2 Sports

Amazingly perfect. If you watch this and don't laugh, you know nothing about hockey or Canada.

Belly Laugh

When was the last time you laughed? Not a chuckle. I'm talking a full on belly laugh.
The kind where you can't catch your breath.
The kind where your eyes tear up.
The kind where you try to stop but you physically can't.
The kind where you keep thinking about why you started laughing and it makes you laugh even harder.

It's been awhile for me. I mean I laugh all the time. You can't live with a 2 year old and not laugh a lot. But a belly laugh is different.

Last night was the night. I went in to check on Corban before I went to bed. He needed some blankets pulled up (he's a very "active" sleeper). So as I'm pulling up blankets I notice that some things aren't right. Where'd his hand go? As I look a little closer I realize that he has put a sock on his hand like a glove. I removed the sock and went into our room to laugh hysterically.

It's stupid really. As I type this I don't find it all that funny. The more I thought about it though the funnier it got though. Why would he take one of his socks off his feet and take the time to put it on his hand? What was he thinking? Was his hand cold? Was going exploring and needed gloves? Was he doing sock puppets?

So this morning when he got up I asked him why he put his sock on his hand. His response? He just started laughing. Belly laughing. Hysterically.

YEAH!

It's harder and harder to find anything worth while on YouTube these days. This morning I found something that made me laugh out loud.... literally (not that stupid lol nonsense).

Thanksgiving Candles

Here is another tradition we do around this time of year. Mari and I started this when we got married. I think it started by Marjorie reading something about family traditions or something. She thought this would be fun and it has been.

Every year at Thanksgiving we get a candle that represents the year we've had.

Since we got married in September of 2000, we're kind of ahead one candle. Since we've been married seven years, we have eight candles. Our first candle was a giant 3 wicked candle that we used at our wedding to represent a strand of three cords which can't be broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

I won't go through each years candle here....suffice it to say that last years candle was "Welcome Home".

This year was hard though. We struggled trying to define what our year was about. In past years it's been easy to point to some major events in the course of the year that is clearly a representation of the year as a whole. Then our friend Dan Lewis stopped by a couple weeks ago. I was telling him about our dilemma. BAM he nailed it.

See a lot of the past year has been about every day stuff. Getting up, getting Corban ready, eating, playing, eating, napping, eating, sleeping, etc. It's an every day grind. Dan's idea was coffee. Our year can be summed up in the daily grind. To top that off it's double meaning is that every morning Corban loves to help daddy make coffee. He counts out the scoops, helps pour in the water, and then presses the button. AND the coffee is needed to get daddy through the early morning grind too.

So we finally have our yearly candle. The Daily Grind.

Bad Santa and Unintentional Good Santa

It's been awhile. Sorry. I've decided to post a couple times about some holiday thoughts and traditions that we do.

Up First: Bad Santa

First, I need to say that we LOVE our library. For the size of town that Warren is we have an AMAZING library. Every Monday morning Corban and I go to "Toddler Time" in the Children's section (that's a post in itself!). ANYWAY...they had a special Santa thing last night. It was a limited amount of kids, and you had to be on the list etc. So we thought, what the heck we'll take Corban and it'll be cool because he's familiar with the environment etc.

So we get there and it's upstairs not in the Children's room. So there goes the "familiarity" thing. The upside is the head of the Children's Dept. was heading the whole thing up and Corban just loves her.

So we sit on the floor with him and read some books with lady. Good time. And then she rings a little bell and music starts playing...."Here Comes Santa Claus".

And in walks "Santa" and "Mrs. Claus". I'm 32 years old. I've seen a few Santa Clauses in my day. This was HANDS DOWN the WORST Santa I've ever seen. Allow me to point out a few problems that this Santa had.

1. Santa had beard issues. Look I don't expect every Santa on every corner all over the place to grow a real white beard. I do however expect that your fake beard look reasonable and when you talk it moves with you. This guy had what used to be a nice beard, but it didn't fit him right and when he talked it just kind flopped around like a wet mop.

2. Sanata had hat issues. On this one, by "issues" I really mean....he chose not to wear it. If there's one thing that kids know....it's Santa's hat. That's why they sell just the hats for people to wear. Corban knows that if you're wearing a red hat with white trim, you're Santa. This Santa chose not to wear the Santa hat because he thought it would be TOO HOT! WHAT? Too hot? So instead he had an ill fitting white wig.

3. Other stuff.....Ok this isn't a must....but Santa to me should have glasses. No glasses on this guy. Also, this Santa was pretty darn old and going senile. Seriously. He couldn't remember the words to Jingle Bells. Mrs. Claus (who I suspect was his real wife) helped him out a lot because he frankly was able to handle the demands of being Santa on his own. He was fruity.

Forget the fact that some kids were afraid of Santa....I was afraid of Santa. He just weirded me out. Corban on the other hand was fine with him. We opted to leave early after some crafts since Santa decided to TAKE A BREAK after only seeing 15 kids. Bottom line: if you're advertising an event where Santa is going to appear for only a select # of kids...you should find a real deal Santa who isn't creepy.

Second up: Unintentional Good Santa
This happened years ago. Marjorie and I were either still dating or just married. We were in a mall in Canada. It was just before Christmas. The place was packed. Kids and parents everywhere doing some shopping just before Christmas. It was a zoo.

There was a man there that had to weigh 350 easy. Nicely round, not bulgy flab. This man also was a little older. He had white semi-longish hair. He ALSO had a big white full beard. No joke. To top things off......he was wearing a red solid color flannel type shirt.

Now this guy was just out like everyone else doing some shopping. I'm sure it was completely unintentional on his part. I have to say that if there is a Santa Claus....He Was IT!

The coolest part was that we were walking kind of behind this guys for awhile in the main part of the mall. You should've seen little kids as they would walk out of stores and see this guy.....mouths would drop...."mommy there's Santa!"......"Santa's shopping!" It was awesome!