I hate to admit it but our tree really is a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. At night when it dark and the lights are on it really doesn’t look so bad but during the day it’s like a whole different tree. There are sections of it that you can see right through to the other side. I sear it didn’t look so bad when we picked it out. Oh well.

On top of all this Alex has been pretty sick the last couple of days. I seems that lately I’ve been writing a lot about being sick. It started as a small cough and then just started getting worse until he would end up coughing for the better part of an hour at a time. Also, he wasn’t getting much sleep because everytime he would manage to get asleep he would wake himself up coughing. Jen took him to the doctor and he gave Alex on some codeine cough syrup to help him get through the night. He said it was really unusual to give this type of medicine to young kids but Alex was in bad enough shape that he needed it. It’s worked really well and Alex has managed to get some sleep the last couple of nights. In fact the other night Alex and I fell asleep on the couch while watching the hockey game. (I don’t have the excuse of taking medicine I was just tired. )

Slowly he’s been getting better but this morning Andrew woke up with the same cough too so we are crossing our fingers that he doesn’t get it too bad.

Besides the sickness things are all gearing up for Christmas. Jen’s family has arrived and it seems that things have been going a crazy with everyone doing last minute shopping, wrapping the remaining gifts, and the kitchen has been busy with all kinds of cooking and baking. It’s going to be potato salad and sausage for dinner tonight…mmmmmmm

Today was a busy day getting the house all decorated for Christmas. This morning I finally traipsed up into the attic and got out all the boxes of Christmas stuff so we could get the house looking a little more festive then it has been. It’s rather embarrassing to admit but until just the other day there was still a rogue pumpkin decoration sitting on the table, but not anymore, it’s Christmas in here now.

In the afternoon we also went out and picked out our tree as well so no only is it starting to look like Christmas in here it’s starting to smell like Christmas. We just have to let the branches fall and tomorrow night we can decorate it.

Last night we were invited to a family Christmas party where there was a white elephant gift exchange. We brought a really fantastic white elephant gift but apparently everyone else missed the memo on “white elephant” so we were a little embarrassed by our crap offering. (I should have taken a picture of it since it was a classic so close you eyes and try and picture this. Well ok keep them open them until you’ve read this. Picture a mannequin hand including the wrist and about half of the forearm and where the forearm ended was the base so it could sit on the table. On the palm of the hand which was facing up was glued a plastic rose. You could even see the dolop of glue holding the rose in place. On the base was a switch and when turned on the rose would light up and it would play a cheesy rendition of Lady in Red or some such song. )

Anyway getting back to the gift exchange each of the kids had a number and when it was their turn they could either pick a gift from the pile or they could steal a gift from someone who already had one. Kids were opening Christmas ornaments and M&M; candy dispensers and when it was Alex’s turn to pick a gift he opted to take one from one of the other kids, a dancing, Bermuda short wearing, saxophone playing Santa Clause. Kind of the Bill Clinton kind of Santa. (This was the only other gift that even came close to the white elephant definition in my opinion.)

So as we were leaving Alex was all excited about his new Santa he says,

“It’s really exciting to steal gifts.” Doh…

“But that’s not the Christmas Spirit Son”

“Yeah, but it’s still fun.”

So we now own a dancing Santa and I hope the people that ended up with the rose hand aren’t too upset.

Ice Skating
I didn’t manage to rush right home after our skating experience last week to update the web site but I think I’ve talked with everyone so I’m sure no one is just sitting on the edge of their seats anxiously waiting for a post. If you have been, my apologies. I would say it went much better then I expected, Alex had a fantastic time (I had a fantastic time too) and you could see between the time we got there and the end that he had started improving. So it looks like the skating lesson that Santa is going to get him for Christmas are going to be a hit.

During out time there he did come out with some great lines though. We had just got on the ice and gone about 30 feet, I was holding his hand to keep him from falling over and he said. “Ok Dad, lets do a hockey stop!”

He did fall down hard at one point and conked his head pretty good and I thought we were going to have to leave since he was so upset but Jen managed to calm him down and stuck a deal with him to get back on the ice. It involved skating to the other side of the rink to sit in the penalty box. Well, that was all he needed to get back out there. The prospect of being able to sit in an actual penalty box was just too much. While they were sitting there I went out on the ice to skate a couple of laps and Alex said to Jen, “When do you think you’ll be ready to go back out there?” As if she was the one holding up the show.

We took some pictures and when I have a couple of minutes to spare I’ll try and get those posted along with the Philadelphia pictures that I haven’t finished yet.

