Why I Oughta...

It was back in May that we lost our dear girl Maisy just shy of her 11th birthday.  I still miss her dearly.  And we kinda tried to fill the void by bringing home a goldfish from RibFest .  BTW...that fish is still alive and well!  And the whole burden of cleaning the bowl has been pretty easy thus far.  Installed a filter, change out like 1/4 to 1/3rd of the water about once every ten days and the thing stays clean. Anyway...back to dogs.  Our dear Maisy was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  And she was.the.best.dog.ever.  First dogs often are, aren't they?   I've talked with a few people and they all say the same thing:  that first dog that couples often get BEFORE they have kids has a special relationship and bond with the family.  They're just different.  Sure, second dogs are great and they're also special.  But just about everybody that I've talked to has said the same thing:  it just isn't the same. And with Maisy being pretty awesome?  I'm gue

Thanks to our good friend Dannee down the block, we were not only alerted to this awesome White House cookie kit - she also gifted one to us after one of her trips to Trader Joe's!  And guess what?  The girls loved putting them together.  Of course they did, right? What's more fun than a gingerbread house?  Nothing, I tell you.  Nothing. This is a pretty fun, seasonal item, that is a great way to do something fun with our kids, but also, kinda, sorta talk to them about the White House and the president and the upcoming election.  Did they listen to any of it?  Probably not.  But, still...frosting!  cookies!  Candy! And, from a business stand point, the person at the gingerbread factory who came up with this idea is pretty clever.  I can hear it now.... "Hey, Bob!  Fire up the ovens!  I have an idea." "But...it isn't Christmastime yet.  We have months to go until the public wants our stuff." "You're right...it isn't Christmas, bu

 Just like in year's past, I took the girls to check out the recently put-up Halloween section at Menards.   Here's the post showing the Babe in the 2015 Halloween section and here's a post from 2012 showing both girls .  They've both grown up a lot, eh? Here's The Bird doing her best 'scary' face and I'm not sure what the Babe is doing on the right.  With Back-to-School out of the way, we are now entering my favorite time of year at Menards: seasonal.  They quickly moved out the backpacks and highlighters in favor of ghosts and witches and it won't be long now for Christmas stuff to creep in.   Last year, we spotted snowmen and Santas as early as October 6th , so brace yourself, folks.  Christmas Creep is coming.

The Babe is just six (going on 16!), but she's way ahead of me with the snaps and the filters and the what-have-yous over there.  I went and peeked at my Snapchat account and my name and photo in the snapcode have been changed to her name and photo.  Sneaky work.  Of course she's all over Snapchat, right? #GetOffMyLawn

Last weekend, I posted about the vintage Golden book that showed some sweet 1970's cars but above is another book that I picked up at the very same garage sale that is part of the "Mr. T and Me" series called The Best Bike Ever. From Awful Library Books , you can see the synopsis: The plot concerns a girl who spends more time washing and polishing her bike than riding it. When Mr. T makes an appearance at a local mall, her older sister steals the bike and dents the fender on her way to see him. To the younger sister’s horror, Mr. T grabs the bike and rides around gleefully, then lectures all the kids on honoring god rather than their possessions – I love how intently the kids are listening! Mr. T pops the dent out, lesson learned, everyone goes home a little wiser. The girls will love Mr. T, won't they?  #IPityTheFool

Not a better crew to be rolling with on the shopping cart escalator ramp at Menards than these three. I mean....What more could a guy ask for?  And with Momma gone for the weekend, there's no place we'd rather be than Menards early on a Saturday morning.

I swear we've done nothing different between the three kids in regards to sports and balls.  But The King of the Ball Tossers is really living up to his name:  he's drawn, almost magically, to sports balls of all kind.  Here he is, strapped into his car seat with his ball and bat.  He wouldn't let me take it out of his hands!

 Among other items, I picked up this wooden step stool/bench/seat at an Estate Sale over the weekend.  On it, it reads:  "To brush my teeth or watch tv, this little stool was made for me".  It folds over on itself and is pretty small. I was so proud to bring it home thinking that it would be perfect for the girls.  It *could* replace the cheap IKEA ones that we currently use in the bathroom and kitchen. I bring it in to show off to Nat thinking that she was going to love it.  And guess what?  She said..."nope".  Not for us.   Sad Trombone . So, knowing that my dad is always looking for things to do, I gave it to him and told him to sell it on eBay or Craigslist.  I paid just a few bucks for it, so who knows???  Maybe we'll make a profit!

