Santa 2009

After checking out the 26 foot tall gingerbread man Jonas got a chance to talk to Santa for the first time in his life. Jonas and Santa hit it off well assuring a good relationship for many Christmi to come.

Jonas and Santa wanted to make sure that Jonas's letter made it to the North Pole. Santa helped Jonas put his letter to Santa in Santa's special mailbox. Good luck delivering all the presents on Christmas.

Oscar?, Counting Cookies, & Hops

A bit of a random assortment of clips. Jonas starts off the show calling out for his cat Oscar.....or does he? He moves on to counting cookies to prepare for his future career in counting cards. He had some energy left over so the dog toys were sprawled out in hurdle fashion so Jonas could do a little hopping.

'Almost Live' 'Sleepy?' post

Jonas & Cory were tired out early this morning or at least it seemed. They were just 'sleeping' about 5 minutes ago and now are taking 1 or 2 laps, sleeping, wrestling, screaming, running, and repeat......it hasn't stopped yet. It is quite enjoyable, better than any reality TV show I've seen.

SnowStorm

If you had not heard we got a little snow, a bit over 18 inches. Jonas enjoyed it.

The Bouncing Parsley Boys

The big boys decided to teach baby Ben two important pillars of health....diet and exercise. The exercise portion was the standard full-body-hop-gyration which Ben caught on to pretty quick. The diet session consisted of a demo of a unique way to eat parsley as a main course. Cory and Jonas took regular parsley breaks and ate the equivalent of a small salad's worth of parsley. Yum.

Too much too eat....

After an eventful Thanksgiving hosted by Great Aunt Carol Jonas showed the results of grazing on chocolate popcorn all-day by getting stuck in Grandma's cat tree. It seemed that all the attention and activities from everyone at Thanksgiving were not enough to keep Jonas's tummy from expanding. As you can see from the pictures Mom and Grandma were quite concerned with Jonas getting stuck in the kitty-tunnel. Jonas did eventually find his way out with a little help. He was than able to conquer the rest of the tree moving on up to almost the top shelf.

E-way on a warm fall day

November 2009 (above) and November 2007 (below)



Sunday morning was the perfect time to walk the hounds in the E-way. We hadn't been there since Jonas was just a few weeks old. It was such a warm day the dogs and Jonas ended up losing their coats by the end of the walk!

Race Car Fans Only!

If you are not a fan of car racing I would not hit the play button on Jonas's latest video. It could be 3 minutes of your life that you won't get back. It requires someone who enjoys watching hours of cars going around a track while eating potato chips and drinking beer. Jonas does his best to show his natural aptitude to some of these characteristics in his first run of the Tyco electric race cars. He enjoyed the crashes, fliparonis, and instructing his car to "Stay on the track Mister" or "Go Car Go." We tryed to condense the couple of hours of extreme race car action to some highlight footage....and that's what your in for. Start your engines.

BoysNight

Ben, Cory, and Jonas-Rooster got a chance to play some trains, cars, bounce around, jingle some keys, eat some pesto-bus-wheels, smile for pictures while saying 'pickles', and of course get so tired out that you had to snuggle and fall asleep. Well done boys.

Zoo Tour

This post is mostly at Jonas's request. He wanted to see the pictures and videos of the animals he visits at the zoo. He is big into self-promotion and enjoys watching his blog. There are quite a few tiger pics. We hardly ever see the tiger up close so Jonas watched the pacing big cat for at least 20 minutes. We easily outlasted all of the other little kids that came to see the tiger and went off to cruze the rest of the zoo. Their is only one other human in the pictures. See if you can spot Cory.

Halloween 2009

Jonas had quite a few Halloween adventures. He seemed to really enjoy everything about Halloween. He loved the costumes, the decorations, the pumpkins, the candy, and the people. Happy Halloween.

