Kid Pictures Update

a great way to kill time

So at work there are a lot of times where I have to wait for the computer to finish doing its thing before I can continue with work. Sometimes I'm good about working on homework during those times, but more often I'm surfing the web. In my surfing, I found 2 awesome ways for muppet fans to kill time: The Muppet Wiki and the ToughPigs blog. Then there's my Muppets playlist on Youtube too. That serves the dual purpose of keeping me entertained while I work and keeping me from losing my cool when people make my job harder by not doing their jobs right.

I'm finding out about tons of Muppet specials that I just didn't know existed. Did you know there was a muppet TV Movie last Christmas called "A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa"? I didn't. And I bet it's not for sale anywhere, so I'll have to torrent it and hope it's legal to do that. (I'm constantly debating with myself on the legality of various torrents.)

Congrats all around

Found out this week that the (extended) family is continuing to expand. My Neice Presley will turn 19 in just a few days then get married next month. The engagement will be about a month and a half long, so I hope she can get all her planning done quickly!

Also, my sister Susie is pregnant again. I'm so excited for her to have baby #2. She's due in January.

In other "Holy cow, I'm OLD!" news, my college professor said that one of her students told her that she (the student) can't remember ever NOT having a computer in the house. I remember when Computers weighed a ton, were as big as a preschooler, and had no hard drive, so operated completely off floppy discs. For you kids in the readership (If there are any), yes there used to be square discs that entirely ran the computer. And they were literally floppy in the old days when we walked to school uphill, both ways, in the snow with barefeet and were grateful. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go recharge my hearing aids and soak my teeth. As soon as I can get up outta this rocking chair.

Emma-isms

(While playing video games): Oh! You can get father than me because two ones is the only farth I can get.

At dinner: Daddy, I don't want any more dinner because I'm already full of it.

On the way to Erin's Dr. appointment:
Erin: I can see the temple from here!
Emma: Oh good, so we're not lost.

New Pics

Okay, so here are a couple pics from Easter. Levi dyed cookies too but for some reason didn't make it into any of the pictures. I think by the time we were taking them, he had gotten bored and gone to play with his trains again.

And here are a few more recent ones that our friend Tina took when she and Eric came to visit.


Emma's getting so old now. Hard to believe she's only 5. In this pic, she almost looks like a teenager.



Levi got a bit punchy before losing consciousness about 3 hours after his normal bedtime. That's not to say he's not normally this goofy anyway, though. :)


The rare pic of Josh actually smiling. He's gotta be one of the most serious babies I've ever known. Not unhappy, just serious.


And these are our other babies. These cute little guys are about 4 weeks old in the picture and have since moved on to a pet store. I still have their parents, 1 older brother and 2 older sisters. (and the mates of all the siblings).

What? It's only been (almost) a month since my last update.

So somehow the promised pictures of Easter either got sucked into a black hole or are lost on the hard drive of my very fickle laptop, so I unfortunately don't have any to share. :( I also don't have any pictures of my new car - a 1999 Ford Contour. Maybe I can get some up soon, maybe not.

I am not totally without pictures, though. Emma has, several times (though, admittedly they were all a few months apart), thought it a good idea to color on walls, bricks, and doors when Mom and Dad aren't looking. Typically, she'll use a ballpoint pen or a marker, but she did get creative with blue nail polish on her white closet doors and walls once.

Until now, Erin and I have been talking to her about it and having her take responsibility by giving her best attempt at cleaning it up. So far, there are at least 4 places in our house she has redesigned and none of them have come off. The latest redecoration was a series of swirls across her bedroom doorway.

Since talking to her and having her try to clean it up has not worked, we're taking a new tactic. She was grounded from the Wii (her favorite addiction) for the weekend and we're trying to supply an outlet for her need to color walls by painting both sides of her bedroom door with black chalkboard paint. Eventually we'll do her closet doors too. Now if she gets the urge to draw on walls, she'll be able to grab some chalk and go nuts. I just hope we can convince the boys to only draw on these specific doors and nowhere else as they hit this stage.


Emma works on the bottom, Levi does the middle (they had just switched assignments) and Daddy does the top of the door.


Josh Supervises. "Stop working and pick me up!!!"



