Here is Maggie in her (short i) I-I-Indian headdress. She cut out all the feathers by herself…and yes, that is glitter. It’s a very glamorous headdress.

For all interested parties, here’s what the black eye looks like now…I’m sure this will be very attractive in the yellow and green stage.

The past twenty-four hours have been one of the more brutal days in my sixteen months of raising one of our very own Future Men. Sean tells me there are many more of these days to come, and that they will be even MORE difficult, but I’m trying not to think about that right now.

The events started last night after one28 as Cal was running through the gym, very excited about all the “dodo” (basketball) playing going on around him. He ended up tripping, and in kind deference to his hands, fell directly on his mouth. This seems to be Cal’s favorite way to land, actually. He has already chipped one tooth, bitten his tongue badly a few times and split his lip more times than I can count. So of course, he started bleeding and was quite sad.

Okay, so that’s not that bad.

So then this afternoon, after a morning filled with normal falls and bumps, Calvin somehow got Maggie to help him up on to Geet and Bop’s bed so he could watch the one part of Mary Poppins that he likes (the dancing chimney sweeps, of course). I saw this, and being a wise mother, told Maggie to make sure he didn’t fall off while I went to start lunch. This proved to be a bit too much responsibility than a Mary Poppins obsessed 4 ½ year old can handle. Anyway, I heard a thump and by the time I got there, Cal had already gotten up, and seemed to be more angry than hurt (more motherly wisdom), so I told him to suck it up and be a man…which he promptly did. It was fifteen minutes later as I was feeding him lunch that I noticed the blood dripping off the back of his head onto his shirt. Here is a shot of his cleaned up head…


I guess this still isn’t that bad, but I thought it was plenty for me. Apparently, it wasn’t.

About a half hour after I cleaned him up, he and Mags were playing rather frenetically on the couch. Already having been proved as a wise mother today, I said something like, “Don’t fall off!” and thought that should cover any sort of trouble. Nope. Calvin promptly fell straight off the couch, eye-first onto the coffee table. By the time I picked him up, the bruise was already starting. He was so sad he didn’t even protest my ice application. The pictures don’t really do the swelling and color range justice, but here are some different angles to enjoy…



That takes care of the blood and bruises - on to the blades! Sean’s hard work is paying off…look at this grass!



The little feet aren’t too bad either.

My parents are in Southern California for a few (2, 3, 4…5?) weeks, taking care of their lovely business, and it is proving to be difficult for our little Magpie. She misses them very much and talks about them constantly. Her major concern is that they won’t be home for her birthday…which is in August. She probably doesn’t need to be concerned about that, but it’s still kind of funny. Anyway, she made this for them…


For those of you not fluent in MaggieArt, what you are seeing here is Bop and Geet’s business (the house shaped object) as well as a few renditions of their car as they are driving there. The writing (she got a little help with the spelling) says “ItS FRoM MAGGIE GG Bod”, which, when translated, means “This picture is from Maggie, GG and Bop”. I thought it was very cute and sweet.

We all miss you, Geet + Bop! Come home soon.

As most of you probably know, today is the one year anniversary of my father-in-law’s death. In Sean’s post today, you can read a little about the bittersweet time this is for him as he remembers his Dad. My sister-in-law has a great post as well. However, here at hobbsandbean, we are taking a straight-on happy approach to the memories…through goats.

Let me start with a bit of poetry…

The goat is still dead.

Being a wandering animal and being outside with the weather, gotchyer
was once again rain upon and got wet clear through to the goatee

We turn Gotchyer upside down to dry out but we were afraid that
the vulchers would come and devower poor Gotchyer.

- Dennis Higgins
(shared as originally typed)

Now that I have my nifty new camera, I am able to share with you the process of getting our nice family picture. In my experience, it has never been easy to get even two adults to look at the camera properly, so adding in two children is even more exciting. Especially when one of them is Calvin.

Here we have a couple shots that I took to get it set up before I joined the group…in this first one, Calvin is looking to see if he is able to kick Maggie in the head from his current location.


Here Calvin is using his patented ninja move to avoid sisterly affection.


