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I haven’t felt much like making entries and attaching pictures lately. We have a bazillion (thanks to the digital camera revolution). So here are a few of Caleb per the request of Tina.

Like the others, he does the fat bottom lip thing before he cries. I almost want to make him cry sometimes just so he sticks out his bottom lip. Thankfully, a little tummy time or not getting him milk fast enough is all it takes.

I like it when the kid sleeps. This happens to be one of my favorite poses that we call “touchdown.”

This was the blessing outfit. I was told I had to do the blessing on a given day or he would no longer fit in his outfit. And as we all know, the outfit is what is important in the grand scheme of the blessing.

OK, enough for now. Plus it is past my bedtime. I have many more little gems to post, manana.

I am going to see if Sally will go for this as our Christmas portrait. It might be the only picture we get with all of us smiling.

I know I said I was a bad dad when I said Caleb looked like an alien to me (by the way, he has grown out of that stage).

But I am a really bad dad because I can’t wait until Ava will sit down and watch TV. She is a major mischief maker and if a cartoon or other kid-friendly show is on, she has zero interest, which makes life difficult because she is constantly into stuff. And by stuff, I mean mess making, dangerous, or easily destructed sort of stuff.

So I can’t wait until she is willing to be a vegetable in front of the TV with Grace.

Sally sometimes calls Caleb “Little Man.” (By the way, not a real endearing nickname for a dude to all you ladies out there.)

Ava, who absorbes everything going on around her says, “HI MAAAH [HI MAN],” when she talks to Caleb

Grandma Doty sent me a letter in which she enclosed the memories of people on the morning of Sept. 11. I thought I would record my memories as well. Why not?

I remember it well because I was driving to school my first year of law school. I had Civil Procedure that morning, and I had been listening to these lame Lord of the Rings tapes that my mother had bought at Costco. I had made it far enough through them that I felt I needed to finish them. So the radio was off and adults imitating the squeaky voices of hobbits filled the interior of my Green Jetta. We generally didn’t watch TV in the mornings back then, so during breakfast I didn’t hear anything, and on my way to school I was listening to the Lord of the Rings…

I parked at the back of lot 57, which is the big mall parking lot at ASU. You take a bus from the lot to the school. As I got out of my car and went to the bus stop all the way at the back of the lot (it was advantageous to park at the back of the lot because you got to get on the bus first and therefore got a seat rather than having to stand), there was a kid who was talking obnoxiously loud into his cell phone about how much he was in support of Israel and how bad the terrorists were. The bus stop faced east, and the morning sun was peeking over the Superstition Mountains. I remember noting to myself how much of a dork that guy was. I distinctly remember thinking he was both a drama queen and that nobody was interested in his conversation with his phone.

To me it was just a normal day. I made it to school, got my books out of my locker and went to class with five minutes to spare. It was there I heard for the first time that one of the twin towers had collapsed. You can imagine my skepticism when I heard it, but when I learned that my fellow student was deadly serious, it was one of those moments where you feel scared and vulnerable for a few split seconds before the rational side wakes up and says “No Way!” to living in fear.

The teacher got to class and excused us for the day. Well, he gave us the option to have class or go home and follow the news. With such an option, it would have been unanimous either way. We went home and we all were glued to the TV for the rest of the day.

What is your memory of that morning? How did you feel when you heard and saw the images? Post as a comment, or put it on your own blog and post the link as a comment…

P.S. For my reasons why Iraq was the right thing to do (albeit stream consciousness ramblings at this point), see: Why Iraq Was the Right Thing to Do at Mecki’s Advice Column.

So I got into a bike crash on Saturday. I got a nice bump on my head (concussion – my helmet fared worse) and some great road rash.

Today, five days later, I discovered that my phone had also taken some bumps and bruises and wasn’t working. I don’t know anybody who would take the better part of a week to realize their cell phone was broken. Moral of the story: better to email me than call.

Ava is developing good manners. Whenever she is given something she answers with “You’re welcome.”

It has been a busy past few weeks. Time goes by without posting in a heartbeat. So with no further ado…

Grace and Ava don’t get nearly as much time as they would like with the baby. So when they do get time, they tend to smother him. See the attached video as well. (Ignore the baby talk from dad — I don’t realize I do it…)

And another…

And another. What baby doesn’t like to have their feet tickled by possibly the roughest tickling ever?

The swing is also a big hit. The girls seemed to have forgotten they each took upteen rides in it.

Ava felt like she didn’t get enough rides, however. She climbed in herself while nobody was looking (and after getting busted trying to do it on more than one other occasion).

Grace read him a book. In other words, she looked at the pictures and made up the story as she remembered it. Caleb really liked the pictures… oh wait, Grace didn’t bother to show him the pictures.

That said, she does try to be a little mom (a trait that we are working to cure her of) and is really sweet with him.

This was a Grace cheeseball smile when asked to smile for the camera. It was the best we could do.

Finally, the kid sleeps. He cries more than either Grace or Ava did.

And a closeup. In the next edition, we will get another close up to show what a pizza-face Caleb has become this last week.

“I hear a voice in my body… it is the Little Ghost.”

Lately Ava likes to play in “Nents.” You know, when you climb under a sheet and hold it up like it is a tent.