Heather Retrospective

I was looking at an old flash memory card and found these forgotten pictures from when Heather was around 6 months old, and thought I would post them for everyone's enjoyment.

Christmas Pictures

Charla bought a new point and shoot camera, and since she isn't doing professional photography anymore, she gave me her backup digital SLR. Christmas provided the perfect opportunity to practice my photography skills.

Charla's service present to me was cleaning out my fish tank really well. Don't they look happy?



Here's a portrait I took of Charla a day or two before Christmas.



Here's the peaceful "before" picture on Christmas Eve after the kids went to bed.



Michael really loved this polar bear from my Grandmother.



Charla got some good pictures of Heather, but this is the best one I managed. Charla is trying to grow out Heather's hair, which annoys me because she always looks like this, but she assures me it will be worth it in the long run. At least it is a realistic depiction.



Zachary really enjoyed himself this morning. It was kind of bittersweet for us, because this will be our first and last Christmas with him.

Boys Day Out

Heather was in the hospital today for a baclofen trial, so I got to take a vacation day and spend the day with the boys. It wasn't an emergency, they were just testing the dosage of a new medicine that should help her a lot. (By the way, that link is from the UK. Before you ask for government run health care, read the usual wait to get financing approved for something like this over there. Besides, more people need food in order to live and be healthy than people need doctor visits. It never made sense to me why people would demand government pay for doctors for everyone but not food for everyone.)

Here they are, dressed and excited to go. Zachary is intelligent like me and knows to close his eyes when the painful blinding light flashes.


First task, shopping for Momma. First stop, Radio Shack!


Next stop, Target, to look at new video games to buy Momma for Christmas. (It's our twisted tradition for me to pretend I'm getting presents for her that she hates, but I like, and vice versa. It's our twelfth Christmas together happily married, so that tradition can't be all bad.)


Next stop, my office for my Weight Watchers meeting. Here is Michael next to my desk.


I reached my first 10% weight loss goal! Here's me with the keychain they give you.


Mom and Dad, remember when I took apart all those electronic devices as a kid?


Sometimes I actually put them back together now! Sometimes.


Actually, the trip to Radio Shack was for supplies to fix Charla's laptop, which is my service gift to her this year. New environmental standards for lead make things like power jacks fail much more quickly, in case you were wondering. It's not your imagination that they don't make things like they used to. Here is me putting some lead back on there where it belongs. If lead was bad for the environment, God wouldn't have put it there in the first place, right?

Heather's School Recital

We went to the annual Christmas party at Heather's school this morning. Heather did good singing, we all ate pancakes, and the kids sat on Santa's lap.

Daddy Daughter Date

Heather and I went out for pizza and Christmas shopping this evening, just the two of us. We had a great time. This is Heather with her usual cup of ice.

This is Heather enjoying a Hershey's chocolate dunker from Pizza Hut. She is starting to eat a lot more when there is another payoff like it tasting good, but the concept of eating for nourishment still eludes her.

You might be a redneck if all your Christmas decorations come from John Deere. I keep telling you yankees about stuff like this, but it's hard to believe unless you see it for yourself. They have tree skirts, stockings, snow globes, and ornaments. Yellow and green is the new red and green.

This is Heather with the new Dora the Explorer Christmas shirt she picked out to wear in her school recital tomorrow.

Heather is getting a lot better with her wheelchair in the store. We spent plenty of time and she enjoyed stopping and saying, "Daddy come look at this!" at everything. Her favorites are Dora and princesses and books.

It's still interesting to see how people react to a child in a wheelchair. Even when Heather gets in someone's way and it is clearly her fault—a situation which usually garnered a scowl for Jojo—people always apologize to Heather and me. I sometimes wonder if strangers think we're cruel for expecting her to abide by the same social standards as anyone else.

Hopefully, Heather will forget what I bought for her (a little Dora sofa) before Christmas.

Video footage

Here are some videos and pictures of Heather at the Wiggles concert earlier this year. I am just now getting around to posting this. Hope you enjoy them

Jojo's Last Meal

Jojo left this morning to live with his Grandma in Florida. We will miss him, but this will be a good place for him and we hope it will stick.

Karl's Weight Loss

You may have noticed the new Karl's Weight Loss sidebar and thought that seems a strange thing to put on a public web site. Well, first of all, a good support system is very helpful. Second of all, I'm very proud and happy that I finally found a system that works for me that I can see myself doing long term. My work is paying for WeightWatchers meetings in a conference room at my office building. For once I feel full at the end of the day, and the plan works with the several times a week of eating out that our schedule too often necessitates. I even lost weight over Thanksgiving, getting all my favorite traditional foods in and being out of town on vacation all week, and that is saying a lot.

Let it Snow!

It's not cold enough to stick, but it's snowing in Huntsville!

Hanging Out After Pie

Relaxing With a Fire

Playing Fetch

Michael Feeding Himself Spaghetti

Kind of.