Joe and Jane Cool

Today we continued to enjoy the beautiful spring weather. Joshua has had sunglasses previously, but never would keep them on for more than a second or two. However, Clara loves sunglasses and will keep them on quite some time given her age. Joshua also is now more willing to wear them since he is older, but he still takes them off pretty quickly. Here Clara is wearing our baby sunglasses and Joshua is wearing his from last year. Clara's fit her, but we need to get her a style without the band as it will be cuter and she will like it more. Then we can try the baby ones on Hannah. Joshua's are ridiculously tiny on him so we will probably get him a new pair soon too. They wore their glasses almost the entire walk and Joshua then walked around our house when we got home saying "Too Dark" and turning on all the lights so his glasses wouldn't make it too dim.

Clara, Don't Eat the Rocks

 

Being a parent causes you to have to say things sometimes that you certainly would never otherwise say.  I worked from home this morning, and as I came downstairs to leave to go into the office, Meghan had taken the kids outside to play in the yard in the nice weather.  I walked outside to say bye to everyone, and I hear Meghan say, "Clara, don't eat the rocks!".  Yeah, so that's one of those things.  Here Clara is while taking a brief break from eating the rocks, probably only because she knows a parent is looking.

Dirt Lovers: Joshua and the Worms

Another benefit of spring: worms.  I was mowing today and found a couple worms.  I thought Joshua might like them.  He's seen them in books (Richard Scarry and whatnot), but never a real one up close, as far as I know.  So I brought him out on the back deck (Meghan seems like the kind of responsible adult who might frown on people playing with worms in her house) and let him see them.  He was sort of scared at first.  I held them in my hand, and he wasn't sure what to make of them.  I encouraged him to "pet" them, and he did.  He was okay with them after that and was even willing to hold them in his own hands.  We talked about how worms live in the dirt and like to eat dirt, which was intriguing and perplexing to him.  We then released them into a wet part of the grass (it recently rained), and they went on their wormy way.

Joshua's Favorite Part of Spring

Joshua loves the outdoors.  He also loves animals.  Right now, birds are his favorite animal.  Because it's spring, birds are everywhere.  Every time he sees a bird, he really excitedly yells "Behrd!".  This sometimes makes for entertaining mealtimes, because his chair faces a window with a tree right outside, so in the middle of eating he will sometimes suddenly alert us to the presence of another bird.  This evening we went for a walk, and I was going to get a picture of Meghan with the three kids, and sure enough, Joshua could barely look forward long enough for a picture due to being distracted by birds. 

A Date Night at North

Tonight we had our date night for April. We dropped the kids off at Peg and Ron's and then went to dinner at a restaurant called North. We had tried it previously and I hadn't loved it, but we both really enjoyed it this time. The name comes from the fact it focuses on northern Italian cuisine. After dinner, we went to Crate and Barrel and bought some wall art for our living room and also got ice cream at Glace, which is Christopher Elbow's ice cream endeavor. It was a very fun night.

Seeing Dr. Stuppy

Today I took Joshua and Hannah to their 30 and 6 month checks respectively. Joshua was highly entertained by Dr. Stuppy. Hannah was not as happy, though that could also be because she got vaccinations and Joshua didn't. Both kids are doing great. Hannah weighs 14 lbs, 12 oz and is 26 in tall. She is in the 44% for height and 15% for weight. Joshua weighs 27 lbs, 4 oz and is 35 in tall. He is in the 20% for both height and weight. I didn't realize Joshua was such a little guy, but otherwise there were no surprises there. Clara is hanging on to "big sister" title so far by about two pounds and two inches.

Daniel Kiger

Joshua doesn't generally watch much TV. Most days we let him watch thirty minutes, though occasionally we will watch a longer show or two short shows in a single day. For awhile, Joshua really liked Barney. Then he was really into Veggie Tales. He still likes both those shows quite a bit, but his definite favorite is Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, which he refers to as "Daniel Kiger". This is a really sweet show that is more or less an animated sequel to Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. The main characters are the children of the puppets that were on that show. It's really cute to see him enjoy a show so much.

Daddy's Home?

