Cousins

Here are Shayna, Sam, and Pete enjoying a quiet moment in the big chair. This photo must have been taken during the 30 seconds of the weekend that Pete was not playing Crash Bandicoot.

Note the Homer Santa in the background.

Pancakes

We had pancakes for brunch the day after Christmas. Here is Pete making sure the chocolate chip ones are being prepared correctly.

Note the camo outfit, which is currently Pete's favorite. He was going to wear it to school last week, until he spilled his breakfast all over it. But he got to wear it this day. Unfortunately, this was not the best choice of clothes for the Air and Space museum. He would walk three feet away and get lost in the crowd. Next time we need something bright orange with reflectors and some sort of homing device.

Merry Christmas

Christmas 2005 was quite the event, with a weekend visit from Robin, Manny, Shayna, and Skyler and then surprise appearances by Stephen, George, and Vickie on Christmas morning. We had a wonderful time opening presents and sharing Christmas dinner together as a big family.

Above is Sam playing with Pete's snap-together model of Crash Bandicoot riding his jet board. It's a little tricky to snap together, but that's ok since Sam seems content with just the box. If we ever figure out how to get the model together, we will post a picture of that too.

Mystery Eye

See if you can guess if this eye is Sam or Pete.


===================================

Answer: Pete

Computer

Pete has started to teach Sam how to use the laptop downstairs in the kitchen. Pretty soon we will reach the point where I have to ask Pete how to fix things on the computer. Then soon after that, we will all have to ask Sam. Being the youngest in the house, he will probably have the most expertise.

Also, they are wearing their new matching sweatshirts.

Food Bank

Pete went with dad and George (Poppy) on Saturday morning to volunteer at a local food bank. We gave out tons of food to dozens of families. Pete helped with re-stocking shelves (our section included rice, cereal, tuna, hamburger helper, cake mix, mac&cheese, corn muffins, condiments, and oatmeal). He also helped people pick out their allotted food and put it in the cart. Next year we will have to bone up on our Spanish first.

Pete also went with mom on Monday to give out toys, but she did not take any pictures so you will have to use your imagination on that one.

Ornaments

Here are the ornaments that Pete and dad made this year with Model Magic.

1. See if you can guess which one Pete made and which one dad made.
2. See if you can guess which one is Aku Aku and which one is Uka Uka. (If you need help, you can click here for Aku Aku or here for Uka Uka).

Drumsticks and Wishes

Above is Pete holding a red plastic drumstick and doing the closest he can to acting normal for a picture. There are different theories as to the cause of the red halo that mysteriously developed in the picture. I think it can only be a secret sign from God that Pete is the chosen one to lead the world to greater peace than it has ever known. Pete, however, seems to think it is something called "glare".

On the topic of magic wands, Pete was watching a show the other day where they were wishing for various things. I thought it would be a good opportunity for some creative interaction, but in retrospect I'm not sure Pete was in the mood for a spirited discussion.
Me: "Pete, what do you wish for?"
Pete: "I don't have any wishes."
Me: "Poof! You have three wishes. What do you wish for?"
Pete: "I wish that I have zero wishes."

Stripes

Pete has achieved an
assortment of stripes
at karate class.

I'm not sure what each
one is for, but based
on his video games, I
think one of the orange
ones is the skull crusher
and one of the black ones
is the overhead power slam.

Big Bag

I walk in the family room the other day
and Pete is eating from an enormous
bag of potato chips. Somehow I found
this to be amusing.

1. In general, I think there is an
unwritten rule that you should not
eat anything that is about the
same size that you are.

2. I said "Pete, do you want a bowl
or something?" and he said "no, I'm ok".

Jammie Day

Pete had jammie day at school on
Monday. They got to wear pajamas
to Kindergarten. I think maybe
they are studying the Babylonians,
who were also known for wearing
pajamas on Mondays (or something
like that). Unfortunately, this
option is not available at my office.

Note that Sam has decided to
participate also. Maybe this is what
Pete is annoyed about in the
picture. Actually, Sam gets a lot
of jammie days. One of his phrases
he likes to say when you are
getting him dressed is
"Nooo! Jammy all day".

