The Family Business

Once again I’ve been fiddling with the blog, which you’ve no doubt noticed.  Which means that there is no more family-themed banner image at the top containing a picture of me looking “bloodthirsty” (thanks to Adam for that fine descriptive term).  However, there is a nice panoramic image of Grand Rapids up there for the time being for your enjoyment, which I took (thank you very much).

I managed to fix the snow blower! Dad would be so proud.

A few days since the last post, so I figured it would be helpful to throw a post up here to let the massive contingent of readers that follow this blog daily how things are going at the ol’ homestead.

• Andie: Our little girl is a delightful baby who is completely cute and sweet and doesn’t yet know that nighttime is the time for all good babies to go to sleep. Dawn and I have done our best to keep her awake during the afternoon and evening, which can be something of a challenge, and we’ve only had marginal success in the endeavor. What this all means in practice is that I’ve been having some good father-daughter time in the wee hours, which usually consists of me being involved in a staring contest with a wide awake two week old. Last night, however, I tried laying on the couch with Andie snuggled up next to me, and it wasn’t too long before we were both asleep. She still slept better than I did, but progress is progress.
• Will: Our boy is an endless deep well of energy lately (right now he’s using a night light as a “ship” and performing the opening theme song to “3-2-1 Penguins“). He’s really (really) into Clifford videos right now. He also likes to take care of his sister. When she cries, he’ll walk over to her and say in a really high pitched voice “oh, sweetie, what’s the matter?” and then pat her on the head. “Pat” usually means one of two things - a gentle stroking motion (good), or a violent, open-handed pounding (bad). We try to encourage the former.
• Mommy: Dawn, unfortunately, has been sick since Thursday night. At some point in the wee hours of Friday morning, I woke to find a baby being tossed my way and my wife running to the bathroom to throw up. I’m convinced that I’m going to come down with whatever it is that she has, and I dread it.
• Daddy: I’m back to work, or I should say that I’ve been back to work for two days. I stayed home yesterday to watch the kids while Dawn was sick. I also had to buy a new belt for my snowblower to replace the one that broke when I was trying to clean my driveway for the second time with the machine. (Sigh)

So that’s about it. I’ve been advised that a little girl needs her diaper changed, so I’d better go take care of that.

We like playing around with cameras here at the VM homestead, and with the arrival of new baby Andie, that means that Dawn wants to try those newborn pictures that everyone loves so much these days. Presented here for your perusal are a couple of my favorites.

Of these two, I can’t decide which one I like more - the “Kilroy was here” version on the left, or the shoulder chewing version on the right:

And naturally, my favorite of all of the photos we took was one of the ones that we didn’t try to pose:

You can take a look at all the shots via this guest pass to the Flickr album. Enjoy!

Those of you who know me know that I’m completely crazy. And part of my insanity is that I have certain letters and numbers that I like and dislike. For example:

Numbers I like:
2, 5, 8, 9
Numbers I dislike:
1, 3, 4, 7

I could go into the letters, but that would make this even more complex.

Anyway, based on my theory of good and lousy numbers, we can deduce that 2008 will be a better year than 2007 by virtue of the fact that the 7 (bad) has been replaced by the number 8 (good). So keep your chin up!

Will and I went sledding this afternoon with Connor, Geena, and Ella (and their associated parents) and had a bunch of fun!

Going downhill:

And of course, after the fun comes the hard work:

Will: Mom, can you please stop talking on the phone? That’s not what Christmas is about.

With the arrival of Adriana, I can now say that I live with a couple of very pretty girls:

And lest he feel left out, let’s not forget about the handsome little man of the house who’s already doing a fine job of checking up on his little sister:

From now on, when the City of Wyoming plow leaves a gigantic pile of heavy snow at the end of my driveway after a storm, I’ll no longer have to rely on my old, beat-up, bent-blade shovel to remove it. Thanks to a friendly neighborhood… pawn shop, I now have this beauty:

Nice.

Update: According to the weather-seers, a snowstorm’s a’comin’.  WOO HOO!

OK, now I’m doinking around with changing blog templates altogether. FYI.