Getting ready for Christmas

Daddy (I call him Dah-ee) got some boxes from the basement and brought in this tree that Mumsy brought from the ranch. Inside the boxes were all these little toys with strings on them.

Mommy put them on the tree and Daddy put on some lights.

My sister and I put on some plaid outfits and went to see this man in a red suit. I didn't like him. Mommy said he had a beard like Daddy, but it was all white and he was kind of scary.

Everyone said we were really cute -- don't they know we always are!!!

Mommy says this is all for Christmas. When is that? She says I can open some of the boxes under our tree then too. Christmas sounds like it might be fun.

My Little Sister, Alice (sometimes Gertie)

My sister sure is getting cute! She likes to put everything in her mouth now. Sometimes it's her finger, sometimes a rattle. I try to give her things to be a good brother, but mommy says she can't have them.


She has lots of clothes. I like this green dress because it makes her look kind of like she has red hair. She still has really big blue eyes, which is weird because mine are brown and mommy and daddy don't have blue eyes, but Aunt Catherine and Aunt Katie and Grandpa Harry do, so I guess it's not that weird.



Just like me, she likes to have her clothes off! Here she's trying to get them off, but she still needs help.

Fun and games...

There are so many fun things to do at our house. One day, I found some paper towels and boy did I have some fun! Mommy didn't think it was as fun as I did....



I really like hammers. I have three of them and sometimes I get to play with daddy's (but one time I got an owie on my forehead). Mommy likes this hammer. She said maybe someday I can have a bigger one and wear a robe, but I don't get it.



My Aunt Catherine visited because my grandpa Harry was in the hospital. Things got kind of crazy that week (mommy says that's why there's no Thanksgiving photos), but Catherine played with us too.


I really like to play after I take a bath. This is my cool ball:

I like to help my mommy with the broom. We have a red broom and a blue broom.

My sister is cute, but she's not very much fun. Sometimes she smiles, but mostly she just lays around.

My cousin Elliott is pretty fun, but not a great reader like Catherine...

Baths are one of my favorite things. It is so fun to splash and play. I can blow bubbles too!

But life's not all fun and games. Sometimes my parents say no, so I do this:

But it doesn't always work!

Halloween

So, my friend Kay gave me a cool hat after my surgery and one day mom made me wear it with a vest, a little window on a stick (magnifying glass), and a weird black candy (licorice pipe). Mommy said I was Sherlock Holmes, but I'm just Clyde.

My sister had to wear an orange sack with a face and some leaves on it. She wasn't very happy about it:


Elliott and my friend, Olivia, came over. Elliott borrowed my boots and hat and wore a crazy cow vest. Olivia had on wings. It was so funny how all our parents made us wear funny things on the same day!

Alice and I got into my wagon with some pillows and went with mom and Kay.


We walked around the neighborhood and my sister fell asleep.


Some of the grown-ups were dressed up too. This is Lisa. She is a blue rooster. I got to pick out some brightly wrapped candies to give to my daddy (but he did let me try some).


I stopped to look at Lisa's dog through the fence.

The next day a lot of my cousins came over and they were dressed up funny too!

Mommy gave Nora a matching outfit so she and Alice could get pictures. Alice kept crying.

Too busy...

Geez, there has been so much I wanted to tell everybody, but mom says she's busy so she can't help me punch the keys on her little machine that folds up. She can't be as busy as me. All she has to do is play with me and my sister.

There is so much I have to do every day. First I have to go into the kitchen and empty all the drawers. Then there is a cabinet with lots of plastic bowls that have tops and I have to empty that too, just in case something in there changed. I save my favorite cabinet for last because it has these silver things with handles that make lots of noise when you bang them. Then I go and see if mom left anything dangerous on the floor or anywhere I can reach. Sometimes she does and I just want to make sure she's doing her job! Then I go see where my baby sister is. Sometimes it's easy because I can hear her crying and I just follow that. My mom sure pays a lot of attention to that little girl. It's a good thing I can get her attention making noise in the kitchen and my room. I have a lot of toys and books that I play with. I really like books. I used to like to play in the toilet, but Mom yells at me and I have to sit in my crib, so I don't do that anymore (well, sometimes....).

Anyhow, there are some cool new photos below now that mom finally had time to help me. She tried to post a video of me, but she's having some trouble getting the new camera to talk to the new computer so maybe next time.

Baby sister is growing fast...

My baby sister, Alice (but sometimes Gertie), is growing fast. At first, she was so tiny. Here she is with some of the stuff Daddy grew in the garden:

She mostly slept all the time...
But, she started getting bigger. She started getting baths like me...

and looking around a little more...

She started stretching and really looking at you, not just into space.

Here she is all dressed up.

And here she is with her friend Marnie who's just a couple days older.

Marnie and her sisters, Riley and Mackenzie, came over. It was fun playing with them, but I wish there were some boys!!

SNOW!!!!!

Brrr.... brrr..... It got really cold really fast yesterday! Mom and I went outside because it was so crazy and there was white stuff everywhere. Even today on the radio they talked about how crazy it was!


Mom hopes we get a few more warm days before winter comes.

Animals...

We went to the zoo because they got some new animals and my dad (and Uncle Josh) made some cool benches to go with them. Here are the benches:


There were some cool elephants, but they didn't move, not even when I touched them:

You know what did move? The lion! When she saw me, she ran over and tried to give me a high five, but there was glass in the way. Mommy was kind of scared and Daddy was really surprised. They said that lion wanted to eat me! Another animal that moved pretty fast was the giraffe. It was scared of a squirrel and ran back to its barn. Here I am looking at the giraffe with my Auntie Shelley:

I like seeing all the animals and their nice new cages. There was even a little cage for me:

But I don't have to go to a zoo to see animals. Our neighbors got about thirty chickens. Mom thinks that's too many. Here they are, trying to come into our yard...

It took a week or so, but they finally figured it out:

Trips to the mountains...

I got to go up by the mountains to my Mumsy and my Grandpa Harry's a lot this September. Dad is working with my Grandpa now so sometimes we go stay at the ranch. It was colder up there. We went to mom's cousin David's wedding. It was really pretty, but I had to sit still for a long time. After, I was dancing with the girls. I was pretty popular! My Mumsy had a lot of her cousins come visit at Raspberry Ranch so we stayed with her for a whole week.

Mom and dad took me to a mountain lake for a picnic. I had fun climbing the rocks.


My Mumsy has lots of hats that I got to play with. Here I am in my own cowboy hat:


Lookin' pretty good, don't you think?

Here's one of the craziest hats I've seen. It had hair kind of like Mom's...

Mumsy has a special wooden horse that rocks for me and my cousin Elliott. I got right on and rode it. Mom was surprised, but I really got her when I started trick riding:

I was so good at that, they let me try the real thing and I loved it.

On another trip to McCall, Mom and I went to the lake. The first time we went there were lots of waves, but there weren't any this time. I just walked right into the lake, but Mom made me come out because it was too cold.

I really like going to the mountains.