Wii Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays to all citizens of Poogieville! Bear with me on a longer than usual post of photos and video.

Here's a quick recap of the last week, or so.

Erica was so proud of the girls' matching Christmas dresses that I wanted to make sure they got top billing in the Christmas recap.

We had the Rickons over for a pre-Christmas Amateur Hour. Henry (aka "December-Man") and Mason (aka the "Mountain Dew Sipper") warmed up the crowd. Caroline played the drums.

This is a little grainy, but prime footage of the show. Henry turned "Jingle Bells" into an intense dance hit. Caroline and Mason contributed backup vocals. I did most of the laughing.

On Christmas Eve, the kids made cookies for Santa. Caroline was the taste-tester, which was good. She sneezed on a few of her cookie creations and I was worried that Santa might take offense to "green" sprinkles.

She ate them anyway.

Did I mention she's tough?

Henry, on the otherhand, was ultra-clean with his cookie creations. In fact, I'm not even sure he ate his. His aversion to all things outside of the Henry Pyramid is amazing. For those that don't know, Henry's Pyramid consists of hotdogs, popcorn, Kraft mac and cheese, watermelon, Swedish Fish, cheese quesadillas, and baked beans.

Everything else is just a table setting.

Henry will be funny in his fat years.

What about Jo-Jo? Well, she's perfecting a bizarre-looking tripod soldier crawl. We captured her here before she opened the Hoffman Christmas gifts. Apparently, something they're getting caught her fancy.

Here's Joey and her cousin, Calle.


It was fascinating watching the two of them trade toys at Uncle Bob's Annual Christmas Eve bash. Baby communication among babies is hours of entertainment.




After the party, we arrived just in time to spread magic reindeer dust on the front yard.



Here's Henry doing his handy work with the dust.

After dusting the lawn, we sat for Daddy's renditions of T'was the Night Before Christmas and the Polar Express. Caroline took over for me half way through the former. I liked her version better.

Caroline was a little creeped out by Santa, though. I gauged her fear of the creepiness on the following unscientific Creepy Santa scale:

Funny creepy.

Hilarious creepy.

CREEPY!

Caroline was stuck at funny creepy. Hopefully, next year we'll be off the creepy scale and she'll be able to make her Aunt Kimmy proud and add to the Santa lap photo collection. Four is a good age for that, right?

Well, I'm going to go back to leading the Browns on their first NFL championship journey since 1964. That's what you do when the reality is too much to bear.

Mommy and the kids left daddy alone with a new Wii, a fridge stocked with beer and appetizers and nowhere to go until Monday.

And so I say, Happy Christmas to all and to all a good Wii.

Good night now.

The Prelude to Christmas

We start the Tour de Holiday Poogie with the above-picture of Josie meeting the Rip Taylor version of Santa Claus. Welcome to the flamboyant side of Christmas, Joey. Hopefully you won't confuse the center square with the North Pole.

Where's Uncle Bob when you need him?

The Crew helped Mommy and Daddy put the Christmas tree up and arrange the stockings. We're still trying to figure out what crude words you can spell out of R, H, C, E, and J.

I think we're cool unless there's a Croatian curse word that I'm missing. Right?

This one is simply entitled "4-12".

Poor kid.

Caroline was determined to place her ornaments at either 18 inch heights or the Daddy-assisted, top of the tree. Caroline's tree decorating is visually spectacular when viewed from a ceiling camera or lying prone on the floor. We fixed it, though.



And what would a Poogie post be without me ruining another sweet, color-coordinated Mommy/Daddy picture. They say my eyes are going to stay that way if I keep crossing them.

That's just funny.

Bienvenidos, Amigos!

Curiously, our site has been visited over 100 times by someone or some people from Madrid, Spain. I have completely neglected to recognize this amazing feat. In honor of our new (and as yet unknown) friends in Madrid, I think it is long overdue to formally welcome them to Poogieville and ask that they be gentle and kind as they plot to infect our computers with unknown viruses and other maladies we have yet to uncover.

I like Spain. In fact, I am going to honor my new amigos by eating at a Spanish restaurant this weekend.

I shall raise a glass of sangria (not even sure that's really Spanish) to each of you who find my family entertaining. Thanks for letting us enrich your lives with our lives.

Me temo que de usted.

Please don't kill us. (Wink)

BLOG UPDATE: The Poogie Crew is now officially bigger in Spain than North America. Yesterday, we went "Lizard King" and broke on through to the other side. Our amigos in Madrid, Spain have now visited the site more often than our own family in the States.

Madrid = 117 hits
North America = 105 hits
Australia (courtesy of our Sam Wiggle love-fest) = 2 hits

Apparently, the hat tip didn't scare off those crazy Spanish bastards.

I give us three months to live.

Dereliction of Duty

The crack staff at Poogie's Echo Chamber have fallen behind in their award-winning blog updates. For this, we apologize. We've missed a few important events, including Halloween, Caroline's 3rd Birthday Party, the first of two major snowfalls in NE Ohio and more gratuitous shots of Josephine. Perhaps some of the pictures will explain the problem.

