Decking the Hahls

Here are some of the highlights of our Christmas in Arizona:

1.THE AWESOME PJ's: Not to mention the sweet slippers.  Congrats to Oma for making such great choices!

2. THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER: Sydney, Caleb and Mia had fun looking at the puppets and feeling like big kids.   Alyson and I fun taking alternate naps during the show!

3. THE NATIVITY: Sydney was Mary, Caleb was a Jedi-like Joseph (with handlebars to boot), Mia was an angel, Kendall a sheep, and Chase was a 19 pound baby Jesus.  We missed you Henry!  You had the baby Jesus part sewn up.  :-)  

4. KENDALL'S MOTHERLIKE LOVE FOR HER COUSIN: This is the look she gives seconds before she squeezes Chase, bends his arms backwards and plants wet kisses all over his face.  And he LOVES it!   Chase is my gateway to Kenny's heart, I've realized.

5. CALEB'S CHEMISTRY SET: Click here to see the explosion.

6. OUR FABULOUS PRESENT TO OPA: Wait till you see this one.  Five stars.

Honorable Mention: GIRLS' NIGHT OUT AT TWILIGHT.  It would have made the actual list if Edward were cuter and better at little things like talking.  But we all had fun.

Less Honorable Mention: THE AGE OF EMPIRES.  This is the board game that took hold of the menfolk for three days and didn't let go.  It has about 20 pages of instructions that require a West Point degree to understand.  But Kudos to Charlie and Bill for winning big.   That's almost as cool as it would have been to see Twilight all together.  I'm just sayin.

5 years of mawiage

Oliver and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary with a hike in Mesa, Arizona.  This photo may not be the brightest of the happy couple, but it shows how far the hike was.  

Actually, I think our hike was way harder than this picture makes it look.

But this next picture is cool be-

cause it makes us look ready to 

float off to heaven.

That's Oliver and me to a tee.

(Funny Joke.)

6 months old with a sweet ride

This post will be fun for anyone who appreciates smiley babies or Fisher Price products.

For those of you who don't, I'm afraid it will seem a little indulgent.

But honestly...

Could you cut any of these picture if this charming little boy were yours?

I didn't think so.

Caleb's date with Momma

Caleb and I went to on a date see the Nutcracker together.  He thought he looked like a prince and that I looked like Miss Scarlet from Clue, sans candlestick.  

Nutcrackers are cooler weapons anyway.

Our night got off to a rocky start.  Caleb burned his finger on my hair-straightener and almost called the whole night off.  When we finally got in the car, I made a wrong turn (thank you GPS voice who thought the show was in Rhode Island) and we almost missed everything.  I ended up turning around, nabbing a highly illegal parking spot, and running a frantic quarter-mile with Caleb and Nutcracker, making it just in time.  

Caleb thought the theater was a palace.  He had his eyes wide open the whole time.  And we both LOVED the show.  He kept on saying, "cool" and asking about Drosselmeyer.  A 12 year-old from our church was dancing in the show and Caleb supported her by shouting, "GO ALEAH!!" at the top of his very capable lungs, right in the middle of the music.

At the end of the day, it was a great date and Caleb knew it.  

He gained major confidence in his skills as a gentleman.  

Maybe too much confidence.  Here are a couple friends he made at the Belmont Tree-lighting Ceremony.

His Cuteness

Here's a video of daddy trying to get Baby Chase to laugh...

And mommy trying to get Lil' C to smile...

Happy Halloween

Caleb was Paul Revere for Halloween.  Oma made a fantastic cape for the costume.   Caleb had colored his face with a marker that day, but we left it on because we figured Paul Revere's face wasn't perfectly clean. 

Our little redcoat was hot on Paul Revere's trail all night. 

Here we all are, pre-trick-or-treat!

Paul Revere's Midnight Ride

Paul Revere got to go trick-or-treating in his element, in downtown Boston.  He met a lot of interesting people on his journey.

Hark!  A fellow Patriot on the streets!

Was it the scary white hair?  Maybe we should be relieved that he doesn't like taking pictures with strangers.  At any rate, Mr. Revere had a lot on his mind.

Like warning everyone that the British were coming!!!  We found a large lobsterback lurking on the streets.  Little wonder that he made quick friends with Chase.  Caleb definitely had his work cut out for him.

Family Pictures

We've taken a couple of family pictures.  Please vote in our poll to let us know which one you'd like to see in our Christmas picture.  Will it be "Fur a Leaf" (above) or "If You Could Hie to Caleb" (below)?

Omes and Opes came to visit us in late September. We upheld an ancient family tradition and ate out at Friendly's, home of the Cone Hat Sundae.

This was an important moment because Caleb all of a sudden started paying attention to Chase. He had managed to ignore his little brother most of the time since May 23rd. But at Friendly's he decided he wanted to hug and take pictures with him. Little Chasey was pleasantly surprised.

Here they are again. Mr. Meat-and-Potatoes (Charles) and Sparky (Caleb).

Here's Caleb on his very first day of "forest school"--a class at a local habitat preserve. He was very excited to go and wore his backpack for most of the two hour class. We were so curious as to whether he would like it.

Looks like forest school was no problem. Here's Cabey's after-class strut toward his parents.

Baby Chase learns to smile!

Here he is - Charles Freddy, just shy of 4 months!

He is still a remarkably mild, easy-going baby.

And he has a HUGE smile.

Here we are trying to get him to laugh on camera.

Baby Chase can be a chatterbox sometimes. He's discovered that it's fun to make little squeals, and now he often entertains himself in the middle of the night by putting on his own opera.