Emma does the bottom as best she can while Levi reloads his brush - the roller didn't work so well. It didn't roll once the paint was in it. We found sponge brushes work much better than the expensive stuff with this job.

Another shot of the kids working hard. One side of one door down, the other side and two more doors to go!

Conficked.

So The Conficker virus hit my work last week. (read about it at KSL's Site.)

We started noticing problems on Thursday and by Friday lunchtime, our internet was locked out by the desktop admins to try to eliminate further infections (except for university-ownerd sites, of course) and our access to network drives had been removed in order to protect all that data. Work for me had come to nearly a standstill, since much of my work is done from network drives and I need some outside websites (like the National Provider Index database) in order to work.

When I got back into work today, we have internet access again but Firefox has been blocked (mumble grumble) now I'm forced into using Internet Exploder. Maybe I'll just hook up my laptop and use that since it doesn't have the software that allows the desktop team to block things. In addition, it uses linux instead of windows so conficker won't hurt it. =-D

Our kids had a fun Easter and got very hopped up on Sugar. Levi had a realy hard time listeningto us and doing what was asked, but he sure had fun with all the candy. I'll get pictures (or maybe a movie) of all the egg dyeing up soon if any turned out well.

The Zoo

We went to the zoo on wednesday. This was taken outside of the zoo by the waterfall.


The kids weren't as interested in the animals as they were in the playground. Levi's riding a caterpillar of some kind. Let's go find some leaves to eat!!

Emma the spider.

Cousin Spencer climbed on the statue. Which one's the monkey?

Levi's not as tall as Muke.

Emma's not as big as muke.

Cousins came with us too and we all got a picture in the boat. Front row, left to right: Sagan (almsot 3), Spencer (almost 8), Isaac (9). Back row, Left to right: Scott (6), Emma (5), Levi (3).

More work on the floor

Okay, as promised, here are some more pictures of the floor:


Levi sweeps, Emma scrapes, and Josh is momentarily amused by it all.



Here's one end of the kitchen almost done. The edges were the hardest. getting the cut just right is TOUGH.


FIrst you measure, then you measure again. and just to make sure you're not bored of it yet, you measure again. then you start your cut and measure again. And even sometimes still, you go to put down the tile and it doesn't fit. so just for a change of pace you measure again.




The tiles we bought come in strips of 3 sqares each and have a glue strip along all 4 sides. 2 sides have the glue facing down and 2 have the glue facing up. Until the glue attaches to another tile, you have to cover it up with some wax paper that comes in the box so it doesn't get dust and grit, etc. in it. It's also really tacky, so grabs anything that touches it (skin, clothes, shoes) tends to stick pretty well.




My Dad's so awesome. He has walking pneumonia and still came to help. he did most of the really tough cuts and measurements and made the job look professionally done. Thanks again, Dad!


This is a washed out, fuzzy picture of the old and the new. You can sort of make out one of the glue strip sections of the tile against the black nasty carpet glue we couldn't get off.



Josh plays on the new floor. Now all we have to do is replace the base board moulding.

Total Insanity

We got tired of the carpet in the kitchen that my grandma put in when she owned the house and peeled that back to find some older, uglier carpet.


When that was pulled up, we found what appeared to be carpet glue so old that we could just scratch it off and enjoy the very old linoleum underneath:


No such luck. some of that carpet glue has basically become part of the linoleum, so now we're going to lay some other stuff over the top. Once we buy it, that is. (pictures to follow of us installing it, I'm sure.)

To add to the fun, when I was scooting the oven out so that we could get the carpet off the floor under it, we heard a POP! and the power to the stove died:

The wire on the right had worked itself out of its bracket/plug and tripped to breaker. Boy were we lucky that was all it was! I got it back in place and everything's fine now.

Here's hoping we can get the floor in before friday when we have a fun BBQ planned with some cousins.

English Lessons

After Josh's diaper leaked on the bed and Erin had stripped it:

Me, while carrying him into the bedroom: "Let's go put new shEEts on the bed. Just so you're not confused, I said 'shEEt'. Long e. Not short i."

