Guess who climbed out of her crib today?

You guessed it. Miriam is developing some gymnastic ability.

Toddler Antics

I left the room for three minutes to check my email. Upon my return I
found Miriam (17 months) sitting on the livingroom floor along with
the partial contents of a bag of sugar.

A couple of weeks ago I found her on the kitchen floor pouring a
bottle of dishsoap into her lap.

I keep finding random objects in unusual places, like a bag of rice in
my suitcase when I was unpacking from our last trip.

On the other hand, she's getting to be helpful too, like picking up
the junkmail catalogs and delivering them one by one into the trash.

She's also learning the Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes song. So far
she's got the "heads" and the "clap hands" parts down.

She still gives nice hugs, so if you visit, you might get lucky enough
to receive one.

Baby Duo

Miriam has a little boyfriend whose hand she grabbed hold of during
sundayschool and took him for a romp. His name is Miles. He brought
his mommy over for a playdate last week as well and we discovered they
like the same toys.

Pictures of a Florida Christmas 2010

Louise making her first assessment of the Florida gulf coast beaches--Not too bad! The white sand is definitely a plus. Even on a wintery day it was tempting although thoughts of gators crossed my mind too...Miriam on an exploratory mission in her winter woolies.Family picture in front of the St. Marks Lighthouse on the Florida gulf coast. It was the coldest Florida winter in many years.Miriam on Daddy's lap.Miriam playing with her new friend, the neighbor's doggy under the Christmas tree.

Matkin cousins with Miriam playing chess.

Tales of a Florida Christmas – Part Two: Old McDonald had a Farm and a new oven

It was a miracle that Miriam was so good throughout the drive from
Fort Worth to Tallahassee (about 14 hours across Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Alabama). The highlight of the trip (Joe and I agree)
was just spending time with Alyson and the family, but we had several
fun adventures meanwhile. You've already read our best biking story,
but we also took a few more bike trips to Tom Brown Park as well as a
memorable bike date that Joe and I took alone from Tallahassee to St.
Marks. That one was forty miles round trip with a stopoff in St. Marks
township for some famous fish burgers. We also took a drive to St. Marks on a different day to visit the lighthouse and the gulf beaches.

Alyson cooked us up some tasty food while we were visiting,
notwithstanding that her oven was out of commission for most of the
time. In fact, Alyson had a near miss when an electrical surge and
fire instantaneously burned a hole clear through her new steel pot! No
more pot and no more stove, but thankfully Alyson escaped the blast
unscathed.

That was the lowlight, now for the highlight:

I think Miriam's highlight was firstly having three cousins to play
with and not least (I'm certain), playing with the schnouzer they were
dog-sitting for the holidays. That girl loves dogs. Miriam's first
words are "mama", "dada", "nana" (for banana and most anything
food-related) "night-night", and "didi"—her closest approximation to
doggy. She also has her own high pitched squeaky version of "woof
woof" too. She understands most things though and has begun following
directions like "Put it in the trash" or "Go get your ball." While I'm
on the topic of Miriam, her current most endearing qualities are that
she frequently gives hugs and pats on the back or comes and sits on my
lap.

So, now that you've read all that cutesy stuff, let me also say that
in Florida we saw alligators! We also saw manatees; For those among my
reading audience who are as uninformed about these things as I was
heretofore, manatees are large seal-looking creatures with flat
beaver-like tails and they bob around in the Florida waterways in the
winter time. The manatees were our most exotic animal sighting.

We also encountered a couple of fat cats at a New Year's Eve party at
a friend's house and some very tame speckled chickens at a neighbor's
house. For the record, you might also enjoy reading the following true
story: My brother, Dean owned some Chinese silky chickens once… A
python slithered into the hen house, swallowed Henny Penny and was
then too fat to slip back out of the chicken coop, so that's how the
culprate was caught—Don't ask me what they did with him.

No pythons spotted on this trip though. However, we did see a couple
of movies in the dollar theatre (which is really a three dollar
theatre): Despicable Me and Mega Mind. Both were good. I liked
Despicable Me best because the characters were endearing. I'd like to
go buy the classic book The Three Kittens which the old crotchety guy
reads to the orphan girls in one of the movie's best scenes.

Alyson and I also had several fun nights staying up to watch her
favorite movie, Wives and Daughters. FYI, any of you Pride and
Prejudice fans out there, Wives and Daughters is a must see movie
based on a book by Elizabeth Gaskell and I dare you to watch it and
not agree that it's even better than P&P. I'm currently reading North
and South, another Gaskell book.

Joe and his nephews had some daily boy time playing Wii games plus a
couple of trips to the laser tag place. Thus, fun was had by all.

Thanks Matkins for a wonderful visit and vacation.

Tales of a Florida Christmas - Part One: Bike Blooper

Cruising along down a Tallahassee back street, we were out for a
family bike ride. Joe and I led the way on our tandem pulling Miriam
and Molly in the trailer followed by Samuel, Atticus, and Joe's
sister, Alyson. We were having a great ol' time.

All I heard was "oh no" closely followed by a whooshhhhhh….

And there we were with our tires myered in wet cement.

[pause for your reaction]

I thought we were about to be yelled at, but off yonder a workman
called out "Now that's something you'd only see on television!" I'm
glad he was apparently in the Christmas spirit as he helped us hose
off the tandem tires before we rode off and he and his buddies got to
resurface the cement.

What a crack up!

A Weekend for the Blog

Last weekend was fun-packed. Geneal and Russ came from Utah to visit
with their youngest son, Aaron (two and a half years old). Russ was
here for a medical conference, but Geneal and Aaron were free to play
all weekend long, so that's what we did. Here's the lineup of
activities:

*Thursday night went out for Kincades hamburgers, a famous local spot.
*Friday our Aussie friend, Sandra (Donaldson) Johnstun came over from
Plano and we spent the majority of the day wandering the Botanic
Gardens, including eating lunch at the garden restaurant and enjoying
the beautiful weather. (Lunch was ideal since we ate out on the patio
where the kids could still run around).
*Friday evening Geneal and co. went to Sandra's house in Plano while I
had an evening at home reading. (Joe was in San Antonio that day
giving his grueling yearly presentation to his PH.D. board).
*Saturday morning was the most fun—Joe drove back early and we took
Geneal on a tandem bike ride to Trinity park where Aaron and Miriam
fed the ducks and played at the playground and we had a Subway
sandwich picnic (courtesy of Joe the delivery man) before riding back.
*Saturday afternoon at the stockyards, watched the longhorn parade,
heard some bluegrass music, and bought some original Dr. Pepper
drinks.
*Saturday night: Risky's Barbecue for dinner and Joe was nice enough
to watch the kids while Geneal and I went on a shopping spree. I
bought some Christmas presents, some new shoes, a new workout shirt,
and Miriam's next year Halloween costume at 75% off! (a doggy costume
for a whopping $3.75)
*Sunday went to church in the morning and to the Water Gardens in the
afternoon before the Utah folks headed home.

One additional thing to note is that Aaron was a good boy and very
nice to Miriam all weekend, even when crammed like two little sardines
in the bhike trailer. He even picked out a balloon for her and
insisted that it be pink. I think he got a little jealous of her at
church, but managed to contain himself. I'm very proud of him. I knew
they'd be friends some day.