And now we move into a set of pictures showing a variety of faces from Mags and Cal once the real picture taking started…I’m not sure what face this is from Maggie.


Or this one from Calvin.


Here Calvin has gotten distracted by his tie…which he strongly disliked. Maggie is getting wiggly.


Cal is not showing off his tie here, but attempting to rip it off. Maggie is being sweet.


And here, after realizing that the tie is not going to rip off, Calvin has decided to try chewing it off.


I think maybe this is an annoyed face because we made him stop chewing on his tie. Maggie has gotten tired of the picture taking and is hopping.


I have never seen Calvin make this face. I don’t know what it is.

By the way, for all of you that have been complaining about the lack of pictures of the entire family, HERE IS ONE. Enjoy it.

ears?



eye (and ear)?



nose (and, um, ear)?



mouth (and ear…still)?



hair (and NO ear)?



really dirty smiley face?



bad attitude after getting cleaned up?


Digital SLR camera : $900
CompactFlash cards : $60
Batteries : $20
Book for Complete Idiots : $15
Ability to take a series of pictures without wasting film : PRICELESS

I just got bunches of pictures developed (including a lost roll from the summer), and while I don’t have time to post any more than this, who could resist? Just consider it a teaser for the rest of the California pictures.

Dear Annie Grook,

Thanks for your letter. It was great to hear from you. I know what you mean about being busy. My gg and mama keep saying that I’m wearing them out with how busy I am. In fact, I’m so busy I haven’t even had time to learn more words than “dada” and “mama”. But I have gotten really good at signing “please” and “thank you”. And now I can even run, sort of. Basically it just makes me fall a lot faster and harder than I did before. But I like it. Speaking of things that involve my feet, I’ve got to tell you this: my feet are really cold. I snuck a look at your blog the other day and saw that I was getting socks…I was so excited. So I started counting the days until Valentine’s Day. I even threw away all of my other socks because I was so excited to get these fancy new ones. But I am glad that you were able to pursue some other knitting interests - I’d hate to keep you back from those. I just hope I can figure out a way to keep my poor little feets warm until you can send my socks. Thanks, Annie Grook.

Love,

Cal

P.S. My sissy says that her feet are cold too! Happy Valentine’s Day.

As Maggie was waving her magic wand at me in the Target parking lot today, she gave this helpful description of what was happening:

“My wand is wanding you around into a FROG!”

By the way, this is no ordinary magic wand…in it’s former life it was an integral piece of an orange-glo mopping system.

posted by SKH

Tonight Maggie (with the help of her mom) hosted a Gingerbread House Making Party for half a dozen or so friends. That meant it was time for Calvin and I to see what it was like somewhere else.

The “somewhere else” we chose to check on was Starbucks. I took Maggie to Starbucks on our first date when she was around ten months old so it was about time for Calvin and I to go anyway. After charming the baristas for a sticker, the Calvinator pounded his very own chocolate milk while I sipped (perhaps somewhat ironically) a Gingerbread Latte. Together we enjoyed a cranberry/white chocolate cookie.



I’m not sure Calvin is ready to call Starbucks his third place, but that’s primarily because he doesn’t even have a “second” place since he’s only one year old. It may also be because he isn’t speaking yet.

And for everyone interested, no gingerbread was harmed in the house-making party. Instead they used graham crackers glued to small orange juice boxes.

posted by SKH

It is a big day in a man’s life when he gets his first set of wheels. We celebrated Calvin’s birthday on Monday night (though he turned 1 on Thanksgiving day), and thanks to Grandma Higgins he is cruising like never before.

posted by SKH

We woke up this morning to a gorgeous 12 inches of snow on the ground and an even more glamorous Snow Day. After a hot breakfast and a pot of coffee, Maggie and I headed outside for some fun.

There are two parts to the following video. In Part 1, I throw snowballs at Mo from across the driveway. She’s standing at the front door, with the front door wide open mind you, and I accidentally threw one into the house. (Note Maggie making a slide on a mound of dirt as well as the huge snowman we made earlier.)

