A couple weeks with four in the family and why I would fail as a Ninja!

We have had Vivian home for a little over two weeks now and it has been a learning experience.  A friend of mine made the comment, you aren't a parent until you have two.  Now, having only had one kiddo for over 3 and a half years, I can't agree with that.  Oz is a handful and definitely takes some parenting skills that I may not have.  He seems to be turning out OK so far.  Back to the comment, I do agree that a second kid is a GAME CHANGER.  Like losing Manning last season game changer.  Like the Broncos getting Manning.  HUGE change. 

Forget the fact that neither Jen or I remembered the complete lack of sleep that accompanies an infant, we did not expect the magnitude of the energy we, mostly Jen, would expend integrating the family.  The baby is easy in comparison to dealing with the baby and Oz.




Don't get me wrong, Oz loves his little sister and is already an amazing big brother.  He puts her pacifier in when she is crying, fetches and throws diapers away, rubs her hair to calm her down.  He is adorable with her.  The issue pops up when you can't pay attention to him.  He does not like that.  So for those brief times when Jen has to feed Viv or I am trying to entertain her, Oz wants that attention and when he doesn't get it he gets unhappy and hard to deal with.  He is still ridiculously cute and fun and so whip smart that I sometimes forget how old he is.  We will figure it out, until then, probably about 18 years from now, we will manager and have a grand ole time.
Now as to why I would not be a good ninja.  I am getting old.  This is not a flexibility or speed issue though. Not that I am that fast or flexible, but it is a noise thing.  My body makes too many noises.  I could not sneak up on anyone.  I walk up the stairs and it sounds like I'm stepping on packing bubbles.  Practically every joint in my body makes some sort of grinding or popping noise.  I won't even go in to the other noises my body makes.

Enjoy some pics of the family.

Baby girl gets her feet printed

Yeah kiddos!

Barely awake, unshaven and unshowered

Out for a walk

Muscles

Oh yeah, Oz went to a School birthday party basically the Saturday after Viv was born.  He went to Fundamentals, a little gymnastics place with a ball pit, zip line and tons of other fun things for him to play on.  He actually did the zip line, the little daredevil and he was practically swimming in the ball pit.  He seemed to get out of there without pink eye or the flu.  Plus he was exhausted when we got home.  It was  Justin Bieber themed party and one of the gift bags treats was a set of tattoos.  So yes, Oz now has a Bieber tattoo on his body.  The worst part is the darn thing won't come off.  It is like is it merging with his skin.  This deformed, shredded Bieber image on our poor kid.

ball pit

pre zip line

Oz and Viv's feet

Mommy and Viv on St. Pats

Darn phone camera

Pictures and other fun things happening these days

There is a lot going on these days.  The holidays are crazy and even more so since my wonderful wife has been put on bed rest for the time being.  She is pregnant and due in March.  Anyone that knows my wife knows that bed rest is her definition of Hell.  She is a very active woman and exercises almost every day.  Well, she did.  Now she has to sit in bed and read, or watch TV.  Luckily she has a three year old who is very understanding and loves to sit still...?  But Jen is coping and the little girl or boy she is carrying in her belly is growing just perfectly.

On to Oscar.  Oz has been growing like a weed and he has been challenging us in ways we had not expected.  Recently he has been trying a new move at bed time.  He waits until he is in bed, he has stopped resisting us and actually let me leave the room without crying and screaming.  Then I head down stairs to relax a little with Jen on the couch.  That is when we hear it, "daddy, I'm here." Kind of creepy when you hear it whispered.  Then I would get up off the couch and look up at the stairs and sitting in the dark is my boy, staring down at me.  Kind of startling the first time. 

