Mission Impossible Cat

Anyone care to offer a theory on how this cat got up here this afternoon?




And anyone want to guess how she got down?

Aidan Art Update

A quick shot of one of Aidan's recent art projects at school.
He wasn't happy with the first boat he drew, so he kept drawing boat after boat until.. well, he's go his own armada going at this point..

Bryce the Biblical Scholar

Last night, Bryce decided he wanted to read from Aidan's Beginner's Bible.
It's become a regular for bed-time reading, with favorite stories ranging from Old Testament "Boy King Josiah" and "God Watches over Elijah" to New Testament "Jesus Walks on Water".

All this Bible-reading has also led to an unexpected conversation or two:
"Hey Dad, who's your favorite Disciple?"

Current Favorite Disciples:
Aidan: Andrew
Bryce: Judas
Dad: Peter

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. We checked and re-checked the results of the survey and Bryce remains steadfast.

Pooh update

She's doing just fine...

Wiggles on Youtube

Bryce and I are watching some Wiggles clips (all with Greg, the original yellow Wiggle) this morning...
Don't feel obliged to watch these.. I'm really just posting them so I can be sure to get back to them:

"Fruit Salad"


"Hot Potato"


"One Little Coyote"



a little Wiggles retrospective someone put together..

Old Skool Wiggles

Bryce's visit with the Wiggles yesterday got us to thinking about Aidan's concert experience with them..

We mentioned that Aidan was unceasing in his reminders to Bryce that he'd seen the Wiggles "in a big room" (in concert, that is, in the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville)...

Hop in the way-back machine to October 2004 and take a look at a few of these pictures from that concert... Aidan was just a few months past his third birthday...

Love the music.. but it's a little loud!

"Play your guitar with Murray!"

Still loud, but still loving it!

During intermission, Aidan wanted to put on his Wiggles shirt, then promptly sunk his fingers back in his ears.

Wiggle Style

A little taste of the Wiggles show.. complete with slapstick comedy (which is a big winner with Bryce, by the way).

Also, to any of you parents out there who might have been previously aware of the Wiggles and are wondering "Who's the paunchy understudy standing in for Greg, the Yellow Wiggle?" that's not an understudy anymore, folks... He's Sam, the new Yellow Wiggle, and here's the story on him..

Wiggley, Wiggley Bryce!

Aunt Laura took Bryce to see the Wiggles in concert this afternoon! Bryce has been saying for some time that "When I'm 5 1/2, maybe I can see the Wiggles in concert..." This in response to his brother's fairly callous periodic reminders that he's seen the Wiggles and Bryce hadn't.. not until today, that is. So while Aidan was at school, Bryce was hanging out with the Wiggles and had, to hear him tell it, a great time!
Thanks, Aunt Laura, for taking him on this special excursion!

Here are a few more pictures from the show:

The Wiggles appear to have worn Bryce out!

... but not so much that Bryce didn't want to visit the fountains on Legislative Plaza outside the Theater..

Cold Snap!

Aidan's just here to say it's been COLD here the last few weeks.
(ironically, it's much warmer today and on Thursday, it's supposed to get close to 70!)

"Wish I could skate..."

We're watching the hometown Nashville Predators on TV tonight-- Peter Forsberg is making his debut in a Nashville uniform, and buzz is building around town that the Preds could make a run at the Stanley Cup. Bryce was on my lap a few minutes ago and asked "What's that?" as he gestured toward the TV.
"Hockey," I said.
"Oh, hockey," he replied, as if he just needed to be reminded.
Then he asked, "What are they doing?"
"They're skating on ice."
"Oh, they're skating." Bryce paused to think for a moment while the Preds flew back and forth across the screen, "I wish I could skate like that with my friends."

Infirmary Report

Those of you local to us likely know that we've been fighting some kind of bug, coupled with some ear infections around here. Aidan was out of school three days last week, Bryce two..

By this weekend, Aidan was largely recovered (we're on day 7 of antibiotics for both of them), but Bryce is suffering a bit of a relapse, with the fever returning this morning. This relapse follows the pattern we saw with Aidan-- his fever returned from a two-day hiatus on Thursday afternoon. So we're thinking Bryce is just a few days behind in the cycle. He's sleeping a bunch--as I type this, he's snoozing on my shoulder, as a matter of fact. Hopefully, with another day or two of good rest, he'll be back to himself again.

