What would be funny....

Ezra has some odd thoughts. A couple weeks ago while doing his homework (writing 1 -100) he remarked to Joseph: "Wouldn't it be funny if every number were 44?"

Just a moment ago I overheard Ezra say to Asa: "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we were rats and had furry butts?"

That would not be funny....but him saying it sure was.

A Painted House

We are so happy with the way our house turned out--happy with the colors we picked (only had to second guess one--the shade of black, of all colors!), happy with the painter we hired (Aaron Caldwell of AC's Home Restoration), thrilled with the dramatic improvement to the appearace and value of our home. Take a look at the before and after shots below. Hopefully one day soon we can build a porch/deck/patio back there where that gravel is in the back...

Cyber crooks break into online accounts with ease

I've been unsatisfied with Amsouth Bank for quite some time. I keep thinking about switching, but then I figure the next bank will probably be no better so why go to the trouble to switch... But today I thought, well, I'll just do a quick search and see if someone has done a Consumer Reports style examination of some of the top banks to determine which has the best online banking.

Well, I didn't find what I was looking for, because I found this article first. It explains how easy it is for cybercrooks to break into your online bank account and empty it. According to the experts interviewed for this article, the banks tell you it is safe because they want your business; but the reality is it is simply not safe. Even with anti-virus software. Even with a firewall.

Kind of a bummer. Maybe it is not as bad as this article makes it sounds. But now I find myself faced with a more complex decision: Not only A) this bank or B) that bank but now there is a C... C) an old shoe box neatly tucked into the dark cranny beneath a secretly removable floor board where not even the most cunning trojan horse will find it.

Marlow

Marlow has become my shadow. She is always right behind me, in front of me, or under my feet. She frequently wants to be picked up, only to want to get down again. I can't resist, and pick her up as much as possible. She likes to help me with the laundry and sweeping.


Her hair is getting long enough (barely) to put in two ponytails. I let her sit on the bathroom counter and play with bowl full of barrets and rubber bands while I try to comb her whispy hair as quick as I can into little ponytails. Lately she has started using this time to brush her teeth also.









She likes to do what the boys do and they dress-up a lot. Today she had one of Asa's costumes and she was trying to put it on. She succeeded in getting the belt around her waist but she wasn't in the costum so the rest of it was just hanging from the belt. She was pretty proud of herself.

Special "extended" episode of "Lost" tonight

Aw, man. I've been looking forward to the "extended" episode of Lost they touted at the end of last week's episode... Just checked the tvguide.com listing, and guess what? It is 64 minutes long. Somehow they were able to grab 4 minutes from Invasion, which follows with a special reduced episode of 56 minutes tonight.

"That craps me out"

Ezra was commenting on something that was kind of eerie this morning as we were getting in the van to go to school...

He said, "That craps me out."

"It craps you out?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"You mean it creeps you out."

"Oh..."

Miniature Golfers

Oak, Ezra, Meadow, Asa pausing for the cameras during their recent golf outing celebrating Oak's 6th birthday.

Trick-or-treat

It was a hectic night... I didn't get any pictures till the end, at which point Meadow was too tired to pose. We went out with the Scott and Amy and Oak and Meadow Gast and Stuart and Heidi and Wren Chapin and had a great time.

I got this one video of Ezra trying to open a piece of candy while wearing his Hulk mask. The lighting is bad, but it is quite funny. In fact... When I compressed the clip for web viewing, it darkened even more. If you want, you could try the original AVI clip. (You will probably be prompted to save it somewhere on your computer. When it's done, you can open it with someting like Real Player or Quicktime or Windows Media Player.)

(Update: 11/02/2005 BobW took the big AVI file and lightened and optimized it making a much more viewable .MOV file. It downloads faster and is easier to see than the .AVI, so now the first link is the preferred one. Thanks Bob!)

Marlow and Granddaddy

Took some cute pictures of Marlow and her Granddaddy last week goofing around with the iPod. Click on the picture below to open a window with all the pictures from the set.

Instant Beard

I have had a beard before, but this one looks a little different... and I didn't have one yesterday... Check out what some of my co-workers have been up to at Coptix today.

Me with a beard that looks very much like Joshua Goodlet's real beard.

Sleeping Cutie

I think Eliot has slept more than any of our babies. It certainly seems that way to me. He does keep Amy awake at night a good bit, though. :-/

And we both agree that adjusting to having four children has been harder that the change from 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3. I feel for parents who are blessed with more than one at a time! They must be amazingly strong...

