Painting with Maggots

Congratulations to Uncle Brian for getting on the Rocketboom videoblog. Check out the Blog.

Happy Birthday Jack!

From Annaka and Ja...

I can't believe Jack is two years old today. He enjoyed his birthday celebration which involved making his own pizza, eating the train cake that mom made, and opening his presents. I am not sure if he appreciated the step-by-step instructions from his big sister on how to celebrate his birthday.

A Dad's Self-Portrait

Ok, enough pictures of kids. Here is a nice picture of me. Enjoy.

Note: These pictures were created using Uncle Brian's fancy macbook. For all you PC users, you don't know what you are missing. Just look at some of our other picture examples.

No I do it!

Jack is asserting his independence these days and will not let you help him with anything. His new favorite phrase is "No I do it!". This transformation occurred seemingly overnight. He will now not let you help him:

• Walk upstairs
• Walk downstairs
• Open any food packaging (as documented in the video above)
• Let you get him in the car seat
• Get his socks off
• Get his socks on
  

This is a good thing, but our family efficiency rating has declined...

Mission Possible : Another Geocaching Adventure

We went geocaching again this Saturday. It really was just an excuse to get outside and enjoy this nice "winter" weather. I actually remembered to bring the videocamera this time and was able to take enough footage to create a little movie. The music is cheese, but it was fun organizing the clips around the music.

From Annaka and Ja...

You never know what Annaka will want to wear. For this cold, cold morning, Annaka decided to wear all pink. Now last Sunday was a different story playing outside (see below). She wanted to wear her rainboots, pajamas, and an apron.

From Annaka and Ja...

Sun-Maid Princess?

Annaka did not want to eat her bedtime snack of raisins tonight. So, I showed her the package of raisins and explained to her the story of the sun-maid princess.

"See, Annaka, Princesses eat raisins."

How can a four year old resist that authority? She immediately finished her snack of raisins. Lesson learned tonight: Never underestimate the power of a princess, even the famous Sun-Maid Princess.

Geocaching with the kids

From Annaka and Ja...

Kristen had a great idea to enjoy the beautiful weather today. She thought it would be fun to take the kids geocaching. We had never tried that with the kids.

So, what is Geocaching?

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

We told Annaka and Jack, however, we were going to look for Pirate treasure. So we set off with our coordinates plugged into our GPS unit. Our cache was located in some woods right on campus. After a good half-hour searching, we found the cache inside a tree stump. You never know what you will find inside a cache, I mean a Pirate's treasure chest. There were some trinkets and oddities. Both Annaka and Jack left some Clemson memorabilia and Annaka took some nice sunglasses (see picture) and Jack found a small Superman doll. All in all, a good day was had by all.

No Me

Tonight I got to listen to a back and forth volley from Jack and Annaka of "no me". I had asked them who wants to say blessing. Annaka said she would but before she started Jack said "no me". Now, little Jack has no clue of how to say the blessing, but that did not stop him. Immediately, Annaka blurted out 'no me", then Jack hit back with another "no me". The exchange was on.

However, I was able to offer a truce and we were able to eventually have a blessing. Amen.