Though I always prefer it when Jason is home, I don't really mind his travel. It is hard when it is a long trip, but that's not very frequent. However, one thing I really hate about it is when the kids ask for Jason when he isn't here. Today Jason was gone and the dogs barked at something outside and Clara ran to the door as fast as she could (not all that fast) and yelled, "Daddy!" and seemed super excited to go see him. Luckily she didn't mind too much that it wasn't daddy and was appeased with duplo blocks. Joshua also is old enough to ask why Jason isn't home at night, though he seems satisfied when I say he is at work and he'll be back tomorrow.

Painting

It has been awhile since we have done painting. Joshua has been on a real playdough kick of late. But for the last week or so, he has been really excited about painting. We have done sponge painting (as seen here), brush painting, finger painting, and painting with glitter and glue. He loves it. I am less thrilled with it compared to playdough due to the cleanup, but I don't want to be the mom who says no to things just because they are messy, so usually if he asks for painting that's what we do.

Sunday Evening Hannah

The weather was nice today, so we decided to all go spend some time in the backyard. Hannah isn't mobile yet, so Meghan put a blanket on the grass so she could sit and watch the other kids play in the yard. I was struck by how beautiful our little baby was, so I got out the camera and took some pictures. My only regret is that it wasn't earlier in the evening, as the sun had already set and the light was somewhat dim. I'll have to do it again sometime when the light is better, but I still got some great pictures of our happy little Hannah.

An Open House and a House Full of Friends

As an Olathe resident and a graduate and fan of K-State, I'm excited that we have a K-State campus here in Olathe. Today was the big Open House at the main campus in Manhattan, but it was also the Open House for the campus here. Meghan and I enjoyed attending the Manhattan one a couple times back before we had kids, so we thought it would be fun to go as a family to our local one.  Joshua liked pointing out the multiple instances of "K-State" that he saw.  Hannah stayed in the stroller, but Clara and Joshua walked around, often hand-in-hand to explore the various exhibits.  I participated in one where you try to drop an Oreo from your forehead into your mouth.  I failed.  But it was fun, and we will probably try to go again next year.

In the evening our friends the Bartons came over for dinner.  Joshua and Macyn had a good time playing together.  I wasn't sure how it would be for Joshua since he doesn't have a whole lot of socialization and is often quiet around people he doesn't know well (although they've actually seen each other quite a few different times, four of which are documented in this blog), but they played really well together.  Nick spent some time helping Hannah to be fascinated by her own feet (she seemed amazed, really).  And we had a great meal that Meghan made for us.  It was a really fun night.

Bedtime Routine

Getting the kids in bed at night is a little bit of a challenge, as it's always one parent and two kids.  Fortunately both kids are generally accommodating of the process.  Some nights are bath nights, but otherwise the routine is the same.  We put on Clara's jammies, then we go into the bathroom and brush teeth. Neither kid can do it themselves effectively, so I do it for them and then give them the opportunity to hold the toothbrush so they can do it a little bit on their own.  Then they get a "sip" of water which ends up being a long drink.  We then go to the comfy chair in Clara's room, and all read a book together.  I need to get a picture of that at some point, as it's cute that they both squeeze into the chair with me while I read them a book.  We then sing some songs.  A popular request from both is "Row Row Boat", which you can guess what that is.  We also sometimes sing the ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Jesus Loves Me, This Little Light of Mine, and others. We then pray, and Clara goes to bed. Joshua and I then go to his room, change him into his jammies and give him a chance to use the potty, and then he goes to bed (with a blanket, Scout, and Broken Giraffe).  It's about a 30-minute process without the bath and closer to an hour with the bath.  I'm not sure how exactly it'll go once we add Hannah to the mix, but for now it's a pretty smooth process.

Replacement Camera

 

I travel with my camera on every business trip, mostly so I can take pictures for this blog. I've had that camera with me for literally hundreds of flights and cab rides and shuttles rides. I nearly lost it last year, and since then I decided to write my phone number on it, so if I lost it and it was found by someone who wanted to return it, they'd be able to do so. I used a silver paint marker, but each time the writing would get rubbed off just from normal usage and handling. I'd mentioned this to Meghan, and she suggested coating over the numbers with clear nail polish. I decided to do that, but we didn't have any clear nail polish. She then bought some for me during her grocery shopping, and I had it ready to apply after a recent trip I took. Unfortunately it was on that trip (or in the days right after) that I lost my camera. I was days away from permanently applying my phone number to it, and now it's gone. Maybe I'll find it some day, or maybe it's gone forever. I have no idea where it is. So I gave up and bought a new camera, and it arrived today. This one doesn't really have a good place to write my phone number, so I'm looking into other options such as engraving (which would be small enough to fit in the available space). But I'll certainly have something on it to prevent this from happening again.

