Christmas Recap

It was a great Christmas at our house. Everybody seemed to get what they wanted. Lucy woke up Christmas morning and was really excited to see that Santa had indeed come.

However we have church at nine o’clock so opening presents, eating breakfast and getting ready for church was going to be hard to accomplish. Luckily for us Santa left a note for Lucy telling her that she had been a good girl and he had brought her a lot of presents but he wanted her to wait till after church to open them. Lucy was okay with idea and got ready for church without much protest. When we got home the real excitement began.

Lucy got her Perry the Platypus just like she asked for. We got a lot of Perry the Platypus actually.

In addition to getting Perry, Santa also brought Perry’s friends Phineas and Ferb, The Phineas and Ferb movie, Perry Shirts for her and my self and a Perry hat.

Funny thing about the hat, Lucy got two more that day, one from her cousin Kira and another from her cousin River, we now have enough Perry hats for everyone but Jack.

It was definitely the year of the platypus at our house.

Lucy had also asked Santa for two new light sabers, he delivered twice that amount. Everyone in the family had a light saber in their stocking.

Now if only we could get Lucy to turn them off so the batteries don’t run out.

Jack got some diapers and on a more exciting note Santa brought him a Swoop University of Utah pillow pet and some Denver Broncos shirts.

Jacks stocking is a Jack Skellington stocking that my Mom finds weird but we think is pretty clever and funny.

In celebration of the Cardinals winning the World Series we got some more St. Louis stuff.

My brother Greg got me the World Series Champions shirt.

As for Ariane getting more sleep, that hasn’t happened yet. I guess there are some gifts that Santa just can’t deliver.

All I Want For Christmas

With Christmas now a week a away I thought I would take a look at what everyone wants for Christmas.

With Santa appearing at several Christmas parties Lucy has been to and a trip to the mall to see him as well Lucy has had several opportunities to let Santa know what she wants for Christmas. It’s been the same thing each time, so she is at least consistent.

Lucy has asked for two new light sabers, to replace the ones that we have now which no longer light up and get stuck when they extend. I’m really excited about this present, I don’t know how much longer she will continue to embrace Star Wars like this so I figure I should ride it out as long as I can.

The other thing Lucy asks for is Perry the Platypus. You may remember him from an earlier post about one of Lucy’s favorite TV shows, Phineas and Ferb.

As far as I can tell Jack would like some more diapers. I can only assume that that is what he wants by the amount of diapers he goes through in a day. With as many as he uses he must enjoy them, so maybe Santa could bring Jack a package of diapers.

Ariane would like a good night’s rest. Since I work most nights anytime one of the kids wakes up, Ariane is forced to get up with them and handle whatever problem they are having. It’s been a pretty rough stretch the last couple of days, both kids have been several times during the night and not at the same time, so Ariane is feeling sleep deprived these days. What she really needs is both kids to sleep through the night so she can as well. I don’t know how Santa is going to pull this one off but if he could Ariane would be eternally grateful.

As for me, I feel like Christmas came back in October when the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. For those of you who don’t remember I wrote a blog post about it, you can relive the magic here. It was one of the best World Series I have ever seen and I would like to thank Santa for bringing Christmas to me early this year.

In all seriousness though, I am really grateful to be able to spend this holiday with my beautiful and sassy daughter, my loving and gorgeous wife and our brand new baby boy.

Thanks to them I am happier then I have been in a long time and the holidays aren’t as gloomy as they used to be. I like to believe that this what Lariann would want for Christmas, her family to be happy again.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Halloween

It was a great Halloween for us this year; we’ve sure had a lot of fun this October.

It started out with our annual trip to Firghtmares at Lagoon with our friends Tiffany and Brandon Hopkins and their kids and also Marc & Hali Lunt and their two kids.

Marc’s mom Lori was nice enough to come along and watch kids so we could ride some adult rides. Since Ariane was pregnant all summer this was the first time all year she was able to ride some rides.

Lucy wanted to go as Tinkerbell this year, and with her blonde hair I’d say she makes a pretty good one.

Ariane worked really hard trying to get Lucy’s hair into a perfect bun.

