[Merry Christmas] & Happy New Year!

Okay, obviously I missed the boat on wishing the blog-world a 'Merry Christmas' in a timely fashion, but I'm hoping you will overlook it and focus on how I've now wished (in print) that your Christmas was very merry and that your New Year will be happy! So (in the spirit of moving on) I'm finally getting around to downloading all my holiday pictures and sorting through them so I can post something! Here are a few from Christmas morning (the ones with the cute bedheads) and Christmas Eve (Callum with the gingerbread house they decorated below).

I've been having some issues with space (or lack thereof) on my computer so I end up immediately dumping them onto the external hard drive and then having to move a few (it seems!) at a time back to my laptop as I clear space. My files are huge and my laptop hard drive space is not! So, I will keep Christmas going a little while longer by posting some "make-up" posts here & there, mostly for documentation purposes. Even with all the bonus downtime we were given via "Arctic Blast 2008," I still didn't blog like I'd intended. I did, however, take the usual obscene number of photographs that I always do and loved every second of it. And I'll share some with you over the next couple of posts. First...a few quick snippets about my two favorite little guys.

About Callum, 2.5 yrs (aka: 'whittle' monkey, puppy, kitty, bird, snake, baby, Pirate, Superman, Spider man, etc. (depending on what Cade & he are playing) but mostly he's our little monkey): He is always climbing on everything (especially our backs and heads, he likes to get to the top of whatever it is) & he loves to snuggle, which I take full-advantage of. Callum LOVES to read and be read to. He has a really great attention span for a 2.5 year old and will play on the floor with his "guys" forever. He has some seriously hilarious dance moves and just some very quirky personality traits that we are having fun watching develop. It's been a while since I've blogged about the boys, so I'm sorry if I already told about this, but a few weeks ago Callum started telling me (after being put in time-out), "I'm a bird and birds fly out of time-out" or "I'm a lion and lions don't get in time-out." Another conversation today went like this...
Callum - 'Is dat coffee?'
Me - 'No, it's tea.'
Callum - 'Oh, coffee IS tea.'
Me - 'Well, no, they aren't the same thing: coffee is coffee & tea is tea.'
Callum - 'Ax-oo-ee, (actually) coffee IS tea and tea IS coffee. It wi-wee (really) is.'
(Well, okay, you're the expert)!

Callum's most notable traits: snuggly/loving (he spends lots of time on my lap or in my arms & I love it), compassionate, silly, daring (physically a risk-taker), strong-willed, articulate (especially for a second born, 2 year old), & quirky.

Callum's most prized Christmas gift: Whatever he happens to be playing with at the moment. He has a lot of fun with his growing collection of Little People animals & people. And some slimy little plastic lizards he got in his stocking.

About Cade, 4.5 yrs (aka: Cader, Cader-potater, Spiderman, Captain Cade Sparrow, or Pirate Cade):
All the imagination and humor you'd expect from a 4.5 year old. He continues to be very good-natured and flexible for the most part, though he has his moments, mostly it involves freaking out and overreacting about something that seems trivial. He loves to read as well and also to create things, we have a good time cutting pictures from old magazines and gluing them on construction paper with illustrations to make a collage. Both boys love music and sing a lot, but Cade makes up lots of great songs (especially praise songs) and plays along with his little guitar or adds musical pieces with his harmonica. He also loves it when I make-up silly songs about whatever we're doing (which happens daily) and he dances around and sings along with me. This morning Cade brought me a note that he'd "written" for me, I asked him to read it for me (safe bet, since I don't always read squigglyline the right way) and it said, "Dear Mom, I love you because you're as sweet as a cherry, I love you because you're as pretty as a strawberry."

Cade's most notable traits: Fun-loving, wild, kind-hearted, contemplative, loves to learn new things, timid (in the water, new situations), imaginative, creative.

Cade's most prized Christmas gift: Playmobil Pirate ship & look-out tower. (I knew he'd really dig it and found it on craigslist in excellent condition with some Christmas $ Kevin's grandparent's in Denver sent us, so he knows it was from them. He LOVES it. It's basically all about pirates & Batman these days).

Issue of the week at our home: Bedtime. We've been sort of re-training the boys about when it's alright for them to get out of their beds at night & what constitutes an 'emergency' - ('I'm bleeding' = an emergency, 'Can I have oatmeal for breakfast' = NOT an emergency, of course there are always the curve balls...'I'm cold' (get under your blanket) and 'I can't find [beloved stuffed animal]' (look under your blanket). We've learned usually those things are just ploys for post-bedtime attention and require very little brain power and surprisingly obvious solutions, but at first glance they may seem like they could be an emergency. Crafty boys. Or naive parents. Or both. You be the judge, I'm too tired to think about it any more.

Just a few minutes ago I heard Kevin coming out the boys room after (one last) goodnight and saying "So, now you know the new rules, which are pretty much the same as the old rules..." He makes me laugh a lot.