Way Back Wednesday: Long Hair Days

At some point in the early 2000s I switched from my '90s haircut (maybe someday it'll show up in a Way Back post) to the haircut I have now.  That haircut for the most part hasn't changed in over a decade.  But there was one exception.  In 2005 I decided to grow out my bangs to sport a sort of shaggy look.  I liked it, but Meghan wasn't so much a fan of it.  I kept it for several months before eventually reverting to my previous (and current) style.  Here are a few pictures as evidence of this brief period of hair experimentation.

Touring the JSC

Today I had a Maximo event in Houston. My company wanted to have a booth and to be a sponsor, so I went as the technical lead since Houston is in my territory.  The event was held on the grounds of the Johnson Space Center,  All of the event attendees were invited to go on tour at the end of the day.  I love these types of science/educational things, so I happily accepted the invitation.  We got to see the mockup of the International Space Station where the astronauts train before being deployed there, the old Mission Control room (This was where "Houston, we have a problem" was actually heard.  The new Mission Control is not accessible to the public), and an actual Saturn V rocket.  It's housed in a giant warehouse, and it's amazing how big it actually is.  It's way bigger than it looks in this photo, and it's actually taller than the Statue of Liberty.  It was a really interesting tour, and I'm glad I got the chance to go on it.

 



Meghan has recently started using Instagram as a way to send me pictures of the kids on some days when I'm at work or traveling.  Today she sent me this picture of Clara.  It's a cute picture, but it's also notable because Clara was actually eating dinner.  Normally she eats a big breakfast and lunch but not much at dinner, so hopefully this is a positive trend.

Imagination

Joshua is in a new place in his play now where he can use his imagination to pretend things. Like he uses his straw to pretend he is an elephant and he plays with his legos on a new level too. He can't yet really create too much with duplos, but sometimes I will build things for him. In this case, I built him a plane. But since he also has a great love of smashing things, it doesn't last long. And then he rebuilds in it in a completely different way (you'll note the item he is holding doesn't look like a plane), but doesn't care at all and continues to fly it around the room. It's pretty fun that he is able to better grasp the concept of imaginary play now.

An AA Meeting at Church

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a Christian home, and one of the benefits of this was being exposed to a side of music that many people never hear: Christian music.  I've always preferred rock and harder music to slower music, although slower music certainly has a time and a place.  But in general, if music rocks, I like it.  Fortunately Christian music while arguably being a genre itself, has all types of musical genres within it.  Liking the upbeat stuff, I was a big fan of Petra, DC Talk, Michael W. Smith (although he has plenty of great slow stuff as well), and Audio Adrenaline.  I spent my middle school years listening to almost exclusively Christian music.  During my high school years I included secular music as well, but I still closely followed and enjoyed Christan music.  It was during this time that Audio Adrenaline released their breakout album, Don't Censor Me.  I'm not sure how many times I listened to that CD, but it was a lot.  Many, many, many times.  I also bought their next two albums, but then they kind of faded, and eventually broke up when their lead singer sustained permanent vocal cord damage.

Recently I heard a new AA song on the radio.  Apparently they re-formed with one of the guys from DC Talk as their lead singer.  And I was pretty excited when our church announced that Audio Adrenaline's tour was coming to town and that they'd be performing in concert right in our church's sanctuary!  Julie and Joanna were also fans (This was probably as least partly due to hearing their big brother play the CDs a million times.  I remember a tiny little Joanna, who was 2 or 3 at the time, singing along to the song Big House's lyric "It's my Father's house" as "It my Fahdah house!!!"  It was adorable.), so along with Kirk, we all went to the concert tonight.  The unfortunate part was they only played two songs off the first three albums, jumbled together as a quick medley, and I didn't know any of the other songs they played except for the current radio hit.  I was hoping for more of the old stuff, but probably they weren't interested in catering to the 30-somethings in the crowd since this was part of a weekend for teens at the church.   There were three opening bands.  The first was Manic Drive, and they were not good.  The second was Seventh Day Slumber.  They were a rock band, and I really enjoyed them.  I'm going to check them out and probably add some of their songs to my MP3 player.  The third band was Group 1 Crew, which is a terrible name, but they were entertaining.  They were a near-perfect Black Eyed Peas clone.  They were fun and energetic, and Julie really bonded (from a distance) with their pregnant Fergie-esque lead singer.  One of the sponsors of the concert was a Christian radio station in KC that I didn't know existed: Air1 91.9.  We listen to K-LOVE a lot, but at times I'd prefer something still Christian but a little more rock-ish, and 91.9 seems to skew that direction, so I'm excited to check them out.  So, all in all a good night. I got to spend time with my sisters and with Kirk, I saw an old favorite band of mine, and I found a possible new band to follow and a new radio station to check out.

