Four More Years...

...and The Pip will be five. Happy birthday, Little Dude!

Oh, yeah, there was also some kind of election. In which a bunch of crazy people lost, and a guy I played rugby with was elected a US Senator. Which is a great way to celebrate the one-year anniversary of this momentous occasion.

And here's the "featured image" pasted into the post, for those reading via RSS. It's a grainy cell-phone picture from a couple of days ago, when Grandma and Grandpa brought up a big birthday balloon:

It's hard to be a little dude with a great big balloon.

Here's a somewhat better picture, of The Pip humoring Grandpa last week, when they came up for Halloween. It's from long-ish range, because Il Duderino had conjunctivitis last week, and looked like a prize fighter for several days.

The Pip smiles for the camera.

And just so she's not left out, here's SteelyKid on Halloween, in her Peter Pan costume:

SteelyKid as Peter Pan, ready to wreak some havoc.

She absolutely loved trick-or-treating, and came back with about ten pounds of candy. At one point, she ran across a grassy median flailing her arms like Kermit the Frog and screaming "We're getting SO MUCH CANDY!!!!!"

But today's mostly for The Pip, who's walking everywhere and trying to figure out running so he can keep up with his big sister. He's also got very strong opinions on what he should eat, having an extended freakout last night at dinner where he kept refusing his baby food because he could see a bag of pretzels on the dining room table. Once we gave him some pretzels, he happily ate goop on a spoon in between bites of crunchy salty goodness. And then pitched another fit until he got some of the chicken Kate was having for dinner...

So, happy first birthday to The Pip!