The dickens you say?

Just popped downstairs to get a drink, and James and Dadoo were making themselves some lunch. Daddy informed me that James could not have any of the chips that were on the counter. I said, "oh no?", and James said, "no, they make me fall down". I said, "What? They make you fall down?", and he replied with a sigh "yeah.".
????

Buggy Birthday!

Hooray! James is the big 4! What a great / insane day we had! Of course, we were out of town for most of the week, and then I had to work like crazy to get caught up, so there was little or no prep time left! I cranked about about 2 dozen or so mini bug cakes (which were awesome, thank you!), finished up the goody bags, and cleaned like a fiend! Daddy helped with that part. James got in the way and asked when he could eat the cake. LOL
We'd been watching the weather with a wary eye (say that fast) all week, and it was supposed to be rainy and cold. I'd actually made an emergency trip to Michael's to stock up on craft stuff in case we were all stuck inside. But LO! the clouds parted, the sun came out, and we blew up the Bouncey Castle (with slide!). Not sure who had more fun, but I think their initials are Sterling Woodruff and Jim McMellon.
We had a wonderful time, the kids were great, we got to spend some fun times with our friends, and the weather hung in just long enough. You don't get much luckier than that! Pics in the photo gallery, well worth the look!
Also, here's a video of James opening his "ditar"

Who says you can't go home?

Because when my family does, it's like they never left. What a week! Several days of serious highs and lows while we remembered funny family stories and grieved for the loss of my Grammy. In spite of the fact that it's been years since the entire family has been together, of course my mom and her siblings revert to being something like 12 yrs old again.. pinching, poking, teasing, and the like. Buncha silly Polocks is what they are.
Anyhoo, it was exhausting and sad, but so nice to see my family again, albeit under less-than-ideal circumstances. Posted some pics to the photo album so you can see for yourself, and understand more about why I am the way that I am ;-)

We'll miss you, Grammy

Well, yesterday I found out that my Grammy Pyne (my mom's mom) passed away. She was the Grammy who kept a whole fridge full of ice cream, cakes and snacks down in the basement for when we visited every summer. The pool was always clean, there were always toys and stuff for us to play with, and she spoiled us rotten (in between yelling at us for doing stupid stuff!). She didn't throw out much, and all of her kids stashed their stuff in her basement, so that my cousin Mike and I always had the best hide and seek down there when we were little. I remember so many wonderful summers spent at her house. It's already sad that we can't recapture those kinds of summers, but sadder still that the lady who made them possible is no longer with us. She was a spunky (and sometimes overly candid!) lady who loved us so much, and we're all going to miss her alot. Here's a kiss for you, Grammy! Give Poppa a hug for us.

And when he was bad, he was VERY VERY BAD

It wasn't his first temper tantrum, but it got my goat in a way that none prior to this have gotten. Mommy's little nuclear reactor was dying to go outside all weekend. And ya know, I don't mind that, I really don't, but I had a ton of stuff to get done inside, and it was that kind of weather where it wasn't really bad, but wasn't really nice and quite frankly, just wasn't offering me the kind of outdoor experience I was interested in (ie: I didn't feel like it). We popped out a few times, and then eventually I said it was time to go in, and grab something to eat.
James didn't want to. And he let me know that. And when I stepped out to the garage to grab something from the fridge out there, he SLAMMED the door shut, and that was followed by "click".
The little stinker locked me out. On purpose!
I tried my stern voice, but seriously.. did I really have alot of leverage at that point? No, I did not. And when I told him, "James. Sterling. Woodruff. You open this door right now", the response was "I don't want to". What a cheeky little.... So I sweet-talked my way in with a ,"oh, may I come in please?" That did it. And once I was in, I did not continue to sweet-talk.
We had a time-out, and a pretty firm talking-to, all following a complete melt-down when I informed him of the time-out. I don't think he'll be doing it again anytime soon, but then, I didn't really think he'd do it in the first place.

My little "helper"

It's easy to see how helpful James is when we're backing. Those spatulas don't lick themselves clean, ya know!

Better late than never

Ok, so these pics are like a month old.. it's been a busy month! But I thought about funny they are, and wanted to share.

The first is just funny, and I laugh every time I look at it! The rest are in one of our photo albums, and it's a series of pics of James dancing! Man, does he have a good time!

Flattery will get you everywhere..

Who knew that this was a lesson learned at such a tender age? James stood on his cooking chair this weekend while I doctored up some oatmeal for him. We added butter, at which point he naturally asked, "may I have a little butter, please?" (he loves to eat butter!). Then we broke out the brown sugar, and he asked, "may I have some of that? ... please? ... pretty please? You have pretty eyes.". Yes, the boy laid down some heartfelt please, followed by FLATTERY! Of course he got some sugar.
Man, the ladies of the world are in trouble when this boy grows up.

