I literally feel sick

I've tried to make my feelings about Facebook well known. I don't want to do it. Well... I guess I need to say I didn't want to do it. I took the plunge and signed up for this blog on Jan 1, 2008. I started that new year with a new _thing_ so I thought this might be another good opportunity to start a new year with another new thing. Yeah, it's true. I took the plunge and just signed up. And yes, this is what life has come to while sitting here in my Dad's awesome leather La-Z-Boy watching the Chick-Fil-A Bowl on New Year's Eve. Yup, I'm old and I just joined the evil empire. While friends are out partying it up I'm sitting here geeking it out.

I'm about to throw up.

So... why? The real kick in the pants came while K was up visiting last week and everything she does is on there and I'm missing it all. So not only am I missing everything in real life I am missing it all online as well and it seemed silly not to sign up.

Doesn't mean I feel good about it though. We'll see how it goes. While I was writing this Wifey somehow found out that I just signed up and she's already sent me 25 friend requests or some fool thing.

I'm doomed.

Didn't know hurricanes could come inside

The presents were all unwrapped by 9am. The Lego sets have been built. The animals and books and Little People sets and paint supplies and cool new homemade Lego table have been ooh'ed and aah'ed over. We were even able to squeeze in a little breakfast of their favorite cereals (which Daddy gave them all for presents :) ) and playtime has now begun. Of course we've got some pics and vids to share. Merry Christmas to all!

Wifey's family had a tradition growing up - you get to open one present on Christmas eve. We thought it would be nice for the kids to open the presents Mem and Pepe sent and I wanted to document the fun for them to see...

We had to get the kids to model those wonderful homemade scarves and hats. I'm putting up two different pics because of the inevitable 2/3 factor. You know - when you have 3 kids in a picture it is inevitable that at best only two of them will ever look good. I'll leave it to you to figure out who's who...

|

- Putting up the stockings, getting ready for Santa's visit.
- The stockings all filled up sitting on top of the new Lego table I built.

- I put this at the top of the stairs in hopes of getting the kids to not go downstairs without us in the morning. It kind of backfired during the night though - Wifey and I heard Red crying and when she went out to find out what the problem was Red was at the top of the stairs crying. When Wifey asked why she was crying Red said she had to go to the bathroom. Her reason for not just going downstairs to go? Yeah, my dumb idea of putting the easel there. Poor kid. But how about my little three year old getting up on her own in the middle of the night to pee and then seeing that I put the easel there and knowing she shouldn't go downstairs? See? I see the bright side of things.

- This is what the kids thought of my idea in the morning. I don't think they were very happy at having to wait. :)

- JAM happy with his Clone Wars stuff.

- Pudge didn't like his cereal at all. Nope.

Some general opening pics -

| |

| |

| |

| |

| |

Forget the shirts, this is the coolest present I ever got Wifey. Check out her new sock monkey footie PJs.

| |

|

Pudge fell in love with his big gift - a Little People carnival set. Little guy even carried it around the room for a bit, and that box was not light.

|

|

Some Lego adoration was had by all.

| |

Well documented path of destruction -

| |

By lunch time JAM had all three Lego sets already built

| |

Pudge playing with the Little People set -

| |

- Red looking good in her new hair ties.


That's it for now. I'm sure a ton more will be coming in the next few days but I'm exhausted and Wifey is busting her butt cleaning this place up so I'd better get off mine and help. AND, I've got dinner to cook. Why the hell I said I'd do that alone I have no idea. :)

Touchdown!!!

Yes, the moon must have aligned with Venus or something because somehow the weather finally allowed K to make it here yesterday afternoon. We had to divert her into National (which sucks to try to drive to btw) but she's finally here and all is well. We spent the first afternoon just sitting around chatting then we all went to dinner at Tuesdays. I know - fancy fancy! Nothing but the best for my kids!

Today's plans call for sledding time and then not sure what in the evening but we'll have fun no matter what.

A Winter Wonderland

With all the trials and tribulations that the snow has brought with it this weekend it's nice to see that we can still get the munchkins outside and have some fun. Well, fun with a whole lot of hard work on the part of their parents that is. There was a whole lot of shovelin' goin' on around here today, and not a whole lot to show for it. Without further ado... today in pictures...

The three amigos getting ready to face the blizzard head on-

| |

Fun times were had by all... wish I could have grabbed more of it before the camera card filled up. :)

As I was just about ready to go in JAM saw that his friend from next door was coming outside so they played for a few minutes, which was cool. He said goodbye pretty soon though as his hands were blue. He had gone through three pairs of gloves by the time he finally called it quits.

|

|

Not a lot of pics taken during play time though because while the kids were having fun Wifey and I were working out butts off trying to shovel out at least the first 8 inches or so. We knew it was going to continue to snow but I don't think we expected it to wipe away our hard work so quickly. Here's a couple pics of the area right after we got done shoveling. Notice the nice layer of snow already covering everything?

|

Now, check these before/after pics out. I've never seen so much snow come down so quickly here in DC. The before pics were taken right around 11am and the after were at about 3:30.

/

/

/

These were taken around 1pm with the snow really coming down. Notice the larger piles of shoveled snow? Yeah, this is after the second shoveling. And notice the layer of snow on the ground again? It was just disheartening, that's what it was.

|

By 3:30 the accumulation really showed. Remember our "cleaned off" car from a few hours before in the pic above? Notice the difference between our van (the one on the right of the two) vs. our neighbor's car? We'd cleaned about 8 inches off of it already but you'd never know it until you looked in comparison to the other.

| |

After nap the kids were itching to get back outside. While I stayed in to fight with Air Tran (their automated system hung up on me more than 2 dozen times and their web site refused to let me reschedule!) Wifey brought the amigos out to try a little sledding. And by little I mean LITTLE.

| |

Some other random pics of the day... and bear with me, I'm feeling artsy. You'll see...

- I call this one "Forgotten" - looks like a toy that belongs on the island of misfit toys.

- A pic of the ol' homestead. Quite different from this one taken in April huh?


- Our road, all peaceful in the snow.

- I call this one - "Freaking Nuts" :) What were these people thinking??? You know what? We saw people out walking all day! Most of them were coming down the road with shopping bags from K-Mart. Guess they didn't get the memo - you're supposed to stock up on TP and milk the day BEFORE the storm.

- Our little home, all decked out in snow.

Here's another before/after, taken today vs. in April. This is looking down our road from the middle of the intersection, normally a VERY busy 6-lane highway. It was surreal standing in the middle of this intersection on a Saturday afternoon, without a car in sight.
/

More from the intersection - the quiet was just eery.

|

- I call this one "Potential"

- and this one "Alone"

I love how these trees look when it snows. I think about getting a picture of them every year but I never do. Well - guess I can cross that off my list now.
|

My poor lights got absolutely buried. I knew they would, but I didn't really think it would get so deep. Still, it looks pretty cool.
| |

There you have it, the day in pictures. It's now 12:30 and the snow has stopped. Let's hope the hard working snow plow drivers at National Airport can get their runways cleaned off by noon tomorrow huh?