June, 2009

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Pool Time

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

With the temperatures shooting up and a trip to Sedona coming up in a few weeks, we figured it was time to give the babies their first swimming experience.  Nate and Kristen invited us over to their new apartment for a BBQ, so we packed up the babies and some pool floaties and headed over to Mission Valley. After a few minutes of visiting, it was time to cover the kiddos in sunscreen, get them into their “Little Swimmer” diapers, inflate their party rafts, and do some swimming.

Ella was not a fan of the water at first. When I put her in her floaty, she started crying and I could feel everyone lounging by the pool thinking the worst. I was actually “That Guy”, who takes his screaming kids down to the pool and ruins it for everyone. Chris was nice enough to point that out to me (and everyone in a 2 mile radius).  After a minute she got over her shock, and realized she liked floating. She started playing and having a great time.  She loved kicking and squealing, and even though the water was a little cold for her liking, she was a very happy baby girl.

Jack, of course, was happy and laid back right away. He just kicked back and enjoyed the ride; at least until he figured out that he liked the taste of the salt water. Once he got his first taste of the water, he was like a shark who smells blood.  No matter what we did, we couldn’t keep him from trying to drink the pool water. Oh well, at least he was having fun.

After about 15-20 minutes in the water, the babies were getting cold so we decided it was time for their first pool experience to come to an end. They played around for a while next to the pool, and then it was time for us to eat some dinner. Back up in the apartment, we ate our BBQ and Ella found her self a boyfriend.  She was very interested in Nate and Kristen’s 2-and-a-half-year-old son, Reese.  He gave her (and Jack) some toys, and Ella gave him a kiss on the cheek.  Everyone thought it was cute. I thought, “Crap…she’s already into older men. Just shoot me now.” No seriously, just shoot me now.

Dad’s Day

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

This past weekend I got to experience my first Father’s Day as a dad. I was expecting a tie or maybe a some tools from the kids, but instead they gave me some stinky diapers. They’re the best. Since Shae got a tote bag and a table saw for Mother’s Day, I was half-expecting a screwdriver and a vacuum. Instead, I got a digital picture frame (thanks Shae) and some steaks/chicken/other tasty goodies (thanks mom). Besides the gifts, here’s the rest of my first Father’s Day weekend with the kids.

Lunchbox’s toenails had gotten pretty long and he wasn’t very cooperative when we tried to trim them, so on Friday I took him to Petco (the store, not the ballpark) to get a pawdicure. It would be an understatement to say that LB wasn’t excited about this, but he got through it. As a reward for being so brave Lunchbox got to take a trip to the dog park. It was quiet at the park, but one of the two other dogs looked like Mr. Box’s twin. There were a few times I actually found myself getting the dogs mixed up. The easiest way to tell them apart was that Baxter was the humper and LB was the humpee. After quite a while of being humped, Lunchbox was exhausted and it was time to head home.

As soon as I got home, Shae somehow suckered me into going to REI to look at baby-backpacks. We are taking the babies to Sedona next month, and Shae convinced me we need the backpacks so we can take the kids on some hikes. The plan was to try on the packs at REI and then buy an old model from someone on Craigslist, but of course we ended up leaving the store with two new backpacks. Funny how that happens. (Actually, the new ones have some additional storage that is really nice…I think we made a good decision…I’m going to keep telling myself that.)

Father’s Day weekend was one of three “fee-free weekends” at a bunch of national parks (details here), so we decided to head over to the Point Loma Lighthouse/Cabrillo Monument with the kiddos.  If nothing else it was a good excuse to get out of the house and try out our new packs, so we loaded up the car and headed to Point Loma. We met up with Chris, Patty, and Chris’ cousin Andrew (taking a break from his stay on an aircraft carrier to get some training in SD) for lunch at Olive Tree Market and then drove out to the lighthouse.

If you’ve ever been up to the top of the Point Loma Lighthouse (or probably any old lighthouse for that matter), you know how tight and crowded the staircase is; adding a framed backpack and a baby makes it a real challenge. After quite a bit of squeezing and contorting we managed to get up to the top and Shae took a few pictures (surprise). When we were done at the lighthouse, we took a nice downhill walk back to the car, made a quick stop for a chai tea freddo at Peet’s, and called it a day.

