Skating

We've been roller skating twice this year. It's been freezing and the girls love to roller skate. It's the first thing Terra asked if we could do and Madeline also asked if we could go, independent of Terra.

Misty and I are playing with the new camera, learning more about shutter speed, aperture, f-stop, lighting, all kinds of stuff.

New Camera

Our camera went south. It still has a ton of pictures on it from Terra, two days after Christmas, and others. I need to figure out a way to get these pictures off the camera. However, Misty has been looking at cameras for some time. The point-and-shoot that just stopped working takes a long time to get to the point it can take a second shot. Plus, when you're ready for the picture and push the button, the shutter doesn't open and the picture isn't snapped until sometimes several seconds later. Often, seconds are important.

She's looked at the Digital SLR cameras. At we took some of our Christmas money from our family and bought what she had been looking at on the line. It's the Nikon D40x, and it's beautiful. I love this camera. Misty and I are have to time-share our photographing since be both like it so much. I've been reading about f-stops, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, lenses, all kinds of good stuff. This is going to be a good year, picture-wise, and every otherwise, too I'm sure.

Jack's Name Ends in an 'S'

This came as a big surprise to Terra. We forget his Christian name is James, we just like to call him Jack.

The four month well-baby appointment went very well. Jack is a big boy, like what we hoped. He's 95th percentile in weight, at a strapping 19 lbs and 9.5 ounces. The big Jack's height is between the 90th and 100th percentile although with 26.5 inches. He's so much bigger than when we first brought him home.

Misty's harassing the Gap people right now for the details regarding the specific delivery of Jack's new bedding for his new crib in his very blue room. "One of the items isn't available . . . " Jack is sleeping comfortably in hew new bed, last night he slept well for a full seven hours. Jack is infatuated with the turtle Aunt Lauren and Uncle Bill sent. The turtle will light up with three different colors: blue, green, and amber. He will just stare and stare at it.

Jack has taken to squeaking, too. When he wakes up (seven hours of sleep is great, but seven hours is really seven hours from 8:00PM, so he still wakes up really, really early) he squawks playfully, and even at 3:00AM, it's cute. It's not so cute when I get him, but it is cute when Misty gets him. She is the best.

The girls are playing, "check." This is a version of poker. Actually, it's poker, I just would rather the girls answer the following question: "what'd you do last night?" with, "I played check," than, "I played poker." Madeline is really aggressive, and I think Terra's taken too much out of Rob's book, she likes to bluff. They both want to play with real money, but real money for these girls is Dad's money.

Ice Reduces Friction

Stepping outside to open my car this Saturday so I could get my gloves I quickly fell on the driveway. It was so slick. The ice was everywhere. The girls were outside playing, I bundled up to see what we could do outside in the blustery weather.

We took a piece of compressed particle board from the garage, split it in half and tried to "sled" down the driveway. This wasn't steep enough, we weren't getting anywhere enough speed. I had an old hose in the back yard that I needed to throw away. Instead we used this hose for leverage. The girls held on to the hose, sat on the old particle board, and I pulled them fast down the sidewalk. This was so much fun, we all had a great time and it got us out of the house. I could see the smiles on everyone driving by the house, looking at the fun we were having.

Goof Off

We painted the young man's room today. Madeline wanted to help so badly. She wasn't allowed. "Fine, when it's time to paint my room yellow, you guys aren't going to be allowed to help," she fired back. Such independence.

I would do several things different next time I paint a room. First, clear everything out of the room. I halved it, and used a tarp to cover the part of the floor where we were painting, then moved the tarp when that section was finished. This became more trouble than I thought, mostly this technique was to try and get around the big couch that remains in the boy's room.

Second, put the painters tape all around room, following the same stretch with large overlaps so it will pull off simpler.

Third, start during the afternoon instead of the early evening, especially in the bedrooms upstairs, the light is poor because there is only one can light.

We did the prep work well, the plastic fixtures around the electrical outlets and switches were removed, and we did use painter's tape.

Even with the painter's tape (which we need to get thicker tape for the base boards) the base boards have blue paint over some spots. I'll get the Goof Off and clean that up then we're finished.

Two Month Well Baby

We have a two month well baby that went for his two month well baby checkup. The doctor says Jack has great head control. He's "big" so we need to make sure he's clean between all the rolls of skin he has on his legs, chin, belly, arms . . . just about everywhere really. This child weighs 15.1 lbs and 25.5 inches long. We've been very curious about that weight. He does like to eat. He's a charmer now, too. He's smiling a lot more. He seems to do this for me when I'm changing his diaper. He does this for his mom whenever she wants him to. Dad is just a little jealous about that part.

"He looks like you"

"It's so weird to look at him and see your eyes," Misty told me the other night. Visually, it's fun to look at the child and see which features he has from the different sides of the family. Jack is still new, so I'm sure some of these things will need to take off, we've organized him as follows:

• His hair is brown, so he could have had that from either
• His eyes are already looking to be brown, he received that from his father
• His nose and lips he gets from his mother
• his ears, mom and dad both think the ears come from themselves

He's still such a sweet little baby. He coo's at us now and we try to get him to smile. He's started looking at people now, although I admit he is mostly looking at his mother.

He still loves to look at light, today when I brought him inside after we spent some time relaxing on the patio, he looked at the ceiling and started to cry when we came inside. Still looking at the ceiling and still whimpering a little, it was like he was looking for the sky, "Where'd that blue light thing go, old man! I liked that part."

Still a very loud eater, still a grunter, and still a little chunk.