Trucks and Big Rigs!

Today Joshua and I had a date. In most months, I don't really think about what to do too far ahead of time because usually our schedule only makes it possible to do it on a single Saturday, so I am constrained by date and it also depends on how the weather is going to be. It was the same way this month, but I was really happy to see that our date day corresponded to when Johnson County Parks & Rec was having their Trucks and Big Rigs event and the weather was moderate. This is an annual event where they have a variety of vehicles for kids to check out and sit in.

Joshua didn't actually like this event in the way that I thought he would. He didn't like sitting in the trucks that much. He told me they were too high and dangerous. He also didn't like that the horns and sirens were going off so much (since the kids were allowed to do it, this was constant). He told me it was too loud and I totally agreed. But he really enjoyed climbing on the exteriors and finding dirt on the trucks and rocks. Especially the dirt. And we ate nachos from a food truck and he really liked them.

Rocks in the bulldozer	We love the fedex truck!
Dirt stuck to the back of the truck	Yummy nachos
Driving the Police Car	More Dirt!

We ended the day with Sonic where he got a cream slush and he sat in the front seat beside me as we ate (or drank I guess) our ice cream. He was really excited about the cupholder and put his cup in and took it out several times. He really liked his, but he said my root beer float was too spicy.

Two and a half

Today Joshua turns 2 ½ years old. In some ways it seems so long ago that we brought him home from the hospital. It seems impossible that we once worried he would be super serious because he so rarely smiled. Or that all he wanted was to be held and he wouldn't fall asleep or do anything else except cry if you weren't holding him. I find second birthdays sad because I feel like it's really the gateway to childhood and leaving babyhood behind. That has definitely been true of Joshua. He is such a boy now. He runs and jumps and likes smashing things. He recently has been on a lego kick mainly because he has realized that smashing the legos with a hammer to break them apart is super fun. His vocabulary has really exploded since he turned two. He now uses pronouns and phrases and has even done a sentence a time or do, though I am not sure it was intentional. He has a very keen sense of what is proper right now. When I took this picture he asked where his sticker was for his shirt. When we didn't have any clean cups for him I told him to drink from a sippy cup and he told me no and that it was for babies. He is far from serious and may have a future as a class clown. He loves to perform and make people laugh. He is really excited about colors and counting, though he doesn't have them all straight yet. He loves singing songs and dancing and he loves being outside and kicking and hitting and throwing. He loves wearing hats while playing sports. He has outgrown most of his baby talk, but we have held on to dita for blanket and Gaga for Clara. He sometimes says blankie now and that makes me sad. And he is definitely capable of saying Clara, but he prefers Gaga and I don't correct him. He still struggles with pronouns and tells me to "Hold You" when he wants me to hold him. He is very helpful and likes feeding the dogs and letting them in and out and putting Hannah's bottles in the sink when she's done eating. He will help clean up the toys, but he most often starts playing with whatever he is cleaning up a few seconds into it. He is such a great big brother to both girls and I can't wait to see what kind of boy he continues to grow into.

Joshua 2 ½ Years Ago

2 Years Ago 

1 Year Ago

Give Me An L

I am currently working on our hallway. It has just been totally bare the whole time we have lived here and now I am finally getting to decorating it. I got it painted since it was in terrible condition (though it's the same color. It was just the original paint of the house so it was in bad shape). The only other thing I have done so far is add this shelf to our stairwell. I am still working on what to put on the bottom shelf, but I am happy with how the 'L' came out (it does not have weird streaks on the bottom. That's the flash. But it does need another coat on the side before it's finished). Since this is kind of a K-State shelf, I wanted something purple, but I only found lettering I liked in black. So I spray painted it and am reasonably happy with the results. I do have a couple drips I am not happy about. I think I got a little too close. But they aren't noticeable unless you get close so I am trying to let it go.