Blanket Blues (Subtitled: The Bane Of Tigers)

Like most others across the globe (hopefully), the Chanoli Gang is celebrating the birth of Jesus this morning.

One nice gift that Mama and I received today is a nice blue fleece blanket. Like almost every blanket in our house, it's not official Chanoli equipment until Papa, Chuckles, and Giggles have hidden under it together. Silliness occasionally gets into the fun, but her tolerance for hiding under blankets is still rather short.

We broke the blanket in today, and that brought to the surface one of Chuckles idiosyncrasies; sometimes he doesn't like to be touched. In this case, he didn't want Papas feet to touch him under the blanket. I explained to him that he was being too touchy, (pun intended,) and that he needed to be more gracious. It didn't work.

As a mildly ineffective way of desensitizing him I deliberately put a foot on him. He popped his head out from under the blanket, (my head wasn't under it at the time since I needed a breath of fresh air.) In his most serious tone he told me, "Daddy, foots aren't for touching people. They shouldn't touch people, foots should only touch tigers. They're for kicking tigers and that's all."

I guess we aren't ready to get a dog. (Not that we'd planned on it.)

May the blessings of our Lord and Saviour grace your home this day.


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One among us needs your prayers. Please link to http://www.welovekaren.blogspot.com for current prayer request updates.

Our family thanks you.
Papa Chanoli

The Giggling Princess

This has been one horrible cold/flu season for the Chanoli family. We've been battling yet another bug that has ravaged the whole family this past week. Currently Mama and Papa seem to be the worst off.

Mama, in her daily travels with the little ones snapped a cute picture of Giggles the other day that I thought you might enjoy.





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One among us needs your prayers. Please link to http://www.welovekaren.blogspot.com/ for current prayer request updates.

Our family thanks you.
Papa Chanoli

The Spirit of Christmas

By a Hairs Breadth

Mama Chanoli and I came within a hairs breadth of having a date night. I can't even remember the last time we we went out together. All we were going to do was a little Christmas shopping and maybe have an ice cream sundae together, but even that had me excited and looking forward to it.

Poor Chuckles came down with a fever and naturally we are in sick-house mode now. Date night was canceled.

Even still I find myself thankful for my lovely wife and her tireless care for the Chanoli gang.

Christmas is already merry.

Chuckles was just sitting on the couch watching Finding Nemo with Silliness on his lap and his arms wrapped around her. A big brother smile was on his face.

Giggles has taken to some extra drama when she gets upset. Recently she paced around our upstairs in tears hollering, "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" I still don't know what was bothering her, but it was unprecedented cuteness.

Life goes on in the Chanoli house.

Sometimes even laughter pales in comparison to a contented smile.





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One among us needs your prayers. Please link to http://www.welovekaren.blogspot.com for current prayer request updates.

Our family thanks you.
Papa Chanoli

Snickers, Bubbles and Sweets

Tonight, Chuckles, Giggles and Silliness have their Cousins over. We'll call them Snickers, Bubbles and Sweets. They're a little bit older than the Chanoli gang, but oddly, and almost poetically, they are an older boy and two littler sisters like our children.

Karen, whose update link I keep at the bottom of my posts is their dear mother, and their father whom I'll call Bobblefingers for the sake of the mirth anybody who knows him will find in it, (He'll love me for that)is one of my own dear brothers. I am a fortunate man, in that I have the rare privilege of being able to look up to my younger brothers. They have been instruments of God's grace in my life, as have their wives, and now they and their families are my closest and most valued friends outside of Mama Chanoli and our little ones.

Snickers, Bubbles and Sweets are staying the night with us for a day and night of fun and games. Among the fun things that Mama Chanoli had set in store for us tonight was gingerbread men for dessert. Bubbles provided the blog-worthy entertainment for the evening. As we were eating our gingerbread men we labeled them according to their missing body parts...

"Look, mine's Headless." bellowed Snickers with a laugh.

"I ate my mans arms." laughed Chuckles.

I was busy interrogating mine as to whether it had seen the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane.

Holding up her dismembered figure, Bubbles bellowed, "Mines Legolas!"

Mama and I got a good laugh from that.

One more interesting note is that Chuckles and I were mopped up like spilled milk by Snickers, whose hat-trick will likely hold the record for years. He beat us at three out of three games. One of Chutes and Ladders and two of Candyland!

