Back to Music Theory 1
5 weeks ago
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Still here
Sorry no posts lately - I've been doing the music at VBS and it's taking up some of my time and a lot of my energy. Things should calm down next week.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Hilarious or boring?
This is one of those easy videos - no editing required. If you know our oldest daughters and have a spare 15 minutes, this one is classic.
A few days before we moved to the new house, we put Mari in her Pack & Play in Faith's room to get them used to sleeping in the same room. We knew it would be an...interesting transition...and this video captures the result. As soon as I knew it was going to be so entertaining, I set up the camcorder in front of the monitor to capture the moments, and just let it run.
This video was actually too big for YouTube to upload, so I had to split it into 2 parts. Turn the sound up on your computer and enjoy!
Part 1:
Part 2:
A few days before we moved to the new house, we put Mari in her Pack & Play in Faith's room to get them used to sleeping in the same room. We knew it would be an...interesting transition...and this video captures the result. As soon as I knew it was going to be so entertaining, I set up the camcorder in front of the monitor to capture the moments, and just let it run.
This video was actually too big for YouTube to upload, so I had to split it into 2 parts. Turn the sound up on your computer and enjoy!
Part 1:
Part 2:
The Trifecta
SO, today is THREE birthdays in our family which is almost too much for Faith to handle. She loves birthdays. Is pretty obsessed with them. At least 50% of her imaginary play is centered around birthdays. So, this is a big day for her. It's our dog Salsa's 8th bday, Aunt B's 30th bday and Aunt S/P's 35th bday. Phew.
Anyway, yesterday the girls spent most of the day outside. I feel like a pretty horrible mommy because both girls, especially Mari, have red shoulders. Ugh. Totally forgot to put sunscreen on them. I didn't even buy sunscreen because of not going to the beach this year (see Matt's earlier post). Luckily, Gma S had aloe to put on them. Anyway, they played in Gma and Z's backyard with the sprinkler and the kiddie pool for most of the afternoon. Much to Gma's delight, they spent a lot of time with their toy watering cans watering Gma's flowers. Then they napped and we went to dinner and then went to the water play area at one of our nicer county parks. So fun. In fact, so fun that the girls slept until almost 8am this morning! Unheard of, especially for Mari!
Speaking of good nights, the babies went a little over 4 1/2 hours when we first put them down until the first middle of the night feeding! Pretty awesome! And, it was Robby who woke first -- again, unheard of b/c Hannah is usually the one who wakes first!
Ok. I'm off to go do puzzles with the girls and Matt. Tonight, is a bday party for Aunt B (grownups and newborns only while Z babysits for the girls) and tomorrow is the family bday party for Aunt S/P. Later. Steph
Anyway, yesterday the girls spent most of the day outside. I feel like a pretty horrible mommy because both girls, especially Mari, have red shoulders. Ugh. Totally forgot to put sunscreen on them. I didn't even buy sunscreen because of not going to the beach this year (see Matt's earlier post). Luckily, Gma S had aloe to put on them. Anyway, they played in Gma and Z's backyard with the sprinkler and the kiddie pool for most of the afternoon. Much to Gma's delight, they spent a lot of time with their toy watering cans watering Gma's flowers. Then they napped and we went to dinner and then went to the water play area at one of our nicer county parks. So fun. In fact, so fun that the girls slept until almost 8am this morning! Unheard of, especially for Mari!
Speaking of good nights, the babies went a little over 4 1/2 hours when we first put them down until the first middle of the night feeding! Pretty awesome! And, it was Robby who woke first -- again, unheard of b/c Hannah is usually the one who wakes first!
Ok. I'm off to go do puzzles with the girls and Matt. Tonight, is a bday party for Aunt B (grownups and newborns only while Z babysits for the girls) and tomorrow is the family bday party for Aunt S/P. Later. Steph
Friday, June 6, 2008
Vid comments
Posted a couple of videos to YouTube somewhat recently, but never mentioned it here or gave my commentary. Might as well now.
St. Charles evening - This was the night of the first day of the big 07 trip. This video represents one of the two main things I go looking for on a road trip like this. Simple pleasures. Taking your kids to a playground. What could be simpler? And as I've gone down this road of parenthood, it's become something I cherish. I know that it's not long until the innocence of swinging and sliding fades and it takes more and more to entertain my children. Somehow I've always known that I will remember these times on playgrounds so fondly, and I will probably be sadder about not being able to take the kids to playgrounds than any other part of their growing up. Whenever we travel now, I research parks along the way to let the girls go play on a park they'll probably never see again. I remember looking up parks near where we stopped on the way to Jacksonville in 05, and realizing it poignantly then. I feel blessed that it's 3 years later and we still go regularly and it's still fun for them.
