Keeping Cool

It has been hard because it has been very hot outside for quite sometime, yet Joshua still wants to go outside every single day. In fact, he would like to go outside several times a day. He doesn't care how hot it is. But I care and I also have to bring Clara out with me and she isn't yet as rugged as Joshua. So I try to take him out once every day in the morning. To keep things as cool as possible, I turn on the sprinkler for him. He is very interested in water. Here he is taking a drink from the sprinkler.

Cincinnati Ribs

My sales rep and I had a meeting this morning in Cincinnati.  We had time to get lunch before I had to head to the airport for my flight.  He told me the ribs at Mongomery Inn were delicious and definitely worth trying.  So wearing my nicest dress shirt, I sat down and tore into some ribs.  Fortunately the waitress brought bibs for us, and I rolled up my sleeves, so there wasn't much risk of ruining my shirt.  The ribs were good but not great. But then again, I didn't expect them to be great because after all, it's Cincinnati, not Kansas City.

I'm a Clipper

Today was sort of a ridiculous travel day.  I landed in Detroit last night, and this morning I drove to Toledo for our first customer meeting.  Then we drove to Cleveland for our second one, and then we headed to Cincinnati.  On the way to Cinci, we stopped in Columbus and went to a minor league baseball game at the nice and new Huntington Park, home of the Columbus Clippers.  While there, the team signed me to a minor league contract to play for them.  Here I am sitting at my new locker.  My shin is sore from the giant phone book leaning up against it.

Looks Better Than It Tastes

When we were at the Children's Museum in Omaha, Joshua really enjoyed the kitchen area more than I thought he would. I plan to get him a play kitchen at some point, but for now I got him some play food and dishes. He really is enjoying them. He especially likes the silverware for some reason. Here he is pretending to eat some cheese. So far he really likes all the food except the orange. Well, he likes the orange, but only because he thinks it's a ball. It doesn't register as food at all to him. Maybe because I only have bought clementines for him, not actual oranges. But the stem on the orange really bothers him and everytime he sees it he says "Yucko". It's like he doesn't understand why his orange ball would have that green grossness on it.

A New Look

My weekend project this weekend was to paint Joshua's dresser. It was previously brown and had knobs that matched his nursery theme. However, he hasn't had nursery bedding for almost a year so he needed something a little more classic. I painted it black and put on silver knobs. It is hard for me to be satisfied with any of my projects, because you are always really aware of any flaws when you do it yourself. This is no exception and I see some brush marks for sure. But overall I am fairly happy with how it turned out. I put some poly over the paint in hopes that will help it stand up to Joshua for awhile. I was able to do this project myself (except for the moving of the furniture) since we used all latex/water-based products and those are safe in pregnancy, so I was glad to get it done while Jason worked on other things.

7 Months

Clara turned 7 months old yesterday, but we didn't have time to take her picture until today. She has had a big month as she is a very proficient crawler now and can also get into the sitting position on her own. She has started to pull up and is very interested in standing and walking, though she can't really do either of those yet without assistance. She has started liking more solid foods, though peas were not a hit at all. She still prefers purees, though she will eat small pieces of banana.

Lexi's Finalization Party

Recently our friends the Tildens completed their adoption of their new daughter, Lexi.  They had a party today to celebrate the finalization.  Because it's approximately three trillion degrees out, they decided to rent a water bouncy thing (I'm not sure what the formal name is for such a contraption).  At first Joshua stayed outside of it and was elated to find a hose with a small leak that would spray in his face.  Then, after surveying the scene, he decided he was interested in going in.  I helped him up, and he was still unsure at first but soon loved it.  I even tossed him down the track, and he'd slide on his tummy all the way down, thinking it was the greatest thing he'd ever done.  Later, he had some quiet time with Lexi and presumably congratulated her on the adoption.  It was a fun day and made us realize that we're not too far from needing to buy a Slip 'n Slide for our yard.

Darth Jason

Everytime we go over to the Hansons, Vincent gets really excited to play games with me, or show me his Legos or whatever his latest accomplishment or creation is.  Lately he's been really into making movies, or at least movie trailers, with the help of his dad.  When we went there today, he wanted us to film a trailer.  He's very creative in his ideas for what he wants the movie to be and how the trailer should look.  This time, he determined that I should be a Sith (as a non-Star Wars fan, I barely know what that is but have gathered over time that Siths are the bad guys).  He provided me with a costume composed of Callie's graduation robe and a Darth Vader mask.  He then directed all the scenes, and his dad filmed them.  With filming complete, they will be working on the trailer and will have it ready next time we go over there, and I'm excited to see how it turns out.  Perhaps I'm a stellar actor who missed his calling. 

