the night before

Back home from Christmas with my side of the family and boy are we tired!  But even with exhaustion, we've still got some important matters to attend to, namely, we need to set out a treat for Santa because tonight is the big night!  Ledger was super excited about all the excitement that was going to happen the next morning, but actually fell asleep surprisingly quick.  Diana and I were thankful of that because we had a lot of gift wrapping to do!  Once we were certain that he wouldn't be poking his head around the corner, we pulled out all the gifts and wrapping that we had gotten for him- and wow was it a ton!  Diana always yells at me because we get our boy too many presents.  All right, I'm guilty of spoiling him with gifts, that's for sure.  I told her that every year I want the tree to look like it does when I used to wake up on Christmas.  She helpfully reminded me that in my family there were three kids worth of presents under the tree and we've only got one.  Oh, right.  Oops.  Well, it's too late now, huh?  I guess we will just have to spoil him this time...

brinkmas 2019

This year for Christmas we got together on Christmas Eve at Jill and Tim's place.  We promised- promised!- each other that we were going to take it real easy on gifts, only getting stuff for the kids.  Of course, that apparently went out the window immediately!  We got there and started snacking on the delicious appetizers Jill and Mema had made, and enjoying a bit of mom's famous slush.  The kids started by playing a fun game where they could earn different fun toys and gift cards when they got right answers, a silly game that Mema put together.  The kids loved it, especially the prizes!  Soon after, we all gathered around the dinner table and enjoyed some delicious food together.  It's always nice to spend some time with the nieces and nephew- they are getting so old!
Finally it was time for the main event: gifts!  We took turns giving out different prizes to the kids, interspersed with a gift for mom and papa as well.  Tim and Jill didn't follow the rules, of course, and got Diana and I something.  I shook my fist at them because now we feel stupid for actually following the rules and not getting them something.  One of these years we will learn that the rules are never followed...
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christmas lights tour

For decades they have been doing a special Christmas light display at the minor league baseball field in Grand Rapids.  I've always kind of wanted go but have never gotten around to it.  Last year I brought it up to Diana and she thought that would be fun, but we still didn't make the time to do it.  This year I wasn't going to make the same mistake!  We made plans with Savannah's parents and invited her and Matheson to come with us to enjoy the lights.  We were not disappointed!  The ride up was fun because Ledger and Savannah were being so silly together in the back seat.  Matheson, who's five year older, would just roll his eyes, but laughed along too.
The lights themselves were pretty cool!  There was a long and winding path created in the stadium's parking lot.  It was filled with scenes and displays of winter events and characters lit up, blinking, and glowing to fill the night!  There were 'ooh's and 'aah's the whole way through- the kids loved it!  After the light display we took the kids to pizza hut and chowed down together.  The kids were even more boisterous and silly than before, having so much fun just being together!  At the end of the night we reluctantly returned the kids home and concluded our late night adventure together.  Someone is going to be exhausted in school tomorrow...
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oh christmas tree!

We finally found the time to pull out all the Christmas decorations so we could Christmas up the house!  It took everyone a little longer than usual to get in the mood enough to put up the tree and everything.  This was our first year decorating this house and we were initially worried that our little apartment tree might be too small for our huge living room, but as we started to put it up we realized that a smaller tree looks just right in front of the windows!  Ledge has continued his recent trend of going shirtless... but now with a santa hat!  The cool disco lights on the top of the tree don't look quite as cool as they did when we had a twenty foot ceiling, but it'll do.  Now we are ready for all the holiday fun!
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christmas movie night

An important Christmas tradition in our household is watching the Muppet Christmas Carol movie- it's our favorite!  Now that Santa has visited our town, that means that we are totally allowed to watch it.  We made plans to have a holiday movie night together and watch it (for the first time this season, we usually watch it more than once...)  We all got cozy and had a ball- singing along with all the songs and getting ourselves in the proper christmasy mood!