Yep, that's the problem. That's our leader carving what turned out to be his brother's pumpkin. Thanks to Bill for swiping the $6.00 gourd and carving it up before realizing he had the wrong one. Judging by the look of the head Poogster, it would not have mattered.

That's Henry (above) at his preschool Halloween costume line-up. I dig Cooper's bear outfit, though. They tell me it was supposed to be Simba, but I'll call it like I see it. Cute kid and my future son-in-law (wink).

Our first trick-or-treater of the evening was none other than Mason as a warm and snuggly Elmo. We caught up to Jim aka "90" and Mason after a few houses and continued on with them during the evening. Mason had the good sense to drive to each house in his Little Tikes push car. Unfortunately, we had to abandon the car somewhere in the neighborhood in order to catch up with the older kids. Being the good sport, Mason and Caroline finished the night in the Radio Flyer and could not have been happier!

The Halloween crew sans Josie.

Cue the gratuitous Josie shot.

We received our first of two notable snowfalls in early November this year. Caroline, like her dad, loves the snow. We're readying for another Kendall Hills sledfest. Last year, Caroline was a good sport to head down the big hills with Daddy. She's been eyeballing the Wham-O-Boggan ever since.

Henry and Caroline in the backyard snow fort.

Caroline turned 3 on November 4th. We celebrated her birthday on the weekend after Election Day at Bear on the Square in Hudson, Ohio. Good times!

Caroline vs. three candles and ice cream. Advantage: Caroline.

A Beautiful Day for Baseball

On Saturday night, someone suggested we stop talking about taking a few hacks at the old ball yard and go out and do it. For the Holman brothers, beers were involved in the decision making process. That's usually a bad sign. On Sunday morning, we made the suggestion into reality.

Joined by our usual partner-in-recreation who shall be known simply as "90", we made our way in the drizzling rain to the ball fields at Barlow Farm in Hudson. It was a beautiful day for baseball. Then again, when is it not?

Ground balls, infield throws, Fungo, BP, soft-toss and the 90's one-man home-run derby show. As Brett Michaels would say, it was "awesome". (Does he know any other word?)

A couple of funny asides:

1. The Holman Brothers drilled "90" at least five times during batting practice. By all accounts, he was okay.

2. Billy "the Tasmanian Devil" broke two bats on successive swings, including my favorite El Cheapo Louisville Slugger which we finally discovered was a Derek Jeter model. So much for Derek Jeter.

3. I managed to bust a moob while "diving" (or collapsing) for a shallow pop fly. Note to self: there are no points for shagging the most pop flies when you are 33 years old.

4. Billy hit the base of the wall during his turn at home-run derby. I was nowhere near the wall and had limited swings with my broken moob. "90" managed to deliver a blast into the driveway of a home 350 feet from home plate. There were no other casualties.

Here's a picture of the Holman brothers at the conclusion of the day.

Good times.

Sam Wiggle for President

So we went to the Wiggles show with the kids on Thursday night. For those who haven't been, the Wiggles consist of Anthony, Murray, Jeff and the newest Wiggle - Sam. During the show they come into the audience and Erica managed to snap this picture of her new favorite Australian singer.

Sam Wiggle (photo by Erica Holman)

In case you can't tell, he actually posed for this shot. He literally held up the show for my wife. I think she's smitten. She hasn't stopped talking about it. Caroline is also in love with Sam.

The Holman family before the show.

Boo at the Zoo with the Hoffmans

We met up with Erica's twin-brother, Chris, and his family for the Cleveland Metroparks Boo at the Zoo this past weekend.

Here are the dizygotic twins outside the Zoo. Who said you don't learn stuff by reading our blog?

And of course, the kids. Left to right - Cleopatra (Autumn); Raphael the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (Henry); Incredible Hulk (Tyler); Tinkerbell (Caroline); and the Happy Pumpkin (Josie)

I wasn't kidding about the Happy Pumpkin.

Each year at Boo at the Zoo, this spooky-looking group wearing black shrouds and junior high art class masks hang out with little fanfare. They make no sounds and just amble around the entrance to the kid-friendly Haunted Hay Maze. I don't know whether to wet myself in fear or feel sorry for these poor schleps. In any event, they've freaked me out since I first crossed paths with them in 2004. This year I got the courage to go have my photo taken with them. Chris and I walked up and asked if we could have a family photo. True to form, they said nothing.

I'm still scared.

Happy Anniversary, Rob!

We survived the seven year itch!

I wanted to do something a little different for Rob on our anniversary. Today is our 8th wedding anniversary!!! The traditional 8th anniversary gift is bronze or pottery while the modern gift is lace or linen. My gift is a blog post...lucky Rob!

This is the church where Rob and I were married. The Church of the Immaculate Conception on the campus of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.

The past eight years have been filled with many blessings, but the most significant blessings are our children.

Here is a picture of Rob and Henry in October 2005. Henry was the only child in this picture...in just a couple of weeks things would change.

Caroline arrived in November 2005.

And Josephine followed this past April.

Sure there have been some rough patches...

