Elmo Lives

This might have been a bad idea.

With the coming baby, there are a lot of changes around the Cornett household. Here's a big one: a new flat screen television for the living room. The guest room will become the nursery, and that means we need to make room for some other things. Books are boxed up, bookshelves are relegated to the basement, and now we have the wonders of television right in our life.

Only we don't have television. We gave up cable tv a few years ago, and then last fall our VCR kicked the bucket. So that leaves us with our Netflix DVDs and a new, fantastic service that allows us to stream movies and television from the internet. Elmo, Thomas the Train, and Dora the Explorer are all at our fingertips.

Is this how children become addicted to television? And why ELMO, for goddsakes?

Merry Christmas!

Miller Family Christmas 2009

Grammie and Jude,

Brothers,

Leading the willing around by a finger,

Opening presents!

Resignation

The New Year has come! 2010. It feels like 2009 was just a blur.

Between pre-school, house guests, holidays, and my weight loss program, I have hardly found time to consider the big picture.

I'll be honest here - I've even been struggling with writing the family Christmas letter, because OH MY GOD, how can I possibly describe the comedy our life has become?

For 2010, we have become resigned of many things. There is less time for doing, and more time for laughing. There is less business, and more busy. There is less money, and more dreaming. There are music and giggles and running and friends.

Looking back a year ago, we could never have imagined this future. We didn't know anything! We didn't know that E Ben would love being home with Jude, or that Linden would be pregnant, or that the world would be good to us. And because we are human, young-urban-professional-liberal human, we worried. We hedged our bets, we played coy games and told ourselves honest lies. Because you never know, right? You just never know.

Yesterday the mail brought news from my old job at the Vancouver Schools. It was time to do something about my "inactive" status. I deferred their offer of employment for 1 year, and then deferred for a second time. It was time to sh*t or get off the potty.

I filled out that form and got it right in the mail. I didn't have to think twice. RESIGNATION. It never felt so good!

Cuties

Jude is obsessed with oranges lately. Every year around the holidays, we buy about a box a week of the seedless clementines, aka "cuties". I eat 3-4 a day, and it is pretty much the only time all year that I eat any citrus fruits.

This year Jude has discovered the joys of cuties. He loves to carry them around, help me peel them, and eat them by the handful.

Here is a video from Christmas Day of Jude having a little snack in his great-grandmother's kitchen. See the huge pile of orange peels on the counter in the background...

Christmas Boy

December is finished, and we are finally shaking our heads and surveying the damages.

Family parties.

Crazy revelry and guitar playing.

Astonishment and wonder.

Lots of family love.

Here's to you, Christmas Boy 2009!