I had to take a picture, could not get the lighting right though

So after getting him back to bed and telling him stories, he finally goes down for the night and Jen and I can finally relax.
On to other things.  I stole this idea from a friend who has a kiddo just a week older than Oz.  They gave her a camera and let her take pictures.  Not the made for kids ones, those are crap.  I happened to have an old Canon point and shoot that was sitting around doing nothing so I thought it would be fun to let him play with it.  He always wants to take my camera when I am taking pics so why not let him play with this one.  I can't even get five bucks for it on ebay, might at well put it to some good use.
Oz took to it like a superstar and has proceeded to take a ton of pictures.  Most are of his fingers in front of the lense but there are a few nice ones in there.  The camera is old though and the battery does not hold a charge anymore, so I will have to see about getting a replacement battery if he wants to continue.

I have included a few pics that he took, well a slide show of both the good and bad.  I threw in a few of mine as well after that.  I just had to get pictures of him taking pictures.

Now just a few pics I have taken this month.

Hiding in a toy box

climbing on furniture when he shouldn't

we started a dueling cameras game

Uncle Ryan captured by the paparazzi

bed rest with the kiddo, couch, bed, whats the diff?

Buzz and his fellow Space Ranger squad

December Sahm Christmas Party

Just a few pics of Oz and Santa from the Sahm Christmas party!

Oz beating up pops

Oz playing with his cousin Anna

Oz is so excited about his Riddler toy

Oz and Santa

Oz listens to Santa

Oz waits patiently for Santa with his cousins

Oz school pic

Oz currently goes to Crab Apple Creek at Saints Francis and Clare in Greenwood.  He had his school pics in November and we did not know what to expect.  What we got back was completely unexpected but awesome.  I simply love this pic.

Love it!

Tardy for the Party.

Sorry about that.  I mean the title.  But I am tardy.  Our little guy had his third birthday on the 25th and I am just now getting around to posting about it.  It might be simply that weekends are no longer free.  I think Jen, Oz and I have spent every weekend since Mother's Day with at least one side of our family.  As much as I love them, I need a break.
On to the point though.  Our little guy is now three years old.  What has happened in the last year?
A lot, most notable though is that Oz has gotten rid of those pesky diapers, and that is AWESOME!
Any parent will tell you how great it is to not have to shell out dough for those darn things.  We are both so proud of Oz.  Add to that his ever increasing vocabulary, ability to not eat anything we put in front of him and amazing memory for everything he is NOT supposed to say and you have a pretty well rounded kid.  We love the kiddo and every day is just as great as the last and makes me look forward to the next.  Even when he is a total s*@t!  I will get back to eventually posting more about our Europe trip, but it has just been so crazy.
In the meantime, enjoy some pics over the last year of OzMan.

ABBA!

The title alone should be enough to pique your curiosity.  By no means am I an Abba hater or lover, I can take or leave their catalog.  I don't own any albums or mp3s of their music and I don't plan on buying any in the near future.  However, a couple weeks ago Jen and I decided to try a different type of movie for our family movie night.  Previous movies have been Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squeakwel, The Little Mermaid and Toy Story.  They all had Oscar's interest for about 45 minutes before he would lose it and want to play blocks or something else.  So we decided to try Mama Mia.  Yes, we do own that.  Probably paid $4 for it at Blockbuster.  It is a cute movie and who would not love to hear Pierce Brosnan, the suave James Bond and Remington Steele, desperately try to force out a tune when he is obviously completely tone deaf.  I mean, his songs are horrible.  But the movie is cute, Jen likes it and I don't mind it either.  I grew up watching all of the old musicals so it is no big deal and I actually enjoy some of the classics.  It has now been 2, TWO, 2 weeks and we have had to watch Mama Mia EVERY DAY.  He sings the songs to his teachers at school, he asks for it when he wakes up and he sings it in the car.  We know he loves music, his favorite TV show is Glee, he loves the Dream On episode with Neil Patrick Harris and he loves the Safety Dance song on that episode.  I love that he loves music and gets really excited about it.  BUT I can't stand this musical anymore.  I used to wake up with Yo Gabba songs in my head or maybe some other song from Glee that he was obsessed with for the week.  But now I wake up with honey honey, dancing queen and mama mia buzzing in my brain.  And worse yet, even when he has not asked for the video to be put on, which we are now limiting to once a day, one of us accidentally says a line from a song and he immediately requests that it be turned on and turned up.  We need a new obsession for our kid. 