But eight years later, we are still smiling, laughing, and having the time of our lives. I fell in love with you when I was fifteen years old and things just keep getting better. I look forward to many more years with you and our family!

Happy Anniversary, Rob!

The Holmans Search for the Great Pumpkin

Judging by the above picture, you'd think the kids were bored to tears with their outing to Patterson Fruit Farm in Chesterland, Ohio.

Au contraire.

"That was awesome!"

-Henry Holman, October 5, 2008

Aunt Judy and Co-Mo with Daddy, Henry and a very happy Caroline.

Here's the gang prior to entering the Corn Maze (in case you couldn't read the sign that made the context of the picture obvious).

Ahh, a trip into a Corn Maze. Makes me think back to 1984 and the film that made me soil myself just thinking about corn mazes. Yep, you guessed it. Children of the Corn

Gulp. Remember Isaac from Children of the Corn? I do.

(Is it just me or does Isaac bear a striking resemblance to Sammy Falcone?)

No? Okay, back to the real pictures...

Daddy and the girls.

Henry snatches a pumpkin, then discovers we're 26 days from Halloween.

Wah-wah.

What would we do next weekend? There's gotta be another corn maze, hayride, bee-infested kettle corn stand, apple picking free-for-all, right? Of course there is and you bet we'll find it.

"Real Men Roast Pigs"

Imagine waking at 4 a.m. to find your neighbors unleashing the inferno of Hell in your backyard. But to tell the pig roast story, we need to start on the day before.

We prepped the pig on Friday night in my neighbor Jim's garage. There were no photos of the prep. It was probably better that way. I'll sum it up for you, though. Plastic gloves, a butcher's knife, garbage bags and a garage hose-down. It was grisly work. It didn't help that the pig was smiling at us during the episode.

If you need proof of the traumatizing nature of the pig-prep, check out this picture of my brother-in-law, Chris. He was there. The poor guy may never be the same. (Actually, this was Chris after driving back-and-forth to Medina, Ohio during the party.)

Did I mention that I'm glad my father was not a butcher?

Anyway, we awoke at 3:45 a.m. on Saturday morning to light the piggy pyre. Here's Jim (the Jim in the Jim-Bob) warming up to the dancing flames. That's what 80 lbs. of charcoal looks like three hours before sunrise.

One of my highlights of the pre-dawn roast was the triple-take look on the jogger who saw Jim and I downing two Bud Lights at 6 a.m. Truly priceless!

Anyway, we named the pig "Gary". There was no explanation. We just sort of liked that. Gary tipped the scales at around 80 lbs. and had scary looking eyes. I'm still a little freaked out about it. Here's Gary prior to his introduction to combustible oxygen and carbon.

Here's Gary roughly ten hours later.

Prior to the roast, we feared the kids would be traumatized by the sight of a crispy Wilber, but we were pleasantly surprised by the "train-wreck" mentality of today's youth. The kids were mostly grossed out by the pig, but like a Browns fan during a 4-12 season, they kept coming back to sneak a peek. Here is Henry and his cousins coming to grips with the "circle of life."

The party was not without its moments of difficulty. It poured down rain from 1:30 p.m. until approximately 3:00 p.m. Thankfully, the rain stopped and the tent we constructed on Friday came in huge for us! Here are the revelers under the big top.

And now for the fun in pictures...

There were baseball stars in attendance like Roberto Clemente who, in case you couldn't recognize him, brought along his jersey as a conversation piece. Nice work, Dad!

Here's a picture of me with me in 20 years and an assist from my beautfiul new cousin, Calle Taber. BTW, UB, you nailed the chicken! I owe you one.


And here's lil' Jo-Jo with Mommy.

Behold the wildlife! A herd of beer drinkers.

Kim Hammond helped Josie expand her friends list on MySpace.

Here are the cousins, Candace and Becki, with Dave and Sam.

Another Clemente sighting!

The Hoffman sisters with a tiring Joey.

The neighbors from all directions. A tip of the cap to Mr. Lewis (second from right) for starting his lawnmowing activities at 7:55 a.m. the day after the pig roast. I enjoyed that.

Lauren and Jacob Falcone with Judy.

Another Hoffman family squeeze.

This photo brought to you by the makers of Bounty.

As the night went on, a new correlation came into focus. The more beers one drinks versus the number of pictures taken leads to incredibly bad photo composition and structure. Here's proof that the picture-taking skills began to wane with the passage of time and the consumption of alcoholic beverages. This was apparently an attempt to catch Adriana's table. Sorry, AD.

And of course, my favorite picture of the evening occurred on my way in from the backyard at the evening's end. Henry decided to bed down on the kitchen table bench.

This is how any good party must end.

The pig roast was crafted on a dare and executed like a well-disciplined drill. Work that was actually fun. I hope everyone had as good a time as we had. Jim and I are already planning next year's project.

Oh, and Jim, thanks for agreeing to sit with me in a backyard at 4 a.m. watching smoke, fire and burning pig flesh. The funny stories are too many to count.

We'll see all of you next year in the backyard!