Your first love.

They say you never forget your first love, but since Nathaniel is only two...

Yes, that's right.  Nathaniel has his first crush.  Her name is Lizzie, and she goes to Nathaniel's day care.  Nathaniel talks about her all the time. According to Nathaniel, they are perfectly compatible.  "Lizzie likes PB&J toast!" "Lizzie likes Giraffey!" "Lizzie likes baths!" "Lizzie likes puzzles!" 

And it appears that Lizzie might like Nathaniel.  Today when Christopher dropped Nathaniel off at day care, Lizzie pushed her way through the crowd and almost gave Nathaniel a kiss!  Of course, who could resist kissing such a cutie...

Tonight when I was getting Nathaniel ready for bed he told me, "I like Mommy. I like Daddy. I like Giraffey.  I like Lizzie."  Yes, sweetie, you do. 

The Cowboy Rides Away

I can thank a college roommate for my love of George Strait.  I never really paid much attention to George until the summer she won two free tickets to his concert in Oklahoma City.  Somewhere between the mix tape she made me and the concert, I too fell in love with him.  Eventually I lost interest in his music (besides a few gems, most of his music is really just silly), but I always held on to my Strait Out of the Box [box set].   Every now and then I would pull it out- usually when I was feeling homesick or had my heart broken or both- and soothe my soul with some George Strait. 

Since Nathaniel was born, George has reemerged and once again plays a prominent role in my life.  I love singing to Nathaniel (and luckily he loves it back)- but singing only lullabies got old fast.  I realized that I knew a lot of lyrics to old George Strait songs and started rotating songs into my repertoire. My favorite song (and I like singing it at bed time) is The Cowboy Rides Away:



I also love Amarillo By Morning:



Nathaniel enjoys them both, but he really fell in love with George when I started singing Friday Night Fever. It's a lesser known (and very silly) song from 1981. If it were up to Nathaniel, he would just put this song on continuous repeat. I couldn't find a youtube video, but you can listen to a snipit of it on itunes. Check it out: Friday Night Fever

Frosty's Delight

If you know the punch line to the joke "Why was Frosty the Snowman smiling?", then the title of this blog post will make perfect sense by the time you're done reading it.  If not, well...cute title, huh?  Anyway, most of you might have heard about the recent weather disturbance that passed through this area (among many other places).  In fact, both our schools and Nathaniel's daycare were closed today in anticipation of the storm.  Well, as advertised, it dumped a LOT of snow on us in a very short time.  In fact, it was a "thunder snow" storm.  Last night we watched the lightning and were rocked by the thunder.

Fast forward to this morning.  We awoke to the aforementioned "LOT" of snow, but with no breeze and no more falling snow.  It seemed to be with a trace of disappointment that Kristina said, "I thought it was supposed to be snowing until the afternoon."  Within 30 minutes the wind was whipping around, and we got several more inches of snow within an hour or so.  So, everyone can blame Kristina for "calling out" the snow gods!

Now, rewind about 2 weeks when my parents called us up and said that they really felt we should have a snow blower (justifiably) and wanted to purchase or contribute money toward one (Thank you!!).  Being the dutiful son, I scoped out the best deals and bought one later that week.  Over the last 2 weeks we've had very minor snows...certainly nothing to put it to the test.  In fact, I felt assured that we had spared the rest of the region from significant snow by purchasing a snow blower.  Well, SURPRISE, Chicago!!!

So, here are some photos of the storm's aftermath and the work of Frosty's new friend. ;-)

This is the view out our kitchen window.  The bump in the lower left is the only sign of our bird bath, which is probably over 30 inches tall.


The snow was up to the windows of our sunporch


Getting ready to use the snow blower.  Note that the snow is deeper than the machine is tall.



The results! (please note that Kristina was out using a shovel and broom while I used the snow blower.)


Here's some of Kristina's handiwork.


This provides an excellent perspective of how deep the snow got.


Who let the drunk guy run the snow blower?! (Actually, it was hard to tell where the sidewalk was because I had no frame of reference. It was solid snow)


I don't think the car is going anywhere anytime soon.


There are a few more pictures here. Thanks again, Mom and Dad!

Christopher