We went to Lucy’s pre-school for their Halloween program which included a costume parade and some songs.

My favorites were the Storm trooper and the kid dressed as a roll of toilet paper but I was also told he may be a marshmallow instead.

We also took the time to carve a few pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns.

Nothing fancy but I think they turned out pretty good.


Jack went as a jack-in-the-box. It was fairly easy to do we just took a box, made it look fancy and placed him in it. The perfect costume for the boy that doesn’t care if he’s wearing and isn’t even aware that he’s in a costume.

We also thought it would be fun to put him in one of the jack-o-lanterns and take some pictures of him.

We went to my sister in law Rachel’s church for trunk-or-treat with Rachel and her kids.

After which we hit our neighbor hood and really raked in the candy. I’ve already helped my self to some of Lucy’s candy, I feel like I earned it since I took her trick-or-treating.

Lets not forget that the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series this October as well, making this one of the best Octobers ever.

Television With Lucy

As a parent I have discovered that I end up watching a lot of what my child watches. Some of the shows are more entertaining than others. I feel that it is my duty as a parent to let other parents know about kids shows that are not annoying.

One of the shows that Lucy loves that Ariane and I also find entertaining is “Phineas and Ferb”. The show is made by Disney and involves two step brothers Phineas and Ferb who are able to build just about anything and then along with their friends go on crazy adventures, while all the while their older sister Candice tries to expose what they are doing to their mother, busting them, but before their Mom sees whatever it is they have made somehow manages to be gone before she can see it.

Perry is the boys pet platypus who unbeknownst to them is also a secret agent, agent P, who has regular battles with the evil but incompetent Dr. Doofenshmirtz. He’s also Lucy’s favorite character on the show. Check it out.



Arianes favorite part of the show is the music. In the tradition of classic Disney cartoons and movies every episode has a different musical number. The tunes are very catchy
Lucy’s favorite is the “Gitchee Gitchee Goo” from the episode Phineas and the Ferb-Tones, where the boys create their own one hit wonder.

Arianes favorite song is “Hey Ferb” from the episode “Musical Roller Coaster”. She prides herself in being able to identify every musical they parody in the song.

My favorite song is the “Perry the Platypus” theme song.

The show has gotten very popular and now has segments on Disney Channel and on line called “Take Two With Phineas and Ferb” where the boys interview various celebrities like Regis Philbin, Andy Samberg, Tony Hawk and Taylor Sift, just to name a few.

We find the show witty and funny, if you are a parent looking for a show for the kids to watch that won't annoy you or if your just a bored adult with nothing better to do, “Phineas and Ferb” may be just what you are looking for.

Redecorating: Lucy's Bedroom Edition

With the new baby coming (hopefully sooner rather than later for Ariane's sake) we needed to re locate Lucy to a new bedroom so the baby could be closer to us.

So we cleaned out the bedroom next to our family room and got it ready for its new tenant. Here’s what we started with.

Ariane’s Mom and her brother Jeff came over one night and helped paint Lucy’s new room.

My Dad also came over and helped us clean carpets and do some touch up in the room. We painted most of the room Pooh Corner which is a very light green (I thought with a name like that it should have been a dark brown) and one accent wall was painted Tinkerbell Green, which is a darker green.

The room turned out really nice, it’s got a bunch of shelves to put toys, books and other nic nacs on.

It also has a small ledge going around two walls of the room which we used to stack stuff on as well. We replaced the dingy old dark green valance with an aqua blue sheer valance with a decorative rod.

We had a Tinkerbell theme for one wall of the room. We got some wall stickers of Tinkerbell and her friends and put a bunch of her Tinkerbell stuff on the shelf on that wall.

It turned out really cute and Lucy is so excited to have her new room.

Manly Names: Lucy Edition

It looks like Gaston took the vote for “Manly Villain Name” Though it was very close with Megatron. With three weeks left till the due date I’ll keep pressing on in my search for a manly name for the boy. Our next category is “Manly Names: The Lucy Edition” or in other words names that Lucy has wanted to name the boy and they are creative.




