Thursday, December 25, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Holidays and Blogging....
Howdy,
Just firing off a quick post since it's been over a week and I have been remiss in making any updates.
First off, the holidays are crazy, the days leading up are crazy, and the freakin' snow that we have had cover our city is insane!
However the fun part was bring Alya outside to stomp around on top of piles well over her head in high. That little squirrel is going to be a snow girl. I can't wait for when Sasha takes her skiing for the first time. I just know Alya is going to love it.
Meanwhile, Marcus is living the world of molars - and it doesn't agree with him. Alya's teeth just flew in, but Marcus is creeping along one molar at a time. Poor guy is doing wakes ups thanks to pain, which has not been fun for us as well.
Plus, he's still holding out on the walking thing. Or at least was until last night. We had dinner over at Rob and Mayumi's last night, and while My Neighbor Totoro was on for Alya and Kaede, Marcus made the move. He took a couple of steps from the television to the coffee table to grab the remote. Marcus most certainly has a y-chromosome.
Okay, that's all for now, but the goal will be pictures and another post before Christmas. Wish me luck!
Be seeing you,
Jon
Just firing off a quick post since it's been over a week and I have been remiss in making any updates.
First off, the holidays are crazy, the days leading up are crazy, and the freakin' snow that we have had cover our city is insane!
However the fun part was bring Alya outside to stomp around on top of piles well over her head in high. That little squirrel is going to be a snow girl. I can't wait for when Sasha takes her skiing for the first time. I just know Alya is going to love it.
Meanwhile, Marcus is living the world of molars - and it doesn't agree with him. Alya's teeth just flew in, but Marcus is creeping along one molar at a time. Poor guy is doing wakes ups thanks to pain, which has not been fun for us as well.
Plus, he's still holding out on the walking thing. Or at least was until last night. We had dinner over at Rob and Mayumi's last night, and while My Neighbor Totoro was on for Alya and Kaede, Marcus made the move. He took a couple of steps from the television to the coffee table to grab the remote. Marcus most certainly has a y-chromosome.
Okay, that's all for now, but the goal will be pictures and another post before Christmas. Wish me luck!
Be seeing you,
Jon
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Why isn't Jon sleeping?
Hey all, it's bar time in Milwaukee and I'm not sleeping right now. This is kind of a bad thing as the kids will be waking up in about four hours....
But they had a great time today, as Sasha, her mom (Susan), and Holly had their cookie bake-a-thon today. At least seven varieties of Christmas cookie were baked today and all of them are delicious. In fact, they pretty much were dinner for me tonight.
Anyway, the kids got to play with both grandmas as my mom came by as well. Plus they danced to Christmas songs that Holly and Susan played on the piano. Alya has that spinin' and wavin' down. Marcus just has the beat.
His rhythm skills were really showing when a bunch of my friends came over to play Rock Band on the PS3. Fun times for all of us, but Marcus thought that the drums were best and he held onto a drumstick for most of the time he was in the basement with us.
Unfortunately, that was at 11 PM.
Marcus has two teeth coming in right now, so for the past three nights he has woken up between 10:30 and 11 PM, not going down for at least an hour. I can only hope that these new teeth finish cutting soon.
Okay, that was enough to clear the mind and enable sleep.
Take care everyone and have a safe weekend.
I'm going to have a yummy one, that's for certain.
Be seeing you,
Jon
But they had a great time today, as Sasha, her mom (Susan), and Holly had their cookie bake-a-thon today. At least seven varieties of Christmas cookie were baked today and all of them are delicious. In fact, they pretty much were dinner for me tonight.
Anyway, the kids got to play with both grandmas as my mom came by as well. Plus they danced to Christmas songs that Holly and Susan played on the piano. Alya has that spinin' and wavin' down. Marcus just has the beat.
His rhythm skills were really showing when a bunch of my friends came over to play Rock Band on the PS3. Fun times for all of us, but Marcus thought that the drums were best and he held onto a drumstick for most of the time he was in the basement with us.
Unfortunately, that was at 11 PM.
Marcus has two teeth coming in right now, so for the past three nights he has woken up between 10:30 and 11 PM, not going down for at least an hour. I can only hope that these new teeth finish cutting soon.
Okay, that was enough to clear the mind and enable sleep.
Take care everyone and have a safe weekend.
I'm going to have a yummy one, that's for certain.
Be seeing you,
Jon
Saturday, December 6, 2008
So, what's been going on?
That's a good question, isn't it?
A week has gone by since my last post, so one would think that something must be going on right now. But really, it has been regular life that's been playing with not putting out updates. So this one is going to be a little on the short side.
