As you have all heard, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are a few thousand.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

I think Isabelle had a pretty good morning. David, of course, has no idea that today is any different from any other day. But Isabelle woke up about 6:45, as usual, but was a little bit grumpy. Sometimes when she wakes up, she starts singing a song she's heard recently, or tell a story to her stuffed animals. Today she just sat in bed and cried, "Mmmmmoooommmmy." So I went in, which is just as good as mommy. I changed her as Santa placed a trail of candy canes from her door to the Christmas tree.

She wanted to bring two stuffed animals with her out of her room, White Bear and Superbear, so I took them out of her crib for her, and I went to the door. Keep in mind that these two bears have about the same mass as she does, so as she carried them, she couldn't really see the floor. As soon as we got out of the room, I told to her to look where she was going, and she stopped in her tracks! Didn't she just put all those candy canes on the tree last night? I mentioned they seemed to make a trail, and we should follow it. And she did! About half way by the couch, she dropped the bears, and then a few steps later, she saw the tree, all lite up with about half a dozen shinny, pretty boxes underneath, with her name on them! Ooooooooooo!



Well, we got her settled by the tree, and she went for the biggest box. After tearing apart the wrapping, she saw it was a new barnyard activity thing. Turns out, I didn't even get everything out of the box, and it was going to be a great day for Isabelle already. We had a hard time getting her to open another present after that. Other presents included a couple of books by Dr Seuss and Curious George, a stroller for her dolls/stuffed anmials, a sing-a-long with Elmo book, and a couple other little toys. Then we brought out one of the greatest things ever. We like it, 'cause it folds down flat to about 2" think, and about 14" round. And Isabelle just loves havinbg her own little fort/tent/hide-away.



She loves it so much, we had a little bit of a hard time getting her to come out to eat lunch. But now she's zonked out in her crib, getting ready for round two, with all these great new toys!

OK, we're back! Wow, four weeks have gone by. Thanks for checking back, as I will continue to update. And I hope it will be a more regular interval of just a few days.

So the first story is that we've moved. It took a lot longer then we had hoped. The actual moving day went by pretty well, thanks to the Brady Brothers moving team. But it took us a long time to get everything into boxes, thanks to a wonderfully curious little girl, who would either take things out of boxes (clearly getting ready for Christmas) or get in the boxes. That left us with a couple hours a night, depending on Davids activity. And again, the same on the other side. If you want to know our new address, email us.

After we were here, SBC didn't get us hooked up for a few days, and then almost a week for the DSL to be activated. So that delayed me from writing when I had a little bit of time. Then for the last three weeks, it seems that anytime I wasn't active with Isabelle, I was doing something for David. Not that I'm complaining, not at all, just giving a reason why I haven't updated any posts here.

But I do have a few stories for you Christmas enjoyment. The first is about the little man. One day I was changing him, and just as I had placed a new diaper on him he farted at me. I told him, "Hey, don't fart at me!" Then he did it again!. So I told him, " You save those up for you Mommy." Which, naturally, made Julie laugh. Then he did it again! That's my boy!

David also had an eye exam. At our last appointment with him, the Dr noticed a slight strabismus, so we scheduled an appointment with a opthamologist. He's neither cross eyed nor wall eyed, but his left eye is focusing just a little off center. It's pretty minor, as we didn't even notice. But it looks like it is due to some slow muscle development, and he shouldn't need any eyeware or corrective surgery anytime soon.

Which reminds me of the funniest T-shirt I've seen in quite a while: 'I put the sexy in dyslexia'

Tonite we finally had our Thanksgiving dinner! We've had most of the stuff, we just didn't have a complete kitchen, or a free weekend night. Yeah, when we got here, we had a stove from '73 that only had two working burners, and one that leaked gas. So I disconnected it and we had to wait a week for the new one to arrive.



Of course, I am writing this on Christmas Eve, so I have to tell you a little bit of a Christmas story. Nothing really fantastic, just a trip to get a tree. We used to have a living tree in a pot. But this last year, it shot a root out the bottom into the ground. I pulled it up as best as I could, but after a few days, it was evident I had done irreparable damage, as the tree was mostly brown needles, with a lovely outer shell of green. So we all went one afternoon to the Christmas tree lot behind Longs drugs. We have a nice 6 ft Noble pine. Isabelle was very eager to decorate the tree, which involved placing ornaments on the tree, the taking them off again to play with ( they make neat sounds when you bang them together ). She also likes to touch the lights, even though we keep reminding her that they can be hot. Apparently, I have told her not to touch the glass ball ornaments quite a few times, as she now points to them and says, "Daddy no touch."

We will have a quiet Christmas at home this year. Due to David's risks from the common cold, and too much driving with kids, we can't make it to the south bay this year. Thankfully, everyone understands, and they will be up after the new year, in one, two, or three groups. Happy Christmas, everyone. We now have presents to put under the tree, er, we have to make room for Santa.