The Hole Tooth

Addison hit another milestone recently.

She lost her first tooth.  We were getting ready to go sledding and while I was trying to pull her sweatshirt on it got kinda stuck.  When I went to force it down, POP.  Right to the floor.  I was a little worried that she would freak because there was  a good amount of blood, but she was stoked that it fell out.

But you want to know something really weird?  Take a look at this picture of Ruby:

It’s a little hard to see, but Ruby has a tooth there coming in on the bottom.  So what’s so weird about that?  Well, in some creepy budism tooth reincarnation, Ruby’s incoming tooth is the exact same one that Addison lost.  It’s like the tooth fairy took Addison’s tooth and planted it in Ruby’s head.  What a qwinky-dink, eh?

I don’t have too many pictures this time, but I didn’t want to much time to pass.

Here’s Ruby eating avocado off a knife Crocodile Dundee style.

And here’s Addison with Mr. Quigley Down Under.

Santa Claus has the right idea – visit people once a year.

I am not sure why the pictures all of a sudden are not able to be clicked on.  WordPress has changed the back-end and I can’t figure out how to make them clickable.  I will do some more research over the weekend and figure it out.  In the meantime, I won’t post any tiny thumbnail pictures.  Now back to Christmas…

Addison had her Christmas program at school.  Her class did very well.  It wasn’t as tortuous as I was expecting.  I was quite entertained.

Please notice the placement of Addison’s halo compared to all the other girls in her class.

Christmas morning finally came.  Most of you will probably be jealous when I tell you this; Addison doesn’t wake up stupidly early on Christmas like most kids do.  She kept sleeping until I finally got tired of waiting and had t o go wake her up at 10am.

Ruby then had her First Christmas Breakfast (while Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma had Mimosa )

Later in the weekend, we had another Christmas at Grandpa’s.

Ruby is already Texting her friends (HA! She doesn’t have any friends)

Here is Addison having a “Dean Martin” at Grandpa’s Bar.

Then things got a little wild when Ruby started dancing on the pool table and the bouncer had to kick her out.

So that “wrapped” (HA!) up our first Christmas in Michigan, and Ruby’s first overall.  Addison was back in school this week and to be perfectly honest, I am surprised she made it without being murdered by Kate.  I am sure that Kate really knows the meaning of the song lyric “..and Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again.”

Christmas is a time when you get homesick – even when you’re home.

UPDATE:  IT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION THAT NONE OF THE PICTURES ARE CLICKABLE.  I WILL TRY AND FIX THIS.

I am not sure if you knew this. Michigan is on a different time format than the rest of the world. Christmas comes right after Halloween. While it’s been almost two months to everyone else, it has only been like 3 days here. So if you think that I have been slacking on the blog, you are wrong.

I really don’t have an excuse (actually I have a ton, but I am sure you don’t care). We have been kinda busy; we got rid of our condo and had to move all of our stuff (twice! long story), I was in Las Vegas for a week for work, and all it does is snow here, so I have been spending about 90% of my free time shoveling.

Enough crying! I will summarize our whole holiday season for you at once. It’s like living Christmas all over again right when you have to start working 5 days a week again for a long time. Sigh.

Christmas started off for Addison with quite a bang. She was invited to help light the Official Michigan Christmas Tree that is in front of the Capitol. She was asked by State Representative Joan Bauer.

Here is Addison in the Parade before the tree lighting. As you can see, she has her “parade wave” perfected nicely.

There is Addison before, then throwing the switch, and after. I can’t tell if that is pure happiness in her eyes in the last picture or if they are just frozen like that. Here is what she did when she threw the switch:

It was very cold that night, so she was happy to finally get inside to thaw out. Here she is with Ms. Bauer.

Addison’s VIP weekend continued the next day when she had breakfast with Santa. While there sitting on Santa’s lap, she was taped by the local news and, whaddya know?, she was on the 6 o’clock news. A pretty special 24 hours for a little girl if you ask me. If Aunt Lauren ever gets us the video, I will post it for you.

Oh! I am sure you are waiting to see a picture of Ruby, so here:

Ruby just doing what she always does, laughing and smiling.

We did have to take a little side trip from Christmas for Thanksgiving however. Kindergarten had a little program.

That is Addison eating the traditional Thanksgiving food that our fore-fathers ate: Doritos! Sometime soon, I will put the video of the song up, it’s awesome.

