Well, I will take that! At least she knows what’s what.

Sadly I had ripped the blu-ray incorrectly and the resulting video file did not work properly. We found this out after popcorn, blankets, and snacks were laid out for the little ones. We were then in a dash to find a movie the kids had not seen. Thank you netflix streaming for having The Neverending Story as a streaming selection. It’s probably at about the same level as Night at the Museum for action intensity, but I had forgotten completely about how dramatic the emotional aspects of the movie could be for children.

The girls were complete enthralled with the movie. We didn’t realize just how much Sophia was wrapped up in the plot of the movie until the Rock Biter appeared again later in the movie, and in a moment of sad recollection, becomes saddened and distraught at his inability to hold onto his friends and save them from the Nothing. Sophia was in tears. Sobbing actually. She was so very very sad over the loss of the racing snail. We encouraged her to continue to watch, and as the happy ending resolved the frustration and loss of the different characters, her own sadness gave way to overwhelming joy. She mentioned multiple times on her way to bed that it was the best movie she had ever seen.

On another note: While typing this, I just heard Sophia asking if Phoebe would like to play “Dolls vs. Zombies”. I’m raising my children right.

Today we were preparing to go to the pool and Phoebe desperately wanted to show me her new swimsuit. However, I was in the middle of changing into my swimsuit. As she walked into the bedroom I told her, “I need privacy please.” She kept walking toward me. “I want privacy Phoebe.” She looked at me with a confused look on her face. “Please walk over there so I can have my privacy.” She turned and looked in the direction I pointed then turned around with an exasperated look. “Phoebe, I’m changing clothes. I’d like my privacy. Please go over there.” She looked again and twisted her face in frustration. She told me with exasperation, “But I can’t FIND privacy.”

At least I know when I need privacy I have someone to help me look for it.

This is all fine and dandy as we can reach most nooks and crannies in our house. She did, however, discover a home away from home. My ported Velodyne home theater subwoofer. What’s frustrating about this is there’s no easy way to take it apart. The port is very long so reaching in to grab the little rodent doesn’t work. My thinking was lots of low bass would scare her into coming out. I tried a couple of songs and finally found the song that immediately brought her out of the subwoofer.

Hooray for dubstep.

Since memorial day will be full of Barbecue and cake we decided to use Saturday to memorialize our first combat veteran in the family that has moved on.

We toasted him with Wendy’s frosties, which he claimed held medicinal properties, and visited his gravesite.

We still love you and think about you Grandpa.

I recently sold my old camera body and most of the lenses I had been using. I also sold some old gear donated to me by a family member. Now I have a nice new body with some new lenses to take pictures of my girls and anything else that strikes my fancy.

For example: the horrified expression of a 2 year who thinks she’s about to crash into her sister.

The pollen on the petals of some flowers my wife has just planted in our front yard.

Beautiful blue eyes.

Exif data should all be intact if you want to know settings, lenses, etc.

“I like to watch you shave your face daddy.”
“Do you think you’ll have to shave when you grow up?” I ask.
“Yes”
“But girls don’t shave their face.”
“But they shave their legs when their hair is long,” she replies.
“So how old will you have to be to shave your legs?” I ask her.

“About 6 and a half.”

1. No more sippy cups
2. Be modest at all times
3. Blanky has to stay at home
4. More chores

We just had a little get together to celebrate her Birthday. We’re still waiting for a time to take her to Adventureland for some Go-Karting, mini golf, and some videogames.

In the meantime I’ve been putting together the summer gift to the girls.

Thanks to Granny, Grandad, Nana, and Poppi we were able to get the larger framing work out of the way. However quite a bit of the final assembly was left to me.

Yes, you’re seeing that right. It includes monkey bars, swings, picnic table, toybox, slide, raised fort, rock wall, etc…

She then proceeds to plant a kiss on my cheek. (Full Disclosure: I had just taken her to Braum’s for a hamburger, fries, and some Ice Cream).

