Christmas Day

Christmas was so fun this year. I was so excited for the kids to get their presents I hardly slept the night before. I really think I was only half asleep when I did sleep and I started worrying that we hadn't really told Sydney to come wake us up first when she got up. I hoped she would not go in the living room and just start opening things. It turned out she got up around 7:45-ish and climbed into bed with us. I asked her if Santa brought her anything. She sat up and said "Oh yeah!" She had forgotten it was Christmas day. I was also a little worried she wouldn't like her presents. The "surprise me" thing she told Santa at the mall turned out to cause me a little stress. Every few days she would have a new thing that she hoped Santa would surprise her with. Christmas Eve it was a remote control car which she was not getting. One day I told her maybe Santa would get her a teddy bear, or a book, or a scooter... She interupted me with "I hope he doesn't get me a scooter because I hurt my foot on Elise's scooter once." Well Santa did get her a scooter and luckily she loves it and no longer walks anywhere, but scoots. Tanner and Natalie didn't really get the Santa thing but they had fun with all their toys. We had a good family night lesson the Monday before Christmas to talk about being grateful in preparation for Christmas day. Sydney was pretty good about saying thank you for her gifts and even Natalie threw in a couple "dankoos". Here are a few pictures of our morning.

Santa always leaves candy canes hung on the tree.

Tanner is not at all interested in the cars and trucks Santa has displayed for him on his road matt. He is more concerned with this candy cane and trying to chew through the wrapper.

Sydney is showing me the cinderella pez dispenser from her stocking.

Pat Pat Rocket is the new favorite toy for all the kids. Natalie is in love with it and calls it "kocket."

The kids have really got it made. Since their ages are so close together they all enjoy all of the gifts. It doesn't really matter to them who was given what. With Sydney we have to remind her that not all of the toys belong to her, but they have all shared pretty well.

Here is Tanner sitting in Natalie's igloo tent.

Here is Natalie playing with Tanner's cars.

Sydney is scooting around the house.

We had egg nog with our breakfast. It was Tanner and Natalie's first taste of the stuff. They barely came up for air they loved it so much. Natalie probably had a bit too much because she threw up a little while later. Egg nog throw up smells awful by the way and is nearly impossible to get out of the carpet.

[FIXED] Another good reason to have a stay-at-home mom

Read this article guys. It's really short and I guarantee you'll be more likely to live on less and keep your wife home with the kids.

P.S. I accidentally posted a link to Mexico stopping buying American meat instead of this article. Yeah...dunno what reason that was about. :)

As my pappy used to always say....

Anyone remember watching Maverick? I love how he always quotes his dad wrong (and at the end of the movie you find out a guy that's in the movie throughout is his dad).

Well...after quoting my dad wrong all the time, here is one I always credit him with:

Adages from the Book of Wayne, #14:
If it fails, turn off the car, get out, get back in, and turn it on again. 9 times out of 10 it will work.

More often this adage is applied by rebooting the computer. Go figure.

Geek vs. Nerd

Although the connotation might not seem to different among by those not called by these terms, here is the reason I no longer prefer geek to nerd:

(from Wikipedia)

The word geek is a slang term, noting individuals as "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, gaming, etc."^[1] Formerly, the term referred to a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken, bat, snake or bugs.

Another Sydney Moment

Background: The Bee Movie was playing, I was driving Sydney for our Daddy-Daughter date.

Sydney: Daddy? It's so sad...Barry just wants to be a pollen jock but he has to grow up first.

Josh and Lisa: 6th Birthday (aka anniversary)

As most of you know, I believe once you're married you restart your age together. Essentially, Lisa and I have learned to walk and talk, possibly to write, and are in the middle of kindergarten. :) It makes everyone older feel young again and remember times of old.

Turning six has made me realize a few things:

1. Whoever said wives are always right, are right. Even though she really is 99% of the time, living that way has brought happiness for a myriad of reasons.

2. We have worked hard for what we have and are extremely grateful for what we've worked so hard for and feel blessed to have someone else who works just as hard (if not harder) on our marriage.

3. I love Lisa more than anything. More than sports, more than electronics (especially email...although she might debate that one :) ), and it's just taking time to see what else falls to the wayside. She's put up with a bit, hopefully less as the years go on. Besides, we have seventh row tickets to Wicked this year. My penny pinching can't be affecting all our decisions. :)

4. I liked numbered lists, and Lisa has learned to put up with them.

Love you sweetness!

