If you weren't already aware, Devin is fascinated with light switches. Until recently, we would have to hold him up to the light switch, and he would crane his neck around until he could watch the lights going on and off as he manipulated the switch. Now, he's figured out he can move (we're still lucky in that respect) stand on a chair and flip the switch all by himself.
*sigh* This is a hairline crack in the top of the radiator. I got by all winter with it (obviously) but today, the ol' Camry didn't really appreciate the warm weather.
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Maya and Devin decide to get into the Sunday paper. This was entertaining until I remembered that I had yet to read it.
Hey gang,
I'm in the process of uploading some new videos to my YouTube channel. You can view the channel by clicking here. You can subscribe to my channel if you want to keep tabs on my videos - but of course I'll post here whenever one of interest comes up!
So this morning I got up, around 8:30 and went and laid down in Devin's room. He was the first one up and tossed all his crib accouterments, so I reset his crib and he went down for another half-hour. Around 9:00am Devin decided he was up for the day, so I changed him and got his milk going. Maya was up by this time, so we all settled in for a breakfast of Cookie Monster Organic Mini Waffles (blueberry), Giant Strawberries, Blackberries, and a Veggie-Soy "breakfast pattie". Yeah, I know it sounds weird but it's actually pretty tasty, for soy.
After the kids finished, Steph was up so I decided that we were going biking. Steph almost opted to stay home and get some homework done, but I guilted her into going. We packed up some lunch for the kids and went down to the Silver Comet Depot. Here we met a likable feller named Ozzy and he got us set up with bikes. Now, Steph and I actually have our own cycles, however they are both in storage. And, mine is equipped for off-roading, so it wouldn't be a great ride on the Comet. Steph's has practically deteriorated, so she'll probably need a new one. Anyway, I got some sorta Raleigh, I think, with a Shimano 21 speed ring shifter and linear brakes - nothing special, but it works. Steph got a Specialized Crossroads, and she was quite happy with it. The kids got a Burley two-seater trailer with universal join linkage. You can see below what they thought of it:
Not exactly what you'd call an auspicious start for our trek. I like the Burley trailer. It appears to be sturdy and capable, and has enough storage space for the kids' lunch and some extra stuff. The tires are nice and big, and round (bonus!). The trailer also has a 3-piece cover which includes snap-down flaps for covering the opening. The flaps are "screen", "clear" and "tinted". We used the screen as it wasn't that cold, and the trailer tends to retain heat very well. My little thermal engine toddlers pumped out plenty of BTUs to keep the interior warm.
After the first 15 minutes, Devin was out like a light. We gave them some juice and a mini-box of raisins to keep them busy. Towing the trailer was easier than I thought. Steph remarked that I seemed to be performing a significant amount of gear-changing, but that's what a transmission is for - adequate distribution of power to the drivetrain with least amount of stress to the engine. Or something to that effect. At any rate, it was quite fun.
We rode for about 4 miles out from the Depot to Powder Springs. Steph was getting thirsty, and like doofuses we only packed stuff for the kids and not ourselves (duh!) So we stopped, gave the kids a fruit strip (pomegranate!) and turned round towards the Depot. Another four miles, and we're back at the depot and the kids are, shall we say, less than clean. We get our gear turned in and load up for the ride back home (it's a long one - about 5 minutes). We decide to let the kids eat their lunch because it's pushing 1pm and they'll be ready for naps. So we give them the sack lunch and they eat while we ride home. That was a mistake. PB&J, dates, a cheese slice and pretzel all make for great makeup/hair products. A bath is required before anyone touches anything in the house.
So, we plopped both kids in our garden tub and had bath/funtime for a half hour before putting the kids down for a nap. They really enjoyed the bath, and they are actually getting more fun out of those foam numbers and letters - they can recite some bits and pieces of the alphabet and can count a few numbers.
So, all in all, we decided we would definitely do this again as a regular activity. We will probably purchase our own trailer, and we'll have to get Steph a decent bike at some point (mine is fine, but just needs road tires). The Depot seems to have reasonable prices, plus they do free brake/adjustment service. And, if you purchase a bike from them, any rentals within 30 days prior to the purchase are deducted from the price! Sounds like a nice deal, which is good because the kids really enjoyed themselves, and getting outside is always good.
We took the kids out for "Cheap Mexican", which is local slang for Los Bravos. It's basically a "Restaurante donde los niños obtener todo ellos mismos" - or, a place where the kids can eat and get all over themselves. Literally, the establishment has probably 50 high chairs in stock. Anyway, we eat there usually once a week. The fish tacos are sublime, and the salsa is kickin'. And, as you can see from the picture, Devin is now a big fan of the salsa! He used the chip as a spoon and polished off a bowl full of the spicy goodness. He even weathered the spicy bits, albeit with the occasional hack.
I finally got my old blog merged in, so everything is under one blog. Neato! Thanks to Paul Cooley and his blog2blog tool. If you ever need to backup/merge/convert blog posts from one blog service to another, this is the tool to use. Supports Blogger, MSN Spaces, LiveJournal and Wordpress. Check it out here.