So THAT'S how it works

During a Family Home Evening lesson on being spirit children of God:
Erin: What's in you that makes you Emma?
Emma: HAIR!!

Rheuminations on The princess bride

Erin: I love Peter Falk. I wonder if he's still alive?
Mark: Well I didn't kill him.

Josh in a Baby Stroller

Apparantly Josh Fits in the Baby Stroller just like Levi did 2-3 years ago.

Modern day Babel

When I was younger, I hated it when my sister's friendwould try to talk to someone (Mostly me) in french, Spanish, or whatever other language he knew. The boy knew like 4 languages. It frustrated me that I couldn't understand him when he did this and he "Couldn't" understand why I didn't know what he was saying. It was truly obnoxious on "It's a small world After All" as he tried to sing the soprano part in a falsetto voice in every language he knew. Eventually I didn't see him as much, though I bet he still does it occaisionally.

Now Emma's doing it in her own made-up language. She seems to have no Idea why I don't know what she's saying. I wonder if slipping into other languages and then wondering why no one understands you is a recessive personality trait that made its way into the gene pool about the time of the tower of Babel and occaisionally rears its ugly head in modern times. Must be, because I haven't seen any 4-mile high temples recently...

Where've you been?

The time since the last post has been spent in a whirlwhind of decision and indecision. We've almost purchased two houses and Have spent a whole ton of money.

With the decision not to buy each house, we've consoled ourselves with Major purchases. After House #1, we Bought a tampoline for Emma and Levi to replace the one my sister had here for a while. Sadly, it has not discouraged Emma and Levi from bouncing off everything else. (Emma, Mostly. Levi's a pretty calm little boy).

After Near miss #2, we got into Aquariums and fish raising. We started out with a 10-gallon tank we'd inherited from my sister, thinking "Oh, we'll just put some water in it and have some fish. " Little did we know. All the accessories for that little tank cost us several pretty pennies and started an addiction I'm not trying too hard to control.

We bought fish for the tank and then realized one, a plecostymus (or however you spell it) would outgrow the smaller tank. So I started looking around and found someone at work that sold me his old tank for $20. The rest of the stuff for it, I had to buy. It sure is a beauty, though:

And that's before I started putting in fun real plants instead of fake ones! I'm still having a blast learning Aquascaping and choosing plants for our little fish.

Our hard work was rewarded last night when we found fry (baby fish) in our tank, too! There were 10 last night and we only see 5 or so today, but they're such excellent little hiders, there's no way of knowing how many there really are or how many make it to adulthood.

Right now, the population consists of :
Piglet (Orange Dalmation Molly Male)
Booga (Black Dalmation Molly Female)
Piglet (Black Dalmation Molly Female)
Frohlie (Nearly red Molly whose gender is yet indiscovered. The fish store guy said it was female, but it looks more like male to me.)

Mickey (Male Mickey Mouse Platy)
Minnie ( Female Mickey Mouse Platy)
Daisy (Female Mickey Mouse Flaty)

Curious George (Plecostymus)
and 3 unnamed otocinclises that look too much alike to tell apart.

I've another friend who says he has a tank just sitting around not being used if I want it, too. I've had a hard time getting hold of him to work out how to get it too. I can't wait to Aquascape it!

Adventures in Helpdesking

Tech: okay, do you see an icon on the desktop called "Citrix Program Neighborhood"?
User: No, I see "Citrix Program neighborhood". Is that it?

Tech: Do you see the clock in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen?
User: No. I only see the time

User: I have Microwave windows and...

Tech: Okay, I need you to click on [icon]
User: Left or right click?

Yeah, sometimes it's pretty entertaining working on a help desk.

"javajavajavajavajavajavajavajavajava!" - George of the jungle

I will never be a programmer and can't wait to get the programming classes out of my way.

Justice

oh. my. gosh!

I loved the Smallville episode Justice. It was actually exciting to watch again!I wonder what it would take to have CW consider a spin off?

labrynth, on the other hand, was a disappointment.

Catsup? Ketchup? Catch Up!!!

The car looks like new on the outside after we got it back from the body shop. Now we just have to take it to another shop so that the a/c defrost can be fixed so that I can see out the windshield as I drive to work in the morning. Levi did get better but is recovering from yet another illness now and we have our Christmas party tonight which Erin and I are in charge of the program for. Should be good.

