February

So here I am on the 27th of February writing my first blog for the month. At least I was able to get a blog into February. Maybe I will even post one tomorrow….. Ha who am I trying to kid. At least this will most likely be a long blog for your enjoyment with even a few pictures.

The boys are doing very well. Jack just had a check up and weighs 27 lbs and 7 oz and is 32 inches long. My god I can not get over the fact that he is almost 3 feet tall already. He is a very independent child who wants to do everything that his brother can do. Its funny when watching Lex play a video game Jack always grabs the other Wii controller and the two of them are right there in front of the TV. While Lex is playing we tell Jack that it is him playing and helping Lex. The smile on his face is priceless. He is starting to get some vocabulary down. His favorite words right now are “Hi Daddy”, but I have heard him say “ma”, “yum” and of course “uh oh”

The other night we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner…. Mr. Independent Jack took it upon himself to finishes Lex meal.

Jack finishing Lex's dinner

My little meatball eating a meatball

When hands just won't do

I could not figure out which picture was cuter so I am posting both of these


Yes this picture was taken right after Jack's above dinner

I thought this was a really cool picture. The snow storm that happened at the end of January ended up causing a parking lot for many trying to drive home. I felt extremely lucky after hearing some of the stories that I left me work as early as I did that day. But the picture is taken outside of my in-laws-house. They live off a very busy road and cars could not get up the hill at the light past their house.



I was so happy I was in my nice warm house with my family and did not have to deal with that type of traffic. Plus I get these pictures instead




After watching Lex play bowling on Wii for a few weeks now he was taken to Duckpin Bowling. Lisa and I were at a baby shower while he was there but from what we hear he did really well. He bowed an 82, and unfortunately had to witness my mother in law steal some poor guys chicken tenders.
Sorry for the poor picture quality but apparently my sister-in-laws cell phone camera sucks.

Lex has an Incredible Hulk obsession right now. I can not say I blame him. The Hulk is my third favorite Superhero, behind Superman and Batman and ahead of Spiderman. He is always watching the Incredible Hulk Movie starring Ed Norton as Bruce Banner and the Hulk. He made Lisa watch the abortion of a movie that was the Hulk in 2003 that had Eric Bana as the Hulk. But my absolute favorite is that he loves the 1970 TV series of the Incredible Hulk. I have a bunch of those episodes on DVD and he will just put that on and be glued to the TV. He also stripes down to his underwear and runs around pretending he is the Hulk growling at me and the cats. But right now we can not get him away from the Incredible Hulk video game we borrowed from Uncle Buzz. It is fun destroying a city.

When Lex is not watching the Hulk, we decided to give ourselves a fun project. My mother-in-law got me a lego model of the White House for Christmas. Lex and I had a blast putting it together. Below is the finished product

The White House

The White House aerial view

The right side of the White House

The left side of the White House; By the way it is not a coincidence I put the right side first.

The back of the White House

I went to the “Tilted Kilt” last night for the first time. I went with Lisa, my brother in law Jason, and sister in law Allie. The original plan was for the four of us to go to Perry Hall Bowling lanes and enjoy the evening at Rock N Bowl…. Well apparently bowling late at night is popular and you need to make a stupid reservation for it. So by telling the rest of my “wolf pack” that the Titled Kilt was a trashier Hooter’s we were all in. Let me tell you I was almost shocked at what I saw. Basically these girls who all look like jail bait are basically wearing a bra and a mini skirt/kilt. Don’t get me wrong I was not complaining but I did kind of feel like the dirty old man in the room. The best part was when we got there; Lisa recognizes one of the girls as someone she has taught back in her early teaching career.

So my review of the “Tilted Kilt” is that it’s an okay place. The drinks were great, expensive but great. I could not believe how much my Orange Crush hit me when I was done the drink. Everyone else had a Purple Haze, which tasted like Grape Dimetapp. I am pretty sure Lisa really liked her drink. The food was alright, Lisa and I shared an order of buffalo wings. They were not bad but I have had better. Overall it was a god night and I had a lot of fun and in the grand scheme of things as long as I have fun that’s all that matters.

