Wii Training

Jen and I have started our wii training for the Q's visit in a week. This is actually the first time that Jen had even tried it, and I think she likes it. We were able to play all of the games on the sports disc that came with the game and she did really well. She kicked my butt in Golf!! Including a shot from the fairway that hit the pin and went in the hole!! Bowling is fun too. It still amazes me how much actual physical activity is required to get the game to work to it's full potential. Jen had a bit of a sore arm like I did the last time due to the physical requirments needed to play. Overall the graphics on the wii are pretty cool. It will be fun to see what games the Q's bring with them. We might run over and rent a couple for the visit. We would have done this before, but we just don't have the time to play video games like we used to. Back in the day, we would stay up till 2:00am playing Zelda on Nintendo (original recipe) all week long. Now by 10:30, Jen is flaked out on the couch and I am fighting it in the comfy chair. There is Zelda for the Wii, maybe rent that one. Oh and I finally got the wi-fi feature to work on the Wii so I can do some internet stuff. I am still reading on what exactly I can do with this little white box. Maybe see how to hook up with the Q's and the Crammers on-line and have a game night. That might be interesting.

Visitors from Afar

Just got confirmation that the Q collective is coming to town so Carrie can get a "baby fix". It just happens that the kids have break in school where they can come and visit with little fuss and muss. They should be rolling into town on Feb 21st (of course subject to change at any second). As of right now there is nothing planned except for baby visiting with us and Jeff and Paula (need to come up with a neat nickname for those two... i mean three) We were thinking of attempting to plan a get together again on Friday or Saturday night at our house. Besides that nothing on the docket. Jen and I need to get our Wii skills sharpened for the visit. The Q's are so much more experienced than we are. Jen hasn't even played it yet, but Carrie is addicted to a mario brothers game and hopefully she will bring it with her. Also, Carrie, if you are reading this, don't forget to bring your extra controllers with you, we only have the one. Last week I got a special offer from the Kalahari for a super deal ($299 a night) on the village room. I was going to suggest to meet up with them for a night on the way over, but the special deal didn't fall on those nights, and that would cut into Carrie's "baby time". Still, reminder to everyone to save up for Geekfest later this year (maybe). On the way to vollyball last night I saw a sign at a little bar for "Guitar Hero-oke" I assume it's like kerioke but with guitar hero. That would be interesting to watch. Maybe if the Q's skills are good enough they could take it to the next level..... bar competition. Now we are just going to be working on our Wii skills, getting the house cleaned, and getting the sleeping arrangements made which will be different since moving William into the Lightning McQueen room. Actually the Q's might like the new arrangement better since there will be more room to spread out. So be on the lookout for emails and let me know if anything else is going on that weekend.
Hopefully by the weekend John will be out of Carrie's doghouse. He forgot to tell her that Joshua came early. ooops.

Fun time... too short

So I get a call out of the blue from Keith. He tells me that he is organizing a little bit of a guys night out. Cool. Besides MR halloween and christmas we almost never get together at all during the year, which is a shame since we all have so much fun when we are together. But usually life gets in the way and between kids and other stuff our availability it a little tighter than before. Before we got married, Jen used to be a fixture at Keith's house and would spend alot of time there. Now she might get a few minutes to talk to Lori on the phone every couple of weeks. Anyway, back to the gathering. Keith recommended trying the new granite city food and brew restaurant. It just opened up near the mall and looked interesting. I have been to their website and it looked like it had a good menu and atmosphere. We figured we could take the evening to celebrate Jeff's upcoming father-hood, but leave it to Paula to mess up the evening by having the baby on Monday night. Just kidding, all of God's blessings to little Joshua and his parents. Actually Jen was trying to arrange a dinner with Lori and Paula before the birth date, but again little Joshua came early. So after work I stopped off at the rehab hospital to visit mom for a little bit. She is doing really well and should be home tomorrow if she has any say in it. I get to the restaurant and head for the bar. There is a ton of waiters and staff standing at the front door to welcome you. This is pretty typical for a new restaurant. Wait for 6 months and you might see one or two people at the front door. Anyway. The restaurant itself is pretty nice. It's not very big, but well decorated and has a wide open layout which is comfortable. I walk through the bar and no Keith, I walk through the restaurant and no Keith, I was just about to call him and I see him and the guys in a booth hidden in the corner (obviously they know where to put the riff raff :)). The service from Scott our waiter was fantastic. He checked on us continually and always made sure we had everything we needed. He annoyed me a little when he kept referring to everyone at the table as "my man", but it wasn't a big deal. Looking at the menu, there was a nice selection of food where everything looked good. I was kinda looking for the prices, but there wasn't any on the menu... strange. But there was numbers after the descriptions. I was thinking that they might be the prices, but the appetizers were higher numbers than the sandwiches. I found out later that those numbers were the prices, they just have BIG appetizers. I now it's a kitchy thing to do, but would it kill you to just print a couple of zeros. The only beer to drink there was their 5 microbrews which were pretty tasty even with my stuffy head and off taster. The special for the night was a $5 "growler" on the website. I had to ask when the heck is a "growler". Basicly it's a big bottle (2 litres) that you can fill up and take home. You can't drink it there, but you can take this huge bottle and take it out the door. It reminded me of a story my grandma used to tell how her dad used to give her a nickle and a bucket and send her down to the corner store to fill it up with beer. The "growler" is actually a pretty good deal if you go by the restaurant often, especially with the beer being $4.25 a glass. They also had a "Mug" club that was a pretty good deal too (again if you were there frequently). Anyway back to the food. I changed my order at the last second from a wrap to a basic cheeseburger, which was a mistake. The cheeseburger was overcooked (burnt) and dry. Everyone elses food looked very good and they all seemed to like their meals. But my bad burger didn't put my off trying this restuarant again in the future. I am not sure if I can attribute my bad burger to the Cramer restaurant curse, but nothing else went wrong, so probably not. We were having a good time ribbing each other and telling stories. Most of the group (Marcus,Keith,Mike,Tim,and Todd) have known each other for 25 + years at least so I got a little lost in some of their stories and references, but it will still fun to hear them. After we ate and paid the bills, I was settling in for more stories and ribbing, and everyone got up and started to leave. That kinda surprised me, but I am sure there was other stuff to do on a tuesday night. Overall a good time at a good place. A little pricey, but not too bad overall. I look forward to Jen and I having a "date night" there sometime soon to give it another try.

The next tentative plan is to get together at ThunderBowl the old Hilcrest Bowl on the South side of town. At least half of the group worked there in high school and thought it would be nostalgic.

PSA for guys

SAINT Valentine's day is a little over a week away. Are you ready guys? Well like me your answer is probably, nope. I am here to help you out. I am providing you guys a new and innovative way to shop for you honey. If you are one of those brave souls that attempts to buy your sweetie garments of an "intimate" nature, then this might come in real handy. This site might help you to avoid fights by making sure that you pick the correct size and having a very good night.

Click here to proceed. The link is a little NSFW so open carefully.

For those of you who use this site to buy your girlfriend or wife (or both.. just kidding) a little something, you are welcome. For everyone else... keep you hands above the table.

Again, I am just here to help a fellow brother out.

Yes Carrie I will get back to work..

more baby stuff

finally got a chance to download some more video and pictures from Christophers birth. In this video William and Andrew check out their brother while bumpa holds him.

Next are a couple of pictures from when we got back to the room after Christophers birth.

So far the new camera is working well, but with a 2 gig memory card I don't have to empty the camera every 25 pictures like the old one so it's a little harder to get to posting picures.