Let it snow! (unless you live in the Triangle...)

Once again, the magic snow-repellant force field has deflected another snow event around the triangle. People to the south east and north west got some.. we got Hoovnah (that's Polish for nothing). Well, ok, to be fair, we got a dusting, and it was cold enough that it actually stuck around for more than a day. For James, of course, this is more than he can remember seeing in his brief years, so he thought it was the coolest thing ever! To quote him, "holy smokes!". Here's a pic or two of our little Nanook of the Not-so-North.

Clean out your ears!

It's nearing bedtime so we've gone through the daily evening ritual of wrastling a boy into his jammies. While stripped down to his skivvies, James typically gets kinda silly. I don't know if he just sheds his inhibitions along with his clothes or what, but that's punchy time. So while nearly nekkid, he tells me, "mommy, roll over, I want to push your back", which is what he thinks is like a massage.
Once while he was crawling on me, he popped my back and I said "oh, that feels good", so he thinks he's doing something nice by "pushing my back" (typically the reason I actually NEED someone professional to push my back!).
Sooo, he's being silly, crawling on me, and then he hitches up my shirt in the back for what I presume will be a zrbrt (raspberry), when it's more like a really yucky zrbrt. He then pulls my shirt back down and glues it to my back with whatever drool he left behind. I said, "ew, what did you just do, stick my shirt to my back with your slobber? To which he replied, "no, boogies". BOOGIES!!! HE BLEW HIS NOSE ON MY BACK!
I jump up and say, "oh my GOSH, that is so GROSS!!! How'd you like me to blow my nose in your ear?!?!", to which HE replies gleefully, "DO IT!!!". So now I kinda have to laugh.. so I blow air in his ear with my nose, which cracks him up, and he chases me around begging me to blow more boogies in his ear. Seriously. Do mommies with girls deal with this? Maybe this is the trade-off for NOT having to deal with Polly Pockets and Bratz?

Gak!

Gak is this gross stuff you can make with household products, which provides your child with hours of entertainment.. as shown in this video:

Visit with the Davises

John, GC, and little Moyer popped into Raleigh for a visit, and we just had such a nice time! Moyer and James REALLY hit it off! After lunch, James asked if Moyer could come back to his house.. aww! Apparently, Moyer had a good time, too, and John and GC are using this to their advantage ("you know, big boys like James do "), and I can't say that I blame them! To be sure we've done the same!
They also brought along a nice gift for James... Crayola stuff that only works on Crayola paper, which we love! ... the boys apparently liked it, too...

Cooley Christmas (Christmas, Act III)

And for the final act, we spent Christmas Day with my family. We really had an awesome time! The food was great (thanks, Mom!), and everyone was just in such a great mood. James and Samantha are ALWAYS thrilled to see one another. James fell asleep on the way down, as he is wont to do, and we had to wake him up when we got there.. he was sleeping HARD! He saw Samantha, though, and it was like a half a pot of coffee for him.. BOING! He was wide awake and ready to roll! They immediately went to tearing around the house like banshees.
Mom took a turn for the mushy by getting Dad a "Love Is..." book. They used to clip these comic strips for each other when they were dating and when we were little kids.. I remember seeing them on the dresser mirror in their room. Awwww.
Mark threw out the first pitch for the annual Wrapping Paper Battle (wherein, everyone takes their discarded paper, wads it up as tightly as they can, and tried to peg each other in the head when they're not paying attention.. very Christmasy, eh?). Subsequently, we all took turns trying to ambush him for the remainder of the afternoon. As is HIS wont, Mark mouthed off to Sterling again (I have no idea why he always thinks he'll get away with this!), and they started wrestling in the kitchen.
As a sweet ending to the day, James FINALLY got to dig into the gingerbread house he'd been eyeing all week, as did Samantha. This mainly involved scraping off icing with their fingers and eating that.. much to the chagrin of anyone who wanted some after them!
All-in-all, a pretty great way to cap off Christmas! Photos of this are posted under "Cooley Christmas".

Merry Christmas, ya'll!

Oh yeah.. almost forgot about the funniest gift of all. We gave Mark and Dominic a 3-piece grill brush set.. but we ripped one out of the package before we wrapped it. If you understand the significance of this, I guarantee you're rolling on the floor right now.