Overnight on the Bay

Jonas spent his first overnight in Green Bay with grandma and grandpa. He had a full slate of adventures. The first night he managed to pop his straw through the bottom of a styrofoam milk cup at a restaurant and create a hilarious milk waterfall onto the table. Breakfast with Grandpa's pancakes went a lot smoother. Jonas stopped by Grandma's work in the morning and visited. He was not trick-or-treating, he was not even in costume, yet he managed to get some treats. He received a beanie-frog from the 99 year-old whipper-snapper and paid her back with a hug and kiss.

Horse Apples

A fun day picking apples and riding on a horse carriage. We ate more apples that day than I thought physically possible. They were all different and tasty.

Haloween Test Drive for 2 (8 of "8 is Enough")

Jonas was showing off his costume for this year's Halloween. We have been asking what he wanted to be for a while and he kept responding that he wanted to be a car. We would ask if he wanted to be a donkey, a bear, a tiger, a train, a monster, a robot, an airplane, a bird, etc. but he just wanted to be a car. This was a dry-run for the car costume. He was quite an attentive driver as he was able to spot some anatomical changes in his mom. Most notably the fact that there is a sister or brother growing "in the womb". Surprise!!

Jammin (7 of "8 is Enough")

Alicia Keyes where are you? It looks like we will have to book her for a birthday party in the future. We only got a little video of Jonas jammin, but he was cranking it out the whole drive home. He turned his VW bus into a "Bus Microphone" and was singing some tunes into it that added a lot to the melody.

Bounce and Throwing (6 of "8 is Enough")

Monday night football gave Max and Jonas a chance to bounce around while Favre carved up the Packers. The kids didn't watch the game at all. A couple days later Jonas and some of his pals walked around the track at Memorial to support Cancer Research. It was hard to believe that this was Jonas's 3rd "Light of Life Walk" that has raised more than $30,000 from the kids and families at Memorial over the last few years.

Farm Pumpkins (5 of "8 is Enough")

Jonas was able to wake-up from his slumber just in time to make it to the farm to pick some pumpkins and gourds. We were some of the last members to arrive so it allowed us to almost have the farm to ourselves for a while. We picked some popcorn which is drying and waiting to be popped in about a month. Jonas picked a small pumpkin and a bunch of gourds which he helped to clean up.

Playing with Greta? (4 of "8 is Enough")

Greta is always a willing sport to play with Jonas, even when she does not have to do anything but be a marshmallow that is in need of a repair. Jonas came up with the idea, and he fixed her up through his legs with his drill.

Lego Train (3 of "8 is Enough")

Jonas has been making trains out of all sorts of things. This lego train with a tunnel-tower was a real nice one. Jonas wanted to take over the video-camera towards the end. This will be put to the test in the future.

Lost Saturday Video (2 of "8 is Enough")

A recent post went through one of Jonas's Saturday mornings. We forget the video clip, so here it is. A little marble horse riding, running, and listening to all sorts of music.

Driveway Hoops (1 of "8 is Enough")

Hot off the heels of 'Jonas marathon' comes a new gimmick. "8 is Enough" is a series of short video posts that will be posted in the next eight days. The first clip is a little preseason basketball practice. Jonas has fallen in love with "Rebounding" so he has started to miss shots on purpose so he can chase the ball to get the rebound. A future Dennis Rodman? We can only hope.

A Windy Day (J.Marathon Episode 10)

It was a gusty day....almost perfect to fly a kite. We hiked up through the woods and bluff behind our house to the park. We flew kites for 2 hours! It was a good thing that Jonas stopped to pee on the way to the park so we didn't have to worry about that interrupting the kite flying.

Local FunTimes (J.Marathon Episode 9)

Slideshow of some recent memories

It was a crazy couple of hours this Saturday Morning. After our normal Saturday morning routine we headed downtown for the "Food for Thought" festival. We ended up having an amazing sampling of Madison's kid friendly offerings. I wish we would have got snapshots of everything, but we don't so here is a list of a couple of hours of a Saturday morning in Madison.