I put some other pictures on the flickr account HERE

Lightning McQueen

Clearly the boys favorite Disney character is Lighning McQueen. They might not watch the DVD that much anymore, but give them anything with a "cars" character on it and it's their new favorite toy. Of course being boys they love cars in general. I have learned to shuffle my feet around the living room since it usually entails stepping on a car or two if I am not paying attention. We need to start enforcing the Q's plan of cleaning up toys before going to bed every night. Anyway with the new baby coming we decided to move all the kids to different bedrooms. I am not real sure why, but I am sure there was a good idea for it. I believe Jen's thinking is that the older the boy the bigger the bedroom. Of course I feel sorry for poor Christopher since he will get stuck with the smallest of the bedrooms, but he also gets the room in the back of the house so he doesn't have to worry about hearing cars drive by all night and the thumping stereos as much. Maybe I will find something to make that bedroom a little more special for when he gets older. So the big plan was to clear out the 4th bedroom and make it William's new bedroom (so much for storing anything in there anymore). Finally we got everything organized enough to allow me to get to the walls to start painting. Jen had found this neat little plan-o-gram for a lightning mcqueen room at home depot a few months back. It included a two color paint job with borders and all kinds of stuff. We had been talking about a lightning mcqueen room for a while now so Jen went out and bought bedding and other stuff for the themed room. I decided to get a little creative and decide on a two toned room with a border in the middle. Hopefully he will get a little more enjoyment out of this room than from the "finding Nemo" room that he was in. I don't think he ever got that his room was finding nemo themed at all since he really didn't get into that movie. We were trying to get him moved in before or soon after the baby is born, so I head over to home depot to buy the paint. The guy at home depot strongly recommends a tinted primer for the red part of the wall. "if not you will be putting multiple coats on the wall" he says to me, and all I can think of is the Q's and their 8+ layers of paint on Keith's room. Then the big question, "what kind of paint do you want?". Uh crap I hadn't thought of that. I heard the term semi-gloss and it sounded familiar so I told him two gallons of that. The blue color is offically called "Cinderalla's Gown" but I call it "radiator springs blue" to sound more manly. I get to work on the first coat of primer and it is really pink. Now I knew it was going to be pink, but it was strange to see that color on the wall. At this point I find out from Jen that my semi-gloss decision was a major faux paus and that I should have bought Satin. They won't take it back since it was a special mix so I have to buy another two gallons of paint. Lucky for me the primer didn't matter. The guy at home depot gives me advice on paiting the room, which is basicly the lazy man's way. Hey I am simpatico with "lazy". Basicly it's giving the paint at least 24 to 48 hours between coats to allow it to fully dry. At this point we aren't really sure how William will like being moved into another bedroom so I start building up the excitement telling him how cool the "Lightning McQueen" room will be. He gets real excited about it. For the next week, after eating dinner, he would tell me to get to work on the room. Yes sir, right away sir. I work on the room for about a week alternating colors so I can allow the paint to fully dry. The red goes on really well, but still requires 3 coats. I could have gotten away with 2, but I think the 3rd really made it look nice. The blue goes on well and only requires 2 coats, but I must have been real tired when I worked on it since I ended up accidentally hitting the ceiling 3 or 4 times which I usually don' t do. I figure I will touch that up when I fix the kids bathroom ceiling or get to work on our bathroom ceiling. Next was the border. I thought the stuff that I bought was peel and stick, but it wasn't it was prepasted. Crap. I have never hung wallpaper or border so I have no idea how to do it, and don' t really feel brave enough to attempt it until I am sure the paint in totally dry. Then a little thing called "having a baby" got in the way of this project. After getting Jen and the baby home I decided to finish the job. I start on a small wall first with a bucket of hot water. It goes on well, but not as good as I thought. I can adjust the border quite a bit while it is on the wall, but the perfectionist in me kept tweeking it and I could see me tweeking too much. I finally ended up putting the bigger pieces of border in the bathtub to get wet. Lucky (or unlucky) for me the majority of the room was long runs which entailed only one long big piece at time. Man what a pain in the butt. Finally I get all of the border on, but it's not laying flat to the wall. Crap. I am using the sponge like the instructions say, but it's not doing the job. So, I decide to ad lib and grab my 5 inch putty knife and start to use it like a squeegee. It does a fantastic job in getting the paper to lay down on the wall,but it also presses out all the excess glue out and down the wall. Son of a B****. At this point it's late, the kids are fussing since it's way past their bedtime, and I am trying to help Jen out with the baby. So I get the border put on, most of the excess glue wiped of the wall and put kids to bed. I go back into the room and start to fiddle with the border some more, (it wasn't totally level) but finally yelled at myself to just walk out of the room. I come back into the room the next day and it actually looked real good. Most of the places where the border didn't quite lay down actually laid down by itself. Finally got furniture rearranged and a bed put in there. We are going to buy a new bed for him but he is using a trundle bed right now. The other night when we are putting him to bed we ask, "do you want to sleep in lightning mcqueen room tonight?". You would have thought we were sending him to Disneyworld itself or just gave him Christmas again. He ran into the room and right into his bed. I still have to sit in the room with him until he falls asleep, and he still comes into our room in the middle of the night, but it's fun to see the joy in his eyes with his new room. Next plan is to move Andrew into his new (old) room and make that one a lightning mcqueen room also. No painting!! I figure the blue color in the nemo room is close enough to mcqueen room. I am just going to hang some stuff on the walls. Next I think I might do a little work on the basement to see what kind of trouble I can get into down there.

Mondays are Mondays

So I wake up on time Monday, which is pretty good due to the lack of sleep with the baby. My schedule has also been thrown off with the 6 days off, work 2 days and 2 days off. But after getting ready with the usual routine I was actually a little early. I decided to wait for my mother in law to show up for a couple of different reasons. One reason is in case Andrew woke up early. Jen can't lift him for a couple weeks now so that's my mother in laws main job, lifting Andrew out of the crib. William was climbing over the side by 2 1/2, but Andrew isn't the mountain climber. The other reason to wait was because I have been having trouble with the garage door. When it gets real cold outside it tends to stop halfway up and close. Finally my mother in law shows up, and my early, actually on time, morning is now at least 5 minutes late (typical for me). So I head out the door and jump into the car. I turn the ignition and the car just does the slow rrrrrr, rrrrrr, rrrrrrr...nothing. Son of a Bi***. The car has been starting a little hard lately. It was hesitating a little bit before catching, but this was dead dead. I jump out and attempt to jump the car with the Jeep. The jumper cables JUST reach the terminals on both cars. I sit there for awhile and try a couple of times and nothing. Lucky for me Jen can't drive yet, William doesn't have school, and my mother in law has all the proper car seats in case she does need to go anywhere, so I take the jeep. I get to work 20 minutes late, so much for being on time. The rest of the day goes relatively well. I am actually pretty busy working on some marketing for a new website/magazine that we are launching.
I get home and decided to take out the battery to have it tested at an auto parts place not too far from my house. There is a bit of a scramble to get the tools together since they have been scattered over the house due to the numerous projects that I have done or are in process of doing. I haven't done work on my own car in years. Back in the day, I was always tinkering with stuff and wasn't too afraid to work on my car, but as I get a little older and the cars get a little more complicated I decided to leave the work to professionals. But a battery I can take care of myself. I get it out of the car, and take a break to eat dinner with the family. After dinner I take the battery over the Auto Zone. I walk into the store with the battery in my hands and just stand there until a guy tells me to place it on the counter. They have a few people in the store so I figure that it might take a while for them to get to my battery. Finally this old guy approaches me and asks if he can help me. I tell him that I need to get my battery tested and point toward the counter and ..... blank stare. I tell him again that I need to get my battery tested and point toward the counter and ... he asks where it is. Yeah its going to be that way. So finally he puts my battery into this tester thing and turns stuff on. I am standing there for a few minutes and finally the old guy tells me that the machine says "charge battery, test again". I ask the old guy what that means, and he says to me in a shitty tone "charge battery, test again". Does that mean the battery is no good? No it means charge battery, test again. Ok Numbnuts I am here because the battery is freakin dead!! How can I charge it if its dead. Finally another guy comes over and is helpful offering to charge the battery for me and help me out with it. He also offers to sell me a new battery, but why would I buy a new battery if it's not the battery, especially if I have to put money into an alternator or starter. I know that the life of this battery is definitely toward the end of it's life (factory installed), but until I hear it from the doctor I am not ready to replace it. Finally I decided to take the battery home, throw it back in the car, and try and jump it again. After a while of jumping it with the jeep I decided to use my battery charger rather than have the jeep run in the garage. My charger is at my mom's house since we used it alot with the corvette and prowler. My brother is at my mom's and runs it over to the house. Of course I press him into helping me move the desk in the Lightning McQueen room (pics coming) . After letting the battery charge for a while I finally get the car to turn over, but it's too late to run it back to the auto parts store for testing, so I just let it run for half an hour and turn it off. It actually started again. We will see what it does when I get home, and run it over for testing tonight.