Two, Plus Two High Chairs

For awhile now when we've gone out to dinner we would ask for a table for two plus a high chair plus a sling.  But Clara's big enough now that she doesn't need to stay in her carseat/carrier, so we upgraded her to a high chair.  She's so small that it barely works, but it's good enough, and she's much happier being part of the action.  Note that although Clara is tiny, she's not actually smaller than the bottle of hot sauce on the table, even though she appears to be.

It's Now Summer, But She Loves Springs

In the last couple days Clara went from barely crawling to a fully-mobile baby.  She now moves around the floor at will to wherever she wants to go.  Because she's a baby, she's fascinated by anything.  And because we have a toddler, there are usually several random things in various places on the floor.  One of them will catch her eye, and she'll go on a mission to get there, and will usually then try to eat it.  Today, while crawling in the kitchen, she noticed the spring doorstop in the hallway to the garage.  She crawled over to it and did what any reasonable person would do: pushed on it and then let it go, enjoying the funny booooiiiinnnggg sound it makes.  I think I find it just as amusing as she does, so I really can't blame her.

New Digs

Today we cleared the furniture out of the guest bedroom and moved Joshua's bed in there to officially make it his new room, which meant that his old room was then available for Clara to sleep in.  We already have a crib in that room from when Joshua slept in it before he switched to his big boy bed in January.  So now Clara gets to upgrade from the Pack 'N Play to a real crib, now that she has a room of her own.  Here are the kids in the first night in their new rooms.

Happy Crawler

Clara has been very close to crawling lately, but she hasn't been able to quite make it happen.  She rocks back and forth as if she's trying to will herself forward, but every time she just gets frustrated that she's not moving anywhere and ends up crying.  Today, though, she had a breakthrough, and now she's finally able to crawl, though not at a very fast pace.  Here she shows her happiness that she finally has her freedom.

Room Swap

We've decided that since we'll soon have three kids, we'll put the two girls in one room and Joshua in the other.  The room that Joshua is currently in is the bigger of the two, so we're moving him now to the other room.  Today we started moving some things out of it, and Joshua was fascinated with how empty it was.  He ran over to the place where his dresser used to be to try to figure out what had happened.  And by the way, I was laying on the floor to take this picture, so you don't have to worry why we're weirdos who have a six-foot-tall crib.

Father's Day

Today is Father's Day, and all I really wanted for Father's Day was an updated collage of pictures with my and my little kids, both people and pets (which was the gift I got to open) and some time just to spend with Joshua and Clara.  Although we were at church in the morning, and they napped in the afternoon, I got some time to just hang out with them in the late afternoon and early evening.  It was really great, and I'm just so thankful that God has given us these wonderful kids and that I'm blessed to be able to be their father.  I am also appreciative that not only am I a father to these two, but also to a third one who will join our happy family this fall.  God is doing great things with our family, and I'm really excited to be a part of it.

McCormick & Smiths

Meghan was quite sick for the first few months of her pregnancy, so we missed out on doing quite a few social events over that time.  We hadn't seen our friends Nate and Carla in awhile, so we scheduled a time, which ended up being today, to go out to dinner with them.  We were both able to get childcare, so we were able to have a nice dinner out on the Plaza at McCormick & Schmick's.  It was really nice to have a "grown-up" dinner with friends for the first time in awhile.  The food was great, and we of course ordered the famed "chocolate box" as it was inadvertently renamed by our group.

Men at Work While I Work

At my office at work, we have fewer people than we used to, so our HQ has decided to move to a smaller space.  We're staying on the same floor but moving to the opposite side.  As part of that, they're reconfiguring the floor by moving and rebuilding some of the walls, and we'll move into the new space in August.  The area outside my office used to be very spacious, but now they are building a new room there for the other space.  Today they were doing some painting, so they tarped off the whole thing.  I'm usually the only person who comes into the office in my wing (hence the need to downsize), so no one else was affected, but it really didn't bother me, as I can always just shut my door if needed.

Poor Baby

My kids are basically never sick. So when Joshua was really crabby this morning, I thought it was weird, but I thought maybe he was overtired for some reason. And when I noticed he seemed warm I wondered why, but it took me a little while to realize he could have a fever and that I should take his temperature. He felt sick all day today and did have a fever, which to my knowledge is his first ever fever. Tylenol, unsurprisingly since I feel the adult pills are about as effective as sugar pills, did nothing, but when we switched to Advil, his fever came right down, but he definitely was not his usual energetic and cheerful self. Hopefully tomorrow he is feeling better. He is usually totally unwilling to lay down in any place other than his bed so the fact that he wanted to snuggle on the couch was definitely a key indicator he was not feeling like his normal self.

Thwarted

I was hoping to avoid putting a lock on the pantry because it is pretty inconvenient for me since I open it so often. But recently Joshua has been going in there a lot and getting food out and making big messes, so yesterday I went out and bought a lock. It was on the cabinet when he woke up today and he was not very happy about it at all. It is definitely not great for me, but it is worth it not to clean up spilled and wasted food every day.