Our Thanksgiving was pretty lame. As I said, that was the weekend that we decided to clear out the condo in Chicago. We did have a nice dinner in town with Grandma Nancy. Thanks to all of you who helped, and to those who didn’t; Congrats on not falling for my trick from the previous post.

After Thanksgiving was tossed aside, it was time to devote all out attention back to Christmas.

Update on Ruby:

• She is going to start walking any day now I think. She technically took a couple of steps one time; however,we have been unable to replicate the results.
• She had one tooth poke through.
• She can say Mama and Dada (kinda Dada).
• She can wave.
• She HATES Santa.

OK I lied, I am not going to do all of Christmas in one post. Star Wars is on and it’s really hard to concentrate. I have all the pictures done and will finish tomorrow night. Promise.

to be continued…

Why can’t Witches get pregnant? Because Vampires have Hallow-weenies!

Ruby celebrated her first Halloween with Addison.  Our week was jam packed with activities.

First, we visited the pumpkin farm to pick out our pumpkin.  We were joined by Granpa Steve and Gramma Melanie, and Uncle Scott, Aunt Erin, Cousins Evan and Kasey.

The first thing Addison did was enter a donut eating contest.  A NO HANDS DONUT EATING CONTEST!

I think she won, I can’t remember.  Actually I think it was one of those “Everybody Wins” type things.

Ruby and Kasey had a blast.

All of us then took a hayride.

The scary thing about the above picture is that there was no other kids on the hayrack.   This ghost showed up after the film was develo…oh wait, it’s Evan.

Grandma, Evan , and uh, uh, um…I’m not sure what that is.  Creepiest Thing in the World?

That concluded our day at the pumpkin farm but that was just the beginning of our Halloween week.

On Wednesday, there was Trick Or Treat in downtown Lansing.  No pictures though.

Thursday, there was activities at the local science museum.

Ruby was a little embarrassed because someone had the same costume as her.

Actually, I think that’s her real dad.

Addison had fun, but there was a little problem that I won’t get into.

Friday was actual Halloween and Addison had a parade and party at school

OH! I just realized I never revealed the girls costumes.

Addison was originally going to just be a Pouty Snow Princess Supermodel;

But then decided she wanted to be GROUCHO MARX SNOW PRINCESS!!!

Ruby, in addition to being Calista Flockhart (get it?  She’s skinny. Ruby was a skeleton? Sometimes people who are skinny are called skeletons?  Too 1999?), she was also a Ladybug.

Our master plan is coming together a little bit at a time.  For those of you who don’t know, we sold our condo in Chicago.  And in these times that is no small feat (making money on it woulda been a miracle).  So the only step left is the best one; getting our own house.  I think we will wait through the winter, make sure our finances are in perfect order, and hopefully be settled in by summertime.

So anyone who is going to be in Chicago on Thanksgiving weekend, please stop by our condo for a huge party* with free beer* and dancing girls*.

*-huge party means helping move
*-free beer means sofa bed
*-dancing girls means third floor

Procrastination is the Art of Keeping Up with Yesterday.

Hey there!  It’s been awhile.  You probably think we moved to Michigan and forgot all about you.  Not the case.  I was just released from the institution.  You see, I had a little problem coming to terms with the Cubs playoff performance. I have spent the last few weeks in a little room wearing this:

People always ask me, “What if Addison grows up and isn’t a Cubs fan?”  My answer to that is Good!  That will prove she is not an idiot.  I gave her that name not to honor the Cubs, but to remind her that the world is full of disappointment and sadness.  But you can get through all of it with about 6 Old Styles.  Kinda like “A Boy Named Sue”.

I really don’t have an excuse for not updating, except that I was punishing all of you who didn’t send me birthday greetings.  You made everyone suffer.

On to the girls; Addison first:

She finished her soccer season undefeated (they don’t keep score).

That’s Mario with Addison in the first two pictures.  He goes to school with Addison and I think we are going to get to know him very well over the next 13 years.

She was picked to read an intention at church.  She did awesome.

Please notice her standing on her tiptoes.

She had her first field trip to the Apple Cider Farm with her class.

Hanging out.

Now on to Roo.

She has done quite a bit over the past month.

She enjoys barking at cars with Cheech.

Sitting up.

Practices good oral hygiene despite having no teeth.

Also hanging out.

Standing and getting into mischief.

Ruby went from sitting up to pulling herself up very quickly, like five minutes.  It’s quite amazing.  She then ran a 5K the next day but we don’t have any pictures of that.