Tire Nazi

The Jeep was in serious need for new tires. I had known that they were very bad tread for a couple of months now, but wasn't really sure of the fate of the Jeep. Jen and I have looked at and driven minivans the last couple of months, but weren't sure when to really make the move to the minivan nation. We know with three boys that we are definitely going to need one eventually, but weren't sure just when. I had placed the car carrier for Christopher in the back seat of the Jeep and it fit's pretty good with the addition of a different booster seat for William. It's a tight fit, but it will work for now. So Anyway... I was dragging my feet on replacing the tires on the Jeep since I didn't want to put the cost into the car if we were getting rid of it. With the revelation of the 3 seats working in the back seat and the few winter storms that we have had I decided to go ahead and get some. (Every time it snowed it really worried me for Jen to drive the Jeep). So I call around and find a common price for new tires to be $400 which I kinda figured. I considered putting used tires on the car, but wasn't too thrilled about that either, in case we decided to keep the car a little more. And again I was concerned about Jen driving in snow on even half tread. Anyhow (again) I decided to take the time off for baby time to get the tires replaced. I called around again and heard $400 from about everyone. I was talking to my mother-in-law about taking an afternoon during baby time off to replace tires. She then asks if I have called the "tire nazi". What???? She tells me of a business in Leo that sells tires at real good prices, but the guy is a very gruff person with no personality. You tell him what you want, he gives you a price, and then move to the side. So I called the "tire nazi" with my information, and I can tell you I was a bit intimidated calling him knowing all the stores that my in-laws and Jen have had with him over the years. But they all said the price was great. Here is the conversation in a nutshell:

me: I would like to get a price on new tires for my 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo
him: go ahead
me: I need a price on four p225 75r 16's
him: $280 complete
me: wow that sounds like a great price. I have a few more phone calls to make but I will get back to you.
him: (click)

There was a few more things that I wanted to ask him, but I was so intimidated that I just wanted to get off the phone. I kept hearing "NO TIRES FOR YOU!!" in my head ala Seinfeld. I call back a few minutes later and asked about an appointment to get it done where I was told they don't do appointments, just show up. So after picking up William from school I decided to take him with me as the muscle. We pull up to the building and walk into this absolute garbage dump of an office... or is it a showroom.... or is it a storage room. There is bits and pieces of cars everywhere. Even duck wallpaper on the one wall that must have been 100 years old. I wish I would have taken my camera with me since I can't really put into words how much of a dump it was. But hey I am paying $120 less then anyone else. So I am standing in the "showroom" and this guy comes slowly walking in the door. "For tires for $280?". Yep, here are the keys. William and I spend the next 10 minutes walking around the showroom trying not to touch anything. The whole time I am laughing to myself and saying this is a definite experience I will remember for a long time. While standing there the phone rings... well it doesn't ring, it "quacks" (novelty phone). He comes back in and we settle the bill. Believe it or not he has a charge machine. He sits there for a minute watching "Rachael Ray" while William and I try to entertain ourselves. I was curious to talk to him and ask about the business, but I decided not to. While in the "showroom" I see an old dirty dingy sign hanging in the corner. It's the kind you can change with letters, and I see that they list shocks as a service. I ask about shocks for the car and he says "let me see" and walks out the door. A minute later he is pulling the Jeep to the front of the the building and says "$300 for four shocks" (again a great price). William and I go outside and load into the Jeep. I look at the tires, and yeah they are off brand tires, but they have great tread, and worth it if we do end up trading in the jeep in a few months. The funny part of the story is that our friend Tracy went to him in the morning and paid $280 for tires for her car, and I head him quote another price while I was standing there at $280, so he must have quite the stack in the back. I think if I go back again I will just go across the street to subway and grab a sub next time... man that was fun.

We're Home

Monday night, we are finally home. Here is how the weekend went (as I can recall, I am a little tired). I last blogged Friday night after Christopher was born. Fortunately Tracy and the boys were available to spend the night with the boys. I spent a pretty restless night on the couch/bed with many interruptions during the night from the nurses. Saturday morning I woke up and headed home to relieve Tracy. I got home and took a shower and got the boys together to drop them off to Grandma and Grandpa C's house. I got back to the hospital around 1:00pm. The rest of the day was just watching TV and reteaching myself how to take care of a newborn including changing him. First poops of a newborn are a tar-like substance that looks weird. Christopher had a tough day with his circumcision ... ouch. Again I will say that Dupont hospital is the best place in town to have a kid. The staff is fantastic and the food is very good and affordable. And I love the snack room down the hall for a quick bite or can of pop. Saturday night we were able to have Tracy watch the boys again, but I had to wait for her to drop her boys off at her mom's house. So I got the boys to bed and straightened the house, and also got the last minute stuff together for bringing the baby home. By the time Tracy showed up and I got back to the hospital it was after midnight. I put together the couch/bed into a bed and crashed for the night. I actually got a pretty good night's sleep with only a few interruptions. Sunday morning I got up around 8:30. The in-laws picked up the boys on the way home from church and took them home for the day. It was another day of watching TV and baby stuff. We haven't had cable in quite a few years so it was nice to be able to watch it again. I still don't miss it and can deal with broadcast television. I will just be upgrading to an external antenna this year to help clean up the signal a little and prepare me for digital. Sunday night we were able to talk Jen into spending the night by herself. I took the boys home and put them to bed. More getting the house ready and finally got to bed after midnight. The boys slept in till 8:30. After getting them together and dropped off to Grandma's again I headed back up to the hospital. We decided to try and leave before 3:00pm and go home since Jen was doing so well. We ordered what they call a celebration meal that is a very nice dinner/lunch. I had the filet minion and Jen had the chicken cordon bleu. De-Lic-ious. After a bit of a wait we finally got to head out the door around 3:30. It's good to be finally home. Still have to get into a routine of feedings and other stuff. So far Christopher wants to be fed about every two hours so it's going to be a long night, or the beginning of alot of sleepless nights. I thought the one interruption a night was bad, now it's going to be multiple. The boys really like having the baby around and are being pretty helpful so far, we will see how long that lasts. A couple of days to help Jen adjust then I go back to work. Hopefully she can handle the baby and the two boys pretty well. Her mom is supposed to help, but she just got sick so it's going to be an interesting week.