In Part 2 of the video, Mo and I decided it was time for our cat, Newman, to join in the fun. Apparently, it was more fun for us than him.

posted by SKH

Mo has been very busy lately organizing our house, actually, she’s been organizing and P-touching our entire lives. Anyway, she’s been a bit too busy to blog so I’m pinch posting.

A long time ago we began working on our yard. You may remember Mo’s post on roto tilling and my post on cultivating man. Though it was without fanfare, we did finally finish installing the sprinklers, cleaning up and leveling the yard, and then seeding and fertilizing on October 5th. Germination took a bit over a week and now we’ve got growing grass!

Here’s a picture of our front yard I took this afternoon. The gray skies make a perfect backdrop for the new greenery.
The dirt closest to the driveway will eventually be a plant bed so don’t be alarmed that it is grass bare. And though there certainly is much more grass propagation to come, there is already much grass celebration.

Not that there was any doubt about that.

Mostly in an attempt to burn up some of Maggie’s under-used brain power, energy and attention (all were beginning to be misdirected into various forms of mild troublemaking), we began a tiny bit of homeschooling this month. Maggie has been loving the Phonics Museum program and asks multiple times a day if it is “cool time”. Her favorite parts would definitely be any time we get to use glitter glue and getting to show off her homework at dinner.

Last night we went to Olive Garden where the adults enjoyed the never-ending pasta bowl and Mags got a “kid pizza”. She wasn’t able to finish all of her meal, so she got to bring it home in a little box. When everyone else began to write their names on their boxes, she was very excited to realize that the two letters she has learned so far are the first two letters in her name, which resulted in her first marking of food territory…

Ok, this really has nothing to do with our kids, but it’s too weird to not post it.

While this is very old news, I still think it’s funny. When my Uncle Herbert and Aunt Stuffy came to visit a couple years ago (hmm, when are you coming back?), they brought this article from Time Magazine that included the following picture of Bernard Ebbers, perpetrator of just a little bit of fraud…


Why is this funny?

Because this is my uncle…


But really, they are not the same person. I promise. A criminal mastermind would never show this much love to a stuffed monkey…

Maggie begged to feed Emmett his bottle after Tuesday night’s staff meeting and Katie was gracious enough to trust her sweet baby to a rookie four-year-old feeder. Mags did a great job, as evidenced by these photos…

About a month ago we got a “Wee Sing Bible Songs” cd for Maggie. I had the tape when I was growing up and really liked it. I am now beginning to see that because of my great affection for the songs, I probably drove my mother crazy. Mags has enjoyed singing a lot of the songs, and gets really excited when it is one that she sings at Sunday “cool”. One of her favorites is the one about Zacchaeus…here’s a little sample of how she sings it :

He cwimbed up in a sit-uh-more twee,
cause da Lord he wanted to see.
And as da Sav-or passed that way,
He look up in da twee,
and he said, “ZIKEA! You come down!
For I going to your house today.”

Hopefully Zacchaeus’ wife knew that you don’t have to be rich, just smart.

Maggie recently started in Awana. She is VERY proud to be a Cubbie, and every night asks if tomorrow is “wana day”. (Side note - this question always makes me a little sad - since we live in Washington, tomorrow is never “wana day” for me.) Mags has been a successful memorizer so far - it took us all of about two minutes to teach her the Cubbie motto and first verse. Anyway, this post really is just so that I can brag. Maggie (in her first day as a Cubbie, no less) got herself some very special recognition on one of my favorite blogs. For those of you who haven’t seen this masterpiece, maintained by Jesse Martin, you really should check out all the other quotes - pretty funny.

In case you are wondering, there is an explanation (of sorts) that goes with Maggie’s quote…but it’s funnier just to leave it without one.

Some of you may know that before Calvin’s birth, I was not sure if I wanted to get an epidural as I had during my labor with Maggie. I don’t really know what motivated my being unsure…I’m going to guess that a hormone enhanced fear of man played a large role. I also was wondering if maybe it was wrong to try to avoid the pain of the curse in that circumstance. Anyway, after a few hours of labor, I finally listened to my very reasonable, wise husband and got the epidural. And boy was I glad. (Now, if you are wondering what this story has to do with roto-tilling…or even curse-killing, hang on, I’m almost there.)