The great debate

Not Oreo vs. Chips Ahoy, not water skiing vs. snow skiing, or even PC vs. MAC, the great debate today is Internet Explorer versus Firefox. I love having the consistency of Microsoft products, but after defending Internet Explorer for so long, this article has finished the debate for me. I've been using Firefox for about three years now. Despite having to use IE on occasion for products/tools that have issues with Firefox, I'm a convert.

Kevin Carter, this is not a place to tout Safari, but feel open to (cleanly / without expletives) bash Internet Explorer. For so long I thought the security holes were because so much of the market uses IE and hence hackers would inevitably get the most coverage working on IE, but this is just too far. Maybe Firefox and Safari are just untested comparatively.

Sydneroosky

Dinner at the Mayan: $20

Madagascar 2 at the MegaPlex: $12

Quality time on a Daddy-daughter date: Priceless.

The Santa wait

So last night we decided to brave the mall and visit Santa. We originally planned to go to Jordan Landing, but thought it might be especially crowded since it would have been Santa's first day there, and there was all sorts of hullabaloo going on to celebrate his arrival. So we headed to South Town since we heard that Santa was pretty good. Santa was out to dinner when we arrived so we did the same at the food court. Then we got in line and the twins immediately got restless. So I made a few laps around the mall and came back to find that Sydney and Josh had moved a total of two feet. I took Tanner up to Bath & Body Works to check out their sales. He did everything possible to make holding him difficult and drooled all over me. I think he's getting a new tooth. The line must have started picking up a bit while we were gone because Josh and the girls had moved a good 10 feet when we got back. Overall, the wait was about 1 1/2 hours. I was pretty proud of us all for not having any serious meltdowns or orneriness through the whole excursion. Sydney doesn't have anything in particular she wants for Christmas, so she just told Santa, "Surprise me." Last year we went to Fashion Place where they gave us a pager like at a restaurant so we could shop while waiting to see Santa. When we were paged the wait was about 5-10 minutes. I think that's the way to go! Here are some pictures showing how much the kids liked their visit.

Sydney is thrilled. Natalie couldn't care less. Tanner is trying to crawl behind Santa.

Sydney is still thrilled. Natalie still doesn't care. Tanner is trying to run away.

Life Beyond Self

It always seems at Mother's day, the mothers in my life (my Mom, Lisa) seem to notice a big change. Somehow breakfast is made, a foot massage is offered, among other seemed luxuries. Maybe it's just me, but in this time of giving, why don't we attempt to treat each other as they would expect on their special day? How does this apply to Christmas?

In a off way, what brought this up was watching No Reservations last night with Lisa. It was so sad how a child who's lost their mother missed so many things. I wondered how the kids would miss me, or just my corrections when they did something wrong. So today was day 1 of compensation. Not that I haven't corrected her when she pushed Natalie, but Sydney and I spent some quality time out in the snow. All the kids love playing a few special games we do, and I think it was a good day. I think Lisa's back to the top of the list, so I better get going.

P.S. If you see Sydney around, call her Fluffly Lopart. Tanner is Tiny No-Pants. Natalie is Nano.

The joys of fall

As previously mentioned, I love fall. There's only one thing I don't love about it - the leaves. I probably wouldn't mind them so much if they came from our own trees, but we currently do not have any trees in our yard. I plan to plant some this spring because we could use a little shade and some more curb appeal. Last Saturday, Josh went out with the leaf blower and got rid of all the leaves in our yard. On Tuesday we got a whole lot of wind. I stood at the window and watched our whole yard fill up with leaves again completely helpless to do anything about it. I almost wanted to get the leaf blower out and start blowing back at the wind, defending my lawn. The leaves came in small armies, running down the street and resting on our grass. They almost appeared to be dancing as if they were excited to arrive at our house.

The artists

We just got a new old desk for Sydney to use for her artwork. Its new to her but old to me. It was my desk when I was a kid. We were going to store the old small art table downstairs for later but Natalie just became interested in it. So every once in a while Sydney and Natalie will color at their desk and table. It's very cute. Natale just loves small chairs that she can sit in by herself. Tanner is not so interested in coloring or anything that really involves sitting still. He would much rather climb the kitchen table, tear apart the christmas tree, or unload the kitchen garbage all over the place. That is Tanner's idea of fun.

Another Sydney Moment

I was telling Sydney about the cool new dishes (for lack of anything interesting to talk about) we got at Ikea while she was watching Bolt with Grandma and Grandpa Ruben, when she asked: do they light up?