the basement project

The unfinished basement has been serving as a storage area for us since we moved in.  We would go down there if we needed something, but otherwise it went unused.  I've been saying for months that I would organize it all and make a nice cozy place to hang out down there once I got a new tv.  My plan was to take the old tv and bring it downstairs and build an extra living room down there.  Once the tv is set up, then I would be able to take my time and organize all the stuff down there.  Well, now I've got my new tv- that means the next order of business is to get crackin' on that basement!
I talked with my brother-in-law about getting some spare carpet scraps (he's a carpet layer) from him and temporarily carpet as much of the place as I could for now until we get around to finishing the basement.  He came through with a bunch of really great scrap pieces- enough to cover almost half the basement!  I laid it down and set up the tv and blu-ray player so I would have something to watch while I got to work organizing!  The place is already starting to take shape!  Now we've got a nice corner with the old couch and a table as well as a carpeted play area for Ledger.  Pretty soon Diana won't ever see me again because I'll always be hiding out in my cold basement cave- especially in the summer!
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santa came to town

Every year our little town likes to welcome in the holiday season the right way: with a parade and a visit from Santa Claus!  Ledge and I braved the cold to be a part of the celebration.  We went downtown to watch the parade and happened upon a bunch of friends from his school!  We found a nice cozy spot next to them and cheered on the parade as it passed through town.  The parade path ends down by the boardwalk, where we get a chance to line up and see Mr. and Mrs. Clause.
Now that we've got that taken care of, let the holidays begin!
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a very special day

This.  This was a very special day.  One of the things that Diana and I had talked about when we sold the rental property and had a little extra money that I would be able to get a new tv.  I was excited, but knew I should wait until we found a house because I was not interested in moving it from our apartment on the 3rd floor...  Once we moved Diana said I should get the tv.  I wanted to make sure we could take care of our bills first and get ourselves a few necessities like a couch and bed.  Now that we got all that stuff squared away, it was finally time.  I waited until there were some great deals after thanksgiving and finally pulled the trigger.  It was finally delivered.  This was a very special day.  I got for myself a giant 75 inch tv for the living room, and boy am I excited about it!  our last one worked very well, but it was so tiny (55 inches) that there were times I could hardly see it from the couch.  Now though, now we are all set.  I also got a wall mount for it so we can take the whole setup out of the living room and make our huge living room feel even bigger!  Once it was all set up I pulled out Avatar, the same movie I had christened our last tv with, and boy did it look good- I was not disappointed!  Diana still shakes her head every time she looks at it, but she's starting to get used to how big it is.  This was a very special day.  Maybe in another 8 years I'll get another one that's 20 inches bigger...
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lets set sail

One of my goals during this trip to south bend was to round up and bring home all the stuff we still had in storage at Diana's mom and David's house.  We lived there for a little while after we left Griffith, Indiana, and since we hadn't had our own house since then we hadn't been able to take back everything that we had put in storage.  Well, now that we've got our own house, it was time to change that.  I made many trips up and down the ladder in their garage and brought down almost everything (I've still got my comics up there, but I'll be able to get those during the next trip).  One of the things I found while bringing everything down was a really cool playmobile pirate ship set.  We had actually been given it from a friend in Indiana who's children outgrew it.  At the time Ledge was too little to handle all the small parts, so we tucked it away and forgot about it.  When I took it out and brought it inside, Ledge and Tavish thought it was so cool!  They spend the rest of the day checking it out and playing with it together!  When we finally came home we brought it with us and Ledger continued to play with it for the rest of the week- all by himself!  That thing was certainly a hit!
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a visit with chuck

We were trying to think of something fun we could do with the boys while everyone was visiting.  At first we thought about going to see a movie, but their wasn't much in the theater that the boys were excited about.  So instead we went with the old classic: chuck e cheeses!  They were all about that!  I don't think we had ever been do this particular location, but that didn't slow us down.  We headed over there with them and got them all set to play a bunch of fun games.  The two of them had a blast together jumping from one game to the other collecting as many tickets as they could.  The adults might have slipped in an occasional game too, but just to pad out the ticket count, I assure you...
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tavish back in town

