Cerebrate Good Times

Last summer, on the night James was born, things were understandably crazy, and we never locked the cats in that night. (For anyone unaware, they are outdoor cats that live in the garage.) The problem is, Dortmunder never came back that night. Or the next. Or the next. With the new baby I didn't have much time to worry about it, and I figured he could take care of himself. We wondered if he had finally had enough of Vin and decided to run away. We walked around the neighborhood calling for him, and I even went into some of the houses under construction and called for him in case he had been trapped. After about 10 days, he finally came home one evening, scrawny and starving but otherwise looking okay. Katie in particular wondered where he had gone, and was disappointed that we would likely never find out. Later in the summer Sam and I were out taking care of the lawn one day, when our new neighbor came over to chat for a minute and ask about our cats. She asked if we had a ...

This year I am going to give Katie something she has always wanted—holidays with just the family. I have always enjoyed spending time on Thanksgiving and Christmas with our extended families, but it's been a constant source of stress for Katie. With the move this year putting us farther from our families, it seemed like a good opportunity to start establishing our own traditions. I do the majority of the cooking for us (not to be confused with the baking; that is Katie's department), but I've never cooked a turkey before. I am looking forward to giving it a shot. And we won't have to worry about picky kids not eating someone else's food. It will just be the usual pickiness of them not eating our food.

One of my good friends posted to his blog after a long time, so I decided to follow suit. I know I'll never be caught up on everything happening, but I can at least share something. Having four kids is crazy. Seriously, what were we thinking when we decided one more would be okay? I guess I'll backtrack a bit here. On July 11 of this year James was born. This was a little different from us in that our other three kids are four years apart. But we're getting up there in terms of child-bearing years, and the last couple pregnancies took a while to happen, so we decided not to wait so long. And we were surprised at how quickly he was on his way. Anyway, back to the present. James is now four months old, and he is a pretty good baby, but he has his moments. Meanwhile, there's Clara, who is now 2-1/2. And, well, we've taken to calling her Cyclone. I don't know if we were just spoiled with our first two kids, but they didn't do a lot of the stereotypical n...