Yesterday was our first close encounter between Marlow and Eliot. A few weeks before Eliot was born, Beth had returned a little take-along infant swing. During that time, Marlow grew fond of kicking back in it and chilling. So she wanted to sit in "her" swing yesterday but Eliot was in the way, so she started to drag him out. Fortunately Kelly was nearby and was able to intervene before any head injuries occurred.

And yes, those things do have straps. They're just so low to the ground and so impossible to fall out of, we never saw the point in using the straps... I guess now we do...

Good morning with Asa

Asa and I had a good morning getting ready for school. We've got a nice autumn chill finally settling in which opens the doors to new (and in my opinion better) wardrobe selections. Asa usually wears a T-shirt to school, but he requested a "school shirt like Ezra" which means with a collar. I picked a rugby shirt which he was pleased with.

While I was making his sandwich, he walked in and asked, "What are these kind of shirts called again?"

I said, "It's a rugby shirt."

He said, "Oh. I thought it was a turtle head."

"Turtle neck", I said.

"Oh yeah. That."

He was so cute and grown-up-looking, I couldn't resist a little spontaneous photo shoot...

Hamming it up, as usual.

This is what he did when I said to lean on the post and look "casual."

And this is him putting his arms by his side and relaxing.

Notice the new paint color behind that smiling face.

Politely asking, "OK, can we be done now?"

More pictures of Eliot

Well, I haven't been able to take and post more pictures of Eliot yet, but Lica visited us this weekend and has posted some on her blog here. She also had some very flattering things to say about our family in general, so you should definitely read it. :-) Thanks Lica!

Eliot Stuart Nichols

Ezra, Asa, and Marlow welcome their new baby brother, Eliot Stuart Nichols.



Eliot was born just before 1:00 giving Ezra quite the surprise when he got home from school. This picture was taken when Ezra got home (Eliot's age: 2.5 hours). Amy is doing great. Eliot is doing great. God blessed us with our quickest smoothest birth experience yet. Come on by if you are able. We're happy to show off our new son!

Oh yeah. He was 8 lbs. 6 oz.

Wouldn't you like to know?

Driving home from work last night, it suddenly occurred to me what our next child's middle name should be if we have a boy. I ran it by the naming committee (made up of me and Amy) and it passed unanimously. So, now we are fully prepared with first and middle boy and girl names... And we are oh-so-anxious to find out if this baby is a boy or a girl.

Sorry, we're sticking to our tradition of not unveiling the names until the birth...

Just as a reminder, the due date is Sept. 28. Keep us in your prayers. Especially Amy, of course!

Quik wit

Asa on his first day of pre-school

Asa has this ever-increasing fear problem, and it is driving Amy and me NUTS! He's 4, so I know I should cut him some slack... I just feel like he's been pushing his limits. I also get the idea he uses "I'm scared" as an excuse to get out of doing something he doesn't want to do.

This morning I instructed Asa to go pick a different shirt since the one he put on for school had paint all over it. He tried to get out of it saying he was scared to go in his room by himself. Exasperated, Amy said, "Asa! You're becoming scared of everything!" I looked over and saw him sucking his thumb (another habbit I feel he should have grown out of and something we've had many talks about), and I followed up with "I wish you were scared of sucking your thumb." He immediately detected my attempt at being clever, and quipped, "Well I wish you were scared of giving spankings!"

[Sigh]... I guess we all have our wishes... I wish I was better at parenting. I feel somewhat vulnerable revealing these problems my son has (irrational fears, thumb-sucking, and -- did I mention? -- peeing in his pants at all times of the day). I feel like I've heard enough stories and seen enough movies to assert that a 4-and-a-half year old boy with these issues must have a father who abuses him verbally and even physically. But I know that is not the case. So what is the problem? What can I do to help? I know I'm probably wanting him to grow up faster than he should, so I'm trying to be patient and be encouraging and to shower him with praise when he does the "right thing," but every day, I come closer to concluding that we need professional help.

If you've got any advice or encouragement to offer, I'd love to hear from you. Email, call, or even just leave a comment here. Whatever you do, please pray for us!

"How did you escape Chattablogs?"

Mrscrumley asked in a comment on a previous post, "How did you escape Chattablogs?"