Sunday was nice and relaxed, so there’s not a lot to retell. Shae made me a nice breakfast, the kids were (pretty) well behaved, and we just hung out and didn’t do much. Lunchbox’s Father’s Day gift to me was to take me on a nice walk around the neighborhood. What a thoughtful puppy. Given the choice I think I’ll take LB’s walk over the babies’ poopy diapers, but they were both very nice gifts. Shae cooked me up some steak and potatoes for dinner (again, thanks mom), and we called it a day.

That’s about it for my first Father’s Day as a dad. Here are a few pics from my first Father’s Day with Jack and Ella:

Happy Father’s Day

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

I just want to say happy Father’s Day to the two best Dads.

Pat:  Thanks for everything you do for our little family.  You really are an awesome dad and great with the munchkins.  I love how they get soooo excited when you come home from work.

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Dad:  Thanks for being a wonderful father and now a wonderful grandfather.  We love you!

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Happy Father’s Day!!!

Welcome

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

Well, if you’re reading this I guess that means you found your way over to our new site. Good work.

There’s not a lot new to report. The babies are still doing the whole baby thing. Ella is getting better at crawling, and is even starting to work on sitting up on her own. She can get pretty close, but then she gets bored and decides she’d rather crawl around. Jack can crawl, but he still prefers to just hang out. Every so often he crawls a few feet just to prove he can, but then he sits there and waits for us to bring him stuff.

It’s time for bed so I can rest up for my first Father’s Day. Hopefully tomorrow I can have another post, until then here are a few new photos.

Movin’ Sites

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

Well, after about a week of prep it’s finally time to move to our new site. All of our posts, comments, and pictures have been moved over to our new server and Shae put together a few images for our page headers. If you bookmarked our blog or subscribe to the RSS feed (or follow us on Blogger), make sure you update your bookmark or feed with our new URL .

Our new site is at http://thelorigans.com.

Head on over and enjoy.

Slow Times

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Well, nothing much has changed since my last post. It’s weird how the babies figure something out, make no progress for weeks, and then make another major jump. Ella basically figured out how to crawl over a week ago, but since then she’s made very little progress. She can crawl well enough to get to a toy she really wants (or to get into trouble if we look away for a second), but really hasn’t gotten any better since the first or second day she figured it out. Not that I’m complaining, of course. The longer we can delay the baby chasing, the better. Jack, on the other hand, seems to have everything figured out. He’s not really into this crawling thing yet. Why crawl when you can sit on the floor and stare a the toy you want until Mommy gets it for you? Crawling is for suckers.

Even though she hasn’t quite mastered the whole crawling thing yet, Ella’s moving on. The past couple of days she’s been trying to pull herself up into a standing position using whatever is available. I actually had to tell her, “You’ve gotta crawl before you walk, baby girl.” Who would’ve thought I’d ever get to use that line literally?

Other than that, there really isn’t a lot going on. Shae has finally decided to put her love of photography to use and is starting to line up some photo shoots with some of the other moms in her “Mom’s” group, so we’ve been a little busy setting up a new website for that. Along the way, we got a couple of extra domains so we will probably be moving our blog and image gallery over to another server in the next few weeks. We really needed more space for our photos since we’re almost out of space on our picasaweb account, and we should also be able to host extra stuff (like the March Madness site) on our new server (which will be nice since it should be more reliable than my home server). Don’t worry, if/when we move we’ll make sure everything is transferred over to the new site and redirect this blog to the new URL.

First Bath Together

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

For whatever reason, Shae and I got motivated to do some work on the babies’ bathroom today. Since Jack and Ella can sit up on their own now (take that Dr. who said they needed to work on sitting), we decided it would be nice if we could bathe them together in their own bathtub. So today we finally got around to replacing the shower doors with a shower curtain and rod. Of course, somehow the tub ended up covered in frogs (I’m sure Shae had nothing to do with that). After a little bit of work and a lot of caulk jokes (I put caulk in the hole, hehe), we could finally give the munchkins a bath together. They seemed to have a good time. Here are a few pics (more over here). Oh, and if you don’t think you’ll be seeing about 20,000 bath pics of the babies over the next couple of years you don’t know me at all.



We’re Back (Again)

Friday, June 5th, 2009

What else should I have expected?  Three days after we move our blog to our own domain, the server hosting our site goes down. It took several emails back-and-forth with our hosting company’s support department, but we’re back up and running now. Hopefully things will go a little more smoothly from here on out.

Update: Well, we were back down for another night but we’re back up again (at least for now). Anymore issues like this and we’ll definitely be moving to a new hosting service. (Depending on how they compensate us for almost 45 hours of downtime we may be moving anyway).