Caleb's Bike

Here is Caleb's first attempt at riding his bike. He gets a little distracted by the cool designs on his bike and then the people riding their bikes behind him. By this point he hadn't ridden it without me pushing him. (This was 8/30/08)

Caleb does it!!! This was 20 minutes into riding a bike and daddy was starting to doubt whether he would be interested enough to figure it out. NEVER doubt this boy. He pretty much hasn't gotten off his bike since then. Needless to say I was a little proud.

Make Way for (Caleb George Hahl, the) Ducklings

Caleb was really excited to go to the Public Gardens, home of the famous ducklings from Robert McCloskey's book.

Turns out he wasn't the only fan of Make Way for Ducklings.

Here he is with Mrs. Mallard.

Caleb kept looking for ducks though, and some of the workers weren't so happy about it.

Fun with Zozoe and Pop-pop

It's hard to see Chase's shirt, but it says, "Para mim, chega. Vou para a casa de vovo!"

Translation: I've had it. I'm going to Grandma's house.

We went to Grandma's at the end of July to say goodbye to the Haglunds who left for Slovenia for 2 years.

Here we are a month later, taking a cruise around the Boston Harbor. Chasey's 3 months old in this picture. Check out his faux-hawk!

Zozoe and Pop-pop took us all around town when they came to visit. They stayed near Faneuil Hall, right in the middle of the Freedom Trail.

If you ever wonder why we send out pictures so infrequently, we invite you to examine the enthusiam levels of the Hahl family males in this photo.

Yeah, you'd have a rough time too.

This is one of those Norman Rockwell snapshots that don't need any explanation.

But here it is anyway: This is a fountain in downtown Boston that Caleb LOVED. The water would spurt up randomly and he'd go crazy when it sprayed him. He thought that everyone should experience such unabashed joy at getting soaked.

Walden Pond

Here's Walden Pond and two young transcendentalists.

Henry Thoreau would have appreciated Caleb's disdain for fine clothing.

But I bet he wasn't as charming as this boy. We can never get too frustrated with him when he smiles like that.

World's Longest Post

We're still learning how to navigate the worldwide web.  You'll notice that the pictures in this post are in reverse, and at times scrambled, order.  Just know that we're operating on sleep levels that make us the equivalent of legal drunks.  So without further ado...

Here is the WEED-TREE that Oliver pulled out of our house patio in Florida while getting the house ready for the market in June.  The patio is tiled with brick and that is all I will say about that trip...

Here are Caleb and Oliver being busy in the office of our new home in Belmont.  Caleb made sure to tell Mommy that they were busy when she came in to check on them.

Here is a link to our house listing--miraculously ready to sell after said weed pulling!  We are THRILLED to have it on the market--we're not exaggerating when we say this was a miracle.  Loooooong story.

Here's our beautiful Prince Charles Freddy at 6 weeks.  

He's a remarkably peaceful and patient baby.

  

He's also getting bigger fast and filling out clothes that were sacks on Caleb!

Here are the boys on the 4th of July.  Chase is wearing a special outfit that Zozoe picked out for him.  Notice the patriotic shoes.  

Baby Chase and his Daddy at Yankee's Stadium.

We're all happy that Caleb will no longer bathe in an oversized tupperware container.  This was his bath for two years!  Three cheers for the real bath at our new house.  

  

And now it's going the way of all the earth.  Bon voyage.

Here are the Hahl men playing a little cricket at Hahvahd.

Caleb adores his Opa and runs him ragged at every opportunity.

Caleb and Oliver's convert, Jeen Hee, who came to visit us in Connecticut.  She helped us pick strawberries and later tried New Haven's storied pizza.

Yankees again.  This is the same game, don't worry.  Will someone tell these parents to get their poor kid out of the sun??

Here are Babe Ruth's daughter, grandson, and great grandchildren.  We'll ignore the man in sunglasses for now.  See any family resemblance between the Ruth children and their famous ancestor?  Before this game, I (Elise speaking) had finally decided that it was OK for our family to be Yankees fans because Chase's great grandfather cheered on Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in this very stadium.  Seeing Babe Ruth's progeny there on a day when we, the Hahl progeny were there was a fun connection to the past.  Too bad A-Rod was a part of it too.  What was HE thinking about that day?   Hint: the official caption to this photo is "This Used to be My Playground."  

Ken Griffey Jr. at bat.  He didn't do that well.  Cincinnati killed the Yanks though.

Chase came very prepared for the game.  Does anybody else thinks he looks a little bit like Joe DiMaggio??

Here we are at the San Diego temple on the way to the airport, after our fun family reunion.

We love showing off the boys in their slick double stroller.

  

Back to strawberry day.

  

We like to document our family doing earthy things.  I think we ended up with more pictures than strawberries.

 

Caleb and his harvest!

Back to California again, on blessing day.  Here we are with the Hahl and Babbel grandparents, who flied all the way out from Philadelphia to see the blessing.  

The whole group with the newly minted Charles Frederick!

Here's CF's James Dean impression.  People thought that Chase was good looking in the photo, but "disturbed", so the picture didn't make the cut for our baby announcement. 

One-eyed Willy.  Another runner-up for our baby announcement.  The real announcement will make its way to your mailboxes soon--we hope!  

Caleb and a whale at Sea World

Here's Chase, 6 days old.

  

Just like his big brother, he loves resting his head in his hands.  Even in the womb--we saw it on an ultrasound.

Mia, Auntie Ainy, Sydney, Auntie Cassie, and Kendall were excited to meet the little guy.

Kendall was especially sweet with him.

  

And we'll end with the Hahl Family on Chase's big day.  He was 9 days old here.  We are so excited to have another wonderful boy in our family.