Arlo likes to draw when he drinks

 

The long neglected Arlo

So I've been feeling a little guilty about not taking very many pictures or videos of Arlo. But the fact is, he's just really boring. So the following few pictures are my attempt to liven things up a bit by getting Izza to play near him. I guess it's worth your viewing pleasure.

Hey Arlo, check this out

Mutual oblivious enjoyment

Hey Izza, look at the camera!

See, Izza's just a better model than Arlo. At least she takes direction. Except when she doesn't.

Sad News and Christmas

As I'm sure you all know from Nancy's blog, our nephew Eliot was diagnosed with leukemia about a week ago. But as you can see, if you check http://eliotandnaomi.blogspot.com/, things are going about as well as we could expect. Nancy has set up a blog to send them good wishes at izzaloveseliot.blogspot.com

We had to cancel our trip to Colorado for Christmas, but in a sort of Christmas miracle, our flight would have been canceled anyway by the blizzard there. On Christmas morning, Izza chatted via Skype with my parents. After the first few minutes, she was getting restless, but then my mom busted out a ginger bread man, and what ensued was one of the most hilarious low budget puppet shows I've ever seen, complete with multiple dancing, singing gingerbread men, one of whom kept nibbling my mom's ear. Thanks for that hilarious and indelible memory, Mom and Dad!

Izza the Cocoon

Just chatting with Izza about her cocoon lifestyle.

A few things to note about this video.

First, you'll see how she brightens up when I start communicating with her via the "baby bear." Lately, we've found that she's much more interested in us when we speak through these surrogate creatures. She's even more polite. The other night I changed her diaper with the help of a talking clothes pin, and rather than squirming and complaining, she thanked the clothes pin profusely for pretty much everything it did.

Second, the video captures her newfound love for the word "just" as in "I'm just a cocoon." She likes to apply this word whenever possible. We'll lay out her dinner, and she'll say, "Just cheerios." We'll tell her that we're going to the store, and she says, "Just watch movies."

But my favorite part of the video is the end, when she comes up with a new topic to talk about. She's referring to the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling, but the way she says, "Stars!" makes me think she saw the movie Cocoon in her previous life.