Only a two or three times a year does Ledger get the opportunity to hang out with his cousin Tavish, so when they come to visit down in South Bend, we always make a point of going down and spending as much time as we can with them!  The boys always have a great time together.  Tavish is a couple years older than Ledge, and he looks up to him as such a cool older kid, so the fact that Tavish loves to spend time with Ledge makes him feel pretty awesome.  The two of them love to play games together.  This is the first time they have seen each other since Ledge has been allowed to play Minecraft, so Tavish had the chance to show him all kinds of cool stuff in the game and teach him some of the tricks.
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chef ledger

Our little boy was getting pretty hungry, so we asked him what he wanted for dinner.  He said he wanted an omelet.  Those are pretty easy, so I asked him if he wanted to learn how to make one himself.  He was delighted about this idea and jumped off the couch!  We got out the supplies and we went through it step by step.  I explained what he needed to do next and he fumbled through each step doing a pretty good job for a first timer.  He handled himself quite well in the kitchen, making sure he was carful about the hot surface and making sure he wasn't wasting the food.  He was really proud of himself with the final product, but was a bit disappointed that he didn't get to throw it in the air to flip it in the pan 'like they do in cartoons!'  The finished product looked and tasted great- in fact his mama frustratingly said 'what?  That looks better than I could make!  How did he do that?!?'
Perhaps we do have the next great chef right here in our own kitchen!
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my family visits

We haven't had the opportunity to show off the new place to my family yet.  My parents have stopped by one or twice to see the house, but we haven't had them over since we got everything all set up and turned it into our home.  They came by- with pizza!  Tim, Jill, and the kids came over too and we got to show off the place a bit.  We showed them our rooms, the office, living room, kitchen, and the basement; we even got to show off our big beautiful backyard!  It felt really good to have a place of our own that we could show off to the family.  We chowed down on some tasty pizza and had a nice time just hanging out and laughing together.  Ledger had even hand-selected a few toys to keep the little one occupied, so the kids were all set too.
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daddy portrait

Ledger was drawing recently and decided to challenge himself.  His typical style is very stylized cartoony, but he wanted to try drawing realistically for a change.  He made the choice that he wanted to draw a portrait of me.  Um, ok.  He still wanted to continue with his medium of choice, pen, so there wouldn't be any shading or color, just ink lines.  I sat at the table across from him so he could study his subject.  Having had no formal training of how to structure a face using proportions and structure, I think he did really great for a first attempt!  Does it look like me? not at all, but there is something in there that he captured, I think.  See for yourself here!

trick or treat encore

Ledger had had a lot of fun trick or treating with Savannah and her family, but was disappointed that we were done so soon.  Diana and I gave each other a little glance on the way back to Allegan, and I asked 'well buddy, do you want to do some more?' His eyes widened, 'can we?!?'  So instead of going straight home we drove down to the busiest streets and pulled into a parking spot.  'Lets go!' I exclaimed to him, and the two of us were off!  Diana stayed in the car, trying to warm up.  Ledge and I went up and down one more street trying to get another round of trick or treating in before the night was done.  Pleased with his extreme luck, we happily came back to the car, victorious.  We drove back home and on our street we saw that there were still some kids going door to door.  I asked him as we pulled into our driveway 'do we dare go out for a FOURTH time?'  He screamed with excitement at the possibility!  So, we walked up and down our street, trying to get in as many houses as we could before the night was finally through.  We finally walked into the house, soaking wet but with Ledger beaming with joy at the fact that we went trick or treating four times in one night.  This will be a Halloween he won't soon forget!