I am going to go ahead and post this now. I have Fantasy Baseball right around the corner that I really would like to start scouting and updating my player chart. I have a few drafts coming up in the next couple of weeks that I really need to start getting prepared for. Lisa and I have a very busy week coming up. On Tuesday we are going to see Les Misérables and Wednesday we are driving to Philly for Bon Jovi. It is going to be a fun week.

I am creating a monster

This past week we suffered through our first significant snow of the winter season.

Here are some pictures









While we were all snowed in Thursday Lex told Lisa and I he wanted to play a video game. So we put on Wii sports and let him have a shot at Wii bowling. Well Wednesday when we played didn’t go so well. Naturally for a 3 year old he had some difficulty with the concept of releasing the button when it was time to let the ball go.

On Thursday due to the storm Lex and I had some time and he wanted to try again. He was a bit better at it but still didn’t get it yet. So on Friday when I came home from work he asks me if we can bowl. So we create a Mii for Jack and then the four of us bowled against each other. To be fair we let Lex bowl as Jack. Well, I saw the light bulb go off in Lex’s head and he has gotten bowling down. He ended up bowling a 186 as his high score (my high score is a 177). Everyone tells me that it will be tough when your kid starts to beat you at things, but I was having so much fun with him it did not bother me at all he will be able to destroy me in Wii Bowling.

After that game we then went into Wii Sports Resort, where he started to play the jousting game. He figured it out pretty quickly how to play and did surprisingly well. This actually led to me taking the below video.



I am never getting rid of this video by the way. Finally, he wanted to try golf.

So on the second tee (a par 3) he hit the ball 12 feet away from the hole. He then putted like Happy Gilmore. I was waiting for him to yell at the TV and tell the ball to just go to his home.

It was such a fun day… And I am sure I have created monster. Now I just need to teach him how to play Madden.

My World Crumbled Right in Front of Me

Have you ever experienced something so earth shattering that it changes everything you believe in? Something that was so impactful that you can not look at the world the same way again.

Recently, this has happened to me.

I don’t remember the exact date in question but I will never forget the story. Lisa and I took Lex to see his second movie ever in the movie theater,”Tangled”. For those who do not know Tangled is the Disney version of Rapunzel. While I was watching this movie with everyone I realized that Ariel from the Little Mermaid is no longer the hottest Disney Princess. As of this movie, Rapunzel completely took over the reigns as the hottest Disney Princess.

I know this revelation doesn’t seem like much to you, but for me this has been earth shattering. Ever since 1989, Ariel came swimming into my heart, when she made a deal with the seahag, Ursula to meet her true love, Prince Eric. Now for the longest time I always thought Disney made a huge typo when they wrote Prince Eric and they really meant to write, Scott. I just let the typo stand and not make a big deal about. Ariel was the perfect girl, she is pretty comes from a family that has hot sister and she is the most attractive of all of them and the best part is when she is on land she can’t speak…. Ahh the perfect woman.



I feel like it’s a new relationship with Rapunzel. The poor girl was locked in a tower her entire life and kidnapped from her family. She is a bit annoying when she speaks but part of me feels it’s because of the repression she has lived through.




Even Lex could not make up his mind which girl is hotter.

So my world has been changed and Ariel has fallen to #2 on the Disney Princess list (I bet you can not guess who #3 is)...

Hello Rapunzel... I look forward to many years of proclaiming you to be the hottest disney princess.

Goodbye Ariel, I will leave you with a rememberance of the we met in Disney World. Thanks for the memories

Awesome Moment

When I saw this video for the first time it gave me goosebumps.



I also find it very funny that there is a commercial in front of this post.

Crushed

My heart looks a little like this today.

UGH…. The last time I felt like this was when the Orioles lost in 1997 to the Cleveland Indians in the American League Championship Series.

Look at this line up for the 1997 Baltimore Orioles
C – Chris Hoiles
1B – Rafael Palmeiro
2B – Roberto Almoar
3B – Cal Ripken Jr,
SS – Mike Bordick
RF – Geronimo Berroa/Jeffrey Hammonds/Eric Davis
CF – Brady Anderson
LF – B.J. Surhoff

Their Starting Pitching consisted of
SP – Mike Mussina
SP – Jimmy Key
SP – Scott Erickson

This team was loaded. Two Hall of Famers (Ripken and Alomar) and possibly two more (Mussina and Palmeiro)

This team won 98 games and went wire to wire as the American League East Champions….