Baby Day !!!

Well here it is.. baby day. Morning started out pretty fast. I was actually getting a good night's sleep and could have slept in, but lucky for me I left the alarm on. We all woke up and got going. We dropped the boys off to Grandma and Grandpa around 8:30am. After a quick visit there we headed for the hospital. We were a little late getting here but we found out after we arrived that the surgury was moved to 11:30. Jen had a bit of a panic attack as she was getting ready but calmed down. The two hours before surgury goes really quick and before we knew it we were heading down to the operating room. We walked down still trying to decide a name for the little whipper snapper. Jen headed into the room and I sat out into the hallway. I walked into the room and lucky for me at it being baby #3 I kinda knew what to do. I sat down at the operating table with Jen and they got started. They have a little screen between Jen's head and the operating area, but like Andrew, the screen wasn't that high and I could basicly see everything. I am not a squemish kinda guy and I had seen it before so it didn't bother me. I actually watched almost everything. Everything went well in the operation and nothing that wasn't expected. They finally took the little tyke out at 12:07pm and he weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and 20 and 3/4 inches. Newborns are really gooey so I let them clean him up. I saw with Jen while they tied her tubes and then put all of the "STUFF" (stomach, uterus ect) back in. After rolling out of the operating room we sat in recovery still kicking the names around. We finally decided to name him Christopher Daniel. My mom, Aunt Suzie, and brother were waiting in the room when we got back. As I am sitting here in the room at 11:00pm. Jen is doing very well. I think she is actully doing better than the last two times. Nurses here are fantastic, Food is very good. I can grab a snack down the hall any time of day. We currently have a nurse Cathy who is uber-cheery, just short of annoying, pretty funny. Unfortunatly this place doesn't have wifi or high speed internet so we will see how the dial up goes.

tick tick tick

I was asked if I was ready....

Am I?

Hard to say.

Friday is baby day and the mad rush is on. Trying to get stuff done, things cleaned, supplies bought, and just general crap done to get ready. It's a little overwhelming knowing that in a couple days we are going to have another baby in the house. The logistics of getting ready is what is overwhelming me. You know that I am a planner. I need to have stuff planned out well in advance and not having things planned is driving me a little nutty. Yeah I know when the baby is due and what we have to go through and all that stuff, but this time there is alot more factors that aren't planned yet. The biggest one is watching the boys. I know we are going to lean heavily on the in-laws this weekend to watch the boys since my mom is still out of commision. But there isn't a plan yet. Jen doesn't like staying in a hospital overnight by herself so I have been harping on her to arrange places for the boys to spend the night or other people to spend the night with her in the hospital, but it's not done yet. tick tick tick. Yeah I know it's my anal self talking. I will calm down. Everything will work out fine.

I finally got down the stuff from the attic last night and took everything apart so it could be cleaned. Little more reality hitting now. Yesterday was my mother in law's birthday so we all went out to Outback (restaurant decided at the last second, of course. must be a family thing) for a very nice dinner. The in-laws don't do presents and cards, they do dinner, which is fine for me, especially as I get older. This was our first attmept to take the boys to a sit down restaurant in almost 6 months. One, we don't go to sit down dinners that much anyway, and two since the last time we went it was a bit of a challenge with the boys. With William constantly wanting to go to the bathroom and Andrew wanting to get out of his high chair and "explore" we didn't see the need to try it again. But the boys were pretty much behaved as long as I was feeding Andrew pop and anything else he wanted on the table. William is fighting the cold that Andrew gave him to he was pretty subdued all night long. When we were leaving I got Andrew out of his high chair and proceeded to put my jacket on. He takes off and heads toward the door, but then we notice that he is going up to another couple at another booth (we thought to grab some food). But as I get to the table I notice that he is giving them hugs and saying goodbye (to total strangers). He did this to another table on the way out the door. It's a darn shame he is so shy (yeah right). We went back to the in-laws for some ice cream cake and visiting. We headed home around 9:30. After putting the boys to bed is when I climbed up to the attic to get the baby stuff down. Of course William (with andrews cold) wakes up 3 times during the morning and I just found out just threw up all over the house...

Am I ready for another one?

Yeah. Bring it on !!

He's Back!!

For those of you that have lost hope or thought he was dead..... monkeyjack has posted on his blog. AND IT IS REAL GOOD. Man it's never boring around that house. Hopefully it will be the begining of his return.

I am just surprised he remembered his password.

HOLY CRAP !!!!!

Just over a week and we will have a baby in the house!! Dealing with the holidays and all that hub bub that fact kind of got lost on me, which is probably a good thing since I didn't obsess about it. But now I am in panic mode (kinda). I need to find and clean all of the stuff for the baby's arrival. I think the bassinet and car carrier are up in the attic. Of course they are pretty well buried since I wasn't really expecting to use them again, but now I will get that down and cleaned up. I continued painting William's room for the great kid move of '08. I am glad that I got advice from the guy at Home Depot and he talked me into tinted primer. There is no way that red would have gone on with two coats without it. I should finish up William's bedroom tonight or Saturday at the latest. Need to get the Christmas tree down and other stuff organized for baby-time. Jen is worried about getting the baby's "going home" outfit. You think by the third time we would have all the stuff we need and be ready for this. It's not like we didn't just do this 2 years ago. So, it's going to be a busy weekend and week. At least with Jen having a C-section we can plan for some of this stuff and not have to worry about it 24 hours a day for weeks before and after her due date. Yeah I know her recovery really sucks from the c-section, but there is something to be said for knowing when to get ready. Say a little prayer for Jen next Friday at 11:00 if you are of that persuasion.

Jen's Chrismas Present

Every year for Christmas I try and get Jen at least one neat or unique gift for fun. Last year it was the Lord of the Rings autographed poster. This years gift was a total fluke. Jen has been getting into talk radio lately. Some of our dinner conversations might include something Shawn Hannity or Glenn Beck said during their radio shows. Usually she catches portions of the programs taking William to school or going to work.
Here is where the fluke happened. A friend of mine, Gina, had started an account on Facebook and sent me an invite to start one as well. I wasn't going to since the myspace thing is pretty much a waste of time as well, but I decided to give it a try and see what the hub bub is. After setting up my account there is a thing where you can go to a Fort Wayne area group and it lists all of the stuff going on in the area and lets people post events. One of the things that I saw was a post from a kid trying to arrange a protest at a Glenn Beck book signing event. That's where I learned that Glenn was going to be at the Border's store in Fort Wayne on the Saturday after Thanksgiving signing his new book. If it wasn't for that anarchist trying to drum up trouble I would have never known about it since I don't listen to his show. The signing isn't on his website, but I call the store and confirm that he is going to be there and they also suggest buying the book beforehand and showing up at least an hour before the doors open. So I run out to the store and buy the book and set my alarm for 5:30am. The book signing is at 8:00am but I figure I had better get there at least by 6:00am since I struck out at Target on the Friday after thanksgiving due to getting to the store a little too late. I am trying to load the car with warm clothes since I know I will be outside for at least an hour or so and it's around 34 degrees outside, but I don't want Jen to see all the warm clothes that I am getting together in case she might figure something out. So I head out the door before 6:00. (I got smart and parked the car outside so I wouldn't wake up the Quinmores). As I arrive I see the line already out the front door and stretching halfway down the side of the building. I get out fully prepared with hats, gloves, turtleneck, sweatshirts, and a walkman to entertain myself. I actually have a nice conversation with the couple in front of me for a while. Also, I am lucky since the line at the side of the building also provides a wind break so it's not as brutal as the poor suckers in the front of the building. So I am sitting there listening to the radio and watching the line get longer and longer until it starts going out into the parking lot and almost to the Bob Evans. About 7:00 the line started to move. As I entered the store I was assigned a colored bracelet that essentially saved my place in line so I didn't have to stay in it, but most people still stayed in the line even after being told numerous times they didn't have to be. I wandered around the store for a little bit and then got in line myself just to make sure to have a spot, since he was only signing for an hour. Unfortunately no personalized autographs. Just his name and then next.We were all shown which page to open the book to and then we handed the book to one of three people who handed the book to each other before Glenn got it. The person before me stopped and said something to him which put me in a kind of awkward position of not knowing where to stand or what to do since they were trying to rush everyone through the line, but Glenn saw me and made sure to shake my hand and with me a Merry Christmas. I did the same with him and headed out the door.

