Vake's 2010 in Pictures

This free slideshow customized with Smilebox

Coffee and Cartwheels

One of the places that Taren loves to take the boys is this place in Carytown called Coffee and Cartwheels.

It is the outreach ministry of a church (I think) and they use it for their nursery on Sunday while the church has their service in the Byrd Theater (this is all what I've heard/read). Vake LOVES playing with a new set of toys and they love running around.

Fantastic Father

I've got some small sense of what a great lawyer Eric is. Our litigation backgrounds overlap enough and I've seen enough of what he's done and how he practices to know he's really good at his job. But it is interesting- even though he does not seem to appreciate it, I think he's probably an even better father than he is a lawyer.

He's more patient and fun loving than I am. Maybe it is because he spends fewer hours total that the quality of his time with Vake seems to be better- but his ability to connect with Vake is impressive. It's also interesting, as Vake gets older, the more I see how patient he is.

Marry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night

Can you out there in the blogosphere believe it!!! It's CHRISTMAS.
Sorry that I've been online for a week- Eric, Vake and I have ALL had horrible rounds of the flu and colds- mine was especially fun- it was this terrible cough that got me so sick I missed a day of work- that's really unusual for me to feel that bad.

On top of it all, we had Santa's workshop open for Eric. Here was the hardware kit for the play kitchen.

And Eric's face when he realized that there were 2 and a half hours of his life that were going to be devoted to the construction of the pint sized kitchen instead of relaxing.

But he got it put together...

...bit by bit...

Finally it was done- so funny that we can still "hide" presents in plain sight- we threw a throw blanket over this and Vake ran past it for three days.

As it turned out, it was a good call to build it a little early- on Christmas Eve, we went as a family (plus Neil, Louise and Louise's friend Edith) to church at 4:00. I thought I was Mom-of-the-Year for bringing books and lollipops. Eric disagrees- he was not impressed that his son was reading aloud from the "dog book" during the middle of the sermon. The music was fantastic, though...

After church we had dinner at Grandmary's house- deliciousness.

Complete with a buche de noel for dessert.

Then we went home to our house and Vake and Erico wrote to Santa.

It's always more fun to do an activity with D-A-D.

Then we got Santa his chexmix and cookies and some nice scotch...

...left our note...

...and went to bed.

The presents came out of hiding.

And thank GOd for Uncle Dennis and his patience in unwrapping all the play food.

There were so many toys it was obscene. Truly. And I am known for my ability to be a little excessive.

Vake had no idea why we were going downstairs on Christmas morning.

But he took off running the second he saw the toys- especially Grandmary's gift of a tricycle!

he's still got a little more growing to do!

He loved the kitchen.

And his guitar from his Uncle Neil was a huge hit,

And as requested, there was a firetruck.

Aunt Anne and Uncle Dennis gave him a shopping cart- oh my goodness!!!!

And when it was all over, there was jumping in the wrapping paper- please ignore Mama's concerned expression in the background.

And of course, it's important to clean up and how better to do it than with the new dustbuster from Uncle Brook.

Then we had a tea party.

And read some of our new books.

Vake was busy busy busy all day long!!!!!

And we topped it all off with a delicious Christmas FEAST courtesy of Daddy!!!

Yay Christmas!!!!

Prayers

Every night, Vake and I say prayers. Erico is even on board with the prayer program, albeit a little more reluctantly. We go through a short prayer and then do our God Blesses.

Vake's been saying Amen at the end of the prayer and the God Blesses, but just this week he started joining me in the God Blesses- and last night, he added Huff to the list. Now, I know this may just be that we talk about Huff all the time, but I am preferring to think it's that what we are doing is starting to sink in.

Nutcracker!!!

We had a huge treat today- our lovely next door neighbor got tickets to the school groups performance of the Nutcracker- which is just a fantastic version of it and such a holiday treat!!! I originally did not think I was going to be able to go with the boys because I had court BUT!!!! WE HAD A SNOW DAY!!!!!

Yip!!!

So Taren and I left with the boys at about 9- just as it was starting to snow-here are the two monkeys.

Friends hugging.

We got to the theater- the boys were mesmerized by the venue. Vake had a shorter attention span- he made it as far as the Waltz of the Flowers before he got restless but Huff was able to sit still with Taren for the whole thing. I was actually really proud of both boys' performance- it's not easy to behave for a whole hour in a theater. I think Taren really enjoyed it too. It is such a fun performance.

Here's Vake just rapt before the show began looking at the stage.

On our best behavior!

Getting to our seats!

By the end, we were a little restless!!

Snow Day!

Even though Eric and I had to work, the boys had a snow day today- so fun.

Here's a leftover video from Halloween- the costume is Brian Spencer's- his mother made it for him to wear 30 years ago.

This may very well be an annoying post.

It's mostly just me reading to Vake. But Vake's got his favorite books memorized by now and it is pretty cute to watch him "read along" with me.

We're working on our letter flashcards right now- he's basically got the capital letters figured out for the most part. I am trying not to push too hard- and Eric talked me out of buying the "Your Baby Can Read" kit that I see infomercials for all the time.

Your Baby Can Read works by giving a child a huge sight word vocabulary- it's not really phonics and it is not whole-language, either. SO- we won't be getting it but I have to admit that I'd really like for Vake to be an early reader.

TowelBaby

In addition to smocks, Vake's on the "growing out of it" end of all of his baby hooded towels. But he LOVES hats and he wanders around after bath happily talking about his "hat" that he's got on his head.

The baby layers are just falling off of him (obviously not in the literal sense- he's still a chunky monkey). It's like watching a duckling's feathers molt- he's shaking off the "babyness" with each passing day.

Oh dear.

Children's Museum Christmas

So by now, most of you have seen the picture of the Santa meltdown. I do have to say that the Children's Museum does a GREAT Santaland (and as a Board Member, let me plug the museum- if you live in Richmond, there are TWO awesome locations and you should completely go!!!!).

So this year, they've gotten a "holiday train." Vake and Huff rode before getting their pictures made- they loved it- which is interesting because they don't like the train that is similar at the Short Pump Museum location.

And then we all went in to wait for Mr. S. Claus. There were these giant bears and the boys were just transfixed.

And then there was the debacle. Thank heavens they let us keep riding the train!!!!