The Brookston Family Blog
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On a New Year’s Eve trip to Ikea, Porter practices his keyboard skills without harming daddy’s laptop keys for a change. Ikea started carrying train stations and other accessories to complement their Thomas/Brio-like wooden train sets. Needless to say, Porter was thrilled.

As the hours tick down to a new year, we go … shopping.

Santa left a present for Porter at his friend Natalie’s house. Once opened, he discovered to his delight it was a new firetruck.

“Thanks Natalie.“

Porter’s still on Christmas break so to keep him from going stir crazy again, I took him to the Bay Area Children’s Museum during a break in the storm currently thrashing the bay area.

First, he spent some time with the fishes and turtles.

Later, Porter explored the giant redwood.

Babyzilla terrorizes the city.

“Run, It’s Babyzilla!”

Another article in today’s New York Times discusses treatment methods and the lack of verification that such methods work. To read the whole article, click on the title: To Treat Autism, Parents Take a Leap of Faith.

It rained all day in Marin and while Alice, Sarah and I were content to spend the day inside, by noon Porter was going stir crazy. So Porter and I braved the elements and ran a few errands before ending up at the indoor mall across the highway where he could stretch his legs.

At the mall.

Inside, the mall has a play area for kids and it was obvious from the crowd there that Porter was not the only kid in need of some playtime.

After showing a great deal of interest in other people’s food, from lunging at burritos to reaching for pizza, Alice had her first taste of solid food today with a few bites of applesauce.

“Ummm applesauce.”

The day after Christmas, Lyman, Jay’s father-in-law, treated Jay to a San Francisco 49ers game at Candlestick Park. Much to Jay’s satisfaction, it was a blowout, with the Buffalo Bills handing the Niners their 13th loss of the season.

Bledsoe hands off to Shaud Williams. He then ran 27 yards in for the Bills’ fifth touchdown.

Boxing Day morning, Alice woke early.

Here she is with Grandma.

And Uncle Tucker.

Check out the badgers doing Santa. Weebl, the originator of the badgers, devised an enitre advent calendar of animations.

Here are several photos of Christmas with the Brookston Family:

Alice, all gussied up for the holidays, looks over all the presents.

Porter, getting ready for the unwrapping carnage. He’s finally understanding the concept of presents and tearing the wrapping paper off to see what’s inside. If only we can keep him from opening everybody’s gifts.

Here, Porter finally get a chance to open his first package, and it’s the one he’s been eyeing all yesterday and this morning.

It was a fire truck.

The four Brookstons on the sofa, unwrapping.

In typical California fashion, the Sonoma County Fairgrounds had several balloons lit up like Christmas lights after dark on Christmas Eve.

Here, one of them is framed by the moon.

Christmas Eve morning, Porter and I created a simple but elegant layout to keep him occupied while Sarah and I packed up for the trip to Sarah’s parents for Christmas.

The Xmas Layout.

When we were at the park in Tiburon, I took several photos of Sarah and Alice. Sarah prefers the one with Alice’s tongue sticking out in defiance (of the photographer?) whereas I like the more pastoral, happy Alice. Please tell us your preference by voting in the poll on the left below the legend.

Tongue?

NOTE: Poll now closed, tongue won with 67% of the vote.

Or no tongue?

On Christmas Eve Eve, we took the kids to the park that runs along the bay in nearby Tiburon.

Here Porter, Alice and Sarah fix their gaze on the hills above the bay (actually I think they’re watching some other kids on a swing.

Here, Alice enjoying a good swing.