So my fun present to Jen was an autographed Glenn Beck book which she has already read. Hopefully I can "luck" into stuff like this for future Christmas'.

By the way, I never saw any protesters......

Happy New year

Happy New Year.. It's Wednesday but feels like Monday. These last two weeks have put my body schedule into a tizzy. Off two days, work half a day, off two and a half days, work 2 days, off 2 days, work half a day, off a day and a half and now work 4 days. uggghhh. But here it is 2008.

Monday was a quiet half day at work. After work I decided to hit the store for a few things to eat. With the holidays and Jen's work schedule she hadn't been able to get to the store for a couple of weeks so the cupboard was looking bare. Primarily I was looking for the makings for Reuben sandwiches (new tradition of mine) and a few things to snack on for New Years Eve for in front of the TV. Of course, Jen find out that I am going to head to the store adds to the list. Mostly staple items like eggs, milk, bread and cheesy poofs (kids love them). Now I thought the store would be a little crazy like it was on Christmas eve, but I wasn't in a real hurry to get home anyway since grandma was watching the kids. Then I start hearing the forecast for snow for New Years Eve and new years day and think Son of a B**ch. Now not only are you going to have the nuts like me stocking up on snacks and beer for the night, but now all the people who hear the word "snow" and have to buy half the freekin store. And of course they are predicting 3 to 9 inches of snow. I was ready to say that was a load of BS until I remembered they were kinda right on the last snowstorm. So there I am in Meijer on new years eve afternoon with 200 (at least) of my close personal friends. I grabbed the cart and got all of the stuff on my list including the LAST, badly dented, but not leaking can of sauerkraut. So my cart has stuff in it, but of course too much to go through the 12 items or less isle, but not by much. Every isle in the store was at least 4 deep with almost every lane open. Most people had carts loaded over the top with tons of food like they were planning on being snowed in for weeks. And then there are people like me with a small cartload stuck in the middle of it all. But I figured no matter where I would go it would be crazy, so I just picked a line and just waited my turn. It was long but not that bad, but I will no be doing that again. If we need stuff like that then I head to the store at midnight like I used to do when I was single. I got home unpacked and played with the kids.

Jen actually got off work early so we decided to head over to Jeff and Paula's for there get together. We showed up at the same time as MR and headed toward the buffet. William and Brock played together really well and were having fun. Andrew found the Christmas decoration that blew the little snowflakes in the dome and had a blast pushing that button. I got a chance to see the baby's new bedroom as well as Jeff's banister project (snicker). Around 8:00 Andrew started getting real cranky. He really wanted some pop, but we are really trying to limit the amount of pop that he gets, especially the caffeine. But he went into full tilt screaming about that. It's so hard to know how to handle him right now since William didn't do this stuff at Andrew's age. I am not sure when to discipline him so he doesn't walk all over us as parents and how much of it is him just being a 2 year old and he will grow out of. I just know that I can't let him cry out these fits since he ends up puking all over the place when he gets really worked up, and I am sure the Jeff and Paula really wouldn't want that in their house. So after trying to deal with him for a little bit we decided to head home. We wanted to get home before "amateur hour" (as Jen calls it) started with all the drunks on the road. We get home and put the boys to bed. William had a little nap in the car so he takes real long to go down. Finally I get downstairs at 10:00 and Jen is asleep in the couch. I get out my Corona and make some bagel bites to snack on. I throw Pirates of the Caribbean in and start watching that. I think at about 5 minutes before midnight I fell asleep in the chair and woke up 5 minutes after midnight. Crap. Oh well it's just a big lit ball. So I watch a little more of the movie and fall asleep again (man I am getting old). Finally trudged upstairs at 1:30 and the boys are awake at 7:30. New years day Jen went to work and the boys and I just hung out at home.

Oh and that 3 to 9 inches of snow ended up being maybe 2 inches. Stupid weathermen.

But on a good note. I finally got the snow blower to work!!!! All it took was some fresh gas and it fired right up last night. At least if we do get another big snow fall,or when we do, I will be ready since it really beats the hell out of shoveling..

Merry Christmas (thank God that's over)

So Monday I am putting in my time at work of half a day in which nothing is actually getting done. (I didn't get to sleep the night before until 1:00am due to the fact that I was making buckeyes.) Just for grins I call the Walmart near my house to see if they restocked the elusive TV that I have been looking for for weeks. I have been to every walmart in town numerous times in the past two weeks (at least 10 visits to 4 walmarts) for a gift for my Uncle from my mom. They actually had the TV that I have been searching for. I should have let my fingers do the walking before, but it's a guy thing I guess. So I am trying to get out of work and over to the store before they sell out. Jen has also asked me to pick up a few things for her at the same time. So 12:30 at walmart on Christmas eve.. yeah it was nuts. I had to wait in a long line to check out, but was pumped that I found that frickin TV for my mom. I get home and Jen heads out the door for work. After some farting around I head out the door with the boys. We go to CVS for some tape for presents and then to Papa Murphy's to pick up Pizza. This was my attempt to keep Christmas simple so we wouldn't have to worry about cleaning up dishes at mom's house, and to keep the amount of food to a minimum. Those two little jaunts were almost half an hour. Lucky for me the boys were in a pretty good mood and had fun running around papa Murphy's while I waited for my pizza to be made. Of course they made it wrong (was supposed to be half and half) so I waited a little longer for them to correct it. We headed to mom's and the boys were having fun running around and playing with the dogs. Of course there was a ton of food even with me trying to keep it simple, but nothing that couldn't be frozen. Mom had Uncle Dave get a sheet cake and had them write "happy birthday Jesus" on it (very cute). Of course Uncle Dave gets a huge 22x18 sheet cake which no one ate since we were stuffed with everything else. We visited with mom and uncle Dave for a while. Finally around 6:30 I started putting the pizzas in the oven to bake. Dan and Rhonda showed up around 7:00. Jen didn't get there until almost 8:00 because of work even though the mall closed at 6:00. Got to love retail. Anyhow we started opening presents and of course the boys got one thing and just wanted to play with that. They didn't fully get the concept of having more (a whole bag of stuff) to open. For some reason Rhonda was in a real hurry to leave so the present opening got rushed a little bit. We sat the boys in front of us and just opened opened opened. After that everyone headed for the door. I could tell the mom and the boys were getting tired. I was attempting to clean up the kitchen before I left, but for some reason Andrew got into a fowl mood and was screaming and crying, and he only wanted me to hold him. I was trying to quickly clean the kitchen, load the car, and get the boys home with Andrew screaming. On my last trip to the car I look back at Andrew crying on the floor and then "that" cough, and puke everywhere. Son of a Bit**. So Jen and I were attempting to clean up puke on top of everything else. Finally we headed out the door and got the boys home around 10:00. Andrew was asleep in the car and William was not long in falling asleep too. Then Jen and I had to wrap presents for the boys, so we were doing that until almost midnight. Both Jen and I commented that we both felt a great calming feeling hit us after getting home. I don't know if it was just the stress of Andrew or the thought of all the other stuff going on.