The other thing I look for in a road trip this video isn't the best example of, so I'll save that for another time.
Anyway, the point is...this was a really nice memory. Driving all day, the mystery and excitement of the remainder of the trip ahead of us, and taking the time to stop at a playground which was a mile or so from our RV park. The music captures the contemplative mood (despite the grisly title), and there are a few sort of 'iconic' pictures as well. I particularly like the one of all of us walking away from the camera (director's secret - that was actually us walking INTO the playground, but it looked so much better as us leaving, so I stuck it at the end...revisionist history!) and the sort of 'artsy' one looking down at faith and the red stepping-stone things. Steph is a big fan of the ones with Zayde swinging.
In other random info, the restaurant scenes at the beginning were from the on-site restaurant at the RV park. The "Beefeaters" restaurant had apparently been named the best on-site restaurant at an RV park in the nation by some magazine or group or something. Kinda cool. And it was pretty good. And we would have liked to explore the shopping district in St. Charles more than we did. But, oh well. On the next west trip, maybe we'll do it then...
Okay, enough for now. I'll talk about the other vids another time.
Matt
St. Charles evening - This was the night of the first day of the big 07 trip. This video represents one of the two main things I go looking for on a road trip like this. Simple pleasures. Taking your kids to a playground. What could be simpler? And as I've gone down this road of parenthood, it's become something I cherish. I know that it's not long until the innocence of swinging and sliding fades and it takes more and more to entertain my children. Somehow I've always known that I will remember these times on playgrounds so fondly, and I will probably be sadder about not being able to take the kids to playgrounds than any other part of their growing up. Whenever we travel now, I research parks along the way to let the girls go play on a park they'll probably never see again. I remember looking up parks near where we stopped on the way to Jacksonville in 05, and realizing it poignantly then. I feel blessed that it's 3 years later and we still go regularly and it's still fun for them.
The other thing I look for in a road trip this video isn't the best example of, so I'll save that for another time.
Anyway, the point is...this was a really nice memory. Driving all day, the mystery and excitement of the remainder of the trip ahead of us, and taking the time to stop at a playground which was a mile or so from our RV park. The music captures the contemplative mood (despite the grisly title), and there are a few sort of 'iconic' pictures as well. I particularly like the one of all of us walking away from the camera (director's secret - that was actually us walking INTO the playground, but it looked so much better as us leaving, so I stuck it at the end...revisionist history!) and the sort of 'artsy' one looking down at faith and the red stepping-stone things. Steph is a big fan of the ones with Zayde swinging.
In other random info, the restaurant scenes at the beginning were from the on-site restaurant at the RV park. The "Beefeaters" restaurant had apparently been named the best on-site restaurant at an RV park in the nation by some magazine or group or something. Kinda cool. And it was pretty good. And we would have liked to explore the shopping district in St. Charles more than we did. But, oh well. On the next west trip, maybe we'll do it then...
Okay, enough for now. I'll talk about the other vids another time.
Matt
Call of the road
There's been a lot I've wanted to post here but haven't had the mental toughness to sit down and get the thoughts into words. I seem to have a spare minute here, so I am going to try to get a little something done.
First of all, Steph and I both have the travel bug BAD. Several reasons - in a couple weeks, EVERYONE is going to Hilton Head except us...and also because it finally got HOT HOT HOT here in Cinci. Yesterday, walking out of the house totally reminded both of us of being at the beach. Those muggy Hilton Head or Sanibel or Key West mornings when you know it's going to be a scorcher, so you get out early while it still feels more humid than hot. And of course, one of my favorite feelings in the world, and one of the best things about a beach vacation - that feeling of coming back into the crazy-cold A/C after spending too long in the sun.
Sigh...
Yeah, we haven't been to the ocean since 2006 - and that's hard on Steph more than me. I mean, I love going to the beach, but I mainly love travel - as long as I go SOMEwhere, I satisfy the need. Steph in some ways feels like she didn't even have a real summer if she doesn't get to the beach.
But, we both know it's not possible this year. So we are looking forward to our Tennessee trip in August, but even that's a ways away. So I've started idly looking for minor trips that we could take...but it's not practical, logistically or financially. Trying to escape for a couple days with just us and the kids would be a loony enterprise, and even if we found a great deal somewhere, the price of gas is just too sobering.
