Demented Gingerbread Man

The gingerbread man paid a visit to our local county Christmas party, and we thought it was a little demented. Judge for yourself.

Our First Gingerbread House

We have a beautiful tree, which we cut ourselves. Here are the proud Angle males with their "catch."

Some people go out with their friends to drink and wreak havoc on their nights out. The MOMS Club members, on the other hand, make gingerbread houses and drink coffee. But boy, did we make a mess - woohoo! Nope, couldn't have pictured this a few years ago. I have to say, though, that I'm very proud of my first ever entirely-edible gingerbread house. Notice that I made M, G, *and* Ushi! I copied the reindeer from Nicole, and I loved it because it used not only those pretzels neither of us will eat, but also the pumpkin seeds we forgot to eat.

We Want Some Tostitos

Now this is what we want to see!

Buh-Bye Long Hair

Yesterday was quite a day for Patty and her hair. For years, Patty has wanted to donate her hair to Locks of Love. She wanted to do it earlier this year, but her hair wasn't quite long enough. Fortunately, the stuff tends to grow and yesterday she was ready to give up ten and a half inches of her scalp's hard work. Patty only teared up for a couple of seconds when the actual cutting was being done. The entire shop, including the man on his way from the shampoo station to the chair for his hair cut, held its collective breath. The fact that the hair was going to such a good cause made it really easy to endure the pain. The salon did a really good job with her hair and were super nice. We were there the entire afternoon and they treated Gabriel like he was the son of the owner. Matt got to take Gabe to lunch and on a couple of walks around the shopping area and they had a good time together. We think Patty's hair looks amazing.

Before Patty unleashes the deluge short hair pictures, we thought we'd give you a little taste of fall cleanup courtesy of Gabriel.

Fresh Air

I drove home from tutoring today, wearing a sleeveless shirt, with the windows completely down. The wind was fresh and the perfect temperature. This is Georgia at her best.

G had a great time with his mommy and grammie doing some yard work on Monday. Since Bun has Mondays off from now on, we went over there to help remove the leaves from the front yard. The video is still uploading, but here are a few photos. P has never had so much fun raking leaves!

Nancy Loves Us

...that's why she will be so excited to see this:

It's the first known photo of us together, and it's a bonus that Nancy is in it too!

G Dishes It Out

We had a great Thanksgiving yesterday and and pretty cool day today, too. Since the weather has been so beautiful here in the South, we have been spending some time outdoors. Yesterday we went to the park and today we took an after-dark stroll around the neighborhood. We had a great dinner yesterday, and we've really been enjoying having Boxer here with us while Mom and Dad are up in the chilly North.

Here is a photo of G getting ready to fish at the park. We took off the coat soon after we got there. We thought that we took some really great photos of him and Boxer, but it turns out that the camera battery was going and they didn't get saved. We'll try again tomorrow.

We had a relatively simple dinner since it was just the three of us (one of whom only licked the salt off his corn) - The Best Turkey In The World (if we do say so ourselves), corn, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. And of course chocolate cake (mix) with the patented Angle frosting. And a bottle of wine (duh). Even though Chip didn't eat, he did sit at the dining room table with us and helped dish out the eats.

And today, since we have been having so much fun with Boxer and have really wanted a pet of our own for a long time, we decided to add to our family. He's a Chinese "Dwarf" Hamster, and he's just a teeny tiny little ball of fur. He seems to like his new home, and he likes G best although he gave P a kiss this evening. This is the first pet we've owned together, and he is so darn cute. He runs so fast on his wheel that we can't even see his back legs, and he likes to burrow under his bedding. We think that we are going to call him Ushi, which means "ox" in Chinese. We were going to name him "little dragon," but Ushi is much catchier than Xiaolong. He's sleeping as of press time, so we will take a photo tomorrow when he's more acclimated to his new surroundings. In the meantime, here is a photo of another one.

A note for Nae: I can't get the pic up but will try again tomorrow.

Smashing Crackers

G brought his car seat into the family room, sat down with a sleeve of crackers and a hammer, and went to work. He is very creative.

Here is a screenshot:

Best Seat in the House

Bo Schembechler will have the best view of The Game tomorrow, and he'd probably be sitting next to his friend Woody Hayes, if Ohio State coaches went to heaven...

Let My People Sing

Warning: this is highly addictive, and may possibly be annoying to those around you. But if you can play this without laughing, we promise a full refund!

Some Pics We Picked Up Today

Denise Richards Hates Old People

Is it really horrible that we think that this is the funniest thing ever?

Harmonica Concert

Happy Veteran's Day, and Happy Birthday U. S. Marine Corps (yesterday)! We have a lot of armed services veterans in our families, and we're very grateful for their protection of our freedom. Dad A and Jack, you are heroes!

The other day, while Mommy and Daddy were chatting by the stairs, Chip brought over his green chair and his harmonica and gave us an impromptu concert. It was a great show - he has good rhythm and he really got the audience going!

In sad news, we mourn the passing of probably the most famous Ukie, and certainly the most famous to do one-armed pushups, Jack Palance; singer extraordinaire Gerald Levert; and distinguished anchorman Ed Bradley. They were all tops in their fields and we're bummed about their passing.