When we got home from the hospital, a brand new issue of Credenda/Agenda was waiting for me to devour. In that issue was this article, which has come to be my favorite, by far, from C/A - which is saying a lot. I finally understood, very clearly, what Sean had been saying to me throughout the epidural decision. While God is the one that cursed the process of childbearing, that curse is still a bad thing, a result of sin. We are not to take sin, or it’s results, as good or acceptable things, but things to be fought against, whenever possible. (I am not saying that every laboring woman needs to get an epidural…it is the principle, not the specific application that is important.)

As the article talks about, the dirt is another arena for men to fight sin and it’s results. My husband has been curse-killing this way for a long time. Here is almost-4-year-old Sean (and Annie Grook) showing off one of his very first weapons - his very own little roto-tiller.


Sean’s dad was faithful to teach him diligence in taking dominion…


Recently Sean has had more than enough opportunity to apply this diligence…we have been getting ready to plant a new lawn, and it has been a lot of work. Among other things, he has tilled for approximately twelve hours (still a few more to go), and for two of the twelve he was gracious enough to include Calvin. In case you have never done it, carrying a twenty-three pound baby, who insists on leaning as far as he can to the left, in a backpack while doing ANYTHING for more than about fifteen minutes is quite challenging.


Cal is checking on his dad’s progress here…


Posing for the camera - I love the similiarities between Sean tilling at four and at thirty-two. And look at that baby!


Okay, I have to include just one more - look at that little face. How could I resist? I do have to say that his little face was not this clean when he was finished.

What is our son hugging and kissing in this picture? Is it a new toy? Some sort of delicious treat for babies? I can’t really make it out…and is that a beaming look of pride on my husband’s face?


Oh, good, Calvin moved his arm so we can see the object of such great affection. Wait…these cell phone cameras aren’t very clear…that can’t be what it looks like.


Well, look at that, it is what it looks like. I guess the male Starbucks gene is a strong one.

And now to finish the series, we move on to Red Robin for lunch and home for cake.

At Red Robin Mags enjoyed licking a substantial amount of honey mustard off of fries while cuddling up to Aunt Nancy. Later on some of the waiters and waitresses came and sang Happy Birthday very loudly…she liked that too.


Back in January Maggie had found a magazine I had with lots of different birthday cakes in it and had selected a cake for Calvin’s birthday (ten months ahead) and one for hers as well (seven months ahead). She was absolutely sure that she wanted a Lollipop Garden Cake. I was absolutely sure there was no way she would eat carrot cake. So, we revised it a little - it was chocolate with green-tinted vanilla frosting. Here is my (sad) attempt to recreate her dream cake. She really liked it, and that’s all that really matters for a birthday cake. (If you are wondering why there are two cakes, at our house you get your very own miniature version of whatever cake or pie you want for your birthday.)



Here is the birthday girl blowing out her candles…the end.

Maggie has been content riding her tricycle like a maniac around our house and driveway for the past year or so, but recently started asking when she could have a real bike with training wheels. She had been watching the Greens ride their bikes and thought they were really cool. We told her that she could have a bike when she turned six - partly because that’s when Sean got a bike and partly because we thought she’d be too chicken to actually ride one. We were all pretty surprised when with just a little encouragement and direction from Boppa, a couple weeks before her birthday she was riding one of the Greens bikes with absolutely no fear. So, we decided to move the bike up a couple of years.

After we reminded her that we had said she had to wait until she was six for a bike, she opened up a package from Boppa and GG that had a bike helmet (with a lovely cat decal on it, no less), handlebar streamers and a basket. Our sweet child was so excited about the accessories, she didn’t even mind that there was no bike to use them with. As GG and Sean snuck out to capture the moment, I told her that I had left her gift from Sean and I on the front step. Here is the big moment!


Then she wanted to check it all out and touch everything. Here she seems to be performing a safety inspection…


Once she got her hew-meht on and we attached the basket and streamers, she was off and riding. She would stop occasionally to check on her basket-passenger, a nice little zebra.



Calvin, of course, was fascinated by the whole thing and wanted to get down to ride with her.


He loved it when she’d yell while riding as fast as she could, as evidenced by this picture.