The Hammy Cheesball Smile

There has been an unfortunate development for readers of this blog. Our once photogenic little boy has turned into a "cheese"ball. Any time a camera of any sort is turned on him, he scrunches up his face in what he believes to be a magnificent smile, but which is fact a cross between Mr. Magoo and a toothy star-nosed mole. Sigh.

In order to get a passable photo these days, I have to spring the shot on him before he launches into his hammy cheeseball smile. How do you tell a 2 year old, " NO! ... a "REAL" smile, please!"?!?!

Other L.I. Adventures...

Thanks to Andy's mom, one of our favorite babysitters, Andy and I were able to sneak away for a few hours to get some early morning birding at Jones Beach State Park. Jones Beach can be a nightmare mass of people in the summer but in the winter it's really lovely. And the birding is excellent too. We were hoping to see a few things like horned larks, american pipits, purple sandpiper and lapland longspur, and we were not disappointed. We saw all of those and more.

Sandpiper footprints on wet sand

We thought we were lucky to see a female King Eider (only the 2nd time for that species for us) but the true highlight of the visit was not one, but TWO, snowy owls... fighting with a peregrine falcon!!! It was like a David Attenborough special. First we saw a bunch of photographers low-crawling on the beach, so we knew something was up. Without going too close (photographers hate it when you scare their models away) we saw that it was a snowy owl sitting on the sand. About 45 minutes later, we were headed back and we saw another snowy flying down the beach. We realized it wasn't the same one just at the same moment that the first snowy took off to meet the new one. It didn't get within 30 feet before out of nowhere came a peregrine falcon, dive bombing it. The falcon buzzed one owl, then the next owl, back and forth, for about 5 minutes. Then he flew off and sat on a log. When the owls finally flew to each other, I was happy they would be reunited, until they started fighting too. Oh well, secrets of the animal kingdom I guess. It was one of those rare scenes we'll remember for a long time. The funny part was that when the first owl took off to meet the second, the photographers didn't even look where it went and missed the drama that was happening not 20 yards down the beach, right in front of us! I wish we had brought our SLR, but I only had my point-and-shoot camera...you can get the idea from these shots though.

Photographers watching the first owl

One of the snowys

Peregrine falcon (left) buzzing a snowy owl (right)

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On the way back to NH we took the Port Jefferson Ferry to Bridgeport, CT to cut out the city driving and traffic. It was a great decision, since it was 55 degrees out and we were able to sit outside and enjoy the fresh salty air for an hour and a half instead of driving in the car. Aiden had a lot of fun on the "BIG boat." We had 2 coast guard escorts for the entire ride across L.I. Sound (one with a manned machine gun at the front....slightly unnerving)- we heard people talking with the ferry staff that Homeland Security sends escorts randomly over the holiday season (other ferries we passed did not have them) so I calmed down a little and got over my initial theory that there was a bomb threat on our boat. Anyway, we made it in three whole pieces, so all is well.

Large Tug in Port Jeff

Land of the Free, Home of the Cheeseball Smile

Aiden, Blanket, and Timberdoggie. Actually I think that is Sabledoggie (green collar)

Mmmm...ferry hot dogs. I'm sure they are nitrate free and made of tofu!

Little Friends

We also got a chance to see some of my family on Christmas Eve at Uncle Brandt and Aunt Sandy's house. Great Grandma Rising wasn't feeling quite up to a big celebration after just coming through hip surgery, so we visited her a few days later at home. She is doing well and resting so that her muscles will recover quickly.

Brian, Melanie and Emma (opening her present from Aiden)

Aiden got a ride-on excavator from his cousin William! Could it be any cooler?

William's head is not quite large enough for the Christmas Cracker hat (btw, do those things ever work?! Ours are always duds!)

Better get to bed before Santa comes again!

A few days after Christmas we made it over to Mel & Brian's to hang out with them and Carrie & James. It's so fun to see the 3 kids running around together. They still mostly do their own thing, interacting when they really want a toy that someone else is using, but they are getting there. We had PIZZA!! for dinner, which the kids totally appreciated :)

William taking a water break

PIZZA is almost here!