So we're stuck. Still a chance that there might be an RV shakedown trip sometime in July, but mainly it's just us and the house...and that's the sacrifice you make for the blessing of these kids.
What else...
Faith is doing well. She's gotten really good at fetching the pacifier whenever someone starts crying. The other day she even put her fingers in Hannah's mouth to suck on...and that's okay since she's developed a hand-washing obsession.
Mari is mostly well, but she's starting to have some weird things happen. Twice she's come out of her room telling us that the bed was wet, but it wasn't. She still has moments when you can tell she's gone into "Nasty Took Land" and is about to push Faithy or pull her hair, and when she's just going to laugh when you try to discipline her. But I'm starting to just think that that whole act is on some level a play for attention, since she often gets lost in the mix. So I'm going to talk to Steph about us just casually removing her from those situations and not making a big fuss about them. And of course, we have to keep making an effort to do things with just her whenever possible.
Twins are good, although 2 not-so-good nights in a row. A little early to tell for sure, but I think it's mainly GAS. I also wonder if they're getting fed up with swaddling...oh well, the nice thing about summer for us is that we're free to experiment, and if there IS a bad night, we can deal with it the next day.
There's more I want to say, but Faith is up and talking to me. Gotta run.
First of all, Steph and I both have the travel bug BAD. Several reasons - in a couple weeks, EVERYONE is going to Hilton Head except us...and also because it finally got HOT HOT HOT here in Cinci. Yesterday, walking out of the house totally reminded both of us of being at the beach. Those muggy Hilton Head or Sanibel or Key West mornings when you know it's going to be a scorcher, so you get out early while it still feels more humid than hot. And of course, one of my favorite feelings in the world, and one of the best things about a beach vacation - that feeling of coming back into the crazy-cold A/C after spending too long in the sun.
Sigh...
Yeah, we haven't been to the ocean since 2006 - and that's hard on Steph more than me. I mean, I love going to the beach, but I mainly love travel - as long as I go SOMEwhere, I satisfy the need. Steph in some ways feels like she didn't even have a real summer if she doesn't get to the beach.
But, we both know it's not possible this year. So we are looking forward to our Tennessee trip in August, but even that's a ways away. So I've started idly looking for minor trips that we could take...but it's not practical, logistically or financially. Trying to escape for a couple days with just us and the kids would be a loony enterprise, and even if we found a great deal somewhere, the price of gas is just too sobering.
So we're stuck. Still a chance that there might be an RV shakedown trip sometime in July, but mainly it's just us and the house...and that's the sacrifice you make for the blessing of these kids.
What else...
Faith is doing well. She's gotten really good at fetching the pacifier whenever someone starts crying. The other day she even put her fingers in Hannah's mouth to suck on...and that's okay since she's developed a hand-washing obsession.
Mari is mostly well, but she's starting to have some weird things happen. Twice she's come out of her room telling us that the bed was wet, but it wasn't. She still has moments when you can tell she's gone into "Nasty Took Land" and is about to push Faithy or pull her hair, and when she's just going to laugh when you try to discipline her. But I'm starting to just think that that whole act is on some level a play for attention, since she often gets lost in the mix. So I'm going to talk to Steph about us just casually removing her from those situations and not making a big fuss about them. And of course, we have to keep making an effort to do things with just her whenever possible.
Twins are good, although 2 not-so-good nights in a row. A little early to tell for sure, but I think it's mainly GAS. I also wonder if they're getting fed up with swaddling...oh well, the nice thing about summer for us is that we're free to experiment, and if there IS a bad night, we can deal with it the next day.
There's more I want to say, but Faith is up and talking to me. Gotta run.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Internet weirdness
Okay, so I've been playing around with the YouTube viewing statistics, and wondering why Faith's birth video has like 300 views compared to 20-40 for most of the others. Well, I look around and start seeing that there have been views from China, Sweden, South Africa, etc. So, long story short, turns out that some Asian website of nothing but 'birth videos' has linked to the video. Kinda creepy, but at the same time, it's probably just an automated system with 'birth video' as a search string. Still, I felt weird about it, so I disabled the 'embed video' option to that one. For you guys, just means you have to go to YouTube to watch it, you can't click on the video posted here on the blog. Don't know if that will help, and I will probably go and alter the wording somewhat.
