Boo!

Misho's first cognizant Halloween. Viva la difference:

Last Year - 2008



This Year - 2009



He still retains suspicions of animal costumes put upon him. Who wouldn't? But he's definitely more relaxed and a gamer. Laid chill in his ride (stroller) for the trick or treat parade. Said, "thank you" in the most charming of ways to each house, except ours. Dada got a grunt. Ate a toddler's fill of candy. This had the expected effect - hallucinations, screaming, cold sweats, requests for water and cold towels, lots of "I love you man" and then he crashed.

All in all a great H-ween.

Here's some highlights:



A tiger roar or bowel movement. Not sure.



Mama having to be weird.

Again.



His m.o. for most of the trickertreater cruise. "so this candy is 'free'?" kind of look.



Mama in her nighttime candy distribution outfit. Or, Blanket Jackson escaping Dubai.

Happy Halloween everyone!

30 posts in 30 days

The Big Woo has once again been MIA. But now, I've somehow been self-compelled to participate in a blog challenge. 30 posts for the 30 days of November. I'm not sure if this is a wise expectation to place on my head, but I'm gonna give it a shot. If interested in joining blogpeople, here's the link: http://www.nablopomo.com/

I noticed Julie at "the eyes of my eyes..." took up the challenge and she has TWO kids. I would die and be unable to function with two Mr. Ms roaming around the house, so I figure, with one, I could squeeze a verbal burp out at least once a day.

The days are dark and rainy, winter is upon us, and that's the time when the Woo gets weird. And think how much weirder it could be with pressure (of some unknown origin) to write something, anything, every day.

My call for questions reared one. From the delightful PooPooFart gang in Oregon. I'll leave the answer to that question for next week when I'm dying for content.

Otherwise, Mr. M is doing splendidly. He can now walk backwards, or moonwalk, as I like to exaggerate.

More musings to come. And oh yeah! I'm going back to Ethiopia November 27th. More about that later.

In the meantime, here are some pics of the French-Pehlke men enjoying the fun of eyewear.




Shelby

The First Day

October 3rd, 2008 was the day we met our delightful Mr. M. The event was life changing, crazy, scary, amazing, wonderful, surreal and everything in between. Nothing in your life can prepare you for this. There is video but I can't figure out how to cut it down for sharing purposes. You are escorted into a room full of babies. A very good looking Ethiopian camera man video tapes you. A delightful woman in blue lovingly hands you "your son." Cut to emotional breakdown. The video shows two overwhelmed trembling tall people, pimping their best baby selves to Mr. M, while trying not to break down into tears.

We'll celebrate this day differently each year. Today we hung out over very delicious pizza, attended a b-day bash for Mr. M's BFF Asher, and watched the video of our first meeting. I gathered the M on my lap and clicked play. He gazed at it like something he knew but didn't and then some recognition of the main players took place. He seemed really into it for about a developmentally-appropriate one minute. Smiled a sweet smile the whole time, identified all the right folk, and then abruptly yelled, "car!", and he was off to find one of his rides. We'll try for a full two minutes next year.

Shout outs again to our fabu travel group. Nowhere would my meager, yet timely Sarah Palin impersonation have gone over so well. We were in Ethiopia during the whole the pres/vice-pres debates & global stock market crash fiasco. Ethiopians would kindly come up to us and ask if we had a home to go to when we returned. Frankly, at that point, who knew?

Tried to get a one year anniversary shot for the archives. Well. Here's what we got.

The Family of Spaz.