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Our plans for an Easter bike ride were foiled somewhat by an overzealous real estate agent who wanted to show the house today. So, we had to spend the morning doing a quick cleaning, and then we packed up a picnic and checked out a local park. Hopefully, our flexibility in letting this feller show the house pays off with a decent contract ;-) I also have them in my picasa album here - note they are geotagged!
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| Easter 2008 |
Here are a few shots from Easter Egg Hunting at PMO today. The kids had quite a bit of fun picking up the eggs and shaking them. They didn't get so interested in the egg-in-the-basket action, and Maya did not like the Easter Bunny at all. He made her cry from 20 feet away! Check out the photos here. Oh, there's also some pictures of swinging afterwards.
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| March 2008 |
I had Friday off, so Steph, Valerie and I took the kiddos to Kangazoom for some running, jumping, bouncing, sliding and other merriments. It was actually not crowded, and we wore the kids out for 2½ hours! We then went across the street to Blue Moon Pizza and ate dinner on the patio. It was a great time! Click here for more pictures.
Ok, so the concert was two weeks ago, but I just got around to uploading my pictures and videos. Enjoy!
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| The Black Crowes - 3-9-2008 |
Lotsa rough weather down here last night. We are all okay.
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Today in my spare time, I devoted a few minutes to making volunteer phone calls for Barack Obama. Want to do the same? Go for it!
PS. Maya knows Barack by picture and name now.
Here's a shot of the lunar eclipse, featuring the moon, Saturn and Polaris.
Here's a shot of a lion at Zoo Atlanta
Maya, Steph, Papa, Devin and Mimi watching elephants at Zoo Atlanta
Me & Devin petting a kune kune pig at Zoo Atlanta.
The concept of "hacking" isn't specific to computers anymore. Basically, a hacker is a person who takes an object and repurposes that object to serve some other function, or reworks the object to better perform its intended function.
Case in point: I want to have my oft-used kitchen utensils (whisk, spoons, spatulas, glove, etc) within easy reach (i.e. not in a drawer). The problem? Most refridgerator-magnet-holders are pretty weak and won't hold more than a few simple, lightweight utensils.
It happened that I was walking through our local IKEA and I spotted the Grundtal series of Kitchen Stuff. I picked out a nice metal towel rack, and a magnetic knife rack. I married the two together, and voila! Instant utensil rack!
Now normally this is not a huge cause for celebration, but there is actually a website dedicated to weird people like me who like to hack IKEA things, and my towel bar-cum-utensil rack made the grade!
Check it out here, scroll down a bit for a picture.
I set a personal fundraising goal: why don't you help out just a bit? http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/hardlivin
There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America.
We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.
Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.
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Taking a delayed lead from her cousin Emma, Maya now enjoys doing the splits. She has been doing them by herself, unprovoked, all day. Our kiddos are VERY entertaining these days. :-)
By the way, I just thought everyone should know that Devin can now play the kazoo. :-)
Yesterday the kids turned 1 1/2, so it's check up time! One quick shot and then no more until they turn 5. I'm sure they are not upset about the prospect of having to go without the needle for a bit. Maya outweighs Devin by about a pound, and she's also about an inch taller, and she lords it over him like there's no tomorrow. Little does she know that soon the tables will be turned and her not-so-little (but still Little) brother will have the upper hand.
Interestingly, we told the pediatrician that we were planning to move away and she didn't really seem phased. No pining about missing her twins, no asking if we could stay with her practice... so I'm convinced, nay, I didn't need convincing, let's say I'm more resolute about our plans to leave that practice. We originally picked that group because of our interview with the Head Doc In Charge, and we hardly ever see her, so there's no love lost there.
On the Home Fo' Sale Front - not a lot of action I'm afraid. There are a few homes up on the block in our 'hood, and our's is only slightly more expensive than the cheapest one - others are $15k+ more than ours so that's good news. And the one that's cheaper than ours doesn't have the full 3 baths (just 2.5) and no "in-law" suite. We just talked to our realtor yesterday, and she says that the other realtors haven't had any traffic either which is good for us - it means our house doesn't suck, there's just no traffic. But we have put out some flyers, and buried St. Joseph in the back yard... I'm just hoping he didn't get pooped on.
Devin & Maya watching snow fall on the deck
Enough of the snow, Daddy, read me a book!
I'm quite fine to read my own book, thank you!
Welcome to the CD Cover Meme. It works like this:
1. First, get the name of your band: this will be the first article title on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
2. Get the title of your album: the last four words of the very last quote:
http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
3. The third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover:
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
I've had some pretty crazy ones... enjoy it!
Well, a few more days and our house will be officially "on the market". We've had a busy few days here at the first of the year! We got the POD loaded and off to the storage unit, after a brief, disappointing display of un-neighborliness. Turns out they didn't like having the POD on the street, and instead of coming and knocking on my door, they decided to call the police and complain. So my nice neighbors allowed us to drop the POD in their driveway (they've been out of town for a few months anyway).