Story, Zoo and Oz in all of his awesomeness!

In our never ending battle to update as little as possible but still collect thousands of pics of the little guy, well, here is what is happening.
It was a warm, nay, HOT day near the end of August and a momentous occasion was about to be celebrated.  My brother was turning, don't say it, yes, 40!  Jen and I left the little guy with the grandparents and met them at the Story Inn outside Brown County.  Now if you have never been to it,  recommend a visit.  Nestled in a little town called Story, you drive a twisting road until your cell phone goes dead and round a corner to see what looks like a shack or shanty town.

Now this is a working Inn.  There are at least 4 rooms in the building pictured above and a few other buildings on the property that are also available.  My brother and his wife stayed here one time before, and like all good inns, they have a book that you can leave a little note.  Jen and I happened to stay in the same room that they had over a year ago.  Another story about the Story Inn is the blue lady.  She is a friendly ghost that likes to keep things organized.  Turning mirrors over, rearranging brushes, and also opening the notebook in our room to the exact page where Katy and Scott had written a little thank you on their last visit.  Katy said she did not tell them that they had stayed there before, so it was either a clever and thoughtful trick pulled on us by the staff or the blue lady welcoming us.  I prefer to think it was the latter. 

The room is very quaint, there is a crooked stair case leading up, a balcony in our room that overlooks a courtyard and no TV.  Yep, no TV.  Let me say that again, NO TV.  Some would worry about this, but Jen and I had alcohol and I had her wonderful company, so nothing to worry about. 

There is an amazing restaurant on the lower floor of the inn that people travel to just for the breakfast.  Dinner was awesome and the bar in the basement was small but fun.  You sit on chairs that are made from old farm equipment seats and the bar ceiling is metal siding.  They serve some local microbrews on tap and plenty of beer and wine.  The place is also a destination for biker clubs and apparently, a club of English car enthusiasts.  There were a few MG's, a mini and one other nice little convertible.  A great little time and I would recommend it for anyone wanting a quiet weekend away.  Brown County's horse camp is not too far away and a trail leads right up to the back door of the Inn.  There are almost always a few saddled horses hanging out in the picnic area and a few people in full gear relaxing with a burger and a drink.

On to the kiddo.  We decided to take the kiddo to the zoo, again.  He was not a fan the first time.  This time we took backup.  Jen's brother, Tony, and sister, Melanie, were our responsibility for the weekend and why not take them to the zoo.  They are both amazing with Oz and who doesn't love the zoo.  Well, that would be Oz.  We immediately took him to the walrus area, hoping that he would like that.  And he did.  YEAH!

 That is him, in the striped shirt, trying to get a closer look at the walrus.  Get out of the way lady, let the kids look at the walrus.

 Some super fun time with mommy and aunt mel.  Wait, what is Tony pushing in the background?

 Stroller duty!  What a champ.

 

Feeding the giraffes.  Always fun.  At least this time some lady didn't get in our way and we were able to get the picture.  The last time, some lady was just standing there watching people feed the giraffes and blocking most people as they tried to take a picture.  People really annoy the crap out of me sometime. 

Ahhh, look, Oz looks so cute sitting on the log.  Wait, this picture looks cropped.  Was there more to the picture? 

Yes, that is mommy trying to get him rolling again.  After about his 20th blow up and as he sat there plotting his next move.  He quickly grabbed a rock after this picture and threw it, then ran away.  He knows he shouldn't throw rocks, but you can see that devilish look in his eyes.

Where did we find we spent most of our time at the zoo?  Yep, at Oz's favorite place in the world.  THE PARK!  Yep, we paid all of that money to have him spend most of the time at the playground.  We could have just hit a park in town and had a picnic.  But you have to love the kid, he likes it simple.

 Oz and mommy.

WEARING A BOILERS JERSEY!!!!!!

Oz loves his bike.  He doesn't quite get the pedals yet, but he will get there.  We just love to watch him self propel.  It was getting really hard to bend over and push that little bike around.