Sam is 2

Sam turned 2 on December 4th. He celebrated by eating a flaming cupcake.

Snowman

This is Pete and his snowman Clyde. Pete is wearing his new hat that Christy made for him. Clyde is wearing Sam's hat.

Pete's Faces

Time to experiment with some video on the blog. If you have a high-speed connection and video player, turn up your speaker and try clicking here to see a younger Pete make some faces. If it doesn't work, you can try clicking the photo (which links to a different playback service).

Good Morning For Sam

Here is Sam enjoying his morning. He is in a comfortable spot on the floor with some milk, two puzzle pieces, and the booklet from Crash Warped on Playstation. It is a good life to be Sam.

Snow Strategy

Last night, Pete told me his strategy for making it snow:

1. Wear pajamas inside out
2. Sing "Let it Snow"
3. Put ice cubes in toilet

I guess it works, since we got about 3-4 inches last night.

Holiday Photo Shoot

We had the "bright" idea of taking an impromptu picture of the family to put on our holiday / change of address cards. Somehow, we ended up with one lucky shot where everyone was sort of looking in the direction of the camera.

The other 90 photos all look something like this:

Sam's First Joke

This is Sam's first joke. He made it up himself.

ock ock (Knock Knock)
oo Da (Who's there)
Unno (I don't know)

Note, it's not interactive. He does all three parts himself.

Yoga Master Sam

Sam discovered that he can climb
into a plastic container we have
in the basement. He gets stuck,
then he says "dumpy" and someone
needs to come over and dump him
out. Pete is usually happy to
assist with the dumping.
Maybe when Sam grows up, he can
be one of those Yogi masters who
squeezes his whole body into a
small box. Don't laugh - they're
projecting 73% growth in this
profession. Right now, there are
only 11 guys who can do this, but
they will need 19 by the year 2020.

Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving weekend.

Above is Sam's portion of our Thanksgiving feast. There is one item in the picture that he actually ingested during the meal. See if you can guess what it is.

Hint: it's not on the green plate.

Sam is a Munchworm

Pete asked me to post an entry to the blog called "Sam is a Munchworm". This is because when Sam eats an apple he takes a few random bites all over the apple (see picture).

This is the picture Sam kept asking to see when he would grab the digital camera and say "Bam appoo".

Birthday Card

Pete and I do not always think alike. When he was making a birthday card for Miss Kirsch, I thought he should include a poem, or perhaps a thoughtful message. But we decided to go with his idea, which was a picture of him wearing the crazy birthday hat.

Pow-Wow

We went to Pete's pow-wow at school on Friday. Sam came too. It was fun - they did a few songs, then we had some turkey and mashed potatoes for breakfast. We found the picture of Pete holding the vegetables on the wall. His name was Running Deer. If you want to know the native american names of all of the other kids in the class, you can ask Pete.

Tattoo Artist

Sam has become more interested lately in drawing. He doesn't scribble much - he tends to do a series of very small drawings. One thing he likes to draw is little spirals. The nature of this type of drawing is that there are usually several things that you can interpret to look like real objects. It is similar to looking in the sky and finding shapes in the cloud formations.

He also discovered earlier this week that he can use his arm instead of paper. Since he favors a blue or black pen, sometimes it looks like he has little tattoos. I tried to capture this in the photo, of course while he was flailing his arms around and yelling "Bam appoo" (this is because he knows there's his favorite picture on the digital camera of him eating an apple). Notice that this particular formation looks a little bit like the barbed wire tattoo that has been popular in recent years.

Enemies

Most kids have a special item. For some it is a blanket. For others, a teddy bear. Sam's special item is a printout of enemies from Mega Man 3. He walks around with it. If you try to take it from him he says "Nooo! Emenies!"

Our Little Che Guevara

I Think These People Are Related

On the left is Christy wearing a necklace from Pete. On the right is Pete wearing Sam's overalls.

Self Portrait

Here is a self-portrait of Pete. Notice the yellow spots. They are in his real pictures too (for example, see here).