Ouch! I was trying my hardest!







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One among us needs your prayers. Please link to http://www.welovekaren.blogspot.com for current prayer request updates.

Our family thanks you.
Papa Chanoli

Route 66

Chuckles loves race cars. So do I. Our first trip to the movies together was a disaster, but the second trip was great. We went to see Cars and both of us love the movie.

For those who've not seen the movie, it features cars as the characters. There are no people. Each car has a face, a personality, and of course a name such as Lightning McQueen who is the main character. (Mater's my own favorite.)

Chuckles now plays with his toy cars more than ever, and frequently he imagines them dialogging with each other. I enjoy listening to those conversations.

Tonight he decided that only the toy cars of his which have eyes and a mouth get names. I asked him to name one little hot-wheels type of car that had no facial features and he refused, "Nope," he said, "could you put a face on it, then I'll name it for you."

I hunted down a permanent marker and established what I thought was a pretty lame face on the car. Chuckles responded to it favorably commenting, "That's nice!"

I asked him to name it and he thought for a moment then asked, "Hmm, I don't know. Can you name it for me?" I thought for a moment. This was my opportunity to impress him with a really cool name.

Mama looked the car over and asked, "Why don't you call it Ford?"

Much to my chagrin, he liked the name. I tried to modify it a little, "How about Joe Ford?"

"No," he said with a sideways glance at me, "His name is Ford."

Please try to envision a blank look on my face here if you know me, and if you don't know me, imagine the face of an extremely bored cat, half asleep by the fireplace.

I'm tempted to put faces on all his cars while he sleeps and hope he lets me name one.




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One among us needs your prayers. Please link to http://www.welovekaren.blogspot.com for current prayer request updates.

Our family thanks you.
Papa Chanoli

Mixed Meanings

Giggles had a cheeseburger tonight. She likes cheeseburgers. Actually, the whole gang does, but Giggles is the one who pulled off the cuteness tonight.

I can understand a little girl mistaking a cheeseburger for a hamburger, but only my Giggles could get it mixed up enough to call it a hotdogger.


8)

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One among us needs your prayers. Please link to http://www.welovekaren.blogspot.com for current prayer request updates.

Our family thanks you.
Papa Chanoli

The Ravages Of Time

It's bad enough that Blogger is malfunctioning for me at every turn, but now injury is added to insult.

I don't mind my hair turning gray. I almost don't mind the minor thinning spots that have developed in my hair over the years. I can handle wrinkles and the loss of elasticity in my skin. Some of these things are even mentioned as blessings in scripture, such as the gray hair being a crown upon your head.

I must say that I completely fail to see how having a gray NOSE hair enhances venerability!

Mama Chanoli thought it was a booger!!!!!

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One among us needs your prayers. Please link to http://www.welovekaren.blogspot.com for current prayer request updates.

Our family thanks you.
Papa Chanoli

Sleepyness

Ok, let's see if this picture stays uploaded.

Need I say more?

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One among us needs your prayers. Please link to http://www.welovekaren.blogspot.com for current prayer request updates.

Our family thanks you.
Papa Chanoli

Is it good?

I've had a hard time reconciling to myself that there's been a lack of balance in the number of posts about each child. It took me a while to realize that it makes sense for Chuckles and then Giggles to provide more fodder for blogging. They are after-all older than Silliness, and they have the ability to dialogue when she doesn't. That said, I'm now resigned to posting whatever I think is worth posting, regardless of equal time.

Enough disclaimer...


Today I decided to make a nice chicken soup for dinner. Chuckles and Giggles usually don't have much enthusiasm for soups, but lately they've been more willing to eat them.

Chuckles though, as with most nights, was reluctant to eat dinner. I do have my ways of encouraging him, but that is for another post at another time.

I told him that he needed to start eating, and he nodded. I continued eating and still he had not taken a bite.

I loaded up the spoon for him and went to put it in his mouth. He opened his mouth, but he had some words for me before he took the bite.

He exclaimed, with his usual seriousness, "If it's good I won't cry!"

I sure was glad he didn't cry.





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One among us needs your prayers. Please link to http://www.welovekaren.blogspot.com for current prayer request updates.

Our family thanks you.
Papa Chanoli