Christmas morning, but boys kind of slept in (almost 8:00am) and we all headed downstairs.
The boys don't even notice the presents in their stockings and under the tree and start playing with stuff from last night. But after a little bit we tore into them too. The present of the year for the boys was a train track called Geo tracks which the boys have been playing with non stop for two days now (even without batteries). One of the bonus finds at Walmart on Christmas eve was a package of honey buns. Every year it used to be a tradition for us to get up on Christmas morning and have Mortons honey buns and orange juice, but the Morton company stopped making them and I didn't find anything to replace them, but the ones that I found were real close and very tasty. So after "present carnage II" we loaded up the Jeep and headed to the in-laws for "present carnage III". We had a very nice turkey lunch and then more opening of presents. We hung out there for most of the day and headed home around 9:00.

Wednesday I took off of work to burn off a personal day and to give me a little more of a vacation. Of course Jen had to work, but the boys spent the day playing with their toys and new Geo track. One of the things that I got from my mom was a nintendo WII. I was really close to telling her that it was too much and that she should take it back since she has alot of expenses now after her surgery. But I hooked it up and played with it a little bit, annnnndddd yeah it's not going back. It's pretty fun. Hopefully I will find the time to play with it more often. Wednesday night I spent a couple hours trying to get the web cam working so my dad and I can talk to each other on-line, but I think he had a glitch on his side somewhere so it kinda worked. My in-laws then showed up and delivered one of my presents (attic stairs) that I got the night before. So overall it was a petty good Christmas.

Merry Kiss-moose

I am still in a cheery mood....

The weekend before Christmas and all was well. Of course the family is suffering through their sinus congestion and other maladies. The boys both got a case of pink eye, but that has been clearing up pretty well with eye drops. William woke up the other night and chucked all over his bed 4 times during the evening, but I think that was just part of the start of pink eye or the sinus drainage finally getting to him. All I can say is thank God that I can handle blood and puke since that would have made for a looooonnnggger night.

Saturday morning I finally got the chance to get the oil changed in the Saturn. I still go to the dealership to have this done since they do a pretty good job and have a nice waiting room with drinks and snacks. After the oil change I did a little "finish up" shopping at a few stores. And I was home by noon. When we put Andrew down for his nap we started rearranging furniture in the 4th bedroom for the new paint job. We are turning the room into a Lightning McQueen room for William for the great Bedroom swap. After moving furniture around, I threw together a Hoosier pie for Christmas eve. After all that we just kind of lounged in front of the tv for the rest of the afternoon watching the kids new favorite move "chitty chitty bang bang". I got it at a gift exchange a week ago and they love it . I will go into more detail about the movie at a future blog... Jen got ready and headed off to work. As I was pulling the pie out of the stove I was in debate about going to MR's Christmas party. Jen hadn't confirmed things with her parents about baby sitting, I wasn't feeling that hot with my drainage, and I wanted to wrap presents and make buckeyes for Christmas eve as well. But I finally decided to go after my mother in law called to see what was going on. I am glad I got out for a little bit. I really like going to MR's Halloween and Christmas parties since it gives us a chance to get away from the kids, and since it's unfortunately the only time of the year that we all get together anymore. The crowd was small but mighty with the Mike, Jeff, Paula, Lisa and Jeremy. Had a great night visiting and watching Christmas story. I stayed long enough to watch "Ghost Rider", but I am not sure why now. Pretty Bad from what I could catch between conversation and visits to the buffet. Around 11:00 I decided head for home. Actually I hit two Walmarts on the way home looking for the elusive Christmas present that my mom wanted for my Uncle.

Sunday morning was church and then home. During andrew's nap we broke out the presents and Jen and I wrapped all the stuff for the in laws and family. We have still to wrap the boys presents and will probably have to wait until after they go to bed tonight which means another late night. After wrapping presents Jen got ready for more time at work. The boys and I hung out for the rest of the day watching football and "chitty chitty bang bang". After Bath time and putting the boys to bed I pulled out Jen's presents and wrapped them. I was trying to get started on the buckeyes as soon as possible so I could get to bed, but I didn't finally get started on the buckeyes until 10:30. So I was baking in the kitchen with "Christmas Vacation" playing on the laptop. I finally finished up the baking around 1:00am right when Jen came home. So I am sitting here just putting in my 4 hours for the day and then off for the next two and a half days. Wheeeeee.

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Here is that recipe for those drop sugar cookies that I mentioned a few blogs ago. The batter looks real suspicious, but it makes great soft cookies.

Soft sugar cookies with butter and egg yolks and vanilla and nutmeg.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3/4 cup shortening
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract ( I usually use all vanilla)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

PREPARATION:

Cream shortening and butter with sugar. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Pour milk into a large measuring cup; add extract(s) and baking soda. Into a separate bowl sift flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk mixture. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets then sprinkle with a cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake for 12 to 13 minutes at 375°. Store sugar cookies in an airtight covered container.

Rambled Ramblings

A couple things to get off my chest.

First a couple of PSA's. Now is a good time of the year to check you smoke detectors batteries to make sure they are good or just replace them. A lesser known chore that should be done frequently is the empty the crumbs from the bottom of your toaster. I hadn't done that in years and it was quite full and dirty. Another lesser known chore to do is to clean your refrigerator. No not just the inside, but if you take off the little face plate at the bottom (front) of the fridge you should be able to see the condenser for the fridge. Take you sweeper and clean the condenser so you fridge will run better. My father in law asked me about this earlier this year and I hadn't cleaned it in years (I didn't know about it). When I pulled the grill off there was a 1/2 inch layer of dust blocking the condenser. Just wanted to pass this along to others to check out. Note** your fridge may be different so check your owners manual. Also good time of year to replace your furnace filters..

Pet Peeve: For the love of God do not shovel or blow the snow from your driveway into the street!!!!! A bunch of my neighbors do this and it's like freaking tank traps trying to get out of the addition. With this much snow there are going to be these mini-mountains on the road for weeks. It's not like the snowplows are coming back (especially the city) to do the additions again in case you blow all of your crap onto the street. Even if they did come back the plow is designed to stay on top of the piles and not dig into it. It's going to stay that way and get encased in ice!!! I know with a snow blower there is a chance of getting some onto the road, but I am talking about the yam heads who blow or shovel all of the snow onto the road. Unless you see the plow coming down the street, don't freaking do it!!! Whew

I think there was something else, but I can't remember..

