Happy New Year, 2009!

Well, the first week of '09 is proving to be just as normal as ever: busy!

We spent the week leading up to the new year getting ready for yet another student to take up residence with us (we're trying to knock out our monster property tax bill and other debts!). Himanshu, from India, arrived Saturday afternoon and is proving to be a perfect addition to our house. He has a nice personality, is friendly and my biggie: considerate! He also has offered to make yummy Indian food for us, which we got really excited about!

Getting ready for that meant packing up Nathan's studio to move to the church, :( and that meant organzing the basement to make room for things not going to the church, :). It felt good to get that all done, but yep, you guessed it, it was tiring!

Through it, Amos was himself: teething and cranky at times; creative, expressive and deeply entrenched in a project, usually involving mostly toys and then one or two non-toy items!

Lately, he's enjoyed putting the kitchen dish towels on his head and running around the house, screaming like a banshee! Or playing with whatever random box, pair of boots, receipt or any other random thing he can find, with his other toys.

Here, Amos is deep in thought, as he focuses on putting the pine needles into the back of his toy pick up trucks. Never a dull moment! (Oh, and he's modeling his new cordoroy overalls! Thanks GrrMama!).

He is also improving upon his talking skills--building three-word sentences and echoing random phrases we might blurt out.

And, as usual, he's singing and playing instruments whenever possible. He's singing parts of Nathan's song, "Motor Home" now, without the music playing. It's so fun to hear him sing it, but difficult to catch on video, as he stops now when I point the camera at him! And many times, when he sings, it's at high volumes, as if there's no other way to sing! I guess he's proving where he comes from, as the Meeks house, at least, tends to be loud!

Amos needed a microphone stand so he could sing and play drums at the same time. As they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention" and voila!, a microphone stand was born! But since this is a bit makeshift, we just might need a real one, real soon! (I think Dada's workin' on it!)

We're loving it all, too! When we're not frustrated at the molars that won't come in but give him heck or worn out from trying to get him to eat, at every meal!, we're having fun playing with him and teaching him. He is a joy!

One more thing: here's my newest concoction for fattening our little toothpick child up:

One Yo-baby vanilla yogurt+half a banana+2tbsps of Peanut Butter+1tbsp of Cream Cheese+a splash of milk and some flax seed = . . .

"Sch-mah-nay!!" (translation, smoothie!)

Happy New Year! Hope you all are well!