Holy crap, it's December

Where to start? Well, here are a few more things Finn can do:

• stand up in the middle of the room
• point to the right picture in a book when you ask him where the ball is. Or the banana. Or the kitty. (This is SO awesome and exciting.)
• say ball. Kind of ("baaow"). Often about a ball.
• break bottles of vanilla. Oops.

Toddlers are so much more fun and interesting than babies. They'rea also crazier, sneakier, more opinionated, and have longer memories.

I am officially done with two of my three classes, and just have mostly housekeeping-type stuff left for the third. To celebrate we went to the Los Gatos Holiday Parade. Apparently our town is quite the local Christmas destination. There's the parade, carriage rides, shopping, and Santa in the plaza - Saturdays for pets, Sundays for kids. No, seriously. The parade was NUTS. Very long, very crowded, mostly pedestrians, but also a giant meat smoker on wheels. Here's Finn when we got home.

Last night we went to Aimee Mann's 3rd Annual Christmas show, which was lovely, and at times strange and hilarious. For instance...


Voices Carry from Katie on Vimeo.

We went two years ago, and it was nice to go back, post-baby, and sit with friends this time instead of strangers.

I'm also hoping to celebrate my new freedom by watching some movies before we head back to the midwest for the holidays. In the spirit of "Holy crap, it's December" (Christmas shopping! Christmas cards! Boy needs mittens!), here is a list, not exactly in order, of my ten favorite Christmas movies.

1. Scrooged, with Bill Murray. Carol Kane is the best Ghost of Christmas Present ever. Except maybe John Krasinski in the short at the Christmas show last night.
2. Meet Me in St. Louis. Not entirely a Christmas movie, but Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is just so lovely.
3. Miracle on 34th Street. I know, I know, but come on! It's Christmas!
4. It's a Wonderful Life. Ditto.
5. Nightmare Before Christmas. Of course.
6. Love Actually. I am SUCH a sucker for this movie, the Colin Firth and Hugh Grant storylines in particular. And the Keira Knightley one. Okay, the whole thing.
7. Gremlins. But don't tell Jonathan; he has traumatic childhood memories of it.
8. The Bishop's Wife. Cary Grant. What else do you need to know?
9. Saturday Night Live: Christmas. Not technically a movie, but you can get it from Netflix, so I'm counting it. It's got Alec Baldwin in the Schweddy balls sketch, Eddie Murphy with Christmas in Mr. Robinson's neighborhood, and Adam Sandler singing The Hanukkah Song.
10. Die Hard. Or Lethal Weapon. Whichever one is on at the time.

And speaking of movies, here a couple quick Finn shorts, first on a slide, then on a random stage they had set up at the park, where all the kids were having a blast running all around.

Sliding from Katie on Vimeo.


There's a stage! In the park! from Katie on Vimeo.

This concludes the longest blog post ever. More photos at Flickr.