But speaking of calendars, some will remember that I won a naughty calendar giveaway from Eva at Wrestling With Retirement. As she explains here, the calendar is a fundraiser featuring men from York, Maine. By popular request, here is Mr. January.
Christmas Day was wonderful....Peter and I spending a quiet morning, then him cooking and us getting ready for the kids, who arrived mid-afternoon.... 
I just realized what I want to give my blog friends for Christmas....
Several of our ornaments are really old, including the foursome seen here. The Father Christmas figure was on Peter's great-grandmother's tree back at the turn of the century (1900, not 2000). He found an identical one in an old farmhouse he was cleaning out years ago, so we have two of them. The little house was on his parents' tree, as were the two glass ornaments. My parents had many of the striped orbs, too, so the few we have are meaningful to me as well. 
The elaborately antlered reindeer in baseball togs is a new acquisition in honor of Blitzen and of our great passion for minor-league baseball (specifically, the St. Paul Saints). Behind this guy is a satin-trimmed styrofoam ornament I made when I was about 13. My mom got the idea (and the pattern for the six satin segments) from Good Housekeeping, which she and I studied every year for new decorations and recipes. Several of my siblings made ornaments; I have three that I made, and I'm still very fond of them.
Last year our son-in-law's mom sent them some reusable fabric bags. We loved them, loved the whole idea. I ran out and bought tons of fabric (I'm good at buying tons of fabric) and then forgot about it until Thanksgiving. So I haven't made nearly as many as I wanted to, but some is better than none. 
...I've taken a few pictures, I finished shopping, and now I just have wrapping... which is more complicated than it sounds, but more about that another day.
We use YouTube to expose the grandbabies to different kinds of music. It all started when we were reading The Hungry Caterpillar to Augie five times in a row every day. (Us: "The end." Augie: "Again?") At some point we livened up the list of Saturday foods (pictured) by asking "Do You Want a Pickle" and singing Arlo Guthrie's old Motorcycle Song. And then the Chordettes' Lollipop. As you can see, they are relevant to the story. 
I love Target. The first-ever Target store was a mile from my house (it's been replaced by a SuperTarget). Their headquarters are still local, their policies are a little more progressive than other big-box stores, and returning stuff is easy so it's a good place to buy gifts for people you don't know well (such as the families for whom I shop each year). Oh, and the merchandise is pretty good, especially when you don't need top-of-the-line, which covers a lot of ground. 
I am delighted to report that Vi is developing an appropriately positive awareness of herself. I'm pretty sure nobody else worried about this, but I can explain. You see, until just the last couple of weeks, she didn't care much about seeing her own image, either in pictures or in the mirror. Ask her who she saw and she'd say "Augie," or "Augie and Grandma," as if she was invisible to herself.
Augie was sitting on the potty chair, drumming on a step-stool with his fingers. I said, "Can you make a tiny noise, to wake a sleeping bee?"
A nudie calendar arrived in yesterday's mail. It's one of those fund-raising projects, this time featuring men who live and work in York, Maine.
Shortly before she died almost 30 years ago (and I still miss her) my mother embroidered ornaments for me and my siblings. I have about a dozen including this poinsettia, two Christmas trees, a star, an angel, a wreath, and others. Of course I carefully distribute them around the tree, interspersed with other handmade ornaments--things I made as a kid, things Peter and Abby made, and quite a few Santas needlepointed by Peter's mother, who died last March.
That's us in the photo, with my lovely stepdaughter Abby, minutes after we were married in the living room of my best friends. If we look like we're in shock...we were. We met April 15, he asked me to marry him June 14, and we were married September 27. I've taken longer to pick out shoes. We were very practical about the whole thing. Couldn't take time off for a big honeymoon, so we headed for a two-day tour of southern Minnesota. (I went back to work on Monday and was still shaken. My employees threw me a little party and sent me home, where I spent a couple of days practicing the word "h-h-husband.")
Our ornaments are like a blended family...his, hers, and ours. Shortly before I "married them," Peter and Abby had one Christmas where money was tight and they spent time making gifts and ornaments. (She told him it was the best Christmas ever, because of the time they spent together.) This lace-ribbon star is one of their projects, and it's always in a place of honor on the tree. (Warning to Abby: spoiler ahead.) We can't remember who originally owned the little set of cooking utensils shown in this picture, but given Augie's and Abby's interest in baking, I have a hunch it will migrate to their tree soon.
I love this image in its vertical format, so I'm posting it. But would it surprise you to know there is an Augie-related story? Of course not. 
Yesterday we took the kids to a mall to ride a carousel, since ours is closed for the season. 
Every year at this time, Peter lets his hair and beard grow and dons a Santa hat I made for him years ago (with a bell in the tip to add to the merriment). He wears his favorite red cardigan and gets smiles wherever he goes. 
