10/30/08

It's almost Halloween.  

Tonight I carved two pumpkins.  Logan wanted to be involved, but he wasn't quite able to carve.  Next year, he'll be ready to rumble.  

Logan's able to close doors, open doors, turn on lights and the TV.  

Brandon and Shanna just had a baby!  He was born almost a week ago.  The brit is tomorrow, and Heidi and I are invited.  We're going to have a full day.  The twins will have their four month checkup, while I have to work a bit.

The election is next Tuesday.  I'm feeling extremely nervous about it.  I can't believe that Obama will really win.  My mind says that he will pull it off - a small popular vote win with a larger electoral collage win.  But my gut tells me this will be very close.  In fact, my gut is telling me McCain may win by a hair.

Photos of Pumpkin Prowl

Photos from the Pumpkin Prowl:

10/26/08

Today we tried to have a brunch party.  I invited many of our friends from Soccer - but nobody showed up.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  John and Carol Methot showed up late in the day for about half and hour.  It was sort of frustrating.  I'm beginning to get the idea that our friends from the pre-kid era are gone for good.

We went on the Pumpkin Prowl at the Zoo tonight.  Logan didn't want to wear his monster costume.  He kept crying that he didn't want to be a monster, that he wanted to be a big boy.  He was fairly frantic about it, in fact.  Emma and Fina were dressed in little costumes.  Sophie and Ezra came, as did Carol and Bryan.  The zoo was amazingly crowded, but we had a fun time.  Logan seemed to enjoy it.

9/16/08

These days the news is full of politics and the economy.

The economy is almost certainly entering a recession that will be  fairly deep and fairly long.  Maybe two or three years of recession, followed by a slow recovery.  The recession was triggered by the decline of housing prices and increased mortgage defaults be people unable to pay higher rates on adjustable rate mortgages.  It was exaggerated by Credit Default Swaps - people buying "insurance" on mortgage backed securities.  It seems that a lot of people don't understand how the crisis was created, and many people who should be more rational can't help but think of the crisis in terms of political blame.  

Politics is unavoidable right now - there's a presidential election in three weeks.  Barack Obama is ahead in the polls now, but I think that the election will tighten in the last week.  My hope is that IF Obama wins, he wins convincingly.  The country could be torn apart by another very close election.  I don't think people are in the mood to accept an election result that goes against their philosophy.

Logan has a really good imagination, and he constantly makes up stories full of the same characters.  It's a little like Christopher Robin creating an imaginary world for Pooh Bear.  Except that Logan's characters are ... stranger.

There's the Monster, a green dinosaur like toy.  He likes French Fries.  There's the Space Cow, who has a space ship, can fix anything and lives at the UW.  There's the Raccoons, who live in a tree house and get lost often.  There's the Ostrich, who lives in the woods and spins around while crashing into the trees.  There's Eddie the Eagle who eats salmon.  There is the Helicopter Pilot.  He lives on Columbia Tower.  There is Maggie and Chazz, the dogs.  There is the Dinosaur, who is scary but only eats plants.  

Emma and Fina act like they want to sit up.  Fina is more interactive right now - she smiles readily.  Emma smiles, but she's a bit more selective about when she does it.

10/5/08

I'm typing on the computer, and Heidi and Logan are in the bathroom.  Heidi's giving Logan a bath.  The twins are both sitting on their bouncy chairs.  Fina's asleep, Emma is awake.

Logan has a big cast of imaginary characters who he makes up stories about all the time.  He imagines they're following him around the house as well.  There's Maggie and Chazz, of course.  There is also the Monster and the Space Cow, who are based on toys that Logan plays with.  There are also "The Raccoons" and the "Space Ostrich" who are only in bedtime stories.

Emma and Fina are making cooing and gooing noises.  They are smiling quite a bit.  Emma seems to be calming down, while Fina is getting a little more touchy about things.  Both Fina and Emma are grasping and hitting at things.

9/26/08

Last night Washington Mutual was taken over by the Federal Government.  The banking portion of the business was sold to JP Morgan.  I have no idea what this will mean for the local economy, but you have to guess it will raise the unemployment rate in the city substantially.

John McCain has been flailing around trying to look important and presidential.  I think he has failed to appear presidential, and I think he has actually managed to look impetuous and erratic.  He said he was "suspending his campaign" though he has not really stopped fundraising or advertising.  He tried to beg out of the presidential debate tonight, saying he needed to be in Washington DC to help congress reach a bail out agreement for lending institutions.  Now it sounds like he'll be at the debate tonight.  

I have always predicted that Obama would win the popular vote, lose the electoral college.  I hope he will  win, and I just donated $300 to his campaign last night.

I am afraid for the debate.  I hope it goes well for Obama, but I hate watching these things when the stakes are so high.

Emma and Fina are sick.  They have slight fevers - around 100.5 to 101.5.  They had trouble sleeping.  I think they got this from Logan, who may have gotten it from me.  I hope they get over this quickly.

9/16/08

Over the past few days the economy has been in turmoil due to some high profile failures of financial companies.  The government took over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and the Federal Reserve has purchased AIG.  Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the stock market has collapsed.  All of this was triggered by the mortgage financing crisis - too many subprime loans have gone bad, causing a chain reaction throughout the economy.

I'm a little worried about my brokerage account at Wells Fargo.  Wells Fargo is supposedly relatively insulated from the mortgage crisis, but the brokerage account is not FDIC insured.  Therefore I'm a bit nervous.  I feel like I should move the money to a safer account, but I also feel that I shouldn't panic.

Logan's imagination is growing quite a bit.  He likes to imagine that the bed is a spaceship, and that the lights in the ceiling are stars.  Alternately, the bed can be a boat, and then he dives into the water on the floor.  The rug in the basement is snow.  A pile of pillows is a house.

Fina and Emma are starting to interact with objects.  They are grabbing shirts and batting at hanging objects.  They are using the "baby gym" - a blanket with two fabric covered arches over it from which you can hang toys - more often.