Everyone Wants to Feel Pretty...

on their birthday!


And she certainly does. Daddy painted her nails for the first time ever, quite exciting!

It's My Little Girl's Birthday

Two years ago.


One year ago.


And today.


Is 10:30am too early for birthday cake? (She didn't eat it anyway)


Happy Birthday Marion. I can't believe that it's already been two years, and at the same time it feels like it's been my whole life. I would be a different man without you. Thank you for all that you've given me, I've really had a great time so far.

I hope you have the best birthday yet (your first birthday was pretty cool), and I hope we have another year of wonder ahead of us. Let's not go too fast though.

I love you, my little girl.

Henry Found a Car

It's not our car, but it's really cute.

Henry is a Walker

He's been working on it for a while now, and he took his first steps a couple of weeks ago, but in the past few days he's really started to get the hang of it. He's making his way for about three feet at a time now. It's only a matter of days before he's a serious walker, and the world will change again.

Henry%20Walking.3gp

Sittin' Around Bein' Babies

Busy Bodies

We've been running around for the past week it seems, getting things done, meeting with people, making decisions, and such and whatever. Because of this, we're worn down. The whole family is tired. Let's try to get some naps today.

I've done some revisions to my short sci-fi story, and I'll put those up when I get a chance. I want to thank my Mom, Dave, Lance, and Keleigh for their feedback. The story is getting better because of your help.

Justine's Star

On a planet called Sintore, a crowd of native Sintorians stomped their bone toed boots against the planet’s grey soil and waited for a message to arrive. The sun, the center of their universe, was getting a name today. It was rare for a star to get a name, and the Sintorians waved both their back and front sets of arms in excitement and pride; they had been chosen to receive this great honor. They all were proud, but the less short-sighted Sintorians were eager to take part in the economic boom that usually followed such an important event. Nervous twitches mixed with excited shouts as they considered the prosperity that would come to their planet once the message was revealed.

The Sintorian’s galaxial neighbors on Plento had just celebrated the five year anniversary of their galaxy's central star being given the name Xavier, and the Sintorians were jealous. They were a jealous people, as had been shown by their attempts to blow up the Plento star, but their time had come. The people of Plento would again be the second-best civilization in the space-zone when the rest of the planets found out the Sintore had a name for their star too. Everything would be back in order.

Ru'lam Twelnap, the official Regulator of the Gizmo that Receives Messages held his hands up to silence the anxious crowd, and the people responded; they could wait no longer. Ru'lam reached for the envelope as it slipped silently from the Gizmo. He slid a jeweled knife along the edge to open the envelope, and read it’s contents aloud. "Greetings from the International Star Registration Company. We are pleased to inform you that your star has been named by Joey Rone, a sixteen year old human from the planet Earth. He has named your star after his girlfriend of six weeks, and wishes to note that his love for her will, and I quote, 'probably last longer than this star will last.'"
There was a pause, and the Sintorian crowd grew even quieter, everyone waiting for the real announcement.

"Your star has been officially named."

Joey heard the commercial on the radio again, the one about how you can name a star after anybody you want if you send this company fifty-five dollars. He'd heard it before, probably a hundred times, but it wasn't until this particular night that he made the connection. "Justine's like a star, she's beautiful,” he paused to consider what other common traits there might be, “and bright, yeah, she’s bright too. We're gonna be together forever," he thought, as he made his way north through the night in his old truck.

He looked ahead at the stars on the horizon, and picked out the brightest star that he could find. "I'd like to name that one," he smiled to himself as he listened to the last bit of the commercial. As the announcer started to wrap up the advertisement, Joey grabbed a pen from the cupholder and wrote down the company's phone number on a scrap of paper he had sitting on the seat next to him, "Don't suppose I get to choose which star it is though."

Joey called the International Star Registration Company the next morning, and set it all up. They told him that he'd receive the certificate and star chart within the next two to four weeks, and that they were sure Justine would like it. Joey liked it already. He figured he’d tell Justine about it tonight, when they went out for a drive together.

Ru'lam Twelnap started over, he wanted to get this just right, as it was his only official duty as Regulator of the Gizmo that Receives Messages, "Your star has been officially named Justine Humperdink.”

The crowd was as silent as the seven point six light years of space that separated their planet from the rural back road where Joey and Justine currently sat in Joey's old truck making out. The Sintorians stared at each other in disbelief, theyd didn't know what to do; their neighbors had received a much cooler name, a name with great letters like X, and V.

In shock, and in shame, they stumbled back to their homes, and looked out as the rays from Justine Humperdink warmed their planet. There would be no economic boom.

Joey, seven point six light years away, kissed Justine's neck, and then sat up to look at her. "Justine, I feel like I'm king of the entire universe when I'm with you." He pointed out the window, and out towards the planet where Ru'lam Twelnap still held the envelope. "That star's for you, baby."

It's Good to Have Friends

Double Teething

It's wacky. It's crazy. It's two teething babies (both of which aren't really babies any more).

Park Cuteness

How Much Does Sleep Help?

The night before last, both kids slept poorly. They also didn't take their naps at the normal time, and I was super frustrated all day. It was really hard.

Today, they slept okay, and I slept fine. No 'normal' naps today either, but it's not a big deal, because I'm rested. If I don't sleep enough, I'm almost completely incapable as a parent.

Does this tell me something? Perhaps, "Go to bed earlier, Jeremiah."

I Fear the Worst

Keleigh's boss came back to the office on Friday after spending the week helping his daughter take care of her kids while she was sick with the stomache flu. Over the weekend, his wife got sick. Now Keleigh's showing signs of being not-so-healthy.

The report from the boss' daughter is that the flu went through everyone in the family, made them unhappily vomit for a couple days, and then passed. So. We can look forward to that. Yippy.

Please.
No.

---------
Update-
Maybe we're safe. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Could be just something unrelated.

The Week Ahead

Mondays tend to be good days for me. I have the week ahead to look forward to, with it's adventures and errands and such. This week I'm going to try to focus on being mindful of my interactions with all living things.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to see if I can move the spiders that I'm sure to come across to a nice spot outside. I'm going to try to keep my temper down. I'm going to be nice to other drivers. I'm going to try to do this all week. Feel free to stop by and see how I'm doing.

Feel free to try it.
Who knows.

Bathing Babies

Saturn, Gone!

It's official, we're a two-car family again. The Saturn is gone, off the curb and onto someone else's curb. I had $3000 in cash in my pocket for about 24 hours, and then dropped it off to the bank yesterday. It was weird to have so many $100 bills, and kind of scary.

I bought the car for about $13000 in June of 2000, so after selling it, my cost is about $10k, divided by the nearly six years that I owned it...$1666 dollars a year, or about $140 a month (or nine cents a mile!). Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the car's value. It went through a lot with me, as I bought it before I was even married, and now...wee, I'm a big boy now, a real live grown up.

It's going to a good home too, so I can feel good about that. There's some impressive karma going on when I get to meet someone as interesting as they buyer of the Saturn. I really think our families are going to be seeing more of each other in the near future. We have so much in common that it's almost freaky.

Anyway, it's time to get moving on my day. We have the Honda Oddessy (2005), and the Ford Probe (1993), and we're happy with them. I wish the Saturn the best, and I'm glad it's gone.