Piece of your Heart
Alex goes to school three times a week, nothing too strenuous, just 9:00 to 2:00. On occasion he stays late for the after care or goes in early depending on Jen’s or my work schedule. Now after care means he ends up having to stay until 3:00 or 3:30, hardly a life sentence. So the other day on the way to school Alex said to Jen, “Please don’t pick me up late from school today.” It was a day he was scheduled to go to the aftercare program so she told him,

“Well, I have a meeting after school today so I’m going to be picking you up after nap time.” He then came back with,

“Christopher’s mommy always picks him up quickly.” Ahhhh, where did that come from? Just rip a piece of your heart out, shove the knife of guilt in a little more and twist it around. How is it at three he knows just what to say to make you feel horrible?

NBC Nightly News
I blogged last month about Jen’s dad who was supposed to on the NBC Nightly News but they never aired the story. Well last night on the Nightly News with John Seigenthaler he finally made it on. At the end of the newscast where they do the human interest story of the day they focused on New Orleans City Park and the recovery efforts. The Park just opened a scaled down version of Celebration In the Oaks so they used that as the angle and showed pre and post Katrina pictures and Bob welcoming people to the park who had come to see the lights.

I taped it but since I still haven’t even put the previous CNN performance up I’m certainty not going to promise anything on this one. NBC has online video of each broadcast so if you hunt around long enough on their site you might be able to find it there.

Last night after giving Andrew a bath I had him wrapped up in his towel and he started playing his first game of peek-a-boo with us. He would pull the towel over his eyes and then lift it back over his head. What made it all the more funny was that he did this for about four or five minutes solid and not once did he ever crack a smile. I was totally laughing at him but he just kept staring at me like I was out of my mind.

Anyway, this afternoon, probably in an hour or so, we are going to take Alex ice skating for the first time. This could be an adventure. I haven’t been on skates since grade six and Jen hasn’t been on in who knows how long and we are supposed to be helping Alex. He already assured us that if we fall down he’ll help us out.

So, if I haven’t broken any bones by tonight I’ll let you know how it went.

Tried some peaches for the first time today. Apparently we’re not a fan.

The other day we were getting ready to eat, Alex was already sitting at the table, and I brought him a fork and spoon. It turns out he already had both and as I was walking back to the kitchen to get something else he said,

“Dad, I don’t need this forkin’ spoon.”

It took me a second to realize that he wasn’t using a rather colorful adjective to describe his spoon but rather the “fork and” part was just run together.

Happy (American) Thanksgiving everyone. While all you Canadians are toiling at work I’m sitting at home enjoying a nice couple of days off with nothing really planned for today and the weekend.

We made the traditional Thanksgiving meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and pumpkin pie for dessert. A big mile stone for us this year was that we made real gravy and it turned out fantastic. For some reason gravy has always been one of the items that we’ve never managed to get just right but this year, oh la la, it was fantastic and there was tonnes of it. There’s nothing quite so good as turkey, potatoes, and stuffing just swimming in gravy. mmmm.

We also had a “God, I feel like my parents” moment today too. Alex is going through a phase where he really isn’t excited about trying new foods and today’s food of choice was turkey. “I don’t like turkey” was all we heard from the time we put it in the oven to the time we served it but we told him that there wouldn’t be any pumpkin pie until he ate some turkey. He just kept pushing it around the plate and Jen said “We’re going to have to invest in a timer.” Ahhhhh, the dreaded timer! I remember the dreaded timer and the cold spinach for breakfast the next morning. He eventually ate a piece of turkey but it was like we were force feeding him turnips or Brussels sprouts :-).

I’ve finally got around to posting a couple of October pictures. Last week I posted a couple of halloween pictures of the boys. This year Alex went as Winnie the Pooh and we dressed Andrew up as Roo. I took both of them tick-or-treating to a couple of blocks in the neighbourhood and then Jen took Alex out after that to got to a couple more houses.

Today I posted just some random pictures from October. It turns out that October was a pretty slow month for pictures so I didn’t have a whole lot to choose from. The big deal for Alex was that when Jen’s parents came into town they got him his first two wheeler so I put a couple of pictures of him riding his bike. I kind of explain it on the web page but we’ve had a couple of bike accidents since we got it so right now he’s not too hot on going for rides. We figure that in a couple of weeks or so he’ll be ready to try again.

Jen’s parents are back in New Orleans now and they are back in their house too. They are busy trying to settle back into some semblance of normal life and in the process we’ve been hearing that Bob is supposed to have been on the NBC Evening News with Brian Williams in a story about New Orleans and City Park. The week that they were supposed to air his story it seemed like something bigger came up in the news that would end up bumping his story. (Or at least that’s the best explanation we could come up.) Then he called us the other day and said that he was going to be interviewed on “American Morning with Soledad O’Brian and Miles O’Brian”
on CNN. Jen was luckily to have the morning off and persistence payed off and he was on. It’s kind of cool to be watching CNN and see your father in law being interviewed by Soledad O’Brian. The premise of the story is that City Park is starting to charge rent to the workers who have been setting up camps in the park for living in while they are working on contracts to clean up the city. It sounds like there was some thought that they should just be allowed to stay for free or that these were city residents that lost everything. I thought the funniest part of the interview was during this exchange:

S. O’BRIEN: As you well know, there are some critics of this plan to charge people who would say, hey, you know what, I’m here cleaning up the city, doing a favor for your city, and now I’m going to be charged money to sleep out on the ground in a tent. Do you have — see any validity to those arguments?