So the POD is off, and today we had our yard sale and unloaded almost everything! The remainder was sent to the Salvation Army for better use. Our house is immaculate. The floors/walls/cabinets/rugs/furniture are all nice and clean. We repainted the front door, dropped a few flowers around, cleaned up the backyard... We are ready to sell! All we have to do is bury St. Joseph...
It occurs to me, or rather, I was gently reminded, that I was remiss in my last post about New Year's Day. My parents came down on the 29th of December for Second Christmas - which I conveniently forgot to mention. It was great having them down, as this time Devin and Maya weren't under the weather, and Devin had a new-found world of aural delight was he had his tubes put in. It was a great visit! Dad helped prune back a few bushes including the thorny beasts on the side of the house, a/k/a pyracantha. Mom had some great grandmother time with the kids which allowed Steph to get the Christmas decorations down and boxed up.
On that note, iof our e to mention that I have put up pictures of our dual-Christmas celebrations, which you can access here.
Happy New Year, y'all! The first day of the New Year found us doing all sorts of strange things. Here's a short list:
- Packed the kids into the van and headed up to Wolf to visit with Auntie Karyn and revive her from the doldrums of holiday retail work.
- Called on a local box vendor and bought a tree's worth of sturdy cardboard boxes and some strapping tape.
- Watched an episode of Good Eats in wonderiferous HD.
- Determined that we have an awful lot of "stuff" in our home.
- Scheduled delivery of our POD unit for tomorrow (ok, technically we did this today just before writing this, but the plan was to do it yesterday).
- Wondered why children's toys are so intricate and expensive. Whilst unloading some storage area we found the drum lid to a toy drum. Devin spent the morning dropping it on the floor repeatedly much to the chagrin of my eardrums. Maya likes to walk around with a clear plastic block-bucket on her head.
- Got the house listed on Craigslist.org. Oh yeah, I guess I didn't mention that we're in the market to move. :) We're looking to relocate over to the Sandy Plains area. So, while the market is great for buyers, we're gonna try to sell and buy. Hopefully, it's a wash. So if you know somebody in the market for a great house with plenty of room in a nice area that's well-situated... well let me know.
Devin was in and out of the operating room in about 15 minutes. All is good - more updates later; as I'm getting this by phone from Stephanie.
--- UPDATE ---
All went quite well. The procedure went as planned (under 15 minutes) and everything is satisfactory. Devin was a bit cranky afterwards, but was in great spirits for most of the day. That's about all I have to say about that. :)
It's [the day after] Boxing Day, and that means a return trip to Atlanta from Sanibel. We had a good visit, even though it was bittersweet having to see Steph's grandmother in the nursing home. We were able to get in to see her quite a few times, and each time she was elated to see all of us, especially her great-grandkids! I was happy to be able to help out the family by moving furniture into her new home and helping get the old house ready for sale.
Speaking of, if any one is interested in some prime real estate in Sanibel Florida, on a canal with a pool and grandfathered-in fully-paved driveway and cement block construction... let me know.
The icing on the cake was when we stopped by to say our goodbyes to Grandma Olson. I had Maya on my shoulders, and we were seated on Grandma's bed, and Maya reached out to her great-grandmother for a hug. That was awesome! Oh, and the first time Maya said, "I love you" was to her great-grandmother the previous day. I didn't actually witness that myself as I was hanging a curtain rod, but I heard it was pretty sweet. And we also learned some other neat tidbits of information. Stephanie's great-grandmother Amanda was also a twin - boy/girl, just like ours, and the only twins ever in the family. But here's the rather neat part - Amanda was born on July 28, 1877 - 129 years before Maya and Devin to the day! I just think that's something awesome and special.
So we made the trip back last night in record the usual time, only 12 hours! Actually the trip was pretty good, we had about 2 hours total for stops (dinner, snack, gas, pee). So that puts actual road time at 10 hours.
-- Insert Sleep Here --
It's now 10am, and Stephanie should be checking Devin into Scottish Rite to get his tubes put in. Actual surgery time should be at noon. Right now, as I'm typing this, Maya is still asleep (!) which is pretty incredible. I think she definitely takes after her mother in that regard; she has gotten to the point where I have to wake her up to get breakfast :-) Devin on the other hand, is like me and is up at the crack of dawn most days. So keep Devin in your thoughts over the next few hours, since he will be under for this procedure. But it's all out-patient, and he should be back home by 3pm I'm hoping... the Doc says it should be like flipping on a light switch for him, and I'm thankful for that. The little guy needs to be able to hear properly! On a related side note, he has finally started to repeat words like "Hi" and "Up", which is great!
Maya on the other hand has continued her education by learning how to ask for "hup" (help) when she needs something (like assistance getting up onto the sofa) and by repeating "pweez" (please) ad infinitum when she really, really wants something. We have already started with Miss Manners training for Little Miss by requiring that request words (e.g. help, up, cracker) must be followed by please. We'll see how that works out :-)
While typing this I just texted Stephanie to see how things are going...but I haven't heard back so she probably has her phone buried in her purse, left it in the van, or is busy checking in our boy. I'll update this again with news. TTFN!
