you may have heard that we had a blizzard

Christmas-hooray!

Christmas has come to the goodgoobs household! Little G woke up at the very normal hour of 7am on Christmas day. We watched the sun rise over Mt. Beacon from our window then headed downstairs to see what Santa brought. Lots of good stuff for everyone. That new snow tube Graham got will come in handy since we are, as I write this, in the middle of a blizzard! He also got a nice warm hat and some excellent snow boots for his snow stomping pleasure.

Ice-skating: fail

I thought it would be fun to take Graham ice skating this winter. Since he is very coordinated I was sure he would take to it quickly. We went down to Bear Mountain, about 30 minutes south of here, where they have an ice rink that is super cheap to skate at. Graham was excited about the prospect of skating, he was very patient while I laced up his skates and learned to walk on them rather quickly. We got to the rink and I held him up between my legs while we crawled along the edge of the rink. He slipped. He fell. He cried. I lifted him up and tried to get him to try again. He bent his knees and refused to let his feet touch the ice. He cried some more. As it turns out, I'm not the greatest ice skater either and I was not the best person to get him to glide along with me. In fact, there was no gliding in our camp.
a very pouty skater

We sat and watched the other skaters for a while and when I was unable to persuade Graham to give it another try, we returned our skates and drove back to Beacon for a hot chocolate.

Big City Bones

Adventure Wednesday was followed by an even more adventurous Friday. Graham and I took the train into NYC to go to the Museum of Natural History. He had a great time on the train, tolerated the walk to the subway and waved to all the passing subway trains in the station as we waited for the B train to take us to the upper west side. At the museum he ran around like crazy looking at dinosaur bones and the like for 2 hours. After a quick bite at the local Shake Shack, we hopped in a cab to meet Liam at Rockefeller Center and check out the tree. This is one of those touristy things I've always wanted to do but never got the chance. Graham was dying to take a cab since we have a song we sing about riding in a taxi. He started in on me, bugging me to take a taxi the minute we got out of Grand Central. After lunch he got his wish but was so worn out by the excitement of the day that he fell asleep after a few minutes and I had to carry him to the tree when arrived at Rockefeller Center.

In the photos: top left on the train, top right with T-Rex
btm left in the main dino hall, rt with daddy just after waking up.

Adventure Wednesday Dec 8

This week's adventure was to the Aldridge Museum in Ridgefield CT, about an hour from Beacon. Graham does great in museums, the staff loved him and gave him a lollypop to eat on the way out.

The next adventure is tomorrow. We are taking the train into Grand Central then going to the Museum of Natural History or the "Dinosaur Museum" as G calls it. After, we will stop by Rockefeller Center to check out the tree and I will not forget my camera.

My friend Catherine, who is a wonderful painter and one of the best artists in Beacon, makes these ornaments. They just happen to bear a striking resemblance to Graham-chubby thighs and all.

Brrrrr....

It was 18 degrees this morning when Liam rode his bike to the train station. Icicles formed in his beard. A rude awakening after last night's Christmas party.

We had a very busy weekend which included the getting of the Christmas tree. Of course I forgot to bring my camera to the Blessed Event which included hot chocolate, a candy cane maze and a run-in with Santa. Even if I had my camera I might not have been inclined to use it-it was 34 degrees and windy up on that hillside.

Speaking of Christmas, here in the north of NYC region we are busy working on making our lists and checking them twice. In case you have Graham on your list I have a special message: Please no toys! We have enough toys in this house. Too many, in fact. We have a lot of books too. I foresee a new year’s purge coming up. What Little G does need right now is winter clothes. He wears a size 3T and size 9 shoes. He could use jeans, sweaters, long underwear and maybe a long sleeved tee shirt. He could use a good pair of snow boots. He needs pajamas but not the zip-up one pc. footie things (too hard to get on). 2 piece long pant jammies and some slippers will keep him cozy around the house. Favorite themes are: football, dinosaurs, trains, basketball. And remember: all clothes are play clothes at this age.

Forecast is for snow tomorrow. Hard to believe I just put away my tank tops.

Stay at Home Wednesday

This week's Adventure Wednesday turned into Stay at Home Wednesday due to disagreeable weather. I knew it would be raining today which usually makes a day trip all the more appealing. Today's adventure was originally supposed to be a trip to NYC to take Graham to Rockerfeller Center to see the tree and do some touristy Christmas things that would get us in the spirit of the holidays. But then we got an invitation to visit my cousin Chad who recently moved to Connecticut from DC and he and his wife had their second child 2 weeks ago. Graham doesn't have any (first) cousins so i thought it would be fun for him to get to know his cousin Owen who is a year younger than him as well as meet his brand-new cousin Emma.

This morning the wind was blowing with a ferocity I have not seen in ages. Forecasts called for gusts up to 50 mph. I did not want to risk the drive over the mountain to Danbury and beyond in a storm that was travelling the same path as we were. Sadly, I called Chad and rescheduled. So G and I spent the day indoors. First at the library where we ran into some friends. Then home to watch the Thomas the Tank Engine video we checked out. We played with blocks, made Christmas pictures to decorate the house, baked some cookies. Shortly before dark the rain stopped and we took Lucille for a long overdue walk.

Here are some pictures of Graham taking his first chance to lick the beaters of their cookie dough. He insists on the apron every time we "cook" together.

Museum of Firefighting & Adventure Wednesday

Today was Adventure Wednesday, the day of the week when we take an outing to somewhere fun, hopefully somewhere we have never been before. We headed for the Museum of Firefighting in Hudson NY today. A bit of a haul but worth the drive to let a 3 year old boy run amok in a room full of old fire engines.

basketball class

Graham started going to basketball class on Saturday mornings for 3-5 year olds. Here's a little movie I made last week. See my budding NBA star huddle, stretch, dribble, run drills. Sorry for the poor quality of the web video. One day I will figure out how to make it better.

Halloween

Graham had his first real taste of Halloween this year, this is the first time he really knew what was going on. Here he is enjoying a football Sunday in his costume which he wore all day long.

a new thing

I’ve let the old blog run out...www.goodgoobs.com is no longer. It was just too hard to maintain it with the technology I was using. Now that Graham is 3 and our lives are much busier, I find that the blog has become merely a repository of Graham photos, since I have so little time to write about our lives anymore. This new blog space should make it much easier for me to keep up with posting photos of out Little Prince as he grows. Enjoy.