BECKER: No, not really. I don’t. First of all, nobody’s doing us a favor. There’s nobody here who’s volunteering to clean up this city. We have many volunteer groups here providing food and other kinds of assistance to homeowners trying to deal with their property, but these people, they’re here to make money. And they are following the contractors as they go around cleaning up the city. So there’s no volunteer here cleaning up the city. They’re all being paid to do it.

They way he delivers the “No, not really.” is absolutely classic. We video taped it and if I get around to it I’ll try and get a version posted to the web, until then you can read the transcript on the CNN website.

This weekend Alex and I are going to watch FC Dallas in the MLS Cup here in Dallas. I’ll take the camera with us and post some pictures next week.

We’ve all been sick again. It seems like one of us has been sick for a couple of weeks now but this time we all got it. Thursday night Alex was supposed to go to the Monster Mash Bash Halloween Celebration at Texins Activity Centre at work. I stayed at work and Jen was going to call me when she got there and I would drive up there and meet them. Well Jen called from the and said that Alex just threw up in the parking lot when they got there so we decided to skip the Monster Mash and just head back home.

When we were getting Alex ready for bed later that night I started to feel a little sick to my stomach as well and it didn’t take long after that for me to go down hard. I ended up staying in bed from Thursday night until Saturday morning and in that time I must have lost anywhere between five and ten pounds. Alex got sick one more time Thursday night and then on Friday night Jen started feeling sick to top it off. She’s much tougher then I am and didn’t get it quite as bad but we were all pretty bed ridden for a stretch.

As of this morning we are all started to feel a little better so I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that we are now on the mend and only healthy days are ahead for us.

Jen’s parents were in town this weekend. (What a weekend to come in eh?) They are finally back in their house and starting to get settled. As of now there are only about three or four families that have moved back on the street so it’s not quite populated, and the way Bob describes it a little creepy, though people are slowly starting to come back. They picked up the dogs too so we are now a dog-less house again.

While they were in town this week they got Alex his first two wheeler. Bob wanted to get himself a bike for riding back and forth to work and while they were out Jen was trying Alex on bicycles for size because we were thinking of getting him one for Christmas. Well Alex managed to pull out all the stops with the sweet talk and convinced the Gandparents that it would be better to get one now and not wait until later. So he’s been riding his two wheeler, with training wheels, around the block everyday, twice a day. I’ll get some pictures posted here in the next couple of days.

Alex has recovered from his Hand, Foot, and Mouth virus. On one of they days he suddenly broke out in blisters on his feet, hands, and on the inside of his mouth. They went away soon after that and this week he’s well enough that we were able to send him back to school. He didn’t appear to be in that much discomfort overall but you could tell that eating caused him a little pain so he ended up living on yogourt for a couple of days. Luckily Andrew didn’t get sick even though it was difficult, actually impossible, to keep the two of them separated.

Alex is getting excited about Halloween. Everyday he asks, “How many more days until Halloween?” This year he is going to be Winnie The Pooh and Andrew is going to be Roo. Kind of a funny story about the Pooh costume. About two months ago Jen was out with the boys at Babies R Us and they had a one piece Pooh costume so she tried it on Alex. Turns out it was a wee too small. The problem was that once she had him zipped into the costume she couldn’t get him out. Alex started freaking out and getting all upset and Jen ended up having to get a pair of scissors and cut him out of the costume. Now we were the owners of a Pooh costume that was just a bit too small but Alex has been convinced since that day that he’s going as Winnie the Pooh. In the two months since we bought the costume he has grown a little more so it’ss even smaller then when we first got it.

This week Jen took the costume to the fabric store and asked/begged if someone there could help out and alter the costume. A nice old lady volunteered and she did a good job with it so Alex has a costume that fits. Once I get some Halloween pictures together I’ll post them.

Andrew is really trying to crawl around now. I think it’s frustrating him that he can’t easily get where he wants to go. Right now he uses a combination of rolling and using his legs to push him in the direction he wants to go. On the other hand he really enjoys the Jolly Jumper. When we put Alex in it he would just sort of sit there and sway back and forth but Andrew just loves jumping. He used to get going up and down and then not be able to stop himself but he’s much better now and he can jump like crazy and then stop himself. If you click on the picture it should take you to a movie clip of him jumping.