Advent Panoply

Well, what with my being a grad school widow these past couple of weeks I've hardly seen the computer! So this is my account for lack of updates.

I suppose I could make two cute entries on different themes, to break it up and make it easier on the reader... but I won't. Takes too long :-)

On the first Sunday of Advent, we arrived to Church to find the usual Sunday school was replaced by Craft Time and Coffee. Everyone was making advent wreaths! Some wonderful people had brought sprigs from lots of different kinds of tree- spruce, holly, wild berries, etc- and we all got to make our own! I was thrilled. Here's ours, gimpy candle and all:

Once December hit, so did the snow. We had about eight straight days of gentle, light snow. Not enough to be an inconvenience; just enough to feed our souls.

Miles CANNOT get enough.

The babysitter has learned the best way to cheer him up is to get bundled up and venture out in the snow. That's my boy!

We love living here... have we said that?

I love photographing my church. I can't stop.

It's a law, all Episcopal churches must have red doors.

St. Francis blesses the snow.

Home.

They're ready. Bring on more snow!

Just last week, we got our midget tree.

We enjoy the lights being covered with snow.

Look at me, with a real chimney to oblige Santa for the first time in my life!

Miles ordered my to take this. He handed me the camera and said his generic command, "Da-da!" and sat down and smiled. Little ham.

He now knows the words "picture" and "smile." Here's what he did when I suggested we take another picture in front of the tree.


Finally, for those who made it this far, 1.5 minutes of Miles being far too silly. Watch at your peril... He starts with imitating "head & shoulders, knees and toes" and continues to a jog to his room and back, then degenerates into silliness spirals on the carpet.

Happy Advent! Welcome, Baby Jesus!

At this time of the roving year

Tomorrow begins another advent, Miles' 2nd ever. Ever. Parents, does it ever blow your mind all the things your kid has NOT experienced? We're working on teaching a few of the basics to our fast-growing almost 17 month old:

Cozy with Grandma on Thanksgiving holiday.

"Can I keep it??" We've been working on coaching him to pronounce the "S" in Santa...

And to help him to understand that Jesus is BOTH the bearded icon in his room AND the baby that will occupy the manger. Our manger is empty until closer to the big day, but I pull the Christ Child out from where the Magi are babysitting him on the other side of the room and show Miles periodically, so he remembers.

Reading through his kiddy Bible.

Finally, I finally caved and cut his hair. The mullet was getting a bit too comfortable here in rural Virginia :-)
Happy Advent, everyone! Here we go...

Cousin Weekend!!

We were delighted to receive as guests the Nicoloff family! Leah, Matthew and Abby arrived on Friday night and we were able to show them all around some of our favorite places in Blacksburg, as we've been longing to do! If you subscribe to their blog, you'll see some repeats. Sorry- but we did have the same weekend :-)

Abby and "Mouse" (Abby's pronunciation of Miles; his new nickname) are fast friends. Demure tub picture? Just after Miles kissed her :-)

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Saturday morning, the library!

For storytime and juiceboxes.

Leah's Christmas gift to Miles: A Noodle Box! He is finally starting to get that the point is not to get as many noodles on the floor as possible! He runs his cars in the rough terrain and feeds noodles, one at a time, to his plastic T-Rex.

What a beautiful family.

At Price House Nature Center, discovering the animals...

... and friendly art supplies. Wish we had gotten a picture of the puppet show Jon and Matthew improvised.

They got a LOT of play in.


After naptime, we had just enough sunshine left for an evening walk.

I live here.

In their Sunday duds. We walked home from church and the kids explored the yard together.

"Look what it does when I drop it!"

Miles is fascinated by the frisbee.

Cousin love in the treetops!

I seem to remember the opposite happening not too long ago...

Yes, there it is. July.

Miles shows Abby one of his favorite tricks.

Another lovely family, I think.

We did a really quick sunset trip to Hand in Hand park on Sunday night. Other than these sparse minutes on the "Chomp-Chomp," their equipment interests did NOT overlap.


I couldn't really help including this one. Best video of the weekend (and yes, there were several). Abby and Miles have a jig-off!

Miles seemed distinctly disoriented this morning. We think he was looking for Abby :-)

Adventures in Ordinary

No special events here, we just blogged to say we love you!

Miles' favorite hobby at the moment is making stacks of things, as well as fetching items, one at a time, from other rooms. Here, he combines the two and makes a stack on Papa:




Miles and Papa engaged in some ritual horseplay :-)

On Saturday, I made Miles some homemade "fingerpaint." It worked pretty well for his purposes, but next time I may buy some. The spreadability of the flour-based paint is a little lacking.

It took him a while to get it.

It was as if he couldn't believe he was actually allowed to touch it.

Sometimes I'm afraid I'm teaching him there's something inherently naughty about being messy. I hope experiences like this will counteract this message...


His 12 month clothes are now his mess-making clothes

Finally, a video. Look out, it's not censored. He's totally nude and in the bath. Just a warning :-D
Look who has a big boy toothbrush!

45 degrees and feeling fine!

Miles models his new cold-weather coat. Well, it's new to him :-)

The yard is looking different these days...

Finally, a video...

For all our family scattered far and near... well, mostly far. We miss you and we're doing our best to help Miles remember your names and faces. He's improving, see?

Halloween for Beginners

There are some who would say that 15 months is too young to go trick-or-treating. I would say that those people don't like candy enough. My kid can walk, he's going trick-or-treating.

He pretty much wore his dragon costume all weekend, first for the party at his daycare,
Then to the trick-or-treating on Saturday in Downtown Blacksburg.

See one of the Harry Potters (to my delight, there were several) behind him?
Local businesses allowed kids to trick-or-treat there between 4 and 5:30... more advisable than after dark in a college town, we thought.

Miles did eventually learn that the idea was to take one of the bright-colored objects from the basket offered by a stranger and put it in his stroller. We had a couple of stops he came away from empty handed because he wanted to give the candy to someone else. He thought we were just having an object exchange.

We did try to give him some! We did! Both Kit-Kats and Milky Ways have been staunchly refused. You know we're just weeping large tears over that, though. :-)

Happy Halloween!


Here is actual Halloween, at the library.

He's figured out how to teeter totter!

At the Blacksburg historic mansion...

"Can I knock on the door, Mummy? They look like they can afford some good candy!"

Had to close with a video because I love the way he trots around in his Halloween uniform.
By the way, we've told him he's dressed as a dinosaur, since he knows more or less what a dinosaur is. Our cat is named Dragon, though, so he gets confused about those... Just don't tell him dinosaurs don't have wings.


Happy Halloween!