A few months past his second birthday, Augie got interested in baking. It was make-believe at first. It began when he stuck a wooden drumstick into the narrow neck of an old crockery milk jug and jiggled it around...part of his process of trying the drumsticks on every surface to test the sound. One day I heard him say, "stir the cake." Apparently the sound reminded him of his mom baking, something she had begun to do a lot. Soon he was assembling a cooking area with a pretend oven (the space beneath an end table), a cookie sheet (the Duplos base), bowls and measuring cups (stacking cups and other found objects), and cupcakes (small tins of cat food). 
We had fun making the muffins. Augie wants to move fast, and once or twice I was out of position--dashing for a different mixing spoon, for example--and Pa had to reach in to keep him from dumping the wet ingredients into the dry before everything was ready. Filling the muffin cups was the biggest challenge--he wants to do it himself but needed some help if batter was actually going to get into the cups. I thought we worked out an okay compromise, and I evened out the batter once he was done.
Our neighbors' cat has taken to launching itself at our kitchen window, where 15-year-old Mali defends her home turf. When they first got this cat, he came into the basement through our cat window, ignored our four resident hissing or cowering kitties, and marched up two flights to our bedroom. We mentioned it; they said it couldn't have been their cat because he was in the house all day. Uh-huh. This cat has distinctive polka-dot markings, though you can't see them in this picture of his underside. 
Nobody quite believes it, but we really have cut back on Christmas spending. Peter LOVES to give the perfect gift, and on our first Christmas together (24 years ago) I was stunned by the number of gifts and the measures to which he'd gone to find just the right things. I began to match the numbers of gifts, though never the amount of diligent searching for hard-to-find items. We devoted enormous amounts of time specially wrapping our gifts, sometimes elaborately disguising the packages and always writing hints on the gift tags. 
* Blogging, a new creative outlet at many levels. 
I bet there are 60,000 images of Augie floating around on family computers and in carefully compiled photo albums, at least four of which I compiled myself. Vi? Not so much. I now understand what happens to second children (and, I'm sure, most kids after the Fabulous First). Or what doesn't happen. They are loved, for sure, but not so obsessively photographed. For one thing, each tiny new development is not quite such an amazing discovery to parents and grandparents. More important, two babies (one only 15 months older) are way more work. Anyway, here to help balance the cosmic photo record is a very recent snapshot of the sweet, beautiful, smart, and strong Lady Vi.
I knew it was going to be crowded when I saw the full parking ramp...but I didn't know about the three Head Start buses. Man, the place was jammed full and LOUD, and everywhere you went there was a group coming out and another going in. Augie darted between them, and disappeared. More than once. Next time, he's wearing blaze orange. And maybe a pennant attached to the top of his head. 
Augie and Vi took their parents and grandparents to the open house at the St. Paul Saints sports training facility today. Wow, it's a huge and fantastic place, dreamed and created by our friend Lamarr. There were footballs and soccer balls and tee balls and tennis balls, and Augie played with all of them. Vi was having a good time kicking the ball with the soccer coach (who plays for the Thunder) until he actually said "Hi." Oops, meltdown. He didn't give up, though, and eventually they got a nice little game going--as long as he kept his distance and Mommy stayed close. 
We've been in a reading mood this week. Augie was always a book-lover (he was 10 mos in this photo with Pa). Vi preferred looking at pictures, upside-down, but now she too picks out stories, listens all the way through, and says "Again?" (Not really a question.) Today we read Elmo Loves You four times in a row, an alphabet verse book three times, and lots of others. 
Many of Vi's new favorites were well loved by Augie and still resonate. So Augie and I might be deep into Arthur's Birthday or Tootle, but, if Pa starts reading Goodnight Moon, Augie will look up and tune in to that. I just pause until he turns back to our pages. 
Augie was excited about "painting" the pumpkin we had purchased last week, so I grabbed a marker and he went to it. Suddenly I realized I'd given him an indelible Sharpie. By the time I got the washable markers, we had a few black streaks on the kids' blue table, and a few more on our hands, but no matter. It's a beautiful cooking pumpkin, even more beautiful now. And it should make good pie, or muffins, or soup--haven't decided yet. 
...are supposed to be crisp and sunny, as in this shot of our North Woods maple on the 17th. But we had snow and gloom on the 10th (below), and heavy wet leaves on the ground on the 24th after more snow and gloom. Feels like we missed October and went straight to November. I hate November. I think I'll move to Australia (where it's spring). 
...to my wonderful husband, who has taught me to take an occasional risk, enjoy life's little moments, and "know what you want." Orchids, a great dinner last night, and wonderful brunch at The St. Paul Hotel today, while planning a trip to celebrate our 25th anniversary next year. Our last trip was to New York for his mom's funeral in April. We got to Manhattan one windy day, and took a series of photos to parallel Curious George's adventures in The Big City.
