Father Goose and toot-toot Neighbors

Caption Contest Winner:

"Abe channels Hedwig."--Carrie Hoffman Spell

Congratulations, Carrie, for making us officially LOL. Expect your prize in a few days. Thanks to all who participated. These contests are truly fun for us.

On to other things. Abe met one of his uncles plus some cousins in Germany one day last week, courtesy of Skype. We love skype.

I know I've said it a thousand times already, but one of the biggest surprises in the adoption process has been the blogging community we've found. My favorite thing is when we get to meet in person, which happened for us this morning. We got to meet Decemberists-loving Autumn and Rhett at our favorite coffee-place in town.

As I was walking out the door to go, our neighbor and his boy were right outside our house on their way to the same coffeeshop. So we walked down together where we ended meeting another neighbor and her daughter. I think I had another glimpse of heaven there. It had started raining outside (imagine that), and we were all snug and cozy inside this shop, sitting on the leather couches, playing with each other's kids, and I had the thought that this is what it's about. I feel extremely blessed to live where I do with such amazing neighbors and a few blocks from a warm oasis from the rain and cold (yes, it's cold here again). On the way out, we noticed that someone had thrown away a laptop computer in the trash. And I so love the fact that my next-door-neighbor, the one who says 'goodbye' by saying "toot toot," dug it out, through the dog poop and spilled vanilla yogurt to salvage it. We Portlanders are salvaging folk.

I'm still waiting for my camera battery and charger to make it up here from L.A. where I forgot it (thanks for mailing it Susan!). It's been difficult not being able to take pictures. I feel like I'm a crippled blogger without my camera. In the meantime, here's a video taken last week of Abe figuring out how to jump. He really goes for it these days, especially with good music, like what was playing here, It's a Bam Bam Diddly by Father Goose. Father Goose comes up with lyrics like this:

By and by oh when the morning comes
When all the saints of God are gathered home
We'll tell the story of how we've overcome
For we'll understand it better by and by.
We are tossed and driven
On the restless sea of time
Somber skies and howling tempests
Oft succeeds a bright sunshine.
In the land of perfect day
When the mists have blown away
We will understand it better by and by
By and by oh when the morning comes...

Kind of heavy for a children's CD? Well, you also get stuff like this:
I want someone to give me a pony
With a jig jog, jig jog, jiga jog gee
Not too fat and not to bony
With a jig jog, jig jog, jiga jog gee.