We took the boys to see Santa on Saturday afternoon and had a nice chat. I think I've said this every year, but it bears repeating: the Santa at Sycamore Mall in Iowa City is fabulous. He's so friendly--jolly even--has real whiskers and doesn't scare kids, at least not ours. There is never a line to wait in and they let you take your own pictures. Talk about the Christmas spirit! When Santa asked Ed what he wants for Christmas, Ed exclaimed, "A PRESENT!!" Stifling a laugh, he then tried to coax something more specific and elicited (as coached) "Some tracks and train cars for my wooden train." He had an extended chat with Ed about the various characters in Thomas the Tank Engine and even knew a few we'd never heard of. It is safe to say Edward is definitely into Christmas this year.

Walking through the mall toward our dinner destination (pizza) Edward found this train and immediately clambered up. He had the other customers giggling down the aisles as he shouted "choo choo!" Daniel got in on the action as well. They didn't know it accepted coins and we didn't point that out. Their enthusiasm was not dimmed. We only got Ed out for dinner by promising to return on the way back to the car. Then we only got him out by trying to psyche him up for going to buy a Christmas tree. That was almost a disaster as we got to the one tree lot in town to find it closed (6:15 on a Saturday.) Possibly for the best though because the few remaining trees looked pretty forlorn. We ended up at Menards the next day and found a nice thin one that doesn't overwhelm the room. Now the challenge is keeping the ornaments in place. The lower branches are filled with unbreakables (some left from when John was Ed's age) but fragility is still an issue for the tree itself as needles are dropping quite rapidly.

We had a bit of a warm spell over the weekend that melted all our snow and Ed's snowman. But never fear, three more inches fell today. We went out Saturday morning to burn off some energy. It wasn't quite as warm as we expected--Sunday ended up being the better day at 55 degrees early before the bottom fell out and an evening sleet storm ensued. But we had a fun trip to the park as you can see from Ed's expression in the swing. I'm posting this blurry photo of Daniel to show that despite his stoic expression in other shots, he really did have a good time. The blur is indicative of his constant motion.

I think Daniel took the previous update (in which I said I would not yet classify him as truly walking) as a personal challenge. The very next day he was up and around and has only improved since then. He still topples over quite a bit, but he is definitely toddling around on his own. He doesn't like shoes, but finds our floors a bit slippery, leading to some crash landings. Other times he just gets over-confident and thinks he can run like Edward. Then his trajectory carries him forward to a big belly flop. Perhaps related to this, I can report that his first word is, "Uh oh!" (Does that count as a word?) I think so, since he's using it in the right context. For example: he might take his cup, hold it over the edge of his tray, drop it and say, "Uh oh!" This can be repeated to hilarity as many times as the cup is retrieved (which is not as many as he would like and many many more than we would.)

And finally, since it's less than 10 days to Christmas and we still have not jump started the Christmas card process, here's another potential contender. Our across-the-street neighbor saw us packing up for our outing on Saturday and came over insisting that we had to take a picture. We snapped one of the boys, but he said, "No, all of you! This is what neighbors are for!" Apparently in this neighborhood, neighbors are also for snow-blowing, as our next-door neighbor cleared not only our sidewalk, but also our driveway this evening! Cookies will be forthcoming in hopes of continuing this lovely tradition!