- Christmas Time is here -
Last Wednesday was the next step in decorating for Christmas - the house interior!
We've got tinsel on the basement ceiling. There is a nativity scene in the front room. Snowmen all over the place. Oodles of Santas floating around, including "Jazzy Santa" who's black and plays "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" on the sax when you press his button.
Multiple wreaths. A few light-up snowflakes for the front windows. Quite a few noise-making Christmas stuffed animals. A snow globe for each of the kid's rooms. And our miniature sleigh with two snowmen and a Cthulhu riding inside.
The best thing about all these decorations is when Alya woke up the next morning and went running from item to item checking it all out. That is what it's all about.
Oh, and we told her that the elves did the decorating overnight. Gotta start the myth somewhere.
Tomorrow may be the start of the tree. Lights will not be on the same, totally insane scale as last year (over 2000 bulbs) but it will be pretty.
- Alya and dogs -
So this past Sunday, we took the kids over to my Grandmother's a post-Thanksgiving gathering. The bad news first - I drank a soda on the way there that triggered something lying dormant in my intestines. The short of it - I ate none of the good food that was prepared and was very uncomfortable for the duration.
However the food was fantastic as leftovers. My Aunt Dolly made some fantastic barbecue ribs. There was Sasha's cornbread stuffing, again which is could eat again and again. Some really good macaroni and cheese, joined by some of the best flaky biscuits around. Fortunately for me, they all reheated nicely the next day.
Also at the house was Ruby the dog. I don't know exactly the breed Ruby is beyond "puntable" but even at that small scale, Alya was terrified. But unlike Thanksgiving, she eventually was able to deal with Ruby being around, eventually evening laughing at the puppy. It's good to know that she'll be able to deal with this fear of dogs.
In fact while shopping on Friday, Alya asked Sasha if she could get a puppy. Sasha's response, "No way in hell." And that's something we're both solidly on the same page with each other.
Be seeing you,
Jon
A week has gone by since my last post, so one would think that something must be going on right now. But really, it has been regular life that's been playing with not putting out updates. So this one is going to be a little on the short side.
- Christmas Time is here -
Last Wednesday was the next step in decorating for Christmas - the house interior!
We've got tinsel on the basement ceiling. There is a nativity scene in the front room. Snowmen all over the place. Oodles of Santas floating around, including "Jazzy Santa" who's black and plays "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" on the sax when you press his button.
Multiple wreaths. A few light-up snowflakes for the front windows. Quite a few noise-making Christmas stuffed animals. A snow globe for each of the kid's rooms. And our miniature sleigh with two snowmen and a Cthulhu riding inside.
The best thing about all these decorations is when Alya woke up the next morning and went running from item to item checking it all out. That is what it's all about.
Oh, and we told her that the elves did the decorating overnight. Gotta start the myth somewhere.
Tomorrow may be the start of the tree. Lights will not be on the same, totally insane scale as last year (over 2000 bulbs) but it will be pretty.
- Alya and dogs -
So this past Sunday, we took the kids over to my Grandmother's a post-Thanksgiving gathering. The bad news first - I drank a soda on the way there that triggered something lying dormant in my intestines. The short of it - I ate none of the good food that was prepared and was very uncomfortable for the duration.
However the food was fantastic as leftovers. My Aunt Dolly made some fantastic barbecue ribs. There was Sasha's cornbread stuffing, again which is could eat again and again. Some really good macaroni and cheese, joined by some of the best flaky biscuits around. Fortunately for me, they all reheated nicely the next day.
Also at the house was Ruby the dog. I don't know exactly the breed Ruby is beyond "puntable" but even at that small scale, Alya was terrified. But unlike Thanksgiving, she eventually was able to deal with Ruby being around, eventually evening laughing at the puppy. It's good to know that she'll be able to deal with this fear of dogs.
In fact while shopping on Friday, Alya asked Sasha if she could get a puppy. Sasha's response, "No way in hell." And that's something we're both solidly on the same page with each other.
Be seeing you,
Jon
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Hello, I must be going
Two hours were scheduled. We took nearly four. And yet, "Hello, I must be going" seems appropriate in many ways.
Saturday was a mini-reunion of friends that graduated from Pius XI High School. Many of us brought spouses, a few didn't make it, and it was a positive time. But a Groucho Marx song fits the bill since it has been many moons since many of us had spoken last.
I am part of the class of 1988, so the starting point for some of these folk is twenty years. Mind, there were people that I had seen since then, but in the time we had on this post-Thanksgiving weekend there wasn't a chance to truly catch up on where we had been. Instead it was a little bit of falling into old habits from long ago.
