Alex's 6 Year Checkup

We took Alex to his yearly checkup today and he is doing just fine. He's over his ear infection except for a little bit of fluid behind the eardrum. For those keeping score, he was 48.5 lbs. and 45.5 in. tall - just at the 50th %ile for his age. He's growing up to fast - but at least he's healthy. He was just happy to have a checkup with no shots.

Castaway Bay

We just got back from Castaway Bay in Sandusky, OH. It is a hotel with an indoor waterpark attached. We got their yesterday, checked in and went straight to the waterpark. We broke for dinner and spent some time in the arcade where we won enough tickets to get a toy crab. We crashed in our room and got up the next day, checked out, and did the waterpark again until this evening. We're tired, but we had a lot of fun. For the record, someone else bagged the shark.

Our Year in Pictures 2005

This is a video I made using Photostory 3 for WindowsXP. It is a journey in pictures through 2005. It is about 11.5 minutes long but a lot of fun if you are a fan of our children, which of course are featured prominently throughout as they are what we most often take pictures of. I intentionally did not include pictures from my relief effort in Louisiana in October - I wanted this to be about everything our family did together this year. I may make a separate photostory with those. This video player is courtesy of youtube.com. If you have trouble playing it, make sure you have the latest version of Macromedia Flash Player installed on your computer. It is free, safe and easy to download from here. If it won't play, follow this link.

Decluttering for 2006

I've recently set some short term goals for myself that I try to look at everyday. A couple of them are centered around decluttering our house and my office. One problem that I have is that I never seem to have enough time. Time spent at the office decluttering is more time away from my family, for example. The problem with this logic trap is that clutter takes time anyway. It takes time on a regular basis to put it away, store it, move it, think about it, etc. not to mention the time it takes to recover after tripping over it. I think about it this time of year as we are giving and receiving presents to/from loved ones. We try not to give people things that would just clutter up their lives. We also try to integrate our new gifts with our current lifestyle and small house. Let me be clear, clutter is not necesarily trash (though trash most assuredly is clutter). Clutter can be old things that you've been packratting for years or a shiny new gift that you have no use for. Decluttering is not an event but an ongoing process. There will be events - like decluttering a particular room or cabinet - but it also involves planning places and uses for the things you do have and thinking about non-cluttering - avoiding clutter before it enters your life. An excellent source for learning about clutter and decluttering is just about any book by Don Aslett.
Starting this week and moving into 2006, I'm going to try to systematically declutter my life. I want my life, home and office filled with things that make me happy, productive, and at peace, that let me interact with my family and friends, that help me remove stress and not add stress. I want to share pictures and videos with those that care to see them, instead of just store them on a hard drive or on a shelf. That's one of the reasons I started this blog. Home decluttering will require planning and compromise with Becky. She and I have different perspectives on this sometimes, but we've made it work before. I may describe some of the process here if I think it would be useful. Decluttering pays dividends everyday. Time to get started.

The Wardrobe Beckons

Becky and I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe last night and we would strongly recommend this to all. I have always been a fan of the Narnia books. Becky has read this one and seen the animated version as well. This movie version was absolutely the way it should have been done as a live action movie. The performances were excellent by all, especially the children. The digital animation was great. Since several of the characters are animals, they could blend shots of a real pack of wolves running with animated shots of them talking without us being able to tell the difference. This effect was done nicely with horses too. There are some intense scenes and swordfighting violence, but virtually no gore. We didn't feel like we could let our kids see it yet, but at the same time we were eager for the day when we could show it to them because it was a great movie from a great book. I got Alex the book set for Chrstimas and I plan on reading them to him over the next year.

Children's Wonderland

We took this kids back to the Children's Wonderland at the Lucas County Rec Center. It is a large collection of displays of winter and holiday dioramas animated with animatronic figures. The highlights were the Christmas train and the talking tree that enticed us to sing "Rudolph" with him. Alex is still amazed at how the tree knew he was there and would talk to him. Aaron loved a large globe spinning from the ceiling above the Holiday Traditions of the World display.

Alex's Winter Concert 2005

Today was Alex's winter concert at school. THe entire preschool/kindergarten class performed songs they had been working on all semester so there was a mix of general song and rhythm exercises and Halloween, Thanksgiving, and of course several winter holiday tunes. The biggest hit (and kid favorite) was "All I Want For Chrithmuth Ith My Two Front Teeth". Alex was just getting over a cold but he did a great job. We were all there to see it and Aaron was very tickled to se "Bubba" up on stage. He even danced to many of the songs in front of his auditorium chair when the kids on stage were dancing and clapped when everyone else did. We can't wait for the spring concert.

Putting up the tree

We put up our new artificial tree last week and let the boys put some balls on it. It is 7 1/2 feet tall with lights already attached. The ends of the branches are shaped like spruce leaves which overall makes for a very nice effect. The lights have an attached foot pedal for easy on and off. The kids loved decorating it, though Alex tend to pick a favorite spot and cluster his ornaments. We redistributed them after they went to bed.