trick or treating proper

Finally it was time for the main event!  Ledger was really unsure about our plans.  We had made plans with Savannah's family to meet up with them to trick or treat.  The problem that was really bothering Ledger was the fact that we drove over to Plainwell to do it.  He did not like that we weren't going to go to the same houses we go to every year.  His trepidation melted away once we pulled up and saw Savannah and all her family.  Now he was pumped!  We started our trek through the neighborhood trick or treating.  It was a little rough going because of the terrible weather- it was rain/snowing and very cold.  All the kids were troopers though and pushed through the unfortunate weather.  There was even one house that had a spooky maze set up in their front yard.  Savannah was up for it but Ledge was hesitant.  I said I'd go through it with them, then he was feeling a lot better about it.  They were kind enough to take it really easy on us and Ledger felt really proud of himself when we finished- he was so brave!  He actually wanted to go though again- now that he had faced death and come through the other side, he wanted another taste of that rush!  After making our way through the neighborhood Savannah's family was ready to call it quits.  We thanked them for a really memorable time and headed home.  Or did we?
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downtown trick or treating

When Ledger got home from school he was really antsy.  He had to wait another two hours before he would get to go trick or treating and it was killing him!  Knowing that something had to be done, I told him to grab his costume cause we are going downtown.  He was a little confused but excited.  We drove down and saw all the different people wandering from one shop to the other.  I explained to Ledge that all the shops downtown were having a time to trick or treat too!  He was thrilled with the chance to show off his costume and so we went to each place and he chatted with as many random people as he possibly could, telling them all about how he is a 'classic ghosty' this year, but now he's also wearing a witch's hat.  Some of the shop owners humored him and shared his excitement about the special costume.  By the time we made it all the way up and down the main street, he was so pleased about the unexpected extra trick or treating.  We headed home and he gushed to Diana about how much fun he had!  Well buddy, we are just getting started...
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school halloween parade

Ledger popped out of bed and excitedly exclaimed 'Daddy!  Mama!  It's Halloween today!' and the grin on his face stayed their all the way to school!  School has a special Halloween parade where the kids put on their costumes and walk all the way through the school, showing off to all the other students before they have a special Halloween party in their classrooms.  The parents are invited to come to the gym and witness the processional.  Of course Diana and I were there for it!  It was fun to see all the kids dressed up, seeing a lot of different cartoon characters portrayed, and a million princesses.  But to be honest, Ledger was the only classic ghosty in the whole school.  He was quite proud of that, too!  He ran over to see us after the parade, still smiling from ear to ear (or at least I think he was, it was kinda hard to tell under the sheet...)!
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big costume decision

For the past couple months Ledger has been really struggling with figuring out what he wants for his Halloween costume.  It's been a big challenge.  Ever since last Halloween he has said that he wants to be cat or a robot, but now as the big day approaches, he's not so sure about those two choices.  It's become a bit of an existential crisis for our little seven year old...  We've been telling him for the past couple weeks that he needs to make his decision so we can get started with making his new costume.  Well, he finally made a decision: he went with neither.  Instead he wanted to use the same costume that he used last year, the classic ghosty!  Except with one important exception, this year he wants to get a witch's hat for it.  We asked him a couple more times to see if he was certain and he was.  After the decision was made, he never wavered.  So we found him the perfect hat, and he was all set for the big day!

carvin' pumpkins

As soon as we got back from Gene's with the pumpkins, Ledge was all about carving them up!  We brought them to the kitchen sink and washed them off so they would be read to go.  Ledger grabbed a piece of paper so he could practice a few face ideas, and once he had settled on the ones he liked, we pulled out the sharpie and he carefully drew them out on the pumpkin.  He's not as interested in the actual carving part of it, asking me to do all the detail work.  I did tell him that I'd only do it if he helped clean them out.  He reluctantly stuck his hand in after I cut off the top and pulled it out with a goopy mess of pumpkin guts and seeds.  'yuck'! he yelled, 'Daddy, can you do the rest? It's gross!'.  No buddy, this is all you!  He did the whole first one, but I took care of the other one since he had cleaned himself up after the first one.
Once we finally got them all cut up and looking good, Ledger was all about finding that perfect place to put them out front.  He has been very vocal about his displeasure at how few Halloween decorations we have in the front yard, so this was his one chance to fix that for us.  Once everything was just so, he was content with the result and we called it a night.
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