I'm so surprised at my children lately. It astounds me how they can cry and scream like I've mortally wounded them by telling them to go to bed and how dare I use such language? "Bed"!?!? That's a four-letter word! sort of. and then the next day when I come home from work they yell "Daddy!" (in emma's case) or "DADADADADADADADA!" (in levi's case) and almost knock me over they're running so fast to welcome me home and hug me. Why can't adults be as forgiving and loving? Why can't I?

I'm so excited for this weekend! only 5 hours or so until the fun starts! we have our aforementioned holiday party with my fam tonight and then something with erin's family on sunday and then erin and I can play santa at night and then it's christmas morning and I get to see the faces of my wife and children as they see their gifts. I CAN'T WAIT! now if we could just freeze time on christmas day and not get to january and feb when I have to work 10 or 11 hour days helping people figure out their new outlook system....

What doesn't kill you .....really hurts.

What a week this has been!!

On Monday I started my new job and things went pretty well. after work I hurried off to school in really gray weather where people seemed afraid to go the speed limit and kept braking hard at the last second. When I got to school, the first snowstorm of the season to actualy have snow stay on the ground had started. (how's THAT for a run-sentence??)

I was late for school and drove around the parking lot, trying to find a space. when I finally found one, a car was just leaving it. I waited and turned in, only to almost be hit in the side of my car. I stopped and he stopped, then I parked. I got out and got my stuff from the trunk only to find that the truck that had almost hit me had driven back around long enough for the driver to scream obscenities at me and that he was waiting for the space. I shouted back that he was behind me as he drove off.

Fearing that I'd get back out of class and find my winshield smashed, I headed for class where I found that I was late for a surprise comprehensive final. I guessed my way through the test and so, it seems, did the rest of class. We all failed. After class, I got out to find that the condition of my car had not changed and headed home, very tired and still shaken up by the hot-head.

As I drove home, I was slowing to stop behind a truck at a red-light. I was almost stopped when a siren went off nearby in an on-off-on-off pattern the ambulance drivers use to tell other drivers to get out of their way without just leaving the siren on. Naturally, I tried to stop quicker to figure out where the siren was coming from and get out of its way.

Stopping quicker was my mistake.

As I hit the brakes hard, I slid on the half-slush and half-icy roads , right into the truck ahead of me. No one was hurt but my car, thankfully and Progressive was quick to get us the money for repairs, thankfully. the rest of the week went by mostly uneventfully, but monday's crash inspired Erin and I to get cell-phones, which came on friday and have been fun to play with. I finally figured out how to successfully get music on them last night.

Thursday night was the highlight of the week, though. I had to stay late at class to get help with my final project and came home worn out, but happy to finally be home and done with class, except for the final that is still to come on the 7th. As I walked in the door, Emma rushed up to me like she hasn't in probably months and gave me a huge hug, exclaiming "Daddy! I KNEW you would come home!!!" funny how such a small and simple act of love can warm and energize you.

I love being a parent. Another fun time was going to Erin's parents for dinner tonight. We don't get to see them often, so levi's somewhat afraid of them. My little Daddy's boy was just as cuddly and clingy with me as ever and I got to spend most of the night holding and cuddling with him. I love it!

I have such wonderful kids. It's too bad adults can't show love the way kids do.

"There is no cure for the Common Birthday" - John Glenn

Gmail has an ad/news ticker that you can have at the top of your inbox if you wish. Right next to the link for "Birthday greetings" it had a link for "Death notices". How nice. "Happy birthday! Be sure to look here to see if you're dead. or to tell people you're dead." I'm only 28!

"Or! I'm a pirate! Or!"

We were reading stories and singing at bedtime and emma stretched her boots figure across her eyes and out of nowhere busted out with "Or! I'm a pirate! Or!".

Lions and Tiggers and witches, oh my!

And now, right on time....the halloween pictures!

Emma refused to let Mommy help with her whiskers. Levi was more willing to let mommy help, though.

Baby Tigger!

Emma, Levi, and their Tribe cousins after trick or treating and shortly before the sugar rush.