1. Bucky Bash: A giant 50 foot high Bucky Badger and the UW marching band performing for thousands of fans at the UW engineering courtyard before the Badger game.
2. Fire Station #1: The firefighters were maintaining and practicing with their ladder truck. Jonas got a chance to see the ladder up 100+ feet and talk to the firefighters.
3. The Overture Center was celebrating its 5th anniversary. We stopped there on the way to the Capitol Square and on the way back from the Capitol Square. At the Overture center we enjoyed cake, a violin concerto, a kids karaoke band, a dance contest for kids, full costume for kids dress-up courtesy of the Madison Children's Theater, and many other little things.
4. We stopped to grab some 7-hour old cheese curds at the Farmer's Market on the Capitol Square.
5. We toured the Capitol Grounds running around, observing, climbing steps, smiling, and getting drinks from the funky water fountains.
6. Stopped at the "Food for Thought" festival. We received some free roasted peppers from a local chef. Checked out tons of info all about food. Jonas made a food-necklace, fed some chickens, ate some organic popcorn, cheese-curds, tomatoes, and apples while seeing things such as giant grapes on stilts and peas climbing stoplights. We stopped by many booths and stopped briefly to listen to Michael Pollen speak.
7. On the way back Jonas played horseee on the marble rails of the Capitol and ran around on the Capitol lawn with a bunch of other kids doing the same thing.
8. We listened and watched all sorts of musical performers: Scottish bagpippers, three different guitar acts, banjo players, drumming groups, and flute players.
9. We stopped by an outdoor concert on State Street by a New Orleans Style Dixie Land Band.
10. Of course there were balloon animals and face painting and lots of window shopping.

We laughed a bunch that we were able to do so many amazing things in just a few hours. We are always amazed at all the stuff that Jonas gets a chance to experience. The total pricetag for all this: $4 for the cheese-curds. Thats it!

Football Coma (J.Marathon Episode 8)

The Packers season opener gave Jonas a chance to get reacquainted with the TV. Go Pack Go.

Unusual Animals (J.Marathon Episode 7)

Unusual Animals: (In no particular order)

Bat: During the clean up from Jonas's family birthday party we had an unexpected visitor. It seems as though the open door to the backyard was an invitation for more mammals to attend the after-party. The bat flew in through the open screen door and created a bit of post party havoc. Jonas, Ma, and the pets were able to sequester themselves in a bedroom while Pa gently escorted the bat back outside using sonar interference techniques. It was a great way to end the day. Jonas now wears his Dominic chef hat whenever he is inside to protect himself from bats while he is preparing meals or riding his bike indoors. (Not really)

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Mouse: Ernie the cat caught a mouse from somewhere. He likes to display his prey and show it off a little. Ernie chose to drop off his prey mouse right next to some of Jonas's toys. Lo and behold, 2 seconds later the mouse had disappeared. After some time trying to figure out where the heck it had gone Ernie gave up. Pa was left to inspect the toys and there seemed to be one culprit that showed the most promise for housing the mouse fugitive, Jonas's garbage truck. Pa searched the garbage truck interior cabin, the wench apparatus, the grinder, the gas tanks, and the bins to no avail. Pa couldn't figure out how the mouse could have escaped. Oscar the cat came along and showed particular interest in Jonas's garbage truck as well. Pa rechecked the garbage truck for the 5th time and got a peek at the ultimate hiding space, inside the well of the tire. The garbage truck must have some special run-flat tires without internal walls thus allowing the mouse to nestle in and wait out a ride to the garbage dump for an easy escape. (Thinks Star Wars Trash Dump Millennium Falcon Han Solo) The mouse took a few revolutions and was dismissed.

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Dog: Chew, Chew, Chew.....Jonas's dog Rocky has been chewing on his hip. Pa said, "How about some reverse chaps for the dog?" Ten minutes later Rocky had a custom fit reverse-chaps-hip-chew-chew protector. It worked pretty well considering all the delicate anatomy in the area, but Ma was worrying about things getting squished so Rocky eventually had to take the reverse chaps off.