I'm not sure if that's a loaded question or not... If it is, I'll play naive and simply explain that anyone can join Blogger for free at any time. They have a nice selection of templates for those of us without enough time to design our own, it is run by a cutting edge company (Google) that is always releasing cool new things (like Google Desktop which give PC users a taste of what it would be like to have an operating system like Mac OSX Tiger with Spotlight. )

Plus, around the time I got my Blogger blog, Chattablogs was experiencing some problems with downtime. I have, however been thinking about switching back if things continue to go as smoothly as they have lately. After all, Chattablogs was started and is maintained by one of my very own co-workers at Coptix.

Beautiful Marlow

I took this one just the other day when I got home from work. Marlow was sitting on the steps watching her brothers play baseball.

Cousin Jack has arrived

Michelle and Erik had their baby. His name is Jack. No pictures yet. They're catching up on the two nights of sleep they missed during Michelle's lonnnnnnnng labor. I'm sure there will be updates soon on Michelle's blog.

Playing House

Every once in a while, I'm surprised by things my 4- and 5-year-old sons lack experience in. Like playing house. I know most kids do it, but I'm pretty sure it's not something we as parents are supposed to teach them how to do... They just do it. But Ezra and Asa don't play "house." They play "guys," and they play baseball, and they like to work for money, but they never play house.

These pictures were taken a year ago.

Yesterday, their friends Oak (5) and Meadow (4) were over to play. Meadow--the only girl of the bunch--usually doesn't get to play what she wants to play. But yesterday, she was promised that everyone would play what she wanted to play. When it came time for her promise to be fulfilled, Ezra and Oak were in the middle of a game of checkers, while Asa impatiently stood by waiting for his turn.

Amy announced that Meadow was in charge for a while, and Meadow declared they would all play house. Ezra and Asa looked at her incredulously. Aren't we--in a sense--playing house by merely being here and playing games together? I don't know exactly what words were exchanged, because I wasn't there. I'm sure they weren't that intellectual about it, but the resolution they came up with reveals they were on that track...

Meadow explained that, No, they had to pretend they were moms and dads and stuff like that.

So Ezra said, "OK. I'm the dad and I have to go to work... My job is playing checkers with my son... Oak is my son."

This did not satisfy Meadow or Asa who was still being left out. He wanted to play baseball. So Amy saved the day by recommending that they are a family and Meadow is the mom and they are going out for a picnic and the guys are going to play baseball while the mom sits on a blanket with the baby and watches...

And they were all happy playing house.

Asa and Meadow right around the time Marlow was born.

Kid for sale

Ezra and Asa love playing together, yet sometimes I wonder why. It seems they are constantly fighting over who has what toy or whose turn it is... Yesterday, as I was walking past their room, Asa came out to see if I could intervene in their latest dispute. He wanted a turn playing with an action figure that Ezra was playing with. (Ezra was willing to share, but not until he was sick of playing with the figure. We're still working on that whole concept of surrendering your own desires...)

They are used to me telling them to share or else they won't get to play at all, so I decided to try a new tactic. I said, "If you guys can't play together without fighting, we'll just have to sell one of you." They both grinned and looked at me waiting for a smile to indicate I was just kidding... but I didn't flinch. My face remained stern.

So Ezra asked, "Why do sometimes people sell their kids?"

"Because they realize they fight too much and the only way to stop the fighting is to sell one of them."

They smiled, again searching my face for a hint that I was merely joking, but finding none, their smiles faded and I could hear the gears whirling in Ezra's head as he tried to make sense of this new revelation. A few moments passed, and he pointed to his brother and said "Sell Asa," which made me laugh... which made them laugh... and breathe a sigh of relief.

They went back to their playing, totally forgetting about the argument they had been in the middle of.

As I told Amy about this conversation, I realized how encouraging it was... Ezra was actually weighing his options: to stay with the parents he has or get to start over with some new parents... And he chose us!

---

And a few pictures from our outing downtown last night...

Marlow is walking! She's up to about 8 or 10 steps at a time now.

A natural smile from Asa is hard to capture on camera. Ezra took this one and about a dozen more like it.

Ezra takes a rest from running around chasing his brother and his Uncle Jonathan.

More Marlow Birthday Pics

Here's a few more pictures from Marlows first first birthday celebration we had at her grandma and granddaddy's a week early. It didn't take her long to acquire a taste for cake...








And then I couldn't let this one slip by of the two of us...

