Marching For (and With) Babies.

Out of sheer enthusiasm, I've started a team to do the March for Babies walk in early May. I originally named the team "TdukkaMan & Wylet," them being a) the resident babies (um, Wilson and Violet) and b) funny names.

But then I talked with Josh, who had much better ideas on good team names. Here are his:

1) A Fistful of Babies
2) For a Few Babies More
and, the winner,
3) The Good, the Bad and the Babies.

Join my team or contribute here: http://www.marchforbabies.org/teams/thegoodthebadandthebabies

Goooooo babies!

Hi, Dada!

I am happy to report that Violet is speaking. Yes, she's under 8 months old, but yesterday she clearly said "Hi, Dada". Well, actually, she said, "HahahahihihihihiHIDADAdadadadadadababababa", but given that she's a tiny baby, I don't think the context is really that important.

In any case, baby babbling is totally cute and fun to listen to. Sometimes Nicole and I lay in bed and listen to her have these conversations with herself over the baby monitor.

Christmas Childrens

For everyone who hasn't quite gotten their fill of Christmas, here are a few pictures of Violet and Wilson and some family (we kind of dropped the ball on present-opening pictures this year; you can thank me later).

Oh Boy!

Given that Wilson and I sing together a lot and that he likes 50s and 60s songs (because they are often simple, repetitive and not too noisy), I suppose it should make sense that he named the polar bear he got for Christmas "Buddy Holly". I thought we might name it "Douglas" based on the tag, but, no, he told me that its name is Buddy Holly.

Things Kids Do

We thought you might enjoy some miscellaneous pictures of these kids doing kid things, including:

• Jumping into someone else's picture at the last minute;
• Showing off their first backpack;
• Taking part in a Christmas show;
• Looking like a model from the 70s;
• Cleaning ears;
• Getting stuck under the couch;
• Constantly confounding efforts to keep a safe sleeping environment; and
• Tongues. Lots of tongues.
  

Snowmen

As you probably know, we're in the middle of one of the bigger snows that I've seen in Washington since I've been living here. We got about 8" at our house; of course that meant plenty of time for them childrens to be outside enjoying the stuff.

Wilson and I even got into our first snowball fight: He and I were making snowballs (OK, I was making them and handing them to him) and we got tired of throwing them up in the air and at poles so I threw one at him. He looked at the white spot on his jacket and said, "Snowball at Daddy?", so I handed another one over and he got me square in the chest (he's got a pretty good arm for a two year old). Then we went inside.

Here are some pictures of the crowd playing in the snow (and yes, Daddy is too cheap to buy a real sled. I'm thinking I have a few more years before this attitude starts to cause significant social problems for them).

CRAWLING!!!

I'm happy to report that today Baby Miss took several purposeful "steps" forward, so I think we can safely say that she's officially crawling (taking her out of the sleepsack turned out to be helpful). Look for her to be crawling your way soon!

PS: I know we've been bad bloggers lately (mostly we know this because 3 different people reminded us); look for some pictures and updates coming soon.