Not Meant for Passengers with Luggage

I have a meeting in Chicago tomorrow morning, so I flew into town today.  My hotel is downtown, and although I would normally take a cab, my sales rep suggested I take the train.  I was a little leery of it, as I was unfamiliar with it all, but I did it anyway.  It turned out to be a mistake.  First by the time I walked all the way through O'Hare, finally got to the train pick-up location (the train station?), rode into town stopping 10 or so times on the way, switched traines, stopped some more, got off at the end point, and then walked to my hotel, I'm not sure I saved any time compared to if I went straight to the cab and had it drop me off at the hotel front door, even considering traffic.  Second, I'm sure it's fine if it's just you, but I had my roller board and my backpack.  At first there were only single seats, but I had too much stuff so I stood, but people kept running into my backpack and my bag.  Eventually a row of two seats came open, and I used one for my stuff and the other for me.  But by then we were almost there.  So I guess I saved a few bucks on the trip, but it was definitely not worth it.  Next time it'll be Yellow Cab for me.

The Avengers

You wouldn't know it by how many I see, but I actually love going to the movies.  But at this point in my life, it's just not something that happens often.  Recently, when The Avengers came out, it looked pretty good, even though I'm not all that interested in the comic book superhero movie genre.  But after basically every single person who saw it said it was really good, I decided I should see it.  Unfortunately several attempts to see it with various friends failed, but I was finally able to line up a time to see it late one night with my friend Nathan.  I was looking forward to getting my picture in front of the movie poster outside, but it seems the AMC Studio 30 doesn't do that anymore (or never did?), so instead I had to settle for this totally generic picture that has nothing to do with The Avengers in any way.  Boo to you, AMC Studio 30.

One More Day of Fun in Omaha

Today was our last day in Omaha.  We slept in today, as we were all very tired from yesterday, and we then went to lunch at Upstream Brewery back in the Old Market area again.  They had a really good and diverse menu, and we all enjoyed our food. We then went to the Omaha Children's Musuem during the early afternoon.  We weren't sure if we'd get our money's worth from it, but Joshua really liked it.  He loved playing with the fake food in the kid-sized kitchen.  There was a firetruck with some dress-up clothes, and I briefly got him to agree to wear the jacket and helmet.  Clara couldn't do much, but there was a room for little babies, and she enjoyed crawling around trying to find things to chew on.  We put both kids on the teeter totter and found that Joshua is heaver than Clara.  Physics doesn't lie, I guess.  There was a Wizard of Oz exhibit going on, but it cost extra money, and we don't need our children terrified by scary flying monkeys and whatnot as their grandma once was as a child, so we skipped that.  Afterward, we drove to a safari.  Surprisingly, this did not require us to go to Africa, but instead just about 30 minutes west of Omaha.  We had up-close views of some bison, elk, deer, pelicans, etc.  Then we headed home.  On the way, we stopped for dinner at McDonald's, due to lack of better options, and Joshua had his first Happy Meal.  Overall it was a great vacation, as we got to do quite a few different things, and it was really fun to do them as a family.

Zoo Day

Today's main event was the semi-famous Omaha Zoo.  We loaded up the kids in the double stroller and got there pretty early to ensure we'd have plenty of time before naps and to be done before it got too hot out.  We took lots of pictures of cool animals, but this blog is about pictures of our family, so if you want to see pictures of animals, you'll have to hold out hope that the vast internet might happen to have a zoo animal or two for you to see.  The zoo has a pretty good kids' area, where they have some "fossils" slightly buried in a giant pit of small gray rubber pellets, which allows kids (and, uh, maybe certain adults) to use shovels and brushes to find the fossils and clear away the "dirt" to expose them.  Joshua, though, was mostly interested in just moving the pellets into and out of the bucket.  They had a small petting zoo where Joshua briefly petted a goat before realizing there were lots of awesome rocks on the ground.  We then rode the carousel, which was zoo-themed.  Joshua enjoyed it for a bit, but was sort of bored by the end.  After going back to the hotel for naptime (for everyone), we spent some time in the hotel pool, which Clara really enjoyed.  Then we drove to an out-of-the-way Mexican restaurant (there are very few in Omaha) for a great meal where the wait staff fawned over our children, which is an occurrence we're getting used to.  It was a really busy but fun day, and we're looking forward to more fun tomorrow before we have to drive back home.