Anyway, things have been pretty status quo around here. If anything untoward happens, we'll let you know.
Later.
Anyway, things have been pretty status quo around here. If anything untoward happens, we'll let you know.
Later.
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Potty training error. And we chose Abort. Weird vibe, she's not ready yet. Gotta run. Mom's here to talk about VBS. No comment.
Monday, June 2, 2008
We Must Be Crazy
Hey all.
Steph is at work with the babies, and I'm at home with the big girls. Feels a little weird for lots of reasons. And the big news is, Mari is wearing panties for the first time today. We've been talking about potty training with her for a while now, but today was the big day, so even though I'm home alone, we're trying it. She's already leaked in one pair so we're on our second now. I think this is going to be a lot tougher with her than with Faith. Mari is so stubborn, and has such difficulty with sequence and cause-and-effect, that when I explain to her that she is supposed to tell us BEFORE she leaks...I really am not sure she gets it. And when she finally DOES get it, I firmly believe that she'll happily make a big mess on herself rather than stop what she's doing to visit the potty.
But the problem to me is, her output is such that changing her pullups is far from a difficult chore. It's not that annoying to any of us, so it's easy to just ignore it and I'm afraid that we'll wake up one day, she'll be 4 and still in diapers, so we need to get started on this thing while we have a summer to focus on it.
Ugh.
In other news, Z and I took the big girls to King's Island again - lots of fun. Faith is soon going to be going on rides that her daddy is afraid of. She went on the "Fairly Odd Coaster" (formerly the Beastie) and loved it...and that's about Daddy's limit when it comes to thrills. She rode it 3 times...rode the flume twice...she's sometimes afraid to say random words, but she's a daredevil physically.
Felt bad for Mari again - she is still stuck on like 35 3/4 in. and gets turned away from almost all the rides. She's got to grow just a little more so she can go on most of the things that Faith can go on. Seriously, there are a couple of amusement parks on our potential itinerary this summer - I can't handle it if she's gonna still be under that limit.
Okay, gotta go check on took again.
Matt
Steph is at work with the babies, and I'm at home with the big girls. Feels a little weird for lots of reasons. And the big news is, Mari is wearing panties for the first time today. We've been talking about potty training with her for a while now, but today was the big day, so even though I'm home alone, we're trying it. She's already leaked in one pair so we're on our second now. I think this is going to be a lot tougher with her than with Faith. Mari is so stubborn, and has such difficulty with sequence and cause-and-effect, that when I explain to her that she is supposed to tell us BEFORE she leaks...I really am not sure she gets it. And when she finally DOES get it, I firmly believe that she'll happily make a big mess on herself rather than stop what she's doing to visit the potty.
But the problem to me is, her output is such that changing her pullups is far from a difficult chore. It's not that annoying to any of us, so it's easy to just ignore it and I'm afraid that we'll wake up one day, she'll be 4 and still in diapers, so we need to get started on this thing while we have a summer to focus on it.
Ugh.
In other news, Z and I took the big girls to King's Island again - lots of fun. Faith is soon going to be going on rides that her daddy is afraid of. She went on the "Fairly Odd Coaster" (formerly the Beastie) and loved it...and that's about Daddy's limit when it comes to thrills. She rode it 3 times...rode the flume twice...she's sometimes afraid to say random words, but she's a daredevil physically.
Felt bad for Mari again - she is still stuck on like 35 3/4 in. and gets turned away from almost all the rides. She's got to grow just a little more so she can go on most of the things that Faith can go on. Seriously, there are a couple of amusement parks on our potential itinerary this summer - I can't handle it if she's gonna still be under that limit.
Okay, gotta go check on took again.
Matt
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Interesting info
According to YouTube, the Faith's birth video is getting viewed more than anything else by a longshot. So I thought I would post Mari's birth video next. Market research comes through! Anyway, sorry the music gets a little over-the-top towards the end. Keep in mind 2 things - 1) The music is from the finale of a 2-cd concept album, quasi-rock opera, so it had to be big. 2) I actually spliced it down by about 90 seconds, so it could have gone on longer. It's a good song, though.
Anyway, here's the vid.
Mari actually looked much like she looks now - Faith looked totally different as a baby.
If anyone wants to make any requests for what videos should get uploaded next, post a comment.
Matt
Anyway, here's the vid.
Mari actually looked much like she looks now - Faith looked totally different as a baby.
If anyone wants to make any requests for what videos should get uploaded next, post a comment.
Matt
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