Say What?

Clive has a smattering of vocabulary words, most of them you (as generally non-baby speaking adults) wouldn't recognise as actual words. He tries his darndest and he loves to wave and try to say hasta luego, which often comes out as aa-ta.

I'm not concerned though, according to my mom, I didn't speak until I was two and Erica was late on the scene verbally (mostly because as a multiple she could communicate with Allie and Inga and didn't care to talk to anyone else) so it could be in his genes.

I prefer another explanation:

He listens to mom, dad, and his auntie and then listens to all his friends and can't decide which accent he's supposed to use.

:)

Life, Recently

A lot has happened in the last month or two, but with limited internet connection we've not documented it very well.

We moved house! We're now living in Coxheath (a village next door to Loose); which makes my cycle commute to church a lot better.

Inga and Simon (new parents to Elsa Simone, dontcha know?) bought the house we're living in. We're participating in a communal living experiment. So far all is well. It's only a two-bed house, but Erica, Clive and I have the third floor all to ourselves.

Communal living cuts our costs quite a bit and for the first time in a while we're ending up with money leftover at the end of the month.

Part of this financial positiveness is because I'm working more hours at the prison. I'm enjoying it and my bosses are giving me more responsibility.

Erica's graphic work trickles in, but is always just enough. If you need a website, promotional material, logos or anything else, just let us know. She'll cut you a deal.

The three of us have been sick with viruses for the past few weeks. Poor Clive is doing his best to stay up beat but has been pretty miserable. Hopefully soon we'll all be healthy at the same time.

Erica's parents are here in the UK for two weeks. They've come over to see the new baby (grandkid number 5) and to help out a bit.

Lastly, I'm still plugging away at my ordination process. I have a day-long panel on December 1st that will determine whether I continue on the process. I'll know the outcome within a week of the panel.

That's it.

We'll get some new pictures up soon.

Day 1

All of my siblings are now in Ohio. Anna arrived from Geneva a few hours before our original flight was supposed to arrive. Alas, we missed our connection in Chicago and spent the night in a hotel and arrived about nine hours later than we were supposed to. Becky caught a flight from a conference she was at in D.C. and we're sitting around and chatting as the first snow of the year falls outside.

Clive is reacclumating himself to his extended family and to my parents' dog Maggie. He did okay on the flight, but is still a bit jet lagged. Last night he went to bed at 4pm and got up at 5am. I can handle that. Hopefully tonight we'll restore him to a more convenient schedule of 6 or 7pm to 7 or 8 am. He will have his hands full tonight though as we're having aunts, uncles and cousins over.

Erica and I ventured out into my hometown yesterday afternoon. For as much as things change, they also stay the same. Alliance is grim (as Simon Mitchell would say). We talk of England's weather, but the sky here is just a different kind of grey. We did stop by a charity shop though, buy some (non-alcoholic) apple cider, and stop by Heggy's for some chocolate.

Other highlights? My brother building an open fire in the fireplace last night, beating Anna at scrabble, realizing that I didn't miss Graham Crackers that much, and listening to my dad snore as he sleeps on the living room floor.

Until Day 2...

Ooh. Bananas

Clive has been eating 'big people food' for two weeks now. The first few days we tried out some basics; rice cereal, bananas, pear and then got more adventurous with avacado and other veggies. He seemed to be okay with the rice cereal and pear, but was a big fan of bananas.

Two weeks later now he's eating three meals a day and every one has to contain banana. He loves them! If given the opportunity he will eat an entire banana in one sitting. So we've taken to mixing in bananas with other foods.




Bananas and Apples

Bananas and Rice Cereal

Bananas and Four Grain Cereal

Bananas and Yams (yep!)

Bananas and Carrots (okay!)

and tonight, the strangest of all, Bananas and Beets...

This kid is bananas for bananas.