A Guitar of His Own

Here are some pictures and a video of our Christmas. My family came for Christmas and Philip had a lot of fun playing with his aunts and uncle. He got three toys (so spoiled, I know!): A bucket of jungle animals, a wooden sewing machine, and a child's guitar. The guitar was by far his favorite! Here is a video of him singing his favorite song on the stairs. Also, as you can tell, he does not like to wear clothes some times.

Two Pictures

Thanks for all the Christmas pictures everyone, we've really enjoyed seeing them!

Tristan, Alistair,and I spent Christmas in Canada with my parents. We agree that it was a considerably better Christmas than last year, which I spent mostly in bed, nauseous, and ended with dinner at Denny's. This year, we went to 10:30 Mass, visited my dad's side of the family in the afternoon, and then had my mom's side over for the evening. Alistair saw lots of family members, but it was a little overwhelming for him, considering he started teething a few days before Christmas! His two front teeth are a good ways up now and he seems to be a little happier. He's also started solids to help with his reflux and spit-up issues. We did avocado today, and he loved it. The only problem was he expected a continuous flow of avocado into his mouth, so once it was empty he started to whine/cry.

We have a couple of pictures to share from the past few days. The first is from Christmas Eve:



The second is from this evening's bath time:

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! If I haven't had a chance to call you, please know you are in my thoughts. I know some of you have company or are traveling over the holidays, so I'll try to get in touch soon.

WE had a nice quiet Christmas at home. Ellie and Blake sang at the 5 O'Clock Mass on Christmas Eve so our Family went to Mass and enjoyed the beautiful Music of the Children's Choir. It was the first Mass that Matt and I have braved together with Dorothy and both little boys-enough said on that subject.

Rather than bore you with the details of our simple day, I thought I'd share some pictures of the kids.

Thomas as Sadko the Musician

Update: I don't know why only one post is showing up on this page. It should show 7 posts at a time. Can anyone help? To see older posts, please click on the link below that says "Older Posts".

Heather, please let us know how little Edward and Grandpa Frank are doing, when you have a chance.

Yesterday I read the boys a story called The Sea King's Daughter: A Russian Legend.

It was about a poor Russian musician, Sadko, who went to play his "gusli" (an instrument) for the Sea King, who lived below the sea, and then tried to marry Sadko to his daughter, the Princess Volkhova. From the picture below, you can see Sadko with his gusli.

Thomas, my little inventor, did not waste any time coming up with his own gusli. I suggested we could make one with a piece of wood and hammer nails into it and then stretch rubber bands between them, but Thomas quickly pointed out that we didn't have any wood. He found a piece of cardboard, stretched some rubber bands around it, and attached a string for a strap. Voila!

Thomas loves making things and is very resourceful, as you can see.

By the way, I love the illustrator of this book, Gennady Spirin. He has illustrated several other fairy tales and the pictures are always beautiful. He also has quite a few Christmas themed books.