Since I’m posting, here’s a quick update on a few things:

  • Jack is finally getting his first tooth, but he is not happy about it.  Ella hasn’t made much of a fuss about teething; one day she just has another tooth. Jack, on the other hand, has decided we’re going to know when his teeth come in.  Shae said he was fussy all day, but he was in a great mood when I got home so I think she’s just making things up.
  • Shae is doing pretty good work with her photography. She had a photo shoot with some friends (Nate, Kristen, Demontre, and Reese) yesterday, and she’s working on getting a few more shoots lined up. Right now she’s just trying to build up her portfolio, but she also has a few jobs lined up during the next few weeks/months.  She has taken some great shots, so maybe it isn’t just Jack and Ella that make her photos look so good (although it helps to do most of your work on the cutest kids in the world…there, I said it).

Well, that’s about it for now. Shae’s out scrapbooking and the kiddos are asleep, so I’m going to go spend some quality quiet time with Mr. Box (if I can wake him up).

Time For Another Crib

Friday, June 5th, 2009

The babies have finally started to pay quite a bit of attention to one another. That would be great, except they’ve decided they’d rather bother each other than go to sleep at night. They’ve been sharing a crib, and every time we put them down to go to sleep Ella rolls over to Jack’s side and starts bothering/hitting/chewing on her brother. I guess tomorrow we’ll be putting together the second crib so they can get some sleep. Shae and I are both too tired to write up a real post, so instead I’m just going to post some pictures of the kiddos. Besides, I figure everyone would rather look at pics of the babies than read my babbling.




That’s it for now. There are a few other pics over in our gallery.

What’s The Big Deal? – Updated

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

OK, I’ve given this whole baby thing about 8 months and I have to say I just don’t get what all the fuss is about. Don’t get me wrong, I love my babies and they let me clean food off they’re mouths (awesome), but they seem overrated. Everyone makes such a fuss over every little thing they do, but I’m not impressed. I wish someone would get all excited about taking me for a damn walk.

Every little thing the babies do is such a huge event to the other humans, but I don’t understand it. They’re 8-months-old and everyone makes a big deal out of the girl baby learning to sit (Mom said to make sure to tell everyone that Ella is sitting now. See what I mean? I can’t even write a blog post without having to plug the stupid babies). When I was 8-months I had already graduated my obedience class as Top Dog. Sitting? I was sitting by 4-months. Not just sitting, but sitting on command. Did everyone make a big deal out of me figuring out how to sit? Nope, they gave me a tiny treat and told me to do it again. Totally unfair.

Speaking of unfair, the double standard that Mommy and Daddy have between me and the babies is ridiculous. There is baby crap everywhere (and they’re toys look exactly like my toys), but I never chew on any of their toys. Not even the stuffed animals, and if you know me at all you know how hard that is. (I have chewed on the occasional pacifier, but seriously they’re delicious and they’re everywhere.) If I ever did eat a toy I would get in lots of trouble. Then there are the babies. They eat everything, even my toys. Today the baby girl threw all of her toys to the side and started eating my rope. When Mommy took that away she started eating my Kong. Did she get yelled at, or even scolded? Nope. Hell, the babies chew on ME and no one says anything to them. I just have to lay there and take it (although I secretly love the attention). Daddy got new glasses last week and the babies are always grabbing and pulling them. Of course, no one says anything to them. I licked his glasses today and got in trouble. One lick. Total crap.

I haven’t even mentioned all the stuff that the babies can’t even do yet. Apparently even something as basic as Ella crawling about a foot forward is worth talking about. Really? Crawling? She’s 8-months-old! I was running around before I was 1-week. Don’t even get me started on the house-breaking. I never took one dump in our house (I did drop a deuce at The Learning Garden once, but it wasn’t ours yet and it smelled weird), and it only took 2 weeks for me to figure out that I’m supposed to pee outside. The little humans have taken about 10,000 poops in the house and no one seems to care. I’ve heard rumors they even poop in stores. Imagine if I stopped and squatted in Target; I’d never hear the end of it. They just throw diapers on the babies and act like everything is fine. The worst part is no one seems to be trying to fix the problem. They don’t even take them out to the lawn to teach them to “hurry”. How are they ever going to learn?

There’s plenty of other ways I’m way better than the babies, but Mommy and Daddy want the laptop and I still have to check on all my Twitter friends so I better go. I love my babies, but I’ll love them a lot more when they can take me on a walk. Until then I’m going to go hide my toys so they stop eating them.

[Update: Here are some pictures of the babies torturing me!]