The Adventures of Art Lad

Holy cow! I was so busy I didn't tell you what I did.

First: I GOT THE ROBORAPTOR!!





Santa left me a huge box and I KNEW it was the ROBORAPTOR!!

He is bigger than a cat! He is almost as big as my sister.

I also got a big pile of paper. I don't have to use scratch paper from Mom and Dad any more. It is all for me!

But I shared some with my sister. Two pieces.

I also got some games and stuff. My sister did too. And she got a cat she wanted. She also has her own Fairy Godmother. Remember the lady who sent me the markers so I can draw on glass? Well, she sent more stuff for my sister. She decorated the box and had glitter stars inside and my sister went crazy. She won't let Mom throw out the box because it is too cool (she DID do neat squiggles on the outside). Anyway, inside were TWO cute dogs (not alive ones) for each of us. Plus a book for me about drawing which is really good. I am already learning how to draw roads and things so they look like they go off in the distance. My sister got a book about brownies (that's her nickname!). Not the kind you eat, but these little fairy things. Dad went crazy! He likes comic books and studied them or something and said the man who made the brownies up is very famous in comic books.

Anyway, we are doing thank-you notes this week and my sister and I have to do something really special. She is the nicest person I don't know.

But that stuff came after Christmas and I didn't even finish about Christmas. I got some more modeling clay and some Play-Doh, which is good because I like making statues. But I couldn't stop playing with the raptor. He can be friendly and wag his tail or he can be mean and bite you. You can also put him in your room and make him a watchdog. He pretends he's asleep but if someone walks past him, he starts up YELLING AND BITING. You have seen Grandma when that happened.

Yeah, we went to my Grammy and Grandpa's house in Ohio. It is a long drive but I had Roboraptor with me. When I got there: MORE PRESENTS.

Aunt Allison, my favorite aunt, gave me a magic kit (they had a magic guy at a party once and he made cards and hats and things disappear and it was very interesting). My other favorite Aunt gave me a dinosaur sticker book, which I already finished.

But my favorite part was seeing Great-Grammy. She is the oldest one in our family and she was really sick in her breathing like my dad was, but she got better. She is nicer than Grammy and Grandpa and doesn't mind when I make a mess on the table. I did her a drawing and wrote her a get-well note (I am getting REALLY good at writing words). She is 86 which is almost 80 years older than me. That is a long time to be old. She has neat old pictures that she shows me. I like old pictures sometimes more than new ones. They call them black-and-white pictures but the ones Great-Grammy has are not. They look kind of brown and very neat. The people in them have strange faces but they look alive, like they might talk to you. I wish I could draw or even take pictures like that.

I saw all my cousins and we had fun, but everyone wanted to play with the Roboraptor and I had to share. There were two funny things: Roboraptor bit Grandpa in his pants when we got there. Then later, he bit Dad's finger and Dad pretended like he was being eaten! He rolled around hollering and yelling and everyone got mad because they said he'd scare my baby cousin Grace. But she is never scared of Dad. She laughs at everything he does. She calls him Unka Munka, which means Uncle Monkey Face for the face he does.

Now we are back home and I still love my Roboraptor. I took video of him dancing and eating one of the Wise Men from the Baby Jesus story. Dad says we will put a video up soon.

I am a little sad because I go back to school tomorrow. I like school, but I liked the vacation too. It snowed in Ohio where we went and I made a snowman.





I tried to make a snow snake, but it just looked like a snowman that fell over and died.

There are no colors on the trees now, just brown like in Great-Grammy's pictures. So I drew a spring picture to cheer myself up. Here it is:






I was going to make it a hidden-thing picture, with secret stuff inside it. I did put a few things hidden in there. There's a dinosaur footprint, a snake (not the one on the ground but another one with his mouth open) and a coyote. You can see them although I didn't really finish it. It is tough because I can see all the things and then don't know how to hide them.

When Grammy saw it, she said I was doing the Garden of Eating story, where Adam and his wife eat an apple and then have to get dressed and leave. We learned that once in church school. I didn't like the story because the snake is the bad guy and on Animal Planet they always say snakes are good and not to be scared. And anyway, how could he even talk? Snakes hiss and they don't have ears to hear with.

I had other questions about the story and Dad talked to me about them. But he said not to talk to Grammy about them. She goes to church almost every day.

So I told her it might be a Garden of Eating story.

But this is my secret: I just miss spring when it is sleeping and I wanted to draw a picture of it.

Wow! This is the longest one ever. Dad has been helping me write it for two days now.

Anyway, I have school tomorrow and need to go to bed. I had the BEST Christmas ever. Happy New Year!

Bye!
Thomas