Santa's Lap

We thought we would be good parents and take Linc to sit on Santa's lap. Even though there was no huge mounted throne with a winding slide going down, or even any weirdo kids with adventure goggles plastered to their face, it was still quite the outing. There was of course, fear and screaming kids, we're just fortunate that our kid wasn't one of them. He was instead, the "oh see, look at that cute little baby, he's not crying" kid. (In all honesty I'm not sure why Linc wasn't screaming because while waiting in line we almost got pinned by a jolly spinning kiddie train.) I'm not complaining our kid is awesome; he waited patiently in line, sat on Santa's lap, and even let us take a picture. I'm not sure he really cared, but we felt like much more dutiful parents after the whole ordeal.

Goofy Hat Club

Anyone who knows Tyson knows that he's a fan of goofy hats, and he decided to resurrect some oldies but goodies. He is also trying his darndest to convince Linc to join his goofy hat club and well..he still needs more convincing.

I was so close...

Apparently the old farm house was on a bit of a hill. It also had a detached garage/shed/cow milking...place. This building was built into the side of the hill and had two levels so that the top level opened directly onto a higher part of the hill and the lower level to a lower part of the hill (next to an orchard, or maybe just an apple tree or something). I really only have one memory of being in the lower part where I understand they milked the cows (I have to say, the fact that cows were milked in there is something that is in my mind and I have no idea how it got there. Basically, I may very well have made it up but it does make the story cooler somehow, as opposed to my explanation just now...). It's understandable why I would remember this particular time in the milking shed. Why, you ask. Because when I was in there I found these:

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "that just looks like an ab roller exerciser thing and a gear." Well, to the untrained eye, yes. But, first of all, I'll have you know that there may have actually been two more wheels (but definitely not three because I know it added up to less than four) and possibly more than one gear, my memory on those details is a bit sketchy. Second of all, any kid can tell you that when you have a couple of wheels and some gears you've got about 90 percent of sweet GO-CART! The excitement of the possibility of tearing around the yard/neighborhood/city/world with reckless abandon, leaving everyone in the dust, and never having to walk again got my mind to racing (no pun intended (seriously, I didn't even notice until I read over it again)). All I needed was the last 10 percent:

• another wheel (I remember needing at least one more wheel, that's why I know I had less than four)


• a steering wheel


• maybe some sort of frame


• the rest of the engine (already got the gear part so I don't need to worry about that)
  
• ... that's about it.

Unfortunately, I guess I just didn't quite have the resources to push through that last 10 percent or, it was taking longer than my four minute attention span. Too bad though, that go-cart probably could have put me down the path to a rally car racer by now...dang it!

Hand/Foot/Paw Prints

When I was young we lived in this old farm house that according to my memory was right next to the freeway, and some sort of office building yet still had a field in the back with a stream running through it. It seems somehow contradictory or wrong but I definitely, kind of remember all those things (or something like them). Anyway, the stream is the reason we've journeyed back to the old farm house. I also had this older brother who was kind of a jerk (although I'm not sure he was trying to be in this particular story but either way, he gets his comeuppance later (that's some foreshadowing for you (I like nesting parenthesis))). On one fine afternoon I was out exploring the stream area in my stylish red galoshes.
The record (my memory) is a little unclear about the details of these galoshes but they may have have Sesame Street characters on them. It's impossible to say for sure but I like to think it was Grover, or Cookie Monster... or better yet one of each, let's go with that. So, here I was exploring my surroundings with Grover and Cookie Monster when my evil older brother came along and decided to show me how far he could push Grover down into the mud. Turns out it was pretty far which, I have to admit, was pretty cool for a minute. Then the novelty wore off and I wanted Grover back. Turns out Grover had grown fond of his new home there in the mud and felt no qualms about letting my foot go and just leave without him. So there we were, Cookie Monster and me just standing there on one leg screaming/crying (Cookie Monster wasn't crying, he's tough). Evil older brother? Gone, maybe for help but, I wouldn't count on it (I think he had Oscar the Grouch galoshes). Eventually Dad, or Mom, or some random adult came and saved the three of us from certain doom and there was much rejoicing.

We now venture from the stream to the driveway of the old farm house. Oddly enough, we still have water. This time it's in a kiddie pool. Man, I was having some fun times in that kiddie pool. I liked the kiddie pool. You know what else I liked? The kitty. So, what could be better than turning the kiddie pool into the kitty pool, right? Now, it is a well known fact that cats don't like water. It is also a well known fact that little kids, in this case maybe 4 years old, don't know well know facts.
Off I went to get the cat and help him get in the water. I successfully got the cat and successfully held the cat over the water but, my drop of the cat was somewhat less successful. He figured out pretty quick what was going on and the specifics of what happened in the following moments are a bit of a blur. I'm pretty sure the cat suspended the laws of physics and gravity as cats often do. I came out of the scuffle a little shaken (ok, I was bawling again), a little wiser (this is how well know facts get to be that way), and with a small paw shaped wound in my left elbow pit (don't act like you don't know where I'm talking about).