"I love you like people at fat camp love Pizza"

Remember that little illness that flattened Erin and I for about a week? Levi may have it. Poor kid was ULTRA clingy and cried a lot until we got him some warm hot chocolate. If only he'd let us look in his mouth so we could see if his tonsils or throat look irritated or infected. More than Usual yesterday, if I was home he HAD to be in my arms or on my lap. Poor kid. Emma might be getting it too since she was unusually clingy and desperate for attention as well.

Good thing my Programming test only took 20 minutes so I could have more time to be with them. Too bad I didn't get any homework done. Actaully, no it isn't. I'm so apathetic right now about schoolwork it's pathetic.

Naked Club

Yesterday was kind of a rough day for Erin. She spends a lot of her time tending a nephew of ours while his parents work and his brother is at school. She came out of the kitchen to find Emma and her cousin Scott (who is only a year older than Emma, at 4) completely naked standing between a box springs and king sized mattress that had been propped against a wall. When Erin asked what they were doing, they said they were playing "Naked Club". I had to laugh. I told my Friend Shaun about it and he said that in College he found that cold weather was good for "Naked Club" problems. Good thing erin took the kids outside to play after that.

I'm alive. I'm ALIIIIVEE!!!

What started out as a tickle a week or two ago was diagnosed as bronchitis, pharyngitis, and an upper respiratory infection. The doctor told me that with the medicines she gave me, I'd be feeling better in about 24 hours. It was more like 30, but I'm so happy to have been downgraded to "bad cold" level that I could sing. well, if not for those coughing fits...but at least I have my appetite back and can swallow without pain clear up into my ears!

The Caring Musician

"Tonight I wanna Cry" by Keith Urban was immediately followed on my internet radio this morning by James Taylor's "You've got a friend." How nice of James to care that much about Keith. I imagine that after James wraps up serenading him, they'll go out, have a drink or two, and poke fun at all their Exes. After a few hours of laughs they'll feel much better and part their ways, James to go "Up on the Roof" and Keith returning to his egocentric life where he thinks everyone wants to be him.

Fun Coversation

The other day I walked into my friend Shaun's office at work and saw that he was putting a book on CD onto his MP3 player. The book was called "Great figures in the New Testament"

Me: So who has the greatest figure in the new testament.
Shaun (nodding and grinning and eyebrows bouncing): Ruth! Wait....that's old testament. Paul! (grinning and giving the thumbs up.)

The LeakyMug theory

Okay, I'm not going to try transcribe the theory after all, but the gist of it was that James gave the invisibility cloak to Dumbledore to add protections to for Harry and perhaps the whole Potter family. One of these protections was possibly a tracking device.

In the defense of this, the theorist inteviewed sites that whenever harry loses his cloak or leaves it somewhere and doesn't retrieve it himself, it's always dumbledore who brings it back. Left on the tower in Sorcerers/philosopher's stone? Dumbledore brings it back.

Also, in book 6 when dumbledore commands harry to keep the cloak with him, could it be so that if harry is whisked off by another port key or gets himself into some sort of other trouble, that dumbledore can find him immediately? Also, why does dumbledore always know what kind of trouble harry is in and where he is to save him at the last second, and yet not know about fred and george's many exploits and explorations or the marauder's map?

What else could have been added to the cloak? Could that be why JK Rowling described this question as "Crucial"?

interesting. Not only does it allow harry to get into trouble, it protects him and prevents him from getting in too much trouble.

Reggie Black and the mystery Cloak

for this entry, I've just copied my post from the Harry Potter for Adults Yahoo!Group. Next entry, I think I may try to transcribe a theory I heard on a leakymug podcast (www.leakymug.com) about how maybe Dumbledore was "tweaking" the features of the invisibility cloak for James and Lilly. I think I like that theory too.

The question about when/where the cloak was used by Dumbledore is interesting to think about. So far, all I've come up with is that it may have been for hiding and/or moving Regulus Black. Dumbledore is not thetype of man to offer to do something he doesn't know he can do, so itstands to reason that when he offered to hide Draco and Narcissaby "Killing" them, that he had done it before. Whose death would he have needed to fake in the past? We also know that he is a very kind person and is forgiving of those (like Snape) who he believes to have turned from Master Riddle. And if he's faked a death before, why couldn'tit be Reggie's?

