1/8/13: Mornings before school

Cory is nearly always the first one up in the morning. He heads downstairs and watches TV. Usually it's something on Roku, unless we have DVDs from the library. These days it's often Transformers, though sometimes Mythbusters or something else that strikes his fancy.

1/7/13: Cory's first day back at school

Cory's first day back at school, and he was not terribly thrilled about it. Much sobbing last night, but this morning he was more composed. Still not happy, but at least not dissolving into tears and dwelling on all the reasons why this was a horrible thing.

Here he's perched on a little ledge by the front doors to the Little School Woods Building. When he's not practicing his ukulele skills in the 15 minutes or so after the doors open and before school starts, he sometimes sits here and watches the kids mill around, waiting for classroom doors to open.

The poster behind him is a list the classes came up with a few years ago that attempts to prevent some of the conflict over fort-building and use in the woods around the classroom building. If those rules were followed, I'm sure all would be smooth sailing!

1/6/13: Downton Abbey returns!

Finally, finally, finally. Season 3 of Downton Abbey aired tonight on PBS. Two full hours! I rarely watch broadcast TV but since we don't have TiVo or any other easy way of recording broadcasts, this one was an exception. Got Cory all tucked into bed, and tea made and channel tracked down (we have bizarre channels with our Basic cable/no settop box arrangement - like 65-275) just in the nick of time for the 9:00 start.

Niall watched with me, though he was not very interested. We usually watch a couple of sitcoms on Netflix before bed (currently one episode each of Frasier and Cheers) but last night we watched a movie from the library (the "Star Trek" movie that came out a few years ago about young Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc.). So two exceptions in a row! I'm sure he'll be glad to get back to the routine tomorrow night.

For me, I was just delighted to finally get my fix of Downtown Abbey!

1/5/13: Niall as paparazzi

After a mostly-at-home/mostly-indoors day, took the boys on a mandatory walk up to 140th and back. Niall got out his camera and iPod for some paparazzi action on the way back. Where does he get that from...

1/4/13: Fast food dinner

Subway is a favorite quick-dinner spot (for the boys), with meatball sandwiches nearly always the choice. Found this Subway just down the hill from us at the new house (next to the cheapest Arco around!) so we go there now when we're home already. If we're picking up dinner on the way home from school, we head to the one near Little School. Cory's favorite fast food is McDonald's so we trade off.

Mom's favorite fast food is no fast food, so I usually just make a sandwich for myself at home or heat up leftovers unless we're eating on the run.