Milk Please :)

So I am trying to get my Christmas shopping done yesterday. I actually took the day off and had a list of places to go and things to get. Jen had to work in the morning so I decide rather than have her mom come over that I would watch the kids in the morning and then do my running around in the afternoon. Jen had to work until noon so she gets home around 1:30 (she almost never is able to leave on time). She closed the store Monday night and got home after midnight and then had to be back in the store by 7:00am yesterday. She was only able to get a couple hours of sleep so I decided that I would pick up William from school and take him with me on my shopping. I was hoping that Andrew would take a nap and let Jen catch one too, but that didn't work. So after picking up William at school we started to do some running around. One of the stops was to Hooters to get the new 2008 calendar as a gag gift for my uncle. I felt a little uneasy unloading my 4 year old to walk into Hooters with me, like people were watching me and judging me. Hey, it's not like I was going into the Showgirl next door. As Jenny reminded me William had been to a Hooters before when she took him there for a lunch with her former co-workers at Lincoln. Of course he was still a baby so he was probably thinking "LUNCH" as the waitresses walked around. As we walked in I noticed that there are 4 tables with people at them and 2 of the 4 had kids! Wow I didn't know how kid friendly it was. The plan was to get in and get out as quick as possible, but I had to stand at the front counter for 10 minutes (darn my luck) until one of the waitresses finally came up to help me. William was having fun walking around the restaurant and looking at the stuff hanging on the wall. The waitress flirted with William a little bit and I think he kinda liked it. We got the calendar and headed out the door.

Christmas is getting near...

Friday I decided to take the opportunity to get some Christmas shopping done. I am a hunter/gatherer kinda shopper where I go out for as long as it takes and go where ever I need to go at one time. Friday was one of those days. With list of some gift ideas I headed out after work. My first stop was Darlington Farms. This is a factory that brings in cheap Christmas gifts one time a year and just my luck it's right down the road from where I work. It's a neat place where just about everything in the warehouse is $1.39 a piece. There is some pretty nice little nick-knacks and other stuff. I originally went in there looking for stuff for my Dad and step mom, but nothing stood out to me, at least nothing I wanted to spend $7 in shipping a $1.39 item. But I did end up finding some stuff for other people. I left with a big bag of stuff for a little over $13 so pretty good on my part.
North. Being ever the Next was the part that I dreaded..... Jefferson Point.... I like Jefferson Point as a shopping center, but whoever designed the way the traffic flowed has to be mental in the head. Who in their right mind designs a 4 way stop with at least 4 lanes in 4 different directions (including turn lanes) and then does it twice in 1000 feet?? I would have to say they need traffic lights, but I think it's private property so they can't or something like that. So my first stop was Kohls to get see if they have a gift that I saw over at another Kohls, and stuck out. Of course it was nuts busy in the store and there was the "gauntlet" of trying to leave the store to get to the parking lot. People do not understand the concept of Yield to pedestrians at all. Next stop was Wal-mart. Of course nuts busy again to the 10th degree. I went in looking for a few things including another gift for my father in law. No such luck.... again. I did find the one thing for my brother in law, but I wasn't about to get in the checkout lanes for one thing. I figured that I would hit the Walmart out by us since I had to buy eggs and butter anyway. The one nice thing this year is that I have been able to keep a little change in my pocket so I am actually able to put a little something in the kettle at the doors of walmart unlike the past couple of years when I had nothing. Even having a little pocket change, I found myself only putting in a few coins to give myself something for the next time since I was going to walmart so often lately. I was thinking about getting out of Jefferson Point when I decided to be brave and attempt the 4 way stop from hell to actually go to Jefferson Point shopping complex and see how bad it was over there. I get across the streat pretty well and it was a totally different story across the street. It wasn't too crowded at all, everyone was relaxed, and I was able to stroll easily into a couple of different stores and get SERVICE almost immediately!!! So with refreshed enthusiasm for shopping I headed out to the Northside of town. Fist stop was at Target for a few things on the list. I was able to get one of the things with the other ending up being way more expensive than I thought it was. Next stop was Walmart. I decided to hit the Kohls up North in the slight chance they restocked that item I was looking for, and by God they did! Score! Next over to Walmart to get a couple things and I was able to get most of my list over there. I get to the 20 items or less self-checkout behind a couple with a whole cart full of stuff. I was going get pissy about their 40 items but decided just to hum a merry tune. As I was checking out there was a thing where the kid working the self checkout had to check me out at his station. Nothing like the personalized service at the self-checkout. Of course I found out later the kid forget to put something back into the cart after scanning it so I had to go back the next day to get it. At that point I am pretty tired so I grab Wendy's and head for home where the boys help me eat my frosty and fries.

Saturday we got up and around and out the door to Charlie's birthday party. That is such a fun time at the roller rink. My boys find the video games fun to look at so I spend most of the time with them on the other side of the rink. I sadly didn't get a chance to visit with anybody that much. First thing when we get in the door I am getting ready to say hey to Keith and he proceeded to drop a bowl of meatballs on his lap. I tried not to laugh too hard. As I was helping clean up meatball juice off the floor I notice the chocolate phallus on the counter. It was supposed to be a chocolate fountain, but the chocolate got too thick (Lori blames Keith) so it just caked up all over the fountain. The little bit of chocolate trying to come out of the top was a little unnerving..... Anyhow in the process of chasing kids here and there, both the boys said they wanted to try and roller skate. I got them both skated up and I was able to drag them about 30 feet before they both were done. I think William was just goofing around where Andrew wasn't getting the concept of being on wheels. I think that if I would have been able to do them one at a time I could have gotten them a little more comfortable on the skates. So off come the skates and back to the video games and running around. Before I knew it the party was over. Lori invited everyone back to their place for a visit, but we had more stuff to try and get done before Jen went to work. So a couple more stops for Christmas shopping (including a place I hadn't been to in 15 years so I couldn't believe it was still there) and we headed home. With snow flying the boys and I settled in and Jen took off for work.They had predicted all kinds of different snow and accumulation for Saturday night/ Sunday so we didn't know what to expect.

Sunday morning we woke up to 6 - 8 inches of snow. Dang they actually got a forecast right!! Lucky buggers. So while Jen gets ready for work I run out to shovel off the driveway. I like to try and get it shoveled before we drive on it since it makes it easier to maintain. I decided to have Jen take the Jeep to work. The tread on the tires isn't the best, but at least its 4 wheel drive and higher clearance. So I get the driveway shoveled in time for Jen to leave for work. Yeah I need to get the snow blower working again. Basically the boys and I just hung around the house for the day watching even more DIFFERENT Disney movies all day. During the majority of the day we were stuck on Dumbo, but not too long. In the morning I decided to take the opportunity to make my Christmas cookies from my grandma's recipe. I was attempting to do it alone, but quickly got help when I started to put them together. Overall the boys did pretty well and I let them help me every once in a while. The funny part is that they got into the container with the cookie cutters so William stars handing me all different kinds of forms. So this year we have a Christmas Cat, some stars, and some moose. The cookies turned out perfect, even the raw dough tasted exactly as it should have. Afternoon I went back outside to shovel the drive again as Andrew was down for his nap. William told me he was going to watch me from the window in his pajamas, but after10 minutes came outside fully dressed with coat and boots on. That kind of surprised me. So I gave him a small shovel and was trying to explain what to do, but he found it more entertaining to put the snow back onto the driveway then off of the driveway. The rest of the day was just watching movies and football.
Overall I would have to say we have most of the Christmas shopping done for this year. I still have to try and find something for my mom. She is a hard one to buy for. I also found out that I have 3 days to burn before the end of the year so I am planning that right now... wheeeeee. I am still in the Christmas spirit and feel pretty good besides my possible sinus infection.