LIGHTNING: Lucy has loved the movie “Cars” for as long as she can remember. So of course this has at one time been a name she wanted her new brother to have. However given the boys gene pool he won’t be called Lightning for his speed but possibly for sticking his hand in a light socket. Perhaps McQueen could be the first name or we could call him Lightning McBredthauer, it would make people wonder if we were Scottish or German.

R2-D2: Her favorite character from “Star Wars”. We always have to have a “Star Wars” character in these polls. It would be easy to learn to spell and with a last name like Bredthauer and easy first name can really come in handy.

PHINEAS: From Lucy’s current favorite show “Phineas and Ferb” produced by Disney. Phineas is pictured below with his pet platypus Perry. I know it’s not the manliest name, but it is what Lucy wants. The show revolves around these two kids Phineas and Ferb who are step brothers and they build all kinds of crazy stuff and have all kinds of adventures. Araine finds the show witty and funny, Lucy finds it entertaining.

JACK: Lucy likes this name because it is the name of one of her favorite movie characters, Jack Skellington from “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. It may be a semi scary movie but she loves it. I how ever think we should name him Jack after the famous pirate Captain Jack Sparrow and Arianes grandpa was named Jack as well. We could name him Jack S Bredthauer and the S could stand for Skellington, Sparrow or Stevens depending on which one of us you talk to.

Not as many names this time but enough that we can get an idea of what you like based on what Lucy likes. Let us know which one or ones you like and be sure to vote. If the boy hasn’t come by next week we will have another poll up.

Manly Names: Villain Edition

Ariane is now entering that last four weeks of her pregnancy, or at least she hopes she is. We’ll just wait and see if the boy decides to stay in an extra week or so.

Having still not settled on a name it’s time for another poll. We’ll consider the last poll the Manly Names: Heroes Edition, where Maverick really cleaned house in the polls. That makes this one the Villains Edition. So here are some of our favorite manly villains. Disney characters seem to dominate this one, but that’s because Disney creates such memorable villains. Here is the next set of names in no particular order.

GASTON: There’s no one in town half as manly as you can see he’s got biceps to spare. He is defiantly one of the manliest of Disney villains. No one's slick as Gaston, no one's quick as Gaston and no one's neck's as incredibly thick as Gaston's. All qualities every man would want. The drawback is he’s defiantly lacking in the brains department. But on the plus side every last inch of him is covered in hair.

VOLDEMORT: I’m sure with the popularity of the Harry Potter movies and books this name is going to really take off. We could even refer to the boy as He Who Must Not Be Named, though that may get a little long when paired with Bredthauer.

JAFFAR: This gives us some ethnicity. It would really throw people off when they ask where his family is descended from and the boy tells them Germany. We would need to get an obnoxious parrot to go with the name and I'm not sure how long I can put with that.

DARTH: I can’t have a name list without someone from Star Wars being on it or in this case two someone’s. His middle name would be based on who ever we chose to name him after, either Vader or Maul.

MEGATRON: He is the leader of the Decepticons in the Transformers movies and cartoon show. He’s a pretty bad dude but he’s never r been able to finish of the Autobots and really put them away. He’s kind of a failure but you’ve got to admire his tenacity, every time he flees you here him yell, “Next time Prime” (referring to Optimus Prime, his arch nemesis) The guy just doesn’t know how to quit.

COBRA COMMANDER: We would just call him Cobra; maybe make Commander his middle name.  Leader of a group of military terrorists from the G.I. Joe cartoon show and movie.   Same story as Megatron, leader of an evil group and he can’t seem to beat the good guys but always promises to be back again. For the record this movie was terrible so that is another drawback. This name does have the snake that we could use instead and drop the Commander from the middle name. It is one of the most poisonous snakes in the world.

SCAR: I’ve always wondered why his parents named him this. Was he born with a scar, did they not name until after he had the scar, did he get the scar during delivery or is it just a coincidence? Either way it would force me to give the boy some kind of scar on his face which may be borderline child abuse, but maybe it doesn’t count if you name your kid Scar and you are just helping him live up to his name sake.

There you have it, our manly names for villains. Let us know which one you like and we’ll let you know of the boy arrives early; otherwise we’ll see how many of those polls we can do in the next four weeks.