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EATING CHICKEN

This weekend we had a short visit from Andy's cousin, Ashley, who is up from Arkansas visiting family during her spring break. C Raz was so excited to have a guest and really enjoyed her company. After some stumbling around about what to do, we finally decided to go up to Frankenmuth for lunch and a little shopping. Because who doesn't like chicky, tatoes and those noodles! Yum.

( Take the tour here... )

This past Saturday, we took C Raz bowling for the first time. He's played Wii bowling several times, and when he heard that Daddy had gone bowling for real Friday night, he wanted to do it too. Because of the bumpers, he calls it "bumpin bowling." I was impressed with how easily he lifted and toted the 4 lb ball....but man, does it go down the aisle ssslllloooooooowwwwwllllyyy. He's man enough to handle a pink ball, but next time I think we'll go for the 5-pounder. He was bound and determined to do it himself.

( Strike! Click here for more pix and final scores... )

A couple of weeks ago, C Raz came with me to Praise Team practice. He enjoyed dancing around and checking out the different instruments. Our drummer, Jeff, was kind enough to let him sit at his drumset and play for a little while. Little drummer boy was thrilled. Ever since, strange configurations of toys, furniture and other things have mysteriously arranged themselves into drumsets around the house.

Here he had been indulging in a different pastime and had asked to put on his Chef Halloween costume. However, somewhere along the way, his two wooden chopping knives became drumsticks....

He has even made a up a song or two that he sings while he drums. My favorite consists of the words "Mommy's a princess, Mommy's a princess." Who am I to argue?

Words you never think you'll say until you have a three-year-old boy.

"Hamburgers are not underwear."

So far, C Raz has made two requests for his Halloween costume this year - first it was doctor, then it was a dinosaur (tricertops or a saurus, Mama). So I'm taking wagers on how many times it will change before Halloween and how many options there will be.

Of course, in the back of my mind, I'm in party planning mode...."what will the birthday theme be for each costume choice"? I think both of those could be fun. If he's a doctor, the theme could be "what do you want to be when you grow up?" (which even adults could have fun with) and dinosaur could be "make believe" or something like that.

No, the Large Labrador Roadblock is not a standard expansion set for the Thomas Wooden Roadway. We had to have ours custom built.

This winter has been long and hard. We've not had luck on weekend weather, with either bitter cold or precipitation. C Raz and I had not gotten a chance to make a snow man yet, because the one decent day we had (Christmas), the snow had an ice crust and powder underneath. So we leapt at the chance to try to build one Saturday, even though temps were around 50 degrees and we knew he wouldn't last long. Mr. Snowman had the traditional carrot nose, but had broccoli eyes and a strawberry Laffy Taffy mouth. When we looked out the window at 4 pm, he had lost his head. By the end of the day he was quite lumpy.



In addition to the one we built together, C Raz also built his own "snowman" by himself.
( See Mr. Snowlump here... )

And now all of that snow and ice is gone! :)

"Let's put on your gloves. It's very cold out today."

"No, Mama. It's reeealllly, reallly, reeeeeeallllllly cold. Say that."

While I was singing two services on Sunday, Andy and C Raz headed to Somerset to book an appointment in their "Santa experience virtual line" system. However, when they got there at 10:10, all sessions were booked up through the 7:00 pm closing time. New plans - go to Twelve Oaks. I met up with them on Telegraph after church, and we headed out. The wait ended up being less than two hours, and was minimally painful, since C Raz and I took a little walk and explored while Daddy waited. There was a whole elaborate Snowglobes display, themed around the book/movie The Polar Express.

The end result.....


I want trains and a baby sister....

( The prior events.... )

Our Thanksgiving festivities this year were minimal. After Turkey Day itself in Toledo with Andy's fam, I came down with something that originally I thought was the flu, but now think was food poisoning. (No, not from Thanksgiving itself, but a trip to Miyako.) So we didn't get eat two more Thanksgiving meals. But we had fun meeting our new niece/cousin!


C Raz holds baby Leah. He's the BIG cousin now!

( Babies, turkeys and crankiness behind this cut... )

'Tis the season to be really busy with activities...


Amy and Andrew all dressed up to go to Andy's Nissan work party. Which he summarized as "a wedding reception without a wedding." That's pretty accurate.

( See C Raz at the Palace All-Staff party behind this link... )

Okay - making mad effort to catch up to present day. Here are shots from C Raz's party. I'll let the pix tell the tale.


Chef Colin with his pizza cake.

( Cooking up more fun here.... )

C Raz's birthday was one of unseasonably warm weather, of which we were happy to take advantage. I had taken the day off to get things ready for his party the next day, so I raked the leaves while he was at daycare and made him a giant pile as a surprise. He was so excited to jump in them and open his presents. It was great to be able to go trick-or-treating with just an extra t-shirt under his costume and not have to put a coat on top and cover up the great chef costume that Meemaw made him and Aunt Min's mom embroidered. He got gyped in the costume contest, but I guess he can't win every year. Everyone said he was the cutest.



Can I open them yet?


( See his costume and more birthday fun here.... )


Party pix to come soon!

My latest niece was just born!

Andy's sister Jill just gave birth to Leah Grace. 8 lbs, 6 oz.

(That's all the info I have so far.)

C Raz wore his big boy underwear to school today for the first time. (He's been wearing pull-ups for a while, but had gotten stuck at that plateau.) Reports say that he's still wearing the same dinosaur undies and jeans he had on this morning! :)

I love this shot. What's better than a giant pile of leaves to jump into on your birthday. Sheer joy!

That's the time it took me, from entrance to exit, to vote this morning. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't too bad. Colin behaved relatively well (thanks to strapping him into stroller). The frustrating part was discovering the reason for such a hold up. Once I got into the voting room, I found out that most of the sign-in process was operating pretty quickly, until the part where they have to write your name in the book, which was incredibly backed up. You'd think maybe they'd realize that they should swap in one of the volunteers with better mental acuity for that spot, and alleviate the problem.

Tuesday night was C Raz's daycare Halloween party. It is a cute event. They have different crafts or activities in each of the rooms, as well as some candy and some other yummy snacks. The main event, however, is the magician, who the children call Dumbledore. C Raz had a lot of fun - his favorites were getting his face painted, eating gummy worms and petting the magician's rabbit. The one downer about this event was they passed out glow-in-the-dark safety whistles...which many of the older children then annoyed the rest of the attendees by blowing way too much the rest of the evening.



"Dumbledore" uses distraction and slight of hand.


( Say Hocus Pocus and click here for more photos.... )

More penguin fun tomorrow!

I wasn't the most on the ball about the Zoo Boo this year. Kept thinking about it - what C Raz would wear, etc - but actually picking a date and buying tickets slipped my mind. In the past have gone with various combinations of Casey, Meemaw, Aunt Min and Aunt Suz, but this year, due to last minute nature of things, bought tix online for last Friday for me, C Raz and Andy. Well, Andy has two major character flaws when it comes to an event like this - he is impatient and he hates crowds. He did better than I thought once we got into the groove, but we definitely made it through in record time. Of course Friday's weather was questionable. The rain mainly held off, but got somewhat bad towards the end. We did have fun anyway.



There's a penguin loose in the monkey habitat!

( Click here for more penguin adventures... )


More Halloween festivity photos to come soon.