Famous first words

Tonight at supper, we got talking about baby-talk. We circled around to early words the boys have created.

One of Eli's best was "dippit" which was his way of saying "ketchup." I remember the first time he used the word at the McDonalds in Ashland, VA.

Briggs' best new word was "wee-too." That was his version of "thank you." It was followed pretty quickly by "wel-tum" for "you're welcome."

Calvin hasn't got any really famous ones yet, but he is just on the cusp. Right now he's saying "buhmamma" for "banana." We're waiting for the really creative neologisms to start spewing forth.

You can still hear any of us using "dippt" and "wee-too" in conversations amongst ourselves. Luckily for us, the two older boys still find remembering, talking about and laughing over this sort of thing funny. Eli was slightly embarrassed, but managed to see the humor in it all.

This one did not

The second weekend in December was predicted to be messy weather-wise. We tried to prepare ourselves for it. It was a "big" weekend at church with special music in the morning and our big dinner theater in the evening. The weather was supposed to be rainy Saturday evening changing to snow and freezing rain at some point on Sunday. We figured we'd have church but would have to take a wait-and-see attitude with the evening event.

We woke up Sunday morning to 4 inches of SNOW! First service and Sunday School and the dinner theater got canceled right away. It was bitterly cold. The snow kept falling and we ultimately canceled our second service also. (Though at 11AM when I awoke from a mid-morning nap, it was SUNNY! Blue sky sunny, and the snow was melting!) Luckily, for the sake of my guilty conscience, it started snowing and sleeting again in the late afternoon.

It was supposed to be rain, but this was the scene early on Sunday morning. Two-thirds of the boys decided to make the most of it. While we missed the worst of the winter weather the first weekend of the month, we got slammed the second weekend!

Later that day

Later on the day we got our Christmas tree was the Black Mountain Town parade. We encountered clear and sunny skies, snow, rain and sleet, all of them, on the 60 minute ride back to Black Mountain!

This year for the first time we had two boys marching in the parade: Eli with Scouts and Briggs with Cubs. Because the two units are associated with the same church, they linked up on their parade float. Briggs got to ride on the float; Eli carried a flag. (You can almost make him out in the lower right corner of the photo above.) It snowed and rained (freezing rain) the whole time. This snow storm took it easy on us.

The famous tree hunt of 2010

A couple of years ago we went to Yancey County for a live Christmas tree. We had a lot of fun: the weather was sunny and nearly 60 degrees. Libby wanted to do the same thing this year. The weather was snowy and 25 degrees.

We set off anyway. We got to Burnsville just as their Christmas parade was finishing up: got stuck in traffic and everyone was doubly anxious because snow was falling like crazy and sticking everywhere. We stopped for lunch to mull it over. We decided to persevere on, with the proviso that we would turn around if there were any driving issues. We started up (UP) Highway 197 to get to the farm we wanted to revisit. About a mile in the road was slicked up and a couple of cars ahead of us had stopped, dead in the road. We slid around a little also and ground to a halt. A salt truck came by and salted the other lane; didn't help us a bit. We sat for about 20 minutes until volunteer fire fighters pushed us off our snowy spot. We turned right around and crept back down the hill.

We stopped for a tree at another farm near town, in the valley. We'll try to get back to our first choice farm another year. When it's warm; and when it's sunny.

Cousin Martha

Libby's cousin Martha and her friend Russ got written up on an information page for MerleFest. Awesome!

Funny and ever-so-slightly unnerving

Calvin has enjoyed the "what does the _____ say" game for quite some time. But for that reason, it seems to have become slightly old hat for the three brothers. It seems that E and B have devised a way to keep the spark in the game. Heard this weekend:

Eli: What does the dog say?
Calvin: Woof.

Briggs: What does the kitty say?
Calvin: Meow.

Eli: What does the duck say?
Calvin: Quack, quack.

Briggs: What does the dinosaur say?
Calvin: RAWR!

Eli: What does the cow say?
Calvin: Eat more chicken.

Reading

I grabbed the wrong book at the library recently. I have been enjoying reading books by Lee Child. Especially his "Jack Reacher" novels. Last time I was the library though, I got a book by Lincoln Child instead. Didn't look very carefully obviously. "Deep Storm" was okay; enough so that I got a second book my most recent trip. Not quite a good as Lee Child in my opinion, but good enough to fall asleep to.