Omaha or Bust

With us having two little kids, and with Meghan being pregnant, it wasn't going to be feasible for us to go on a large-scale vacation this year.  But we still wanted to go somewhere, so we decided on a small trip to Omaha.  I took today off of work, and after lunch we packed the kids in the car and started the drive up north.  We took a couple breaks at rest stops to feed the kids and give them a chance to stretch their legs, but by dinnertime we had arrived at our hotel, the Homewood Suites.  We'd stayed at a Homewood Suites in Wichita for Clara's adoption finalization, and we really liked it, most importantly because we could get a two-room suite, which is pretty important for us with two kids.  When it was time to eat, we waited in the lobby of the hotel for the shuttle to take us to the Old Market area of downtown Omaha where we ate at a fun restaurant called Spaghetti Works, which was very kid-friendly and had a wide variety of options for food.  Later, we walked from our hotel to a nearby Red Mango to get some self-serve frozen yogurt as a tasty treat at the end of the night.  We're excited about a fun weekend, and it's already off to a great start.

Next Level Sleeping

Clara recently started being able to pull up on objects, which of course is cute and exciting, but it also means it's time to take the platform out of the Pack 'N Play, as she could potentially fall out of it once she can pull up on the edge.  So we did that today, and tonight is her first night to sleep on the bottom mattress like a big girl.  Here she is asleep with her seahorse/glowworm.

Foam Party

I recently picked up a "toddler activity kit" for Joshua. It mostly consists of foam puzzles. He is a bit young for those right now as he likes taking them apart, but can't quite get them back together, though both he and Clara enjoy playing with the foam shapes once they are removed from the puzzles. The other part of the kit is a few foam shapes with holes in them that stacking pegs can go in. I didn't think Joshua would really like those, but he does. And they are a really good level of difficulty for him where they are a challenge for him to get the peg to go in, but he can usually do it. He is really proud when he gets one in so this is him showing me that he did it.

Marriott: A Wide Range of Lodging Options

I'm in Detroit today, as we have another one of our traveling roadshows tomorrow.  I didn't book my room very far in advance, so the hotels were limited.  I like to stay in Starwood properties, but there were none nearby.  Marriott is my backup, but most of the nearby Marriotts were also sold out.  I did find a Fairfield Inn by Marriott that was reasonably close, so I booked it.  Upon arrival, I was surprised and disappointed to find out that it was a motel.  Like a doors-on-the-outside-and-no-inside-hallways motel.  I didn't think Marriott had anything like that.  So here I am, standing in the outdoors right next to the only door to my room, with a face attempting to show my dismay.

Dirt Dude

When we moved into this house, one of the things that was left by the old owners was a flower pot on the deck filled with potting soil.  I don't really have a plan for it, but I haven't thrown it away either, so as of now it's just sitting out there.  Joshua happens to be a fan of dirt, so this was a great find for him when he discovered it.  Usually we try to keep him out of it other than maybe letting him grab a handful, but today I let him play in it as long as he wanted.  Aside from dropping many handfuls of dirt on the deck, he also intentionally dropped some on himself.  So when he was done, his clothes, face, and hair were all dirty.  Needless to say, shortly thereafter it was bathtime.

Motivated by Fake Fruit

For a couple weeks Clara has been close enough to crawling that she's spent a lot of her time being frustrated.  She can tell it's close to happening, but she can't quite make her limbs move in the right way to make it happen, so she'll sometimes just start crying out of frustration.  Recently, though, she's started to scooch forward.  She loves the apples from Joshua's felt playhouse, so as a way to help her improve her crawling skills, I put one of the felt apples on the ground in front of her.  I did something similar with Joshua when he was at that point by using one of his bottles, but he was much more motivated by food that she is.  She saw the apple, wanted it, and crawled right over to it, and then happily chewed on it for awhile, enjoying her prize

Costco Lunch

We have a Costco membership, so there are certain things that we always buy there, which are usually the things that can be bought in really large sizes, such as laundry detergent and dogfood.  I'm usually the one to do this shopping trip, because it's easier for me to transport the large and heavy items than it is for Meghan.  We were overdue for a trip there, so this morning I took Joshua with me, and we got all the things we needed.  By the time we where done, it was lunchtime, and since Meghan didn't have any specific lunch plans at home, I decided Joshua and I would eat at Costco.  They have several decent food options at their concession stand area, and it's all very cheap.  I got Joshua a slice of cheese pizza, cut it into small pieces for him, fashioned him a temporary bib out of a napkin, and he then happily devoured his food.  They didn't have high chairs, but he was able to sit at the picnic table like a big boy, even though it was a long reach for him.  But for pizza, he'll gladly make it work.

A Room With a Historically Significant View

I mentioned yesterday that my hotel room looks out over the World Trade Center site and that several new skyscrapers are being built.  One of them is One World Trade Center, aka 1WTC or The Freedom Tower.  When completed, it will be 1,776 feet tall and will be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.  You can see it on the left in the picture.  The building on the right is Four World Trade Center, which is also getting close to being finished.  It was pretty cool to get a chance to see everything while it's under construction, and I'm looking forward to seeing the entire complex when it's complete.