Too cool for school.

Short stuff was up to some risky business this morning. His joke of the day: why did the cow turn on the tv? To see a mooovie.

Christmas with the Cerios, day 4

Twas the night before christmas, and all through the house,

You could hear the loud snoring of Pint Size passed out:

And every five minutes Short Stuff did check,

for Santa's progress on NORAD, but saw not a speck:

Christmas with the Cerios, day 3.5.

Pint Size also got a visit from one of Santa's elves and Elvis. This confused me until I realized you can't spell "elvish" without "Elvis". They released Pint Size late last night, the best Christmas present ever.

Christmas with the Cerios, day 3

Pint Size is in the hospital as the big day approaches, but no one is too sick for a visit from Santa. The Doctors tell us that he has some kind of stomach virus, and we have high hopes he'll be home for Christmas

Christmas with the Cerios, part 2:

And now one of Silverfoxes favorite songs...

I'm Dreaming of a white christmas...

This morning, as I put Pint Size on the bus, it was raining. I joked with the bus driver that if it was just a few degrees colder, it would all be snow. Strangely, as I drove Short Stuff to school, it suddenly was. For the first time in his young life, Short Stuff got to play in the snow before school. I stopped outside his school long enough to take the following picture of said childhood wonder:
While taking it, a complete stranger rolled down her window and yelled "IT'S SNOWING!!!" at me. I Laughed at our mutual amazement. After I dropped off Short stuff, I called Silverfox, who couldn't believe that it was snowing in Louisiana in mid-December... This did not change the fact that snow was indeed accumulating on the palm trees outside Casa Cerio:
I talked Silverfox into coming outside with me and enjoying the weather, and she for the first time in her life tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue:

She succeeded after her third attempt, and looked at me startled... "It tastes... cold." She said, smiling. We then went inside, and I made hot cocoa while Silverfox addressed our Christmas cards.

After Short Stuff got out of school for the day, I took him to the park, where I taught him to make snowballs and snowmen:
Sadly, he took to the snowball thing like a duck to water, and proceeded to pelt me with snow until his fingers turned red from the cold.

What a great day.

Because once just isn't enough...

Pint size decided to take another dip in the porcelin pond, making a mockery at any and all of our childproofing attempts. Turns out he does this at grandmas house all the time and she thinks it's adorable. (sigh)

I told Silverfox that if he becomes a swimmer in the special olympics when he's a teenager, have we ever got us some blackmail material.

A reward of being a dad...

Is witnessing moments like this after the pure terror you experience when bringing your youngest child to the emergency room. Pint size had a bit of the croup tonight, and sacred the crap out of me trying to breathe. He's feeling much better now. :)

I love my woman, but she's insane.

Tonight, my channel flipping alighted on a broadcast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show for a few minutes. Before I could change the channel, My darling bride jumps up and starts acting along with the movie, making all the appropriate and inappropriate callouts, and doing her own one-woman show along with the images on the screen:

Blurry, I know, but I was laughing too hard to hold my cameraphone straight. It was like watching "Dude, Where's my car?"... a sight so incredibly silly that you feel stupid and guilty watching it, but at the same time are endlessly entertained by it. I really wanted to change the channel, but just couldn't bring myself to because Silverfox was just having such a good time. Then to my horror, as the "Time warp" segment started, Short Stuff got up and started dancing around the living room with his mom.

Note the look of relief on Pint Size's face as he watches in wonder from the couch... We are a family of goobers, it seems.

Hallofest 08'... (Or how I learned to stop worrying about occupancy levels and love the party)

Well, joblessness and finances aside, Silverfox and I hosted our Halloween Party/Rock Band 2 Jam session on Saturday night, and it was freaking awesome, with lots of folks getting into the spirit of the evening, and imbibing the spirits of the evening as well. By my count, there were at least 25 people at any given time at our place throughout the night.

