December 30, 2011

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.

December 18, 2011

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.

November 23, 2011

Famous Fans

Famous Fans: Denver Broncos Addition

Now that we are well into football season, it’s time that I presented the famous fans of my favorite football team the Denver Broncos.

Actress Jessica Biel
grew up in Boulder Colorado and when asked by ESPN if she was a fan of Colorado or LA she said, “I am definitely a Broncos fan”.


Tim Allen is most famous for his roll as Tim-The Tool Man-Taylor on “Home Improvement” where he is often seen rooting for the Detroit Lions but it turns out Tim is a Broncos fan. Tim spent lived in Colorado for a time and he even had Hall of Fame Broncos quarter back John Elway on the show.
In his latest show, Tim Allen’s character, Mike Baxter is a Broncos fan.  The October 18th episode opened with Mike Baxter sitting at the table holding his grandson.  While reading the paper, he points out, with a hint of frustration in his voice, that the Broncos would have won five Super Bowls if Elway had receivers like Jerry Rice.  A few minutes later, while the family is discussing the grandson’s attachment to his blanket, Mike Baxter’s wife points out that everyone has something they hold on to – Mike’s being his irrational attachment to the Denver Broncos!

Patrick Warburton who is best known for his dead pan style voice has done work in animated works such as Kronk in “The Emperors New Groove”, Brock Samson on “The Venture Brothers” and Joe Swanson on “Family Guy” or from “Seinfeld” where he played one of Elian’s boy friends Puddy.


Although he was born in Kansas, Don Cheadle moved to Colorado where he graduated from Denver’s East High School. He did several commercials for the NFL promoting the Super Bowl from 2002 to 2005


Pam Grier became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974's “Foxy Brown”. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film “Jackie Brown”.   She also attended East High School in Denver and was a cheerleader for the Broncos at the age of 19; but quit after two months. 




Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of “South Park” are huge Broncos fans and often reference them on the show. These guys may be the two that I am least proud of.


NASCAR driver Kyle Busch is a big Broncos fan and attends games as often as he can. Being a Broncos fan can be a little risky for him since he races for Joe Gibbs Racing, who is a former Super Bowl winning coach of the Washington Redskins.  ESPN asked Kyle if to make friends with the folks at Joe Gibbs Racing, was he obliged to be a Redskins fan? Kyle responded, “No, not at all. I'm actually more of a Denver Broncos fan than anything. That's my team. I've met Rod Smith and John Elway before. It's been cool to get to know those guys.”



Quiet a bit different from the Cardinals edition, no country singers and more actors which really surprised me.

November 16, 2011

Television With Lucy

It’s time for another installment of “Television With Lucy”, where we take a look at what entertains four year old.

Today we’re talking about “Wild Kratts”, a PBS show that follow the adventures of Chris and Martin Kratt and their friends as they travel the globe to study different animals. Being a PBS show this is marketed as an educational show for kids. The theme song drives Ariane nuts because it’s pretty catchy and gets stuck in her head easily.

The show is mostly cartoon but does start and end with the real Chris and Martin along with some real animals.

The cartoon portion, which is the bulk of the show, has the Kratt brothers traveling to a different part of the world to study a new animal and usually involves them saving that animal from one of the many bumbling idiot villains who have some reason for wanting to capture animal. They save the animal by using that animals “creature power” and their special creature suits.

The Kratt brothers have been doing some kind of animal themed show for PBS on and off for about the last 15 years. It’s undergone several changes moving from all live actors and animals to actors with puppets and now to mostly cartoons. I guess you gotta keep changing to keep the kids interested.

It’s defiantly not the most entertaining show for adults to watch with their kids but it occupies Lucy for a little while and is somewhat educational so I don’t feel like as bad of a parent for turning it on for her.

November 13, 2011

Photo Shoot

We recently had some family pictures done. My cousin Amy came down from Idaho and was able to fit us in to her busy schedule. This time around the theme was firefighter, so I brought my bunkers and helmet from the station so we could have a few props and we all wore out firefighter shirts. I think they turned out pretty good.

Some of Lucy

We took some of Jack

And some of both the kids

We got some shots of me with the kids

And Ariane and Jack
(Lucy was finished by the time we got to this phase so no Lucy and Ariane)

Also some of the whole family

I think they turned out really good. Amy did I good job as always, she is also available for hire if you are looking for someone to take some pictures. She does great work and highly recommend her.

Now we just gotta figure out which ones should go on our wall. Let us know what you think.

The winner of the Photo Caption contest would be my brother Greg who wrote "I have herd lucy talk so I know there is NO WAY that you could put what she said into such a small box" 






November 11, 2011

Jacks Blessing

Last weekend we blessed our new baby Jack in church. This is the same outfit that my Father and I were blessed in, the booties were crocheted by Mother and that blanket was made by Larianns Grandmother.

It was about 4 and half years ago that I blessed Lucy in church. At the time Lariann had finished her radiation therapy and had begun chemotherapy for her brain tumor. I remember thinking at the time that I didn’t think that day would come; with Larianns cancer we just weren’t sure if Lucy or Lariann would be there. Fortunately we were blessed to have Lariann be healthy enough to give birth to a healthy little girl.
Last Sunday while blessing Jack I was thinking the same thing that I didn’t think this day would ever come. With Larianns cancer I was sure we wouldn’t have any more kids, it would just be to risky to ever try, and after she passed away the idea of having another child seemed impossible. Once again though I have been blessed with something that I wasn’t sure was possible.

While Ariane was pregnant I would be asked, “Do you want a boy or a girl?” My response was usually something along the lines of, “I don’t really care what it is. For the longest time I never thought I would have another child so I am just grateful to be having another baby”.
I am so grateful to have this little baby boy in my life. Two and half years ago when Lariann passed away I was as more depressed then I had ever been in my entire life and now I am so much happier then I ever could have imagined being at that time.

November 5, 2011

Caption

We recently had some family photos taken (I’ll most more of those later) and we had this great shot of Lucy pointing out that the vacuum we had brought in to help quiet Jack down was sucking up a burp cloth. We thought it looked pretty funny and wanted to have a caption contest, so insert what you think would be funny for Lucy to be saying.

November 1, 2011

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.