Cotton is getting even more teeth, it seems, and now loves to eat frozen peas. Rone is baffled by this. He can't figure why she likes them, or why I don't cook them.

We've killed the backyard pretty competely (leaving for the month of June isn't good for St. Augustine, it seems), so I'm plotting garden expansion. Rone wants to plant carrots, and Seph wants strawberries. I'm hoping to put the kids to work carrying bricks, and build a small retaining wall on the hill. Chance is iffy on the plan, and I think it's because he thinks the lawn will come back in the spring. Maybe once he realizes how dead it really is, he'll feel more like making room for tomatoes. We'll see.

Seph, in a change, actually liked something I did last week. I ordered Annie from Netflix, and she watched it three times, singing it all around the house. Im' pretty certain I did the same thing when I was 7. We're lucky, and Annie will be showing here in April, so we're working our way through the different versions/soundtracks to be ready.

Check out Rone's rockin style:

Yes, that's our lunch today. The kids are going to hate it, so there is a butter/sugar sandwich backup plan. But how? Why? What does one do to acquire purple soup? Well, you join a CSA, and end up with a purple cauliflower. Then you leave it in your fridge for a week, pausing to admire it now and then. After that, you sort of give up thinking about it, and do what you often do with random leftovers--boil with garlic, onion and whatever else you haven't eaten in the vegetable drawer, puree it, and call it Cream of Refrigerator Soup.

Cotton is walking, climbing and eating. The only things she doesn't eat are berries and the orange Os in the Apple Jacks. The green ones are fine, though. Did I mention that Santa brought 4 boxes of Horrible Cereal?

Rone is very slowly reading and rollerskating.

Seph is loving her American Girl doll, and wondering when she'll be old enough to stay home alone. She also wants a typewriter. An old non-electric one, so she can write a newspaper. Chance won't even talk to her about it, after two conversations where he tried to convince her that any one of the several computers in the house was a better tool for the job.

I am busily plotting how to be less busy this semester, while continually adding things to the calendar. And also hoping to mail the Christmas cars out before I need to include Valentines with them.

New pictures up at the gallery--the zoo trip and random other adventures. Including some of my trip downtown with Cotton to see the giant wooden clock some folks built. People wrote things on it, and then they burnt it down at 8pm tonight. It was pretty cool, and a nice lady took pictures of us.

Cotton is still up, after having several successful evenings of going down in her crib. She's being kept up by Chance, who keeps flipping between two things that fascinate her: South Park and a musical revue on AMC. South Park makes her do her fake laugh over and over, while checking to see if we notice and/or if we're laughing, too. That's Entertainment, Part 2 completely fixates her, and she sits stock still, staring. It's really strange. She also sat through a 90 minute showing of The Nutcracker ballet on tv. I may see if she likes Cary Grant next. It would be nice to have someone to sit with me and watch old Cary Grant screwball comedies with.

Happy New Year!

In a shocking twist, we left town today. We've tried this before, and ended up just eating out. Today we made it all the way to the San Antonio Zoo. And then on the way back we stopped to eat at someplace completely new. Pretty exciting. We all had a great time at the zoo, and even Cotton enjoyed looking at all the animals.

Pictures soon.

Chance is flipping channels, and stopped at Smokey and the Bandit II. Cotton is boogie-ing down to the opening song. Did you remember that "Mean Joe" Green is in it? And a guy named Snuff is in charge of music? And Bob Mackie did Sally Field's outfits? Googly, 1980 was a good year for movies.

We're recovering from Christmas, and enjoying our week home with Chance. We've got a trip to San Antonio planned, and a lot of new games to play. I got the kids Life, and guess what? They've completely screwed with it. There are too many cards, the spinner is not as good, and it's not exactly like I remember, and thus bad.

Chance just made fun of the hair in Smokey and the Bandit II. You know its a good movie if he's making fun of the hair.

Merry Christmas Every-one!

'Let's call him Oatmeal!'
'I'll have to cite you for riding a Vixen the wrong way down a one way street.'
'Just put one foot in front of the other.'
'You zig, and I'll zag.'

Proof that I will do anything to avoid wrapping can be found at the mobileme gallery.

Pictures and movies! Piano playing! Tinsel tossing!

Seph's Santa Letter:

Cute pix that didn't quite make the card. Check out Seph and Cotton with fake smiles, and Rone giving up!

Cotton's been in a phase for about two weeks now, where she's not sleeping. At first, I blamed it on the walking, giving her mind a lot to process. Then she started babbleyapping all the time, so I blamed her mind needing to process that.

Now I think she just hates me. She specifically yells only during dialogue of shows I'm hoping to watch. She falls asleep, starts snoring, then screams when I put her down (sometime with helpful pooping! which doesn't increase the yelling/frustration levels at. all.). She hasn't gone more than 3 hours in bed in I don't know how long. I'm very close to setting up a lab-rat schedule, and just pretending she's a monkey. I haven't really gotten any solid use out of my fancy-pants degree lately, so that'd be good. And while I do that I could also plot the construction of a babysleep virus, which would knock kids out for ten hours and have them wake up mannerly and helpful. I could take over the world!

If I weren't, you know, tired.

Eventually, she'll be in her crib and sleeping, but in the meantime it's not a lot of fun. Also not fun is ToysRUs on Dec 23rd, it turns out. I did find what I needed though. And if I can stand to wrap it, we'll be all set.

Tape, anyone?