Karate

We seem to have figured out a way to make some positive use of Pete's skills in Mortal Kombat 4, which is Karate class. His staggering ability to memorize the names and combinations of martial arts positions should translate well to this discipline.

Above is the back punch (one of my favorite Pete/Sam photos ever).

Pete says the below are:
1. Back kick
2. Front kick
3. Kwang Yang
4. Front punch
5. Char-yet
6. Regular stance

Beware the Banana

Pete found out one time that when you stick your tongue out and make a noise it is called a raspberry.

So then he did it louder, and said that was called a blueberry.

He decided that even louder would be a strawberry.

Louder still is a blackberry.

Finally, loudest of all is a banana.

It's hard to describe the horror of these sounds. Let me just say that it is analogous to the hurricane scale that they use. So raspberry would be like a category 1 hurricane, and a banana would be a CAT 5. I think only 3 bananas have been recorded in Northern Virginia.

Garage Door

One of the things Pete
would do at the old house
is grab on to the handle
on the garage door
while it was opening.

Until the time he rode
it all the way to the top,
and then didn't know
what to do.

Our neighbor from across
the street came to rescue him.

Time Out

Here is Pete in "time out". Note that it loses some of the effectiveness when his brother comes over to play with him.

Pete is wearing his cool t-shirt from Dominion Trail Elementary. The school colors are not the best, so it is good that we decided to go with the black instead of the other choices, which I believe were something like lavender, teal, and pink.

Halloween

We had triple the fun this Halloween, with a morning party/parade at Pete's school, afternoon trick-or-treating at dad'd office, then of course walking the neighborhood.

After much deliberation and vacillation, Pete finally decided on being a vampire.

Sam was not interested in his cow costume, so he just went as Crank-monster, and subsequently Captain Jammies.
It was fun to walk around the new neighborhood. I think everyone will remember Pete. He is the vampire who would give back any candy with nuts and ask for something else. He spent 2 or 3 minutes at some of the houses -- I was starting to wonder if maybe they had invited him in for dinner.

I Want a Weapon

Christy brought Pete and Sam into the office today for some trick-or-treating.

While we were changing Sam's diaper, I was distracting him with one of those extending pointers that I use in training and sales demonstrations. Of course, he wanted to keep playing with it after that. So he was running around the office with it. He ran past a group of people. Then Pete came running after him yelling "No fair. I want a weapon."

Fresh Water

This is what happens when Pete brushes his teeth before bed:

1. I fill up cup with fresh water
2. Pete brushes teeth
3. Pete dumps out water, fills cup, and rinses

So last night I had to ask about this.

Me: "Pete, I just put fresh water in there. Why do you dump it and fill it up again?"
Pete: "I want it to be totally fresh"


Then about 5 minutes after going to bed, he usually calls me in to ask for a cup of fresh water. One night, he asked me to put in some cubed ice because he was hot (he had noticed that this is one of the option on the refridgerator). Instead of ice, I put in a die from his Mouse Trap game. But he noticed right away when he looked in the cup.

Pete: "No, not cube dice. I wanted cubed ice."

Parent-Teacher Conference

We had our first parent-teacher conference yesterday with Miss Kirsch.

Congratulations to Pete for scoring a 102 on his phonics test, which ties the school record! He also continues to have outstanding achievement in morning work and snack.

Unfortunately, I understand that there is no Spelling Bee for the Kindergarten class. I guess we will have to wait until next year.

Many Petes

If you ever wondered what the world would be like if there were seven Petes, now that he has discovered the mirrors in the bathroom we have the answer.

Boys Week

This week is Boys' Week, since Christy has some sort of event scheduled for almost every evening. So far, it is not off to a great start.

1. (downstairs)
"I asked you once, now I'm telling you. Get my jammies immediately."

2. (brushing teeth)
"Um, I need to do something that's
going to be good for me, but terrible for you."
"What's that?"
"Brush your hair with my toothbrush."

3. (getting ready for bed)
"Give me your head for a minute, I need to do something."
"Ok, what are we doing?"
"Just Tanya's neck-breaker.
It's down, forward, down, forward, high kick."

4. (in bed)
"What is science?"