One of the neat habits from that time was that it was okay to be in each others personal space. Some of us exhibited that tendency again. We fell into certain grooves or patterns that were probably odd for spouses to see.
But we were all different. Heidi and Sue were two people that I never talked to much at Pius or post-Pius. But we all have younger kids, so we shared and chatted more than I can recall doing before. And that had more meaning than perhaps the idle prattle of teenagers.
Meg probably has a more interesting life than many, having become a citizen of Germany. But beyond the odd story about William Shatner and a little chat about her sister, Jane (who couldn't make it) I never got to ask those question about what life is like now. Again, Hello I must be going.
Adam and Tanya are a couple of friends that I was happy to see again. And I'm ashamed to admit that I never took the time to talk to Tanya when I worked for the same company as her for three years. Adam and I got the chance to do a little family recap, which is good. Better is that we both agreed to make it a point to meet up again. After all, we're all in the same city so there's no reason not to do so. It's a good thing.
Colleen and I didn't talk too much either, but I was happy to see her and know that she has a family that's doing well. It'd be the right moment to make a crack about her husband being a Bears fan, if I cared about football that much.
David was there to make a liar out of me. But since we see each other far more frequently, it was not a problem at all. Besides you cannot begrudge the person that takes you home, right?
Yet even with seeing David a couple times a month, we still ended up talking well into the evening after the reunion wrapped up. And after six hours of conversation, I felt like we were honestly up to date with each others lives.
Ann did most of the work in putting this event together, and she deserves major props for making this happen. It takes a caring spirit to start a process for getting old friends together, and that quite possibly isn't appreciated enough these days.
Some event stick in the mind as "historic" or "monumental". This one falls into that mental drawer labeled, "What took you so long".
Be seeing you,
Jon
Groucho Marx - Hello, I must be going
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Turkey and Travels
"Hola! Soy es Dora!"
Okay, not really. I'm actually Jon, but Alya was playing a Dora game on the laptop two minutes ago, so that phrase is currently stuck in my head.
I hope that everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving. Our's was filled with travelling and fun. We actually started out our holiday on Tuesday. Sasha made the corn bread stuffing Tuesday night and then prepared the apple pie.
And I'm going to tell you Sasha's secret to making yummy corn bread stuffing. It's apple chunks. Yep, little bits of apple in the stuffing lightens the dish and adds that nice touch of sweet. For the meat, she put in chorizo this year. That made it a little spicier than usual, but only a little. For me, it is the stuffing of choice. Leave your stale wheat bread. Discard those loaves of white. Give me that corn bread stuffing, and Thanksgiving will be alright.
But don't use those gizzards and livers. That's gross.
---
Wednesday was our first travel segment. After getting the okay to leave work early, I flew home so that we could hit the road and head to Sasha's mom's place. It is a good halfway point between our destination and home, so we were planning on staying there overnight and finishing any prep work on our foods.
The kids fared well in the car, so we were able to zip down and see Grandma Susan and Uncle Marty. Both Marcus and Alya enjoyed running around in a new environment. Alya's favorite thing was to bounce on the leather recliner, sending it rocking back a far as it could and then jumping some more. Climbing the back was also a fun time for her.
Marcus really enjoyed the presence of Andi, one of Susan's cats. Andi had no fear of the kids and liked getting petted no matter who was doing the giving. For Marcus, it was exciting to have a kitty hang around without taking off at the slightest squeak. But while Andi enjoyed the kids, he seemed to prefer draping himself over Marty.
Once we got the kids down (and both of them slept like a rock) the cooking began. Sasha and Susan put together the sweet potatoes, while I made the pumpkin pies. First time for me, but I have to say it's a pretty easy deal when you use canned pumpkin.
Nice side note, we managed to catch the episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay where they go to the Elegant Farmer here in Wisconsin. Flay was challenging their apple pie in a bag with his own little fried apple pie. It was fun to see a place we've taken the kids to every year on the Food Network. Oh, and the Elegant Farmer won the throwdown, which made it all the better.
Thanksgiving Day consisted of lot of travel, lots of good food and even more good family. We went to Sasha's cousins Jeff and Patty's place location in the middle of Northern Illinois. The house is a beautiful old farm house, with dogs on the inside and cats all over outside.
Sadly, Alya really is terrified of dogs, so that made things rough for her in the beginning. Things improved as Alya got to play with her cousin Elliott the entire day. Elliott is five and saw Alya as the baby she could play with.
The food spread was fantastic, tender turkey, sweet honey ham, and Sasha's fantastic stuffing. What more could an omnivore ask for? And this omnivore ended up eating more than a standard portion. So delicious.