We four happy Cerios decided to do a family costume as the Village People... here we see me as the Biker, and Pint Size as the cowboy:

Silverfox was the construction worker, and Short Stuff was the Cop... I had to give the "Don't use the handcuffs on your brother or cousins" speech to him twice though... He was still happy, because he got to have a toy gun, and a nightstick to beat people with. (sigh...)

Ringo and his Wife came over early to give us a much needed hand setting up (for which we are eternally grateful) Ringo went full-on with our theme, and came as the zombie of Kurt Cobain:

And Sondra came as Angus Young:

Both of whom looked really awesome. Sadly, Silverfox didn't get a shot of the back of Ringo's wig, where she made a totally realistic gaping head wound out of hot glue and makeup. My wife is apparently quite the whiz at making people look dead. (who knew?)

Before long, our other guests started arriving... including Timmy as a rather convincing Jim Morrison:

And Dave as Prince:

Prince only did 2 songs and left, (as he is wont to do) leaving behind a rather confused Keith Moon. Some say it was just that Dave couldn't pull off the "formally known as" persona for an entire night... I say it's just because Dave realized it was a lot more fun to play Keith Moon. In fact, Dave and I spent about 30 minutes in the kitchen trying to "out-Keith-Moon" each other with made up stories of trashing hotels and what a bitch Roger Daltrey can be. Neither of us could find it in our hearts to speak ill of Pete Townsend though. (He lost his hearing for your rock and roll sins, people... show some respect.)

The ones that truly stole the show though, had to be the Spiehlers as Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne: Yes, ladies and gentlemen... that is Drew as Sharon (complete with little fluffy dog and screechy voice) and Stacey as "the f'ing prince of darkness". At some point, Stacey pointed at Drew and asked Short Stuff if he knew who it was... Short Stuff without hesitation replied "That's Ace's Mom!" and the ensuing laughter nearly cracked our windows.

Rick and Angie looked fantastic as Ike and Tina:

But I'm still wondering where the hell he got that 70's leisure suit.

Cutest kid of the night, I have to admit wasn't one of ours... but was Silverfoxes godson Little Joe as a punk rocker:He kept getting up in front of everyone playing Rock Band and jamming away with his little plastic guitar.

Thank you to all that got into the spirit and turned out and helped out for this one (I know I'm leaving out so many of you)... it was truly a night to remember. I think Stacey put it best over on her blog, where she wrote "You ever have one of those nights where you smile so much that your face hurts?"

Dave's already talking about putting together a cover of us all singing "Do they know it's Christmas" for a YouTube video before this Christmas. I am so there.

School spirit week for Short Stuff:-)

So we invested in a propeller beanie for funny hat day. Adorable, ain't he?

After his bathroom fun...

Pint size decides to get some practice time in on Rock band 2 in preparation for saturday's party.

Pint size is such a goober.

Last night, pint size worked out how to turn the bathroom doorknob. We found him in this comprimising position a few minutes later.

Fun with photoshop and Pint Size...

For those of you that haven't heard yet, Silverfox is planning a Halloween/ Rock Band 2 jam session party on October 25th, where she encourages everyone to dress as their favorite dead (or alive) rock star. She asked me to make some invitations to this event, and I decided to alter some pictures of the kids to use on the invites. After all, I really set the bar kind of high with the wedding invitations...

I started with the following picture of Pint Size:

Cute, isn't he? So, in keeping with the rock and roll theme of the party, I changed him into his true self... a member of the KISS army since 2005:
Yeah, he wants to Rock and Roll all night, alright.

To accomplish this effect, I had to airbrush out his bangs though... and I looked at it and thought "Boy, he looks like a Vulcan!" Leading to this pic:
Once you start on these things, it's really tough to stop... Here he is as a Klingon:
No Melinda, he still can't say "Q'uplah".

Then I said to myself "Hey, wouldn't Pint Size make a cute unstoppable killing machine from the future?":
Yeah... I have way too much time on my hands at work...