If you say something to her or accuse her of impertinence she will wholeheartedly refute your allegation with the best phonetic reconstruction of your accusation that she can muster.

She’s destined for politics.

Here’s a picture of her laying on our poor old cat.

After laying her down and kissing her forehead she turned to me and stated, “Daddy, you do some crazy stuff… but you also do some giggly stuff, so I love you.” It’s nice to know she can quantify why she loves me.

(Sorry for the post as a facebook note when I’ve already updated my status to share this little moment but facebook is tied to this blog, so any updates get mirrored there.)

Sophia has finally hit the age where everything is of great importance to her. Holidays have become huge events with weeks of anticipation beforehand. As of today, November 18th, she has Christmas fever and is greatly anticipating the arrival of Santa.

She did however have a great time for Halloween. I made sure to teach her how to be a polite little ladybug (Phoebe was a pirate and as such did not need to show the same level of decorum as a dainty ladybug). Here’s Phoebe perfecting her AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! replete with a clenched fist swinging in front of her chest to punctuate the exclamation.

In the run up to the actual day of Halloween we were able to participate in one of the most crowded events I’ve ever witnessed. The fire department of our nearby town has a complete miniature town where sponsors were able to erect Hobbit sized businesses so curious young citizens could practice obeying traffic laws in power wheels with an entire town sized to their own dimensions. This town is called safety town.

Safety town opens to the public to allow trick or treaters to trick or treat in safety… or at least in a crowded miasma of more corporate sponsored candy giving in the hopes that we might sign up for junk mail on a whim. I am not opposed to the practice as it was a pretty good time. The wait was about an hour but the fine gentlemen of our local police and fire departments were doing their organizations a fine service by chatting with the little ones and even letting them climb on the fire trucks and figure out how to ring the bells on the front bumpers of the fire trucks (Sophia figured out how to ring the bell and finally had to be asked to quit because it was too loud).

I have to report a devastating loss at safety town. I lost one of Phoebe’s blankets while we were there. If you were not aware each of my children has some attachment to a blanket. Sophia is not as attached as Phoebe is but even Sophia becomes concerned if her blanket is not with her at night. Phoebe however, is very very attached to the feel of her blankets.

She slowly finds a “corner” and holds it in one of her hands as she rests her thumb in her mouth and rubs either her cheek or her nose with the corner. While at safety town I had draped her blanket over my shoulder. In the commotion of taking 1 photograph (it was pretty dark by then so I only got 1) and shuffling our children around I dropped the blanket and didn’t realize I had dropped it for quite a while. Sadly her blanket was gone. It has been replaced by other blankets and happily Phoebe is able to swap them out… provided the blanket has a corner.

The following week Halloween actually arrived and we carved pumpkins. I then took the little ones out to go around the block and trick or treat. They did very well. They were polite (except for Phoebe who was able to announce the she was a PIRATE!! and yell AAAAAARRRRRRR after saying trick or treat at nearly every house. I believe this is actually polite for a pirate to announce themselves before shouting AAAARRRRRR). They got plenty of candy and they both discovered a love of Chocolate.

Heather is working on a catch up post to fill in the October gap. I could lay blame on Heather as she has read EVERY SINGLE book in the Harry Potter series during the month of October… but I can’t do that without also laying the blame on myself. Sickness, school, and work have kept me busy. I’ll also admit that I’ve been a little preoccupied due to the release of Forza Motorsport 3.

Other items of note in the month of October. My youngest sister turned 18 and my mother celebrated the 24th anniversary of her 29th birthday. After we catch up we still have a lot of things to cover, like:

• Writing letters to Santa
• A visit from the Browns
• Our usable garage
• Why I’m so awesome at driving cars in a videogame
• The marshmellow test, and many other things

I’d just like to say that I don’t mind the loss of my hat collection, 3 playstation controllers, 3 pairs of shoes, 2 copies of Gran Turismo 2, belt, and 2 ties. In the end it was worth it.