In happier news, I made my big hair appointment today for 1 Dec 06 at true salon, and they are helping me financially and otherwise with my plan. I will be donating nearly all of my hair to Locks of Love, a program that gives real hairpieces (and therefore self-esteem and more of a fighting chance) to kids with cancer. Please check out the LOL web site. I also plan to drastically color my hair, so I will look like a new person - it should be lots of fun!

Also lots of fun, my mom and I went to The Dinner A'Fare to prepare a bunch of great dinners to eat in the next week or two. It was fun, easy, and you can bring your own wine. What could be better than that?!

A few tidbits:

• The poop flies in Toledo
• This kid's got an original costume
• Let's hope for his sake it was a small one
• A project we've been following for a while
• Born to kvetch - Matt and our friend Mark both rushed home to tell their wives (me and Lisa - more proof that our families are identical) about this story today
• Batten down the hatches

We're Back (Almost)

Sorry for the lack of posts. For a week, we couldn't upload photos for some reason, and then we have been busy getting ready for Halloween this past week. Now we can't find our camera, for Pete's sake. Thankfully, we were able to borrow Mom and Dad's, and here are some pictures of our fun day.

Sumo Fever

My mom is teaching me to sew, and we are making Gabriel's first-ever homemade Halloween costume. Tonight, to make the belt (wasashi), I tried my hand at designing a pattern, buying the fabrics, cutting, pinning, sewing, and assembling, all on my own. I have to say, OH YEAH! the belly and jumpsuit were adapted from a Simplicity design, and I think it came out great. My mom's a really good seamstress and a great teacher. I am really loving this new skill and having so much fun with it, and I'm so proud of the (nearly) finished product. Take a look:

Superman Reads

Here is Superman explaining his Halloween book to Mommy:

ALCS, Here Comes Deeeetroit!

Tigers rout Yankees to reach ALCS
10/07/2006 7:25 PM ET
By Jason Beck / MLB.com

While Jeremy Bonderman retired the first 15 batters, Craig Monroe's two-run homer propelled Detroit to its largest offensive attack of the ALDS, sending the Tigers to an 8-3 victory on Saturday night and their first postseason series victory since the 1984 World Series.

Read all about it here

Deeeeetroit Baseball

First of all, we have to say publicly how much we adore Vanessa and how beautiful she is (and if there happen to be any extra World Series tickets...)...

We know we haven't posted in a while, and we're very sorry, but we've been going to the gym a lot lately and watching a lot of TV too, and we're trying really hard to get more sleep - so posting has been a lower priority lately. We will try to start taking more pictures and posting more.

The most interesting thing we have done lately is attend the last Santana concert for the next two years at Chastain Park Amphitheater. Our financial advisor, Niki (who is a genius, by the way), gave us the VIP treatment for our anniversary. We had a parking pass for the closest lot, a cocktail/hors d'oevres/cheese and veggie/dessert reception, some goodies including a Santana CD, and a great table relatively close to the stage with some really cool people. It was a fantastic concert, especially because they went more toward the Latin rather than the rock aspect of their music. We were especially impressed with the way that Carlos Santana stayed in the background, hardly ever even walking into center stage. He seemed very humble, gracious, and like a good person. We can now say that we danced to "Oye Como Va" and "Black Magic Woman" played by the man himself. This was definitely something to check off our life list. Here are some photos (and two videos - just press play) from the concert:

And of course we wouldn't dare dream of leaving today's post without a photo of the Chipster! Here are the Bobbsey Twins (G and Christopher), with Owen and Joshie in the background:

A Unique Way To Learn English

Radio Gold

Here are a few photos from the past week:

G and Mommy went to the park last week and fed the ducks:

Next, this is the WORST you will EVER see P, taken at the hospital at her sleep study - she was so taped up that her hair poked out wherever it could, her glasses were a tight fit, and she couldn't move her face enough to smile. It's so bad that we just had to post it:

Here is one of the most awesome shirts ever, from Aunt Laura:

And finally, here is what G wore today, which Daddy calls his "Billy Joe" shirt, after the lead singer of Green Day:

We watched the series premiere of Heroes today, and without having read a single review (so we don't know if anyone else likes it), we very highly recommend it. By the end of the show, we found that we actually cared about these characters. Six Degrees also was very good, and we are looking forward to Ugly Betty. Check them out!

In other news, we heard the best radio EVER tonight. The DJ knew that he was going to switch over the the Monday Night Football halftime performance feed in 3 1/2 minutes, so he didn't want to risk cueing up a song that didn't line up perfectly. His solution? To read from the script of The Goonies. The "wishing well" scene. All the parts. Now that's radio gold.

Happy Birthday, Vera!!!

We want to wish a very happy birthday to our titka Bipa, who is celebrating an anniversary of her 30th birthday (we know which one, but we're not telling!).

For those of you who don't know Vera, she has three arms and wears red goggles, as you can see in the photo.

God Hates Notre Dame

The Wolverines put the No in Notre Dame today. Go Blue! Details can be found here.