At 5 months, Xzavier was holding his own bottle and trying to crawl. He finally started to make some distance crawling (literally) at the 6 month mark, right about the time he got his first tooth. Two weeks later he started getting a second tooth, and this week he started to sit up on his own. The last couple of days he’s starting to pull up on the crib rails. Throughout this whole time, he’s been mashing away at the keyboard trying to be like mommy and daddy.

This is what he has to say about everything:

1szx’ NJBHJMKLHJ HK,GY RF UY IK B4T5IO/L.FB

Obviously he’s got some work to do before he’s a typing master, but he’s working on it!

At this pace, he’ll be walking by 9 months old. Personally, I think he’s growing up a little bit too fast, but one thing never changes – he’s a happy, smiling, easy to deal with little guy.

Blue Moon tonight!  On the last day of the year, and the end of a decade.  How awesome is that!!!

From http://spaceweather.com/

Tonight’s full Moon is a “Blue Moon.” It’s the second full Moon this month and the first Blue Moon to fall on New Year’s Eve in nearly 20 years. Sounds like a rare excuse for a party…

There’s more. In Europe, Africa and Asia, the Blue Moon will dip into Earth’s shadow for a partial lunar eclipse. At maximum eclipse, around 19:24 Universal Time, approximately 8% of the Moon will be darkly shadowed: animated preview.

Above: A similar eclipse in 2006. Credit: John Stetson. [more]

Blue Moons are rare (once every 2.5 years). Blue Moons on New Year’s Eve are rarer still (once every 19 years). How rare is a lunar eclipse of a Blue Moon on New Year’s Eve?

A search of NASA’s Five Millennium Catalogue of Lunar Eclipses provides an approximate answer. In the next 1000 years, Blue Moons on New Year’s Eve will be eclipsed only 11 times (once every 91 years). A year of special note is 2848 when there will be two lunar eclipses in December–on Dec. 1st and Dec. 31st. Such a double-Blue Moon-lunar eclipse ending on New Year’s Eve appears to be a millennium-level event. That’s rare.

Go outside and enjoy the moonlight!

For the first time since my kids were born, I didn’t get to spend Christmas with them as they spent this year with their dad.  Although their absence made me very sad, I decided to make the best of it.  After all, since they would be returning Sunday, 12/27 it gave me an extra few days to get shopping done and take advantage of the after Christmas specials.

What I ultimately gained from this sad occasion was crowd free shopping and clearance stocking stuffers.  While not a huge gain considering the quietness of my home on Christmas Eve/Day, it was nice.  No long lines at the registers, fighting for parking, or the last minute present wrapping crunch. Lucky for me my kids wish lists didn’t include hard to find items (flashing back to Tickle Me Elmo makes me shudder).  I did get a couple of good buys – like half price regularly overpriced candy, but that was about it.  The lack of chaos was the biggest gain of all.

I look forward to trading this quiet shopping experience in next year for the opportunity to enjoy the holidays with all my kids.  Christmas Eve wasn’t quite the same without having to remind the twins again and again that they had to wait until Christmas Day to open all of their gifts.  I also truly missed not having to argue with them over going to bed as gone are the days of bribing them to sleep with “or else Santa won’t visit” threats; not to mention missing baking Christmas cookies for Santa with Emily, among other things.

The holidays just aren’t the same without them!

Welcome to Moonziestar.com.   This is my first attempt at updating this site.  About time, since I’ve owned the domain for over a year now.  Please bare with me as I figure this stuff out :).  TTFN.  Jaime