un.....doo......free......

Oliver is now talking up a storm. No full sentences yet--although he did say "Jeffrey monkey says hoo hoo ha ha" yesterday to Kate--but tons of single words and a lot of two word combinations. He has always been able to get his point across pretty well even without the aid of extremely early verbal development that Cora enjoyed. We still have to translate most of his words when he's asking for something, but more often than not we figure out what he's talking about.

Numbers seem to fascinate him--last week in the car he counted to ten out of the blue. He had never counted past two before, and then suddenly, unprompted, he singsonged his way all the way to eleven. He won't do it on demand, only when he feels like it. If I ask him to count, he just says "no" with a little shake of the head. Two nights ago he was counting in his sleep.

Christmas Tree time

Introducing "Guava", our Christmas tree this year. It was 70 degrees outside and we decorated the tree with all the windows open. Very surreal.

The Haircut

Before (above)....
During......
After!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It's 7:30am and the house has been in full swing for some time now. Oliver and Cora are reading together and only fighting occasionally. We're getting to that stage where it pays to have two of everything. When one kid has something, the other one wants it, no matter what it is. We've talked a lot about sharing and not grabbing, and I expect it will be a theme for some time to come.

Some things we are thankful for today:

Kate was admitted to Belmont University to complete her Undergraduate degree. She'll start classes in the new year.

Oliver is getting his hair cut today. Aunt Sarah is bringing her scissors to Thanksgiving dinner and he will be sheared before, after, or during our feast. We have enjoyed every minute of his sun drenched locks, and until now they seemed too beautiful to cut. But just last week he crossed that mysterious line when you just know it's time for a haircut. We'll take some before and after pictures for posterity.

We're also thankful for our family and friends who have supported us as a family for the last six years. When Kate and I found out she was pregnant, we were living in a very different world. Ensconced in the buffered environment of Omega, still young and exploring possibilities for ourselves, having children was the last thing we expected to be doing within the next year. Other than Phyllis, our ninety year old friend at Omega who insisted a baby was on the way (and who is honored by Cora's middle name), no one else expected it either. Phyllis was right about the baby, and she was right about another thing too.

Phyllis insisted that this child would bring our families together. I still remember how stunned Kate and I were after breaking the news to our families to receive the instant support, love and acceptance that has never wavered to this day.

Kate and I often talk to each other about how lucky our kids are to have such a loving network of family and friends. They have both grown up in a web of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends that love them to pieces. And sometimes, when we emerge briefly from the thrill ride that is parenting, we let it soak in that this love surrounds us too. And we are very, very thankful.

Pictures

We're having trouble posting a photo from Flickr at the moment, click "Online Wingate Photo Album" to see some pics from the trip...

More Fall Fun

We took a much-needed vacation last weekend, consisting mostly of hiking, eating, dancing, and lazing about in front of a roaring fire -- not bad, eh? Pop Pop and Grammy Rena, Grandma Sally and Granddad, Aunt Anne, Uncle Nate, Cousin Mary Grace, and our Wingate crew converged at a cabin at Pickett State Park in North-Central Tennessee for our annual November getaway. Aside from said cabin having no heat (what are blazing fires for, after all?), everyone had loads of fun and agreed that the time passed much too quickly for our liking. Visuals soon...

Trick or Treat

Still Life with Dinosaur and Fire Hydrant

























Cora as Pippi Longstocking



















More candy, please























Post Trick-or-Treating Silliness



Well, Halloween 2006 was officially a success. Aside from a cranky dinosaur who refused to take a nap earlier in the day and a few minor wardrobe malfunctions for Pippi (her wig kept falling off!), much candy was accumulated by all. We journeyed over to Cora's schoolmate Ben's neighborhood for the evening, and boy, do they know how to do Halloween in those parts! One house even had the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas being projected onto a screen on the front of their house. And there were just droves of trick-or-treaters -- way more people on the streets than I've ever seen in all my Halloweens. My favorite costume (aside from Cora's, of course) was a sumo wrestler -- it was made out of the same material as those large blow-up yard snowmen and pumpkins and had a fan built in which kept it inflated. There was also a dad dressed up like Kid Rock. He had a portable amp slung on his shoulder and whenever his kid approached a front door, he'd play a rif on his electric guitar. It brought back memories of being completely embarrassed by my dad, who always accompanied me trick-or-treating with a paper bag over his head, with holes for the eyes and a face drawn on the front. Hmmm... maybe I'll do that to Cora and Oliver next year...

Happy Birthday Brian!

It's Brian's birthday (yay!), but we won't get to celebrate it as a family today because he's working til 10 tonight (wah!). While she was visiting us last weekend, Grandma Carol had the wonderful idea of bringing him cupcakes at the office on his birthday. It just so happened that he was teaching this morning, so his co-workers and I surprised him at the end of his class by coming in and singing to him, and then handed out cupcakes and juice boxes to his students. Susan even spanked him 33 times -- one for each year and one to grow on. He was sufficiently surprised and embarrassed, I do believe...