Thanksgiving Post

Lil Helper

These are pictures of Aiden "helping" us put away groceries. His assistance included grabbing an orange and sinking his teeth into it.




The pictures are more than a week old, but I didn't have time to post them until now (my interim blog activity was devoted to making fun of our dog, see post below). And for good measure, I'm tacking on a couple recent pictures of Aiden with his mom and his dad:

Kiwi: A Profile in Photos

All Behind (Like a Fat Woman)

I'm behind on posting these pics, sorry for the delay. These were taken a while ago, and are the most up-to-date images we have so far of The Nugget.

The latest ultrasound answered the question we've been longing to know the answer to: pink decorations or blue? On second thought, I see a lot of guys wearing pink these days. Its made a comeback. Must be because of that remake of the Miami Vice movie.


So to put it a different way: should we buy dolls or a baseball bat? Meh. GiJoe action figures are technically 'dolls.' Additionally, if its a girl I'll still need to buy the baseball bat to scare off the inevitable flood of boys.



Softballs of hardballs? That doesn't work, considering all the softball leagues out there for middle-aged guys.

As you can plainly see, its a boy. Our ultrasound tech made that fact very clear through a very direct use of the mouse pointer.

Aiden is about to have a little brother! This evening Aiden was sleeping on Colleen's lap, draped over her belly. From inside, little Nugget was kicking out at his big brother. The sibling rivalry has begun already!

A Tribute

The world has lost the most awesome cat ever. Last Wednesday, my sister had to put down her 13-year-old cat, Sasha. I'm not much of a cat person, but Sasha has always been the exception to that rule. She was a tiny kitten when my sister got her, and she grew up to be a gigantic heifer -- she ultimately maxed out at a whopping 18 lbs. (In comparison, Kiwi is only about 8 lbs.) And Sasha's mass wasn't solid and sturdy; picking her up was like holding a bag of pudding. So awesome.

In addition to her physical glory, Sasha's magic included a very unique personality. She was hilarious, and I'm not just saying that because she was my "niece." Here's an example -- just try to tell me this isn't funny: Sasha figured out what the bathroom is primarily used for, and then, accordingly, she trained herself to pee in the sink. Gross, sure, but it was sooooo funny to walk into the bathroom and find a cat squatting in the sink, mid-pee, especially because this maneuver was entirely Sasha's idea. (I should add that this was a short-lived phenomenon. For whatever reason, Sasha un-trained herself from using the sink as her personal pee pot.)

The final thing I want to memorialize about Sasha is a strange quirk that maybe only my sister and I recognized (everyone else seemed to think we were crazy when we pointed this out): Sasha's head always smelled like honey. Seriously, if you put your nose up to her head, and gave it a whiff, you'd smell honey. Or, my sister and I did, anyway. (For the record, it was confirmed that Sasha's head still smelled like honey through her very last day.)

So, here's to the most awesome cat I've ever known. Sasha added a lot of joy and humor to the small universe of people who knew her, and she will be missed dearly.