Go Josh!

Aidan and Bryce wanted to do their part to cheer on our neighbor, Blaine's Daddy (aka Josh), who's a contestant on Nashville Star! Josh, and his wife, Erin, moved to the neighborhood a little less than a year before we did, they're originally from Iowa, and they're good people-- and Josh is great!-- we're really pulling for them.

So if you're reading this, please take sometime over the next several Thursday nights, tune into USA network, and VOTE FOR JOSH! Erin says you can vote 10 times per phone line and email address.. so fire 'em up this Thursday!

Parentography

For any of you parents (or aunts or uncles, grandparents, friends, cousins, etc etc) out there, you might be interested to take a look at this site, Parentography.

It's another one of those build-it-and-they-will-come community/social networking sites where users can submit reviews about places in their local communities that are good for kids, services, activities, the whole gamut. Plus it lets users wrap those people, places, and things up into 'excursions'-- suggestions for combinations of places and activities that go well together. And it's all tied in with a pretty neat (though a bit buggy right now) map interface.

The site just launched two weeks ago, so there's not a ton of material out there yet to look at.. but I tend to think of it as a kind of blank canvas... the more you put in, the more you can get out.

There can be only one..

In trying to explain to Aidan and Bryce why Sylvie and Pooh aren't exactly fast friends just yet, we've been telling them that Sylvie growls at Pooh because she wants to be the only kitty in the house.

Just now, Aidan explained another growling incident by saying "Yeah, Pooh wants to be alone. She wants to be the only cat in Texas."

Ambitious little thing.

Snow Day Slide show

Find a little slideshow of the complete photos here

Our reluctant guest...

Meet Pooh. She made the journey up here from Mississippi with Uncle Ross last weekend and she'll be staying with us while Ross gets himself settled in Austin...

So far, she's been staying put in the guest room, literally under the bed. Sylvie is understandably upset at this development and the two of them have grappled a few times but we're hopeful that they'll figure out how to coexist before too long..

A little hot chocolate, and then he's out cold...

While we're speaking of Bryce, not long after we came in from playing in the snow (the second time!), Bryce was sacked out on the couch, snoozing away the balance of the afternoon...

Bryce is looking slick!

Well, the requests have been pouring in for me to (finally) post that picture of Bryce who, if you'll remember, had his own personal 50's day at school the other day...

So here you go!

Who's the cool kid now?

Snow Day!

Well, we got a modest little overnight snowfall of about an inch and a half last night. This is Tennessee, so of course, it's a big deal. I think this was snow that was actually expected night before last-- the local weather forecasters were going over the top with predictions of "wintery precipitation" and special segments with interviews with guys from the Dept of Transportation about all the special salting preparations they've been going through around Middle Tennessee.

So that Thursday morning snow never materialized-- at least not here in Nashville-- and the predicted mid-afternoon snow never arrived either. So we all arrived home last night feeling pretty skeptical about anything else the meteorologically-inclined might have to tell us. And when we woke up this morning and started to get ready for work and school, it was only when Mama opened the blinds on the kitchen window that we discovered all the snow that fell last night.

And sure enough, every school in the mid-state area is closed. Last night at about 10pm, there were only about 30 school closings listed on the local news channel website (even without the snow, a number of school districts here have been closing due to some pretty ferocious outbreaks of the flu). But this morning, there were 253 school closings listed.. including both Aidan's and Bryce's.


So after a pancake breakfast, we went right out and made a snow man. Bryce named him-- what else?-- "Frosty". Then we came back inside for some hot chocolate and some lunch. Then BACK outside for big family snowball fight-- and let me tell you, this wet Tennessee snow is good for making snowballs!

So now, by mid-afternoon, the sun is high in the sky and the temperatures are rising (AccuWeather says it's only 33 here, but I don't buy it). Even as I write this, Frosty is already showing some signs of melting, and the boys are a little worried about that.. but they're holding out hope that more snow is on the way.

I can't tell you how difficult it was to get Aidan and Bryce
to pose for this picture!

Once they were posed though, getting them to
do a little dance was a snap!

"Now let's go out back and have a snowball fight!"