween parade.

He looked significantly happier with the wings on.

Ben the Flying Knight

While dressing for his Halloween Parade, Ben flashes the secret knight hand signal while trying on the wings from Phoebe's costume.

(Phoebe was not amused.)

Halloween Parade II

Phoebe took on two separate identities on Halloween. She wanted to go trick-or-treating as a Pokémon trainer like Zach. But for her school Halloween parade, she dressed up as Tinkerbell.

This allowed her class to meet the federal requirement that states that at least 75% of the girls in any given kindergarden class must be dressed as Disney Princesses.

Halloween Parade

Zach and friends at the school Halloween parade. (Zach is dressed as Ash Ketchum, the main character from the Pokémon cartoons.)

Pumpkin Carving

In recent years, we've refrained from cutting open our Halloween pumpkins, instead opting to having the kids color their pumpkins using special paint markers.

But this year, we spent the evening before Halloween doing a little traditional Halloween pumpkin carving.

We had one large pumpkin to carve, and a smaller white pumpkin that Zach picked out for himself.

While the kids scooped out the seeds out of thier pumpkins, Linda worked on a design to give the pumpkin the face of Pikachu (a Pokémon character), as specifically requested by Phoebe and Ben.

Zach chose a bat silhouette template from a pumpkin carving website for his white pumpkin, and transferred the template onto the pumpkin for me to cut.

(Below: Pikachu the Pokémon, the Houserspawn(tm) Pikachu Pumpkin)

Field Trip

Phoebe and friend on a class trip to a local farm last week.