More Jujitsu

I just love the reaction to his victory.
__________________________

Later that same day.
Indiana to the other boy:"Oh, no you don't"
Other boy:"Yeah, I did."
Thanks for taking the movie, mom.

Happy Birthday

Part of the Christmas season for us the last 7 years is celebrating Indi's birthday. But I'm determined to make it a separate day, no tree wrapping paper, no red and green decorations, no putting it off until after the holidays. So far--so good. This year he chose a Wall-E theme. Yes, it was low-key, but it sure was all about him.

"birth"day

one

two

three

four

five

Greg Gibby, A.S.A

This Summer Greg passed enough exams to become an A.S.A. Officially it means he is an Associate in the Society of Actuaries. Unofficially it means that I can brag about his hard work. He studied for days and weeks, months and years so that he can now sign papers and have more responsibilities at work, as well as more letters after his name. We've been so busy this year that I didn't realize that I hadn't mentioned it on the blog. I am correcting that now--who knows? maybe someone out there wants to know about the parents of Indiana and Mimi:)

The above picture is from the out door Bar-B-Q party we had in his honor. It of course poured and poured rain with thunder and lightning. We adjusted and crammed everyone into our little place. The food stayed dry, but most of the people did not.

Way to go, Greg!

paint

Dinning room/Lego room paint possibilities. Hmmm, what do you think?

light work/work light

Christmas Dinner

Curler-head--just like Grandma!

Mimi in Granddad's boots.

I'm not sure what the real phrase is, but when you have many hands, LOTS of home improvement projects do actually get finished! I'm sad Christmas is over, but I'm happy to remember the fun things we did (including all the holiday festivities!): changing light switches and outlets to be a consistent white with white plates (instead of the ivory/white mix), painting the (empty) living room a peaceful buxton blue, changing the walls in the living room/entry way, and getting a good start at the popcorn ceiling removal.

Thanks for all you help Mom and Dad, Tina and Sonya!

Christmas Photo

Merry Christmas From Mimi and Indiana!As we struggled to take a Christmas photo this year, Aunt Sonya thought of a way to help them

stand up straight:"Stand like a Storm Trooper!"
Mimi and Indiana immediately pointed their hands like blasters and made blaster noises.

What Christmas involves

Making ornaments


Cuddling
and home renovations?
And Mimi "helping" out

Baby R2D2

Family in Town

Mostly we wrestle
Mimi:"Help me, Superman!"

Bob Dylan

Mimi's Bob Dylan-inspired Clean-up Song.
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Another first, we finally have room for the encyclopedias we've been carrying around for 7 years in boxes. I've heard tales of Greg reading the encyclopedia as a boy. When my parents moved away from their beautiful home in NJ they got rid of a lot of stuff and one thing was their set of encyclopedias. Greg asked for them and my parents were happy to see them go to someone instead of the dumpster. We had a question about flag etiquette and we thought we would look it up, well the computer was off, so I surprised Greg, he of course loved it looking it up in the written form.

Preparing for Christmas

At my favorite garden store, picking out the trees--we went with the expectation of Boston Christmas tree prices, and we were surprised buy Ohio's smaller prices, we went ahead and bought 2!
Mimi:"A baby tree!"
Indiana:"A big boy tree!"

Mimi:"Santa lost his sock!"

We continue our firsts with our first house. Our neighbor's advice for hanging up lights: "Don't start."
Greg went up on the roof, I offered moral support from the ground and carried a phone in my pocket, just in case.
Indiana keep us entertained with LOUD Christmas songs he has learned at school and church.

More Jujitsu

Indiana showing us something that he has been practicing.
"That wasn't weird"

Mimi Eats

Eating a hot dog like a cob of corn.

"My gigner the boon" [My finger is the spoon]

1 down 19 to go.

Indiana pulled his first tooth out.

Exhibit A: The Tooth

Exhibit B: Gappy Smile

New Edition

I heard some laughter and this is what I found. Mimi:"I get down now." See her white-knuckling her knee? She seems brave, but she also has times of being scared.

Late Monday Post

Mimi:"You da bread, I da cheese". A Gibby sandwich. I was late again with my Monday post, a whole day late this week, here's why:

We put in 9 NEW windows! We even replaced 2 replacement windows. I feel a difference already!