For our third and final vaguely related tale we head inside the old farm house to the kitchen. Let me set the stage for you. The players are me, my mother, and my evil older brother. My mother is somewhat upset. My evil older brother is weeping and wailing. I'm in trouble but I don't seem too concerned about it. My mom apparently was determined to help me understand what I had done so that I could feel bad about it. So, she lifted up evil, sobbing older brother's shirt to reveal the damage. Apparently, I had slapped him in the chest (who knows why but I'm sure he deserved it (this is the comeuppance I alluded to earlier)). The damage came in the form of a full, quite distinct, red hand print across his chest. The site of this probably didn't really have the desired effect since I seem to remember just being fascinated that I could do that by slapping him. From then on this scene came to mind every time I saw one of those super special hypercolor t-shirts.

This is probably the only time in my memory that I came out on top in a fight against the evil older brother. I'd like to dedicate the win to Grover and Cookie Monster.

Powdered Soap Pyramids

In the elementary school where I spent the majority of my pre-teen life we had these old school bathrooms. They had great big long water trough style urinals and manual paper towel dispensers that required you to go backwards a little bit before you could turn them again (which doesn't stop kids from using tons of it, they just get good at shaking themselves all over the place while they dispense a paper towel all the way to the floor as quickly as they can). The coolest part of the bathroom though was the soap dispenser, behold:

So basically, here's what you got; There's a main storage unit with this little stick doohickey hanging out of the bottom. If you stick your little hand under there, palm up, and ram the doohickey up toward the main storage unit about half-way up before it stops it'll drop a small deposit of white pixie dust into your hand. Hooray! But wait, there's more. As you're releasing the doohickey back to its original position a second gift of powdery goodness is delivered to your outstretched hand. Oh joy! At this point you have a decision, you can either:

a). wet your hands and proceed to wash with the accumulated amount of pixie dust or

b). pump the magic doohickey another time or two (or 80) just to make sure it doesn't start coming out purple or something... cause that would be cool.

Either way, eventually you get to use the inevitably still white powder to get your hands super clean. Your hands aren't super clean because the powder is made of penicillin or anything, they're clean because the powder/sand scoured off the top three layers of your skin. The new pink skin underneath is the cleanest.

The really cool thing about this soap and its aforementioned dispenser however has to do with a fairly well known glitch in its dispensing mechanism (I've decided that if you took advantage of this glitch as a child you can feel free to consider yourself an "analog hacker"). The glitch goes like this, if you use only one finger to press the doohickey, instead of the intended open hand palm up, the powder packet will not find a welcome home in your filthy palm but instead will continue downward until stopped by some other object (usually the floor, sometimes a sink). Furthermore, failure to bring the doohickey into it fully upright and locked position instead stopping mid packet release causes the dispenser to actually continue dispensing powdery goodness forever (or until it runs out of soap, whichever comes first). The product of this constant stream of powder is a small but growing Powdered Soap Pyramid. Ants will marvel at its beauty and ponder its origins, and the janitor will consider it further justification for his hatred of children.

We got the InterWebs!! (and a new house too)

So, I guess something worth blogging about happened to us and it's been like three weeks so I should probably actually do it. I took some pictures of the house the first day or two that we had keys but I apparently didn't take any of the inside. So, you'll have to wait on those. But, here's some pictures anyway.

Front of the house (in case you hadn't figured that out):


Gotta do that:



View from the back door:




Back of the house:


Apple tree and the fire pit is over there by those sittin' logs:


I think the first time we roast marshmallows they might have a nice smoked apple taste to them:




Here's Lincoln enjoying the backyard:






Here's the damage:


This was Lincoln's first Oreo a little while ago:




And then this is just pure awesome:


Yes he is wearing black socks and a button up shirt, no he is not wearing pants. He's hardcore.

Tubbin Time!

Maybe this is a good time to mention that one of my goals with this blog is to find pictures that I think will most embarrass Lincoln when he's in junior high and then post them to the Internet before he can do anything about it. And with that introduction, let the humiliation begin:


Lincoln had been eating a chocolate chip cookie, can you tell?

Lincoln Pics

These are just some pictures we've taken in the last little while.

This is Lincoln eating peas.






He much prefers pears...

Or rice crispy treats.

Sometimes you got to get some work done.
Lincoln likes to IM his Dad while he's at work.
He'd get more work done though if his mom would quit buggin him...

We're going to Disneyland!!!! (or went actually)

So, I haven't blogged for a while because I was afraid that I really couldn't live up to the awesomeness of the last post. That's my excuse anyway. That and we really don't take as many pictures as we should. So, we had a good excuse to take pictures over the last week while we where in California at Newport Beach and Disneyland. And so, here are some of the pictures:

Getting ready to take a little walk around the grounds in Newport:


Lincoln is really good at making raptor noises so, we thought we would try him out on some raw meat... Then I thought maybe I'd just feed him some licorice instead.


He liked it quite a bit.


We did wander down to the beach and Lincoln put his feet in the water so he has at least kind of been in the ocean. He's touched it anyway. If we ever need any sand from the beach there to prove we were there it's still all over the stroller so that's good...



The first thing we did when we went to Disneyland was go see Mickey. I believe Lincoln actually saw Mickey in real life before he ever saw him on TV.


The night before Angel and I had actually gone into the park for a few hours without Lincoln and we got him his mouse ears.


Since Lincoln is pretty much the cutest kid who ever lived of course he got plenty of complement and general comments about his cuteness. Then when you put the mouse ears on him the rate of comments raises dramatically. So, you can just imagine what happened when we sat down on a bench and brought him out like this... (I couldn't decide on one picture so you get all three.)




Lincoln really liked the bright colored rides like Winnie the Pooh but mostly I think he just liked all the attention and being carried around.