Gift Idea

I was looking around the net for some promotional items or Christmas gift ideas for our company a couple weeks ago. Along with ideas for candy and stuff, I remembered that the cookie cottage had a thing where you could get a custom imprinted cookies. I contacted them to get more information about how they needed the artwork and how long it would take to get. I dropped off a hard copy of my design as well as a computer disc with the design. I wasn't really planning on the artwork turning out to be that clean, but I wanted to give them everything they could want for the design. They ended up being the coolest thing and the artwork on top of the cookie was extremely clean and precise. It took about a week to get the cookies back, but I think they could have turned them over in a few days.

At $20 a dozen it's a little pricey, but its a very cool and unique kinda thing for those of you who like the unique. I am definitely keeping this one in mind for special occasions.

http://www.cookiecottage.com/

Busy weekend

Another busy weekend. Seems like all my weekends are like that anymore. Thursday night Jen and I went over to Menards to see about getting a Christmas Tree. Yeah every year we talk about going out the day after to get one, but either never do or they are sold out, so we decided to just go and buy one. Menard's had a sale on all trees and of course the tree that Jen saw and liked a few weeks ago was sold out (even the floor model). She had them call around and found out that the South store had 16 of them, so she headed on over Friday after work and picked one up. Friday night we got an appointment to get the boys pictures taken for the Christmas card/Andrew's 3rd. We decided to just do the boys this year since who want to see Jen and I. We showed up and it was really crowded in the photo area. Everything was going pretty good. The boys were pretty happy, they were keeping pretty much on time to schedule and then it happened.... I was playing with Andrew and chasing him around the basement of Penny's. I see Jen down the hall signal me that it was time for the photos. While we were heading back Andrew sees a couple of kids in those kids cars/carts and wanted to play in them. Whoever invented those cars and who ever put them at EVERY freaking entrance to the Mall should burn in hell (or at least get a bad case of hemorrhoids). There is nothing like trying to go to the mall and encountering a kid meltdown every freaking time because you won't spend the $5 to rent these plastic aggravators. (yet another reason I rarely go to the mall) You see we took the boys to the play area of Menards Thursday night and they played with some riding toys in the play area, but I couldn't explain to a 2 year old they they aren't for everyone to play with. So Andrew is in meltdown mode as we step into the photo studio and won't do anything we want him to do. Lucky for us the photographers at Penny's are real pros and she was able to entertain him enough to get him to stop crying. (That and the fruit snacks helped). We were able to get a couple of keepers from the 20 or so photos that she took. Friday night I went home and started assembling the Christmas tree while Jen stopped and grabbed a pizza on the way home. Amazingly the tree assembly went pretty smooth even with my two "helpers". I need to actually read the instructions before starting those projects since I started building the tree from the top down and they suggest building it from the bottom to the top... that would have been MUCH easier. The funny part is there was as much needles on the ground as if we would have had a real tree. I am hoping that eventually it will stop dropping all it's needles and that those were just some loose ones. Jen finally gets home from getting pizza with a story. She ordered this new double crust pizza half meat and half veggie. Of course it came out all meat (were the Kramers in the restaurant?). So rather than wait for another 25 minutes (pizza hut on a Friday night) she just took the pizza and a coupon for a free one. Overall I have to say I wasn't real impressed by this pizza. First of all it was only a medium (for $12?) and there wasn't anything real special about it. Just like a pan pizza. But you never know unless you try. I still like the stuffed crust from the Hut and the regular pizza. I assembled the Tree and passed along the responsibility to Jen for decoration. I had to place it in three different spots in the living room before finally finding a good place. Dang that tree is freaking heavy. I had to take it apart in sections to move it.

Saturday and Sunday were a Disney movie marathon at the house. William got into the DVD cabinet and was pulling out all sort of movies that aren't in the regular rotation. The one he saw and stuck with for most of the weekend was Cinderella II. I am telling myself that he is watching it because Cinderella is HOT and nothing else. Lucky I at least the the picture-in-picture to watch football or whatever (I wish I had split screen). Saturday night Jen and I talked about going to see a movie. She wanted to see "Enchanted". It looked slightly amusing so I decided it would be worth seeing, especially if we went to the Cinema Grill and I can get a beer. So we were trying to get someone to watch kids and weren't having much luck. Finally Jen got ahold of Tracy and as I was overhearing the conversation I hear Tracy say that she wanted to see the movie too, so I suggested that she should go with Tracy instead of me. I know Jen could use the break from the kids and her and Tracy hardly ever get together, so I thought that would be better. That and we weren't going to Cinema Grill so no beer :) ... Jen said that they might bring Tracy's boys back to the house after the movie and play with our boys a little bit. So I decided to make some cookies for the boys to snack on. I look in the cabinet, no chocolate chips, darn, I look in the fridge and only half a stick of butter so no snickerdoodles which are my usuals. I decided to get creative and bring down the laptop and hop on the Internet to look for a recipe. I look for a sugar cookie recipe that requires only half a stick of butter. I actually find one, and after much internal debate decided to go for it. I have been burned by an Internet recipe before so I was a little leery. I start putting the cookies together and of course the boys have now confiscated the laptop to play games, but I have the recipe on another page for reference. I put all of the ingredients together (getting egg yolks without the white is hard) and it looks like this big gooey liquid mess that looks like quicksand. Son of a B****. Jen then shows up and says that Tracy's boys were acting up in the car so they weren't coming over. Great. I look over the recipe again and I have all the proper measurements and ingredients, so I decide to throw it onto a sheet and throw it into the oven to see what happens. They ended up being the best, soft sugar cookies that I have had in a long time. And it made a ton of them. So I have added that recipe to the arsenal (I will post later). I ended up putting the lights on the tree. Of course there weren't enough lights so I had to find another strand and restring it. The tree is still waiting for ornaments and tinsel. We decide that it would be easier to do it after the boys are in bed, but after the boys are in bed usually Jen is asleep on the couch, so I am hoping that it might be decorated by the end of the week. Either that or let the boys help us and just keep an eye on them so they don't break anything.......

Christmas Cartoons

Getting into the spirit

I finally have been getting a little more into the christmas season. Saturday I saw a slim opportunity and got a chance to put up my lights. Lucky for me Andrew took a 3 hour nap so I could get the lights done with some help from William. Once again the lights are done, but I still want to tweek it a little bit, like always.

Last night I was getting ready to put the boys to bed and noticed that the Charlie Brown Christmas special was on, so I let them stay up and we all watched it together. The first episode was the classic one with Linus telling us the true meaning of Christmas (1965). The second half hour was a Christmas themed peanuts cartoon, but not the pull as the first one.I noticed tonight is rudolf and last week was the classic grinch cartoon. There is something about those little half hour cartoons that make you just feel good. Whether it's the call back to your childhood or just a good message.

So I can say I am getting more and more into the Christmas spirit. I think when we finally get our tree and I make cookies and buckeyes I will be able to be full tilt Christmas. (I was trying not to peak too early and get burned out). I am listening to Christmas music stations (WMEE) in moderation right now so I don't get tired of hearing it too soon.

The Christmas schedule is a little in the air right now too. Christmas Eve is usually at my mom's house, but I wasn't sure if she would feel up to entertaining everyone. I am sure we will discuss tonight. On a side note: she has been having alot of pain in her butt and down her leg so she finally got to the doctor yesterday and found out that when the put the screws into her back they ended up fracturing something in her pelvic bone so that has lead to more pain than usual. IF it wasn't for bad luck my mom would have no luck at all. But hey she can still move around and walk, but she won't be able to do the full tilt rehab for a month or two until the fracture can heal.

Merry Christmas