After being wary of talking stuffed animals since he was an infant, Aiden is suddenly in LOVE with them!

OK so we did our best to get a photo of the 3 of them together but it wasn't happening. Maybe Carrie or Mel got off a better shot than me! William really was more interested in something distinctly OFF the couch, and the other two were just looking bewildered and disinterested.

Bye william!

We also got over to Ronkonkoma to see some of Andy's friends from high school. James and Dorothy's little girl Elizabeth is 20 months and has grown so big! She's almost as tall as Aiden with beautiful red hair and big blue eyes. Aiden was smitten with her new kitchen set.

Aiden and Elizabeth sharing some booty and pretzels

Crawly train up from the basement

Elizabeth and her kitchen! Thanks Santa!

Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas on Long Island this year. It was hectic, as usual when we want to run around and see as many friends and family as possible, but we had a great time. We started out at Andy's Dad's place on a rainy Christmas Eve. Aiden got a kick out of some of the antique toys that Andy's Dad has at his place, like a full sized merry-go-round horse, and this little contraption below where you feed coins to a dog who jumps through a hoop to deliver the coin into a slot.

Working out the mechanics...

I just figured it out!

Despite the rain we went for a little walk outside to see the bay.

Then it was off to Dan & Paulette's new house, which is only 2 blocks away from Andy's Dad's house. They are enjoying the extra space, and Paulette cooked us a yummy chicken dinner before we headed over to my Uncle Brandt's for our final Christmas Eve stop (more about that in another post). Aiden got his dose of tickle torture from CRAZY Uncle Dan. It's really funny now that Aiden even calls him "Crazy Dan!"

Someone found a belly...

GOT you!

Paulette with little Munson

Although he doesn't like me (or Chris) much, Munson was really pretty good with Aiden.

On Christmas morning Aiden opened the presents that Santa had left him under the tree. He was very happy to get a tool set and a Wall-E robot! Thenwe headed up to Nanuet, NY to Uncle Kenny's house for the annual Christmas feast. We stopped and picked up Great Grandma Kulis on the way there and Aiden liked her place very much (lots of elevators and fun hallways to walk down).

Kenny and Jeanie fried a turkey (without burning the house down). It was moist and delicious! Here is the syringe that they used to inject the bird with "butter steroids" or something.

The injection!

Talking and eating appetizers


Aunt Mary and Mause, Kenny's dog

Lithuanian Black Bread (left), Kielbasi & Saurkraut (right)

Aiden with Wall-E

Jeannie reading Aiden one of the many books he got for xmas

Aiden got a whole train set from Uncle Charlie & Aunt Monica

Uncle Charlie showing Aiden some simple tunes.

It is a Kulis Family tradition to sing Christmas songs after xmas dinner, and this year was no exception. I had prepped Aiden to sing "two turtledoves" during the 12 Days of Christmas, which he did (shyly). Once he got into it though, he was dancing around and singing to Rudolph and Frosty and the rest of them. He was even throwing out his own requests (Old MacDonald, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, Mary had a Little Lamb) for Uncle Charlie to figure out how to improvise on the spot. We gave up trying to sing "There Was and Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly" ---just doesn't work that well on the piano!

Aiden getting down to some xmas tunes

Jeannie and Chris

Allison and Great Grandma Kulis

Hannah, Jeannie and Allison

Shots of "Dragon's Breath" from Australia. Butterscotch schnapps, chilis, and rosemary. Sounds disgusting but it was not bad.

Aiden and Dadoo

Jeannie and her "lumpy" or "lump-a-doo"

Hannah and Jeannie

It was quite warm for the few days after Christmas so we took a walk to the beach (park at the end of Andy's mom's street that is on Great South Bay). Aiden had lots of fun throwing handfulls of sand and clam shells into the bay. He was not happy to leave when we had to go.

Walking to the beach

The beach

Yeah, handfulls of sand!

And finally, here is a parting shot of the little man. This is one for the blackmail files when he's a teenager :)