Marlow's First Birthday

Yesterday was Marlow's first birthday. The boys helped me pick out a pink cake and I picked white icing even though they wanted pink for that too--I thought it would be a bit too much pink. We went to Target to get her a gift from them. They thought she would be upset if she didn't get a present on her birthday. I said she wouldn't actually remember her first birthday. They stared at me for a second and then Ezra said "Why won't she remember?" So, I asked them if they remembered their first birthdays and they both said, "Yes."
Me: "Ok, What did we do for your first birthday?"
Asa: "We went to the Pumpkin Patch!" (Which is not a patch of pumpkins, which would be a really boring birthday party. It is the biggest coolest playground in our area.)
Me: "No, that was your 4th birthday." (He is four now.)
Ezra: "For my first birthday we went to the Mountain Maze." (another playground...notice a trend?)
Me: "No, that was your 3rd birthday. You don't remember your first birthday because you were too little."
They still didn't seem to believe me and looked a bit thoughtful and confused as they tried to remember their first birthdays.

I still thought it would be fun for them to pick her out a present so we went to get one. We finally decided on a "Mirror Pound a Ball."

Ezra thought she would like it, but Asa said he didn't like. "But don't you think Marlow would like it?" I said. He finally agreed it would be fine because he wanted to go look at action figures and I wouldn't let him till we picked out a present. I knew she would like it though because she recently played for a long time with a similar toy at a friend's house. She liked it a lot and the boys were eager to show her how to use it.

Back on the saddle again

OK, I can't type very well right now, but I'm gonna try because I got a boo-boo and I want everyone to know about it. I'm putting the pictures here at the top, but I'm going to also write a bit about my bicycling experience below. So if you want to read the story, read it first, then look at the pictures. If you just want to see the gory pictures, here they are (click the picture)...

A word of caution: Although the cut is small, the close up pictures of it might make some people queasy. View at your own risk!

When I was in middle school, I had a BMX/freestyle bike. I was really into it. My brother Jonathan and I poured all our money (not much at that stage in our lives) and all our time (quite a bit at that stage) into our bikes. I lost interest around 7th grade and basically haven't ridden a bike since. I never had - much less rode - a 10-speed... Never went mountain biking... nothing.

But a couple of months ago, my buddy Josh Green invited me to go on nighttime joy ride through downtown Chattanooga. I didn't even have a bike, so I borrowed an old clunker from Keith Riley who also went with us. We cruised through downtown and across the Walnut Street bridge and stopped at the Mudpie, had some drinks and just hung out on the patio for a while before heading home. A very nice experience... One that reminded me that all work and no play is not good and that I should do this more often.

The next week I bought my first mountan bike. Still in that stage where I don't have much money, I went for the $7 bike I found at the Habitat Home Store. Took it out for the first time on another joyride downtown with Josh. While on the pier at the waterfront, I noticed the inner tubes bulging out the sides of the dry-rotting tires and decided I better replace the tires soon.

A few weeks later, with tires replaced, Josh invited me on a ride up Lookout Mountain along the path that starts out as Guild Trail. It kicked my butt going up, but man oh man was it ever worth it to experience the thrill of riding down. I hadn't realized until then that you can really go fast down a trail when you gear it down to the lowest gear and pedal your heart out. What a blast!

"This," I thought, "is why people go mountain biking!" Then I also thought, "This is probably why the good mountain bikes have shocks..." and "It would probably be a good idea to wear a helmet when I'm doing this..."

Last night, Dave Kaufmann and Josh and I went out for another mountain biking excursion. We decided to explore Hawkins Ridge that borders the east side of our fair neighborhood of St. Elmo. In case you've ever wondered if Hawkins Ridge would be good for biking... it's not! A little bit of it was OK, but it is very overgrown in places and there are a lot of sharp, loose rocks laying on rock beds... which is how I got my first mountain-biking injury... Went down a slope that was a little too bumpy and had a few too many loose rocks and ended up sailing over the handlebars and catching myself on some sharp rocks with my left hand.

I probably will need to take a couple of weeks off before my next ride. Which should give me enough time to get that helmet I need. Oh yeah... and gloves!

Sink Bath

Emissions Smiley Face

Wow! I've had this nagging feeling for that past few months that my old '80 Ford F-150 would be destined for the junk yard once it came time for the new emissions inspections. Of course, until last week, it would have no doubt failed the emissions test since it was lacking a muffler, catalytic converter and the greater part of the exhaust manifold. But even after getting that fixed, I just had this sinking feeling that it was going to fail. Maybe it had something to do with my first encounter with the emissions inspections when my much newer '99 Dodge Grand Caravan failed twice (due to a bad EGR valve). But I took it in this morning, said a prayer, held my breath, paid my 10 bucks, and then almost hugged the inspector when she handed me my slip with a little smiley face on it and said "You passed!"