Oh, and people liked the pumpkin pie, although I believe that the Apple Pie was better. Not very juicy, but with thin and tender apples. We finished off the last of the pie over a game of cribbage last night, and holy cats was it so good. I could go for another one right now....
Anyway, it was a fun time with family, and while the drive back was long it was well worth the time.
Be seeing you,
Jon
Elegant Farmer - http://www.elegantfarmer.com/
Okay, not really. I'm actually Jon, but Alya was playing a Dora game on the laptop two minutes ago, so that phrase is currently stuck in my head.
I hope that everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving. Our's was filled with travelling and fun. We actually started out our holiday on Tuesday. Sasha made the corn bread stuffing Tuesday night and then prepared the apple pie.
And I'm going to tell you Sasha's secret to making yummy corn bread stuffing. It's apple chunks. Yep, little bits of apple in the stuffing lightens the dish and adds that nice touch of sweet. For the meat, she put in chorizo this year. That made it a little spicier than usual, but only a little. For me, it is the stuffing of choice. Leave your stale wheat bread. Discard those loaves of white. Give me that corn bread stuffing, and Thanksgiving will be alright.
But don't use those gizzards and livers. That's gross.
---
Wednesday was our first travel segment. After getting the okay to leave work early, I flew home so that we could hit the road and head to Sasha's mom's place. It is a good halfway point between our destination and home, so we were planning on staying there overnight and finishing any prep work on our foods.
The kids fared well in the car, so we were able to zip down and see Grandma Susan and Uncle Marty. Both Marcus and Alya enjoyed running around in a new environment. Alya's favorite thing was to bounce on the leather recliner, sending it rocking back a far as it could and then jumping some more. Climbing the back was also a fun time for her.
Marcus really enjoyed the presence of Andi, one of Susan's cats. Andi had no fear of the kids and liked getting petted no matter who was doing the giving. For Marcus, it was exciting to have a kitty hang around without taking off at the slightest squeak. But while Andi enjoyed the kids, he seemed to prefer draping himself over Marty.
Once we got the kids down (and both of them slept like a rock) the cooking began. Sasha and Susan put together the sweet potatoes, while I made the pumpkin pies. First time for me, but I have to say it's a pretty easy deal when you use canned pumpkin.
Nice side note, we managed to catch the episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay where they go to the Elegant Farmer here in Wisconsin. Flay was challenging their apple pie in a bag with his own little fried apple pie. It was fun to see a place we've taken the kids to every year on the Food Network. Oh, and the Elegant Farmer won the throwdown, which made it all the better.
Thanksgiving Day consisted of lot of travel, lots of good food and even more good family. We went to Sasha's cousins Jeff and Patty's place location in the middle of Northern Illinois. The house is a beautiful old farm house, with dogs on the inside and cats all over outside.
Sadly, Alya really is terrified of dogs, so that made things rough for her in the beginning. Things improved as Alya got to play with her cousin Elliott the entire day. Elliott is five and saw Alya as the baby she could play with.
The food spread was fantastic, tender turkey, sweet honey ham, and Sasha's fantastic stuffing. What more could an omnivore ask for? And this omnivore ended up eating more than a standard portion. So delicious.
Oh, and people liked the pumpkin pie, although I believe that the Apple Pie was better. Not very juicy, but with thin and tender apples. We finished off the last of the pie over a game of cribbage last night, and holy cats was it so good. I could go for another one right now....
Anyway, it was a fun time with family, and while the drive back was long it was well worth the time.
Be seeing you,
Jon
Elegant Farmer - http://www.elegantfarmer.com/
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Kids and Reunions
I was looking for a picture to put up for my Facebook profile and I found myself lost in the pictures of my children. They are both so beautiful and amazing that it takes my breath away frequently.
"They're based off of a part of me. I can't believe it."
The feeling of being a parent is so overwhelming. All becomes secondary to the emotion generated by their simple existence.
Tonight I had to pick them both up from daycare solo (not really a big deal) as Sasha was doing volunteer work at the end of the day. That first hug I get from Alya I cherish every time. Marcus is so happy when he sees me and is so elated to be held by Daddy. These times are very precious and I love it all.
[music background is the theme song from the new - and quite cool - game Mirror's Edge on repeat loop. It fits the mood rather well right now.]
So you want to hear about crazy? How about over 30 adults and children in the BSer basement watching the Packers whomp the Bears. That was a crazy scene indeed. That is a fantastic way to give a boy a first birthday party.