The next little bit of this theory comes from Red Hen (http://www.redhen-publications.com/Potterverse.html). PerhapsReggie turned his coat and snape and dumbledore helped hide him. Snape would take the credit for killing him, thus moving up in the Death Eater hierarchy, and Dumbledore would hide reggie until he (dumbledore)felt the threat of LV was gone for good. And what better way to hide someone than in an invisibility cloak? This also makes sense on how Harry will find the rest of the horcruxes in one book when it has taken 6 books to find the ring, thediary, and (possibly) the locket. He could just ask the one man(Reggie) that knows for sure about the locket and possibly a few otherhorcruxes as well. The snag to this theory, though, is the question of why Reggie would have stayed in hiding in the years between Voldemort's downfall and his return to power. That's why I think maybe the Theory from the LeakyMug is a little more acceptable, though as you'll see it's a big "Big-Brother"-ish.

I'm not dead yet!

I know its been over a week. When I can get some time, my next entry will be about trying to figure out the mystery surrounding why dumbledore had James Potters cloak in the Harry Potter books. Just gotta find the time...

The Dangers of Djibouti

We were at a family reunion the other day for Erin's dad's family and I was quietly eating dinner listening to a relative whose name I can't now remember (so we'll call her Random Relative) talk about how her daugher is in the foreign service and working at the US embassy in Djibouti (pronounced, at least by RR as Ja-booty). With a name like that for a country, I just had to join in.

me (looking up from my dinner): So do they get a lot of earthquakes in Djibouti?
RR: no....I don't think so....
me: Good! You cause a lot of damage when you shake Djibouti.

RR smiled sympathetically. Erin's mom "kicked" me under the table with her knee.

Look who's one!

What's in this place that we can't weather? We're together. There's nothing we can't face. Except for bunnies. -Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This little guy was discovered in our garden yesterday knawing on some weeds. We thought it was rats eating our Tomatoes (which doesn't bother me anyway because tomatoes are nasty). I haven't seen him except in these pictures but I totally want to catch him in case some poor child in the neighborhood has lost their pet. Hopefully he sticks around long enough for me to find time to catch him.

anyone got an advil? or 8 spare hours I could have each day?

I. am. so. tired. and every responsibility in my life feels like I'm getting a freight train dropped on me.

Oh, the symphonies these two compose!

Child rearing from the "experts"

From babycenter's weekly e-mail for 11 month olds: "Many can babble in short sentences that sound like a foreign language, too. Keep talking to your child, naming and labeling objects and people. The more you do, the faster his vocabulary will grow."

I can just see it now:

Me: "Look Levi. That's a loser and that's a druggie and that's a weirdo...."
Him: "akdjlkjadkljflakdfkafiivlll....loser. kadfkadjfj....bruggie. a;ldhalhdiha....weirdo."

If you think sleep walking is fun...

try sleep driving. There's nothing like putting all your attention and energy into forcing your eyes to stay open and focus, only to realise that they're not open at all. and the car you're driving is still moving and hasn't hit anything yet.

I can't seem to sleep well at night anymore, but that's kind of just how life is. Anyone have tips for making yourself stay awake and alert on the road (besides "get enough sleep" and "caffein." neither of those is gonna happen.) besides windows down and radio blaring?

in other news, Levi has come close to giving himself a black eye twice in the last week. Last week he fell on a cell phone and split his eye open in the corner. it bled a lot, but it's a little enough cut that he's healing without the need for stitches. the other time he did it we had forgotten to buckle his carseat to the bench in his grandma's van and he tipped backwards and scuffed up his cheek on his eye socket a little. poor kid. We're lucky that's all that happened. One thing's for sure: he's ALWAYS going to be buckled now. (Not that he shouldn't have been before...)

I love to see the temple, I'll dance inside someday...

Emma (over phone): Daddy, when you come home (from work), you will go to the temple. and I will go to the temple. And Levi will go and Mommy will go!

Me: The Temple? What would we do there?

Emma: Uhhmmm.....Dance!!!

I wonder who she's been talking to about what goes on in a temple.