Dark Knight, Sunny Day

From Batman At Home

So I was trying to do some housecleaning today and I left Jack watching some of the incredible Batman: The Complete Animated Series shows his Aunt Megan and "Uncle" Tom got for him for Christmas, wearing his Batman Suit from Uncle Teige, Aunt Becca, Rose and Cormac, and he looked so freakin' cute alternately acting out the action and solemnly taking it in, that I had to grab the camera and fire off a zillion photos. It would take too long to post them all, but you can go to the link at the bottom of the pic and see them for yourself. Enjoy.

From Batman At Home

Christmas 2008

Christmas dawned a little late for the Sheehan family -- we slept in until an incredible 8:30 am or so -- but that didn't diminish Jack's energy one little bit. Once he popped out of is door to see his Santa-swag, he was off to the races. Here's a video sampler of his orgy of presents, with a few random pics to follow:

Batman is the big thing this year (did you get that from the video above?) and Santa and Genevieve's folks and Nanny dialed in big in that department. Indiana Jones is still hanging in there too ---

--but the shadow of the bat is rapidly eclipsing him. Jack loved putting the uniform on but couldn't wear it too long because he couldn't quite sort out seeing through the eye-holes.

Loads of Bat-swag today . . .

. . . along with a much-desired Thomas table courtesy of Genevieve's folks. This will really get us off the hook when we walk down Myrtle Ave past the toy shop here in town. They have one of these and woe betide us if Jack wants to pop in there after a movie or something. We really have a job getting him out of there.

Even when Jack was opening non-Bat-related presents Batman (or several Batmen) had to "stay there and watch," as below:

The traditional kid reaction to receiving clothes as a gift:

. . . unless those clothes are Batman jammies!

It rained almost all day and it was cold, but that was kinda nice in a way -- made this California town feel more Christmas-y. Then as a bonus we got this massive rainbow right across the street. So glad I still had my friend's good camera I'd borrowed to grab some pictures before it disappeared.

These pics are mostly for my Mom, to show her how well her Christmas present for Genevieve worked out. But they look all kinds of Christmas-y too, so enjoy.

All in all we had an excellent Christmas and we hope you did too. 2009 promises big changes and big things, so let's bring that sucka on!

It's bird! Its a plane! It's Super Jack!

So lately Jack has been getting very big into Batman and Superman. After bath time he often becomes . . . Super Jack! With his little coweled bath towel he streaks throughout the house writing wrongs and occasionally upending something valuable . . .

. . . until he catches me taking his picture and bellows at me NO!!!!!

I guess he is worried about his secret identity.

The Big Man, 2008

We are very fond of the Santa at the Grand Californian Hotel at
Disneyland. The decor and all the Arts & Crafts-style ornaments on the
trees are fab. And the Santa is very old-fashioned and always nice.
This is probably our best Christmas-with-Santa picture since Jack's
first . . . seems so long ago.

Christmas in Monrovia

Last weekend was house-decorating time for us and it only took three extra trips to Home Depot this time!

We are really happy with this year's tree . . .

. . . and the house looks pretty too!

Disney Family Day

This past Monday was the Disney Family Holiday Party at Disneyland, where all the cast members and their families take over the park for the night. It's a nice event where the executives take the custodial and front-line jobs and everyone is nice and cheerful (I met Bob Iger at last year's, and we ran into the Director who hired Genevieve this year, who was sweeping up Main Street. "That'll show you!" we joked). Anyway we make a day of it. I headed down early with Jack and we had a fun couple of hours waiting for Mom to get off work. then it was off to Santa's Reindeer Roundup in Frontierland for our traditional cookie-decorating (Dad, with his special gift of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes earlier this year had to abstain).

The usual country-fried high jinks provided the entertainment at the ol' Reindeer Roundup . . .

. . . whilst these Buddhist monks seemed nonplussed by Mrs Claus. There seemed to be an entire monastery's worth of monks in the park, which was kind of amusing.

Jack was skeptical of the cookie decorating at first . . .

. . . until Mommy revealed the containers of gooey, sugary icing . . .

. . . and then they both got to work.

Jack's finished product . . .

. . . and Mommy's, perhaps predictably, somewhat tidier version.

Nothing beats a quality horsey ride at the park for holiday fun!