Than came game 6 of the ALCS against the Cleveland Indians. The game was taking place in Oriole Park @ Camden Yards. Cleveland had a 3 game to 2 advantage over Baltimore, but it didn’t matter our ACE was on the mound and we were home. Mike Mussina was the starting Pitcher for the Orioles and Charles Nagy was the starting pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. Both pitchers were the Ace’s of the teams and both of them pitched a beautiful game.

Charles Nagy pitched 7.1 IP with, 9 hits, 0 runs, and 4 Strikeouts. While, Mile Mussina countered with 8 IP with, 1 hit, 0 runs, and 10 Strikeouts. It was an amazing game and I was on the edge of my seat for the entire game. In the top of the 11th inning Tony Fernandez and all of his 11 regular season Homeruns hits the first pitch to win the game 1 to 0.

I was devastated. I hate all things Cleveland because of this game. And because of this game all of my guilt from taking their football franchise is gone. I also found out that watching ESPN classic the game is still just as painful.

So this brings me to last night. The Ravens had a tremendous season. Going 12 wins with 4 losses is nothing to sneeze at. It just drives me crazy that with the score tied and about 4 minutes to play I knew the Ravens were not going to win. They blew a 14 point lead in the 3rd quarter with three really bad turnovers. Joe Flacco played a good game but made two critical turnovers in the 3rd quarter (a fumble and Interception). But Anquan Bolden dropped a critical TD in the 4th quarter and T.J. Houshmandzadeh dropped pass to end the Ravens season…. I don’t even know what to say. I do believe that if T.J. Houshmandzadeh was playing against us he would have caught that pass. This makes it all the more frustrating. I don’t even want to get started on the 58 yard reception on the 4th and 19…. I heard Shannon Sharpe say how horrible the officiating was, but it’s no excuse. As the great, (yes I said great Matt) NFL coach Dennis Green once said….



We live to fight another day. I can not wait to listen to Baltimore sports talk radio about how all the Monday Morning Quarterbacks would have coached differently or how they would have made the receivers catch the ball. Not to mention how all of Baltimore will be handing out pink slips to the entire Ravens organization…. Good bye Cam Cameron, Good Bye Joe Flacco, Good Bye John Harbaugh. Maybe I will just listen to music on Monday. One thing is for sure and I know who I am cheering against next weekend.

Pitchers and Catchers report in 28 days…. At least we have the Orioles to look forward too. Oh wait….. Never mind.

GAME DAY

Here comes the pain



Let's Go Ravens!!!!!!

Worst Blogger Ever

I know…… I know……..

I am the worst blogger ever

After taking pretty much the entire month of November and December off from blogging I have decided to come back more awesome than ever.

WOW…. I just looked at my blog and saw I haven’t posted since November 21st. I guess it’s a good thing I haven’t given Lisa a hard time for not updating her blog since September 11th.

I feel like so much has happened that I have no idea where to start.

One of the really cool things I did was send Lisa away for her birthday. Lisa, her mother, and sister in law went to New Jersey and spent the weekend in New York City and saw shows like the Rockettes and Avenue Q, besides doing a ton of shopping. While the ladies were away the boys stayed home and played…. And boy did we play. On the Friday that they were gone Lex, Jack and I were accompanied by Uncle Buzz, Uncle Matt, and Uncle Jason for an outing to Chuckie Cheese. We got there around 12:30pm and left around 4:30pm. Besides four very tired adults we had two children who were beyond exhausted when the day was done. We did get about 500 tickets from the games.







Every time we see a Chuckie Cheese commercial now Lex tells me we have to go back.

Christmas was awesome this year. There is something so cool about waking up on Christmas morning and seeing the boys so excited and opening up presents. Santa clearly came from them and me. I do not have any good pictures of Christmas right now but once they start showing up on people Facebook pages I will definitely repost on here.

Like I said Santa definitely came for me this year and I received the Kindle that I wanted. I never thought I would see the day where I wanted basically books for Christmas. So far I have downloaded two books. Chris Jericho’s “A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex” and Steig Larsson “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

I also received from Santa France Hooper a Superman Snuggie being modeled by Lex here below.



I think I need to end this now. The Ravens are in the Playoffs and I am distracted by the TV.