Sophie won't hold still for the camera

Overheard: Emma

Emma: Dad, the boys are being mean.
Me: They're not being that mean. You need to be tougher!
Emma (after going back to the boys): You boys need to stop being tougher 'cause I don't know how to do that.

Here's another one...Emma is always coming up with big plans for the two of us. It's very endearing. She and I went on a trip to Costco yesterday and she was quite a talker:

Emma (while riding in the cart): Dad, I wish I could go surfing with you. (This was totally out of the blue...She is a little Californian, but I don't know why she was thinking of surfing while riding in the cart at Costco.)
Me: That would be so much fun.
Emma: Let's go today.
Me: Well, there's no ocean in Indiana.
Emma: Rrr.

Christmas: the wrap up

I need to post this here so it doesn't get lost from our family lore:

Ethan woke up on Christmas morning at 2:30 AM. Ready to open his loot. He could not go back to sleep. He would not listen to sweet reason, but instead cried...and cried...and cried. It was sad, but he had to wait. We told him that he couldn't open presents without his sisters, or until it was more morning than night.

5:40, we told him. "Go back to sleep for three hours."

He cried in his room for a little while, lying on his bed staring at the clock. 3:11... 3:12... 3:13... Andrew moved into our room to sleep on the floor, because Ethan was keeping him awake. I went into Ethan's room where I tried to calm him down for a while. Finally I gave up and unplugged his alarm clock so he couldn't watch the minutes pass. This actually made the situation worse, so I plugged the clock back in and set the alarm. "Now you can sleep," I said, "and rest knowing that the clock will wake you up when it's time." Brilliant.

I left his room and went back to bed. Ethan, anxious as ever, moved to the top of the stairs, where he sat and stared at the glorious presents below for ONE HOUR before Ginger told him to stop and go to sleep.

He tried, oh how he tried. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, he finally fell asleep at 5:30 AM.

Minutes later, Andrew woke everyone up and announced that Christmas had arrived. We had agreed to 5:40, after all. Ethan jumped out of bed, as if fully rested and ready to go.

Emma, oblivious to the night's commotion, could be heard asking from her room, "Today is Christmas?"

Ice skating

We promised Emma weeks ago that we'd all go ice skating after Christmas. Fortunately, she remembered and reminded us earlier this week. It was so much fun! Video is here.

The kids did a pretty good job for their first time! That PVC walker dealy bob they used works miracles. (So does the "AutoMovie" feature of Windows Movie Maker, I might add.)

Merry Christmas!

Proof that Santa exists

Or else how could NORAD track his progress? This is a big hit in our house, and is throwing Andrew for quite a loop.

We hear this a lot lately

Ethan: I can't wait for Christmas!

Ethan: I can't wait for Christmas.

Ethan: Dad, can you wait for Christmas? I can't wait for Christmas.

Kiva

Check out Kiva, where you can make loans to third world entrepreneurs. Choose a business, make a loan, receive updates about the business's progress, and get repaid in a few months. Seems like a good use of $25.

Update: I just loaned $25 to a family in Azerbaijan. Cool! Their bio is here.

Eye contact = smile

Andrew's spelling list this week

Is it just me, or do these words seem kinda hard? Ginger and I had to look at least one of them up to make sure the list had them all spelled correctly. Andrew, of course, knows them all. Isosceles?!?

1. obeying
2. prayer
3. daily
4. joyful
5. stayed
6. sways
7. replaying
8. enemies
9. studying
10. business
11. yield
12. assemble
13. auxiliary
14. awkward
15. bachelor
16. bawl
17. beggar
18. benefited
19. isosceles
    
20. equilateral
    

Birthday girl

Happy birthday babe! I love you.

(Check out Judy's blog for more wonderful photos of my beautiful wife.)

Steve Nyman...

...won the World Cup.

Overheard

Emma, in the middle of the church Christmas party this evening:

"Dad, you and me should get outta here."

Why December 25th?

On his blog, Catholic and Enjoying It!, Mark Shea discusses the history of Christmas and the December 25th date. Did you know that records of Christians associating Jesus' birth with December 25th are decades older than any records concerning a pagan feast on that day? So the common "knowledge" that Christians co-opted a Roman Feast Day and turned it into Christmas is wrong. That's interesting.

This is even more interesting:

There was agitation in the early Church concerning, not Jesus' birthday, but the day upon which the historical Good Friday and Easter fell. It finally ended up that, in the Eastern Church, the tradition focused on April 6 as the date for the original Good Friday, while in the Western Church it was widely held that the date was March 25. Why does this matter? Tighe continues:

'At this point, we have to introduce a belief that seems to have been widespread in Judaism at the time of Christ, but which, as it is nowhere taught in the Bible, has completely fallen from the awareness of Christians. The idea is that of the "integral age" of the great Jewish prophets: the idea that the prophets of Israel died on the same dates as their birth or conception.

'This notion is a key factor in understanding how some early Christians came to believe that December 25th is the date of Christ's birth. The early Christians applied this idea to Jesus, so that March 25th and April 6th were not only the supposed dates of Christ's death, but of his conception or birth as well. There is some fleeting evidence that at least some first- and second-century Christians thought of March 25th or April 6th as the date of Christ's birth, but rather quickly the assignment of March 25th as the date of Christ's conception prevailed.

'It is to this day commemorated almost universally among Christians as the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel brought the good tidings of a savior to the Virgin Mary, upon whose acquiescence the Eternal Word of God ("Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten of the Father before all ages") forthwith became incarnate in her womb. What is the length of pregnancy? Nine months. Add nine months to March 25th and you get December 25th; add it to April 6th and you get January 6th. December 25th is Christmas, and January 6th is Epiphany.' (emphasis mine)

Amazing Race

They went to Caen tonight, where I lived for seven months at 4 rue Sadi Carnot. Cool!

British humour

Click here and scroll down to the comments. Reminds me of the famous reviews for Tuscan whole milk on Amazon.com.

Andrew doesn't believe in Santa Claus

Because:

• Reindeer can't carry that heavy of a load while flying, and
• Reindeer can't even fly, and
• People can't go down chimneys, and
• No one can live at the North Pole. It's too cold.

So there. We told him that only kids who believe in Santa get presents from him. He's fine with that, because he'll just get his presents from Mom and Dad, thank you very much.

His theories sound pretty reasonable. Does anyone have a rebuttal?

Ethan and Emma, by the way, do not subscribe to Andrew's heresies. Ethan is taking a wait and see approach (as in "let's see what happens on Christmas morning") while Emma remains a steadfast believer.

Brr, it's cold here today.

Yes, that's snow on the ground.

Hooray for hot chocolate.

Look what was on my computer...

...when I came home from work today. Thanks Judy!

  

For the Christmas card

  

Just her voice

Check out this video of Imogen Heap. How does she do that?

In their Christmas finery

For Grandma.

 

Happy birthday to you

We had the big birthday blow out last night with both sets of grandparents in town! Thanks to the boorish influence of her older brothers, this is how Emma now sings the happy birthday song:

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
You smell like a princess,
And you look like one too. 

Okay, last one...

Our date

I took my favorite three-year-old to see "Disney Princesses On Ice" today. Except for the scary part with the dragon, it was so much fun.

Photo caption contest

Not sure what to call this one...

Plumpitude

She's working on it!