Christmas, Act II (our little family)

Christmas morning arrived, along with a crabby little boy. Who can be crabby on Christmas morning? James was... he was sOOOOO bummed because, because "I wanted to SEE Santa Claus! I thought I was going to see Santa!?". Poor little pumpkin, we had to explain that Santa only comes if you're asleep! We finally got him over his disappointment using diversion... "Let's go see what Santa LEFT!!!". So we went downstairs, and he walked right past the presents, up to Becky and said, "Merry Christmas, Becky!" and gave her a big hug! We showed him that the eggnog and cookies were gone, and asked if he wanted to open some presents (of course!). When he finally got to the big one, instead of tearing into it, he rubbed his little cheek on it and said in this voice filled with awe, "wow... this is the biggest present I ever saw!". He was even happier when he opened it!

Woodruff Christmas

We spent Christmas Eve with the Woodruffs / McMellons, at E and Jim's new house (newest baby = host). It was so nice! Little Miss Virginia is just the most well-behaved baby ever, and mostly slept through her first Christmas. The food was great, everyone had a wonderful time, and as always, did way more than they should have! Auntie E and Uncle Jimmy got James his first go-cart, which... careful, this may be shocking.. he LOVED!!! We all piled outside and hung out for about 30 mins while James drove around the cul-de-sac with the biggest grin plastered across his cute little cheeks. It was a wonderful Christmas, act I. Pics are posted in the photo album under "07-12 W. Xmas".

The ones that look like they were taken from waist-height were taken by James. He's become fascinated with the camera as of late, and always wants to take some pics himself. I think there's even a self-portrait!

It's beginning to feel alot like Christmas...

What a fun time of year! Two big things to share today (okay, 3.. and the third is either funny or scary):

1. James officially wrote his entire name last night! He was so excited he nearly fell over! We pasted it to some cardstock and proudly posted it on the fridge! Does he look proud or what?
2. We made our first gingerbread house today. Homemade gingerbread is yummy! James loved decorating and EATING the decorations the most. ... and licking frosting off of the house. Not too shabby, eh?


3. Ok, this is probably funny for you, a little scary for me. This morning, James came up to me and said, "Mommy, may I have a towel?", and of course my first question was "what did you spill?". He told me nothing, that he just wanted to throw it on the ceiling fan. I informed him that it was not acceptable to throw towels on the fan, and he asked, "may I throw Newkie on the fan?". (I know, everyone reading this is saying, "YES!!!!"). I told him no, we don't throw our animals on the fan, either! He paused, then asked, "Mommy, do you think peanut butter would melt on the fan?". WTF is this kid thinking??? I'm afraid to leave him in any room now with a fan, which is pretty much every room in the house! I guess it won't be long before I find something inappropriate circling my ceiling...

Digiscrapper!

I have gone digital, baby! For my birthday, Karey bought me some already much-enjoyed scrapbooking magazines, including one all about digital scrapbooking. WOW. I had no idea you could buy and download stuff online like backgrounds, brads, ribbons, embelishments, chipboard... all the cool stuff (and expensive!) you'd buy in the store, but in digital form! And it looks sooo cool! Here's my first attempt. Man, if I'd known about this 2 wks ago, you can be darned sure you'd have gotten an even better looking card than the ones we sent! Click on the image to see it larger, and to truly enjoy my masterpiece!

So what's new?

Not much... things are starting to settle down... finally! We had our first official Beer Wed Now Appearing on Sunday this week, and it was pretty fab! A smattering of Christmas gifts were exchanged, including a super-cool game that the Smiths got for James. It's like Jenga, but with little safari animals (AND, not made in China!... Lead-free!). We played it last night... family game night, if you will. It was oodles of fun, and here are some pics. BTW, Jim McMellon, our brother-in-law and a DOT engineer, believed that you could not stack all pieces, especially not as shown on the box.... typically DOT, right? We did it, here are the pics.


Also, we had our first Parent/Teacher conference today, and get this: they find him very active. Can you believe it? LOL! We kinda knew THAT adjective would work its way into the conversation! Semi-related, he can nearly write his entire name, too.. we assumed he'd learned at school, but they said they found him writing his name on the whiteboard the other day and were surprised.. they hadn't taught him that, either!

Finally, just some funny stuff: we were riding home from the conf when James said "I'm a mad boy". We asked why, and he said, "I'm mad at Daddy. Sometimes little boys just get mad at big boys", to which our big boy replied, "well, sometimes big boys send little boys to their rooms if they're going to be grouchy"... and that, as they say, was that.

Look who's been Elfed

So this is apparently all the rage this season.. it's going around work, and around our friends.. here's our elfing:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1487079004

enjoy!

Reindeer Games

Just a quick post for two things:
First: Congrats Liz, Jim, and baby Virginia! Our new niece was born 1amish Dec 1, and she's just as cute as can be. We couldn't be happier for the new family!

Second, just a few pics from an impromptu photo shoot from this weekend when James and I were putting up Christmas decorations... what a ham! (albeit a very cute one!).