As you can see from the photos (link here) that kid made the best of his day. Eating hot dogs, playing with the smash cake, and showered with generosity from family that drove two hours or more to be here. Thank you all for coming up to Wisconsin.
Instead of going into all the details, I'm going to relate the story of the smash cake.
His daycare teacher, Miss Debbie, made a football cake for everyone else and a green and gold smash cake in the shape of a number one for Marcus. So we loaded the boy up in a booster chair, put the cake in front of him, and stared waiting for him to dig in.
Naturally, nothing happened.
After all, he had 30 pairs of eyes trained on his face and cake. Slightly uncomfortable, I believe.
So Mama stepped in and got his spoon into the cake, to transfer some of that yummy frosting into Marcus's mouth. And that was the trigger to a sweet feast for the little man. He dug in with the gusto that he has with nearly all food. Scoops of green on the shirt, the face and into the mouth.
However, he didn't take his eyes off the crowd. I think Marcus wanted to make sure no one tried to make off with his prize. No worries though and he had a grand time with the smashing and the smearing.
Such a cutie.
---
On a different note, some of you may know that I often call Alya "Squirrel". When Marcus came I wanted to nickname him "Moose" because I could put on my worst Russian accent and ask, "What about Moose and Squirrel?".
But he was such a cute little baby that there was no way I could give him that nickname.
Well, Marcus isn't so small now. And when my Mom brought over a new pair of overalls for him that had a moose embroidered on the front, the nickname came back and feels okay now.
The questions is: Will it stick?
Time will tell, my friends. Time will tell.
---
Speaking of time, I forgot to mention that next weekend I'm going to an informal high school reunion. The big worry used the be that question "What have you made of yourself?" And at one point, I wasn't comfortable with answering that question. But now things are much different and I'm doing pretty freakin' well, thank you very much.
However, I still need to get a "brag book" together with pictures of the kids. Oops.
Be seeing you,
Jon
Mirror's Edge - http://www.mirrorsedge.com/ls/us/index.asp
"They're based off of a part of me. I can't believe it."
The feeling of being a parent is so overwhelming. All becomes secondary to the emotion generated by their simple existence.
Tonight I had to pick them both up from daycare solo (not really a big deal) as Sasha was doing volunteer work at the end of the day. That first hug I get from Alya I cherish every time. Marcus is so happy when he sees me and is so elated to be held by Daddy. These times are very precious and I love it all.
[music background is the theme song from the new - and quite cool - game Mirror's Edge on repeat loop. It fits the mood rather well right now.]
So you want to hear about crazy? How about over 30 adults and children in the BSer basement watching the Packers whomp the Bears. That was a crazy scene indeed. That is a fantastic way to give a boy a first birthday party.
As you can see from the photos (link here) that kid made the best of his day. Eating hot dogs, playing with the smash cake, and showered with generosity from family that drove two hours or more to be here. Thank you all for coming up to Wisconsin.
Instead of going into all the details, I'm going to relate the story of the smash cake.
His daycare teacher, Miss Debbie, made a football cake for everyone else and a green and gold smash cake in the shape of a number one for Marcus. So we loaded the boy up in a booster chair, put the cake in front of him, and stared waiting for him to dig in.
Naturally, nothing happened.
After all, he had 30 pairs of eyes trained on his face and cake. Slightly uncomfortable, I believe.
So Mama stepped in and got his spoon into the cake, to transfer some of that yummy frosting into Marcus's mouth. And that was the trigger to a sweet feast for the little man. He dug in with the gusto that he has with nearly all food. Scoops of green on the shirt, the face and into the mouth.
However, he didn't take his eyes off the crowd. I think Marcus wanted to make sure no one tried to make off with his prize. No worries though and he had a grand time with the smashing and the smearing.
Such a cutie.
---
On a different note, some of you may know that I often call Alya "Squirrel". When Marcus came I wanted to nickname him "Moose" because I could put on my worst Russian accent and ask, "What about Moose and Squirrel?".
But he was such a cute little baby that there was no way I could give him that nickname.
Well, Marcus isn't so small now. And when my Mom brought over a new pair of overalls for him that had a moose embroidered on the front, the nickname came back and feels okay now.
The questions is: Will it stick?
Time will tell, my friends. Time will tell.
---
Speaking of time, I forgot to mention that next weekend I'm going to an informal high school reunion. The big worry used the be that question "What have you made of yourself?" And at one point, I wasn't comfortable with answering that question. But now things are much different and I'm doing pretty freakin' well, thank you very much.
However, I still need to get a "brag book" together with pictures of the kids. Oops.
Be seeing you,
Jon
Mirror's Edge - http://www.mirrorsedge.com/ls/us/index.asp
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