The Brookston Family Blog
• • • • •

While Alice was playing outside last Friday at her grandparents, she saw two of their cats in the yard and took off after them.

Alice not exactly sneaking up on the cats.

“Look, a cat!”

The black cat sauntering off just as Alice goes in for the pet.

Giving up on the black cat, Alice continues on to the white cat.

Who tentatively stays put, unsure about the little girl approaching.

Alice squats down as the white cat lets her have a little pet, while the black cat looks on incredulously.

After playing outside last Friday, Porter joined his cousin Julien in the playroom to play trains, while Uncle Tuck kept watch over them.

Uncle Tuck referees the boys playing trains.

Jules steers the Polar Express through the tunnel.

But when he gets to the bridge, the tender and coaches uncouple and fall back through the tunnel, where Porter retrieves them.

For some unknown reason, Alice decided to lie on her back and kick her legs in the air uncontrollably with joy. She has been a lot happier lately, more playful and engaged which has been great.

Here’s a Quicktime movie of Alice kicking on the floor. You can either download the movie to your desktop or just click on the link to play it in your web browser (assuming your web browser has the quicktime plug-in installed).

On Saturday, Uncle Tuck also had a chance to play with Porter outside. They took Porter’s white styrofoam glider out into a sunny but windy day. The glider may not have flown straight, but they had a lot of fun.

Porter and his styrofoam glider.

Getting ready for the first flight.

Taking a runny.

Then rearing back.

And throwing it into the wind, where it proceded to fly up into the air and down the hill about 100 feet or more.

Tuck and Porter walk off into the sunset to retrieve the glider down the hill.

When we were visiting Sarah’s folks on Frday, Alice and her Uncle Tuck had a swinging time out on the back deck.

“Hey Tuck! Can you take me for a ride?”

“Okay, are you ready, Alice?”

“Up we go!”

“And away we go.”

Swingtime for Alice.

This is our fourth wacky acronym or name that’s computer generated using some theme. This one is a bit different, it’s the MyMondrian generator. You fill out a form with thirteen simple questions and voilà, a personalized Mondrian painting based on your data. Even the size of the painting is based on your height and weight.

Here are our Mondrian paintings based upon our personal data:

Jay’s Mondrian masterpiece.

Sarah’s Mondrian painting.

Alice’s own Mondiran.

Porter’s personalized painting.

Ever since Easter, Alice has been getting into the baskets and playing with the plastic eggs. The other day she put her breakfast of strawberries in them and ate them out of the egg.

The golden egg has a strawberry center.

“Yummmmm. Strawberries!”

“Hey, strawberries taste better out of an egg!“

The other night the kids decided to double team me and wrestled me in the snuggle chair. But their were no losers, only winners — unless you count my thinning hair, that’s losing its battle with male pattern baldness. Sheesh.

Porter and Alice double team me.

Alice in a dominating position.

Porter jumps on Alice and holds her head so she can head butt me.

Alice tries to blind me while I fight off Porter.

Alice and I spent the morning in Fairfield visting the Ball Plant, a factory that manufactures soda and beer cans. My friends Shaun and Nico, who own the 21st Amendment brewpub are going to begin canning two of their beers, their Watermelon Wheat and their IPA. They invited me to watch the first cans being run at the plant. It was very cool and we had a thorough tour of the plant. By the time the tour was over, several pallets of empty beer cans for 21st Amendment were already done and in the warehouse. Putting beer in the cans should begin next week and I hope to be present to help out on the first day, too.

Shaun and Nico examine can proofs to ensure the color is just right.

Alice has red licorice for the first time.

She decided to put some in the beer cans.

21st Amendment cans on the line.

Nico and Shaun standing proudly in front of the first pallets of their new beer cans.

If you’re interested in seeing even more of the inside of a canning faciry, including some short movies, check out my beer blog.

The other day Alice was laughing on the sofa and — surprise, surprise — I took some pictures.

Wearing lavender.

Laughing on the sofa.

Alice snuggling with me.

There was another one of these Cubs demotivators I came across this morning that I thought was pretty funny, so I decided there would be two of these posted today for extra yucks.

Alice also got a really cool Mariners shirt that was pink and grey. She looks great it in, much better, I’m convinced, than she’d look in black and orange.

Porter and Alice sporting their Mariners colors while stuffing their faces with cheese.

Alice in pink and grey.

As you can see, Alice’s hair is finally starting to get longer as she enjoys the fan on the dragon (vacuum cleaner).

In the afternoon, we went out to Whole Foods to get some grocery shopping done. I hadn’t actually taken Porter to a grocery store in many months, perhaps even as long as a year. He used to freak out about it a lot, so we didn’t go unless he was actively asking to go to the food store, which did happen from time to time. But it had been a while since he’d last asked to go so I didn’t know how he’d react. Happily, he was very excited to be there and had a blast looking at all the food, especially in the produce department. For some reason, he loved picking up all of the apples, carrots, pineapple and lots of other fruit and veggies. He went on a hunt for the elusive bananas, which he didn’t find until he looked in the last possible aisle. But he was especially excited to use the tongs to get our lettuce.

Porter using the tongs to pick out lettuce for our salads.

Getting a grip on lettuce.

The week before I went to Seattle for the Craft Brewers Conference, John and Henry visited the Mariners’ Store to buy new baseball gear for the season. While there, they suggested that Porter and Alice should have Mariners shirts, too. I have always loved the idea of not rooting for the home team, but that’s just the wiseass in me. But at least I’ve almost always practiced what I preach. As a kid growing up in eastern Pennsylvania I rooted for the Green Bay Packers in football, the Baltimore Orioles in baseball and the New York Knicks in basketball. I was a Philadelphia Flyers fan in ice hockey, but that’s mostly because we’d piss on the outside of the area before every game we attended to insure their victory (worked every time). When I moved to California I was amazed at how many people here were fans of Bay Area teams. Where’s the fun in that? How boring is it if everybody’s rooting for the same team? Plus I hate irrational loyalties. So since nobody else had bought the kids any baseball stuff, I figure whatever they get first should be their favorite teams. So Alice and Porter are now officially Seattle Mariners fans. Go Mariners!

Porter in his Mariners shirt before school.

In his Mariners t-shirt with his new baseball cap.

Ready for school. His show and tell assignment was “animal sounds,” whatever that meant. The previous assignments had been specific animals so it was easy to pick up toy animals of those ones. But animal sounds? I was stumped until I remembered this animal puzzle cube that Porter’s grandparents had picked up for him. When you put the two halves of each animal together and put them in the wooden tray they make the sound of that animal, albeit in an annoying electronic voice.

In an effort to keep the baseball theme going this morning, this one is actually not from demotivators, but is from a Chicago Cubs website. There were a few more of these there, too, all with a Cubs theme.