Leave it to Aurelio's Pizza to introduce the King of the Ball Tossers to the wonderful world of lollipops.  Who doesn't deserve a DumDum after they eat that tasty pizza?!?! There's no turning back now with these things I'm guessing.  We go to Aurelio's often enough that I'm wondering if he'll remember where the lollipop came from?  They have them in a big basket right on the check-in counter and his two older sisters go up there and stuff their pockets with them.  He'll soon be joining them I'm sure.

You know the feeling.  You just wrassl'd the alligator that is putting your kid into the shopping cart only to find out that the strap to keep them in there is broken.  The fine folks at Meijer have solved that problem with this crazy smart design.  See the red clip on the right?  It is a retractable belt that plugs into the left.   There's no way these can get caught in the seat itself and snap/break. Smart thinking, Meijer.  Oh...this isn't the first smart thing they're doing:   they have 'open out doors' on their bathrooms .

There goes my perfect five star Uber rating. We used a few Ubers to get around Walt Disney World earlier this month (to Disney Springs and inter-hotel transportation) and one of those drivers knocked me down from my five star perch and I think I know the trip.  The Boy was wailing away in the back seat.  The Bird was talking like crazy and there was a bit of traffic, so the trip took longer than normal.  

This weekend, we went over to Wannemaker's for their annual Christmas season Open House with all three kids and Nat's folks.  This is the second year in a row we've gone and it was a totally lovely experience.  Last year, we got their early in the day and waited for a long time to get to meet Santa and pet his reindeer. This year, we arrived pretty late.  I think it went from 10 am to 3 pm.  We arrived about 230 pm and walked right in.  They switched things up this year.  Last year, it was meet Santa...and THEN...go meet his reindeer.  This year, they put the reindeer part first.  They were allowing groups in two at a time to pet each of the reindeer.  The girls got up close and person with one of them (in the photo above). After that, you went around to the Santa line.  There, they had some cute coloring pages for the kids set up with crayons.  Really great way to keep the kids occupied and give them something fun to do while other kids were meeting with the 'Big G

Over the weekend, we gathered friends and family and celebrated our little guy's first birthday.   There's more over on the family blog, but if you've been to a first birthday party, you know the best part of the entire thing is watching what the baby will do (or not do) with his own cake.  Some kids smash their face/fists in.  Some kids don't do a thing.  Some kids just wail and push it off their table.   Mine?  He picked up the whole thing and ate his cake like a boss.  

I've been hearing - virtually - ALL summer from The Babe that she desperately, desperately wants to run a Lemonade Stand.  Over the weekend, we finally caved and helped her fulfill her vision.  We only had a few stipulations: 1.  She had to give the lemonade away for free but ask for donations to a charity of her choice. 2.  When we were out of lemonade, that was it.  No whining about wanting more. Well...I'm happy to report that The Babe picked " Give Kids The World " as her charity of choice and we set up on the corner of 3rd and Indiana where there was a bit more traffic than out front of our house.  We listen to a lot of Disney podcasts in the car and the guys on The Dis UnPlugged talk a lot about "Give Kids the World" and after asking Nat and me about it, that's the one she picked.  We wrote up a little sign on the money jug that said 'Donations for Give Kids The World Accepted'.   For those of you who don't know, Give Ki

We have one of those plastic kid kitchens.  You know the type. Ours was, unfortunately, scrawled with crayon marks from one of the coloring rages that The Bird is prone to do.  Scribble here.  Scribble there.  Mark the fridge door with purple crayon.  Scribble in the microwave with red.  A real art-ist! Anyway...here's a tip for you:  spray a little WD-40 on wipe it with a paper towel and it comes clean in a second.  For some, this may be old news, but not for me.  Also...to be clear....I'm not the first guy to figure this out, just check out the ole' Google for other folks' take.

Have you heard of these little things called Shopkins?  You haven't? Well, let me tell you:  they're the devil.  My daughter is obsessed with them.  Seriously.  O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D.  They cause the biggest smiles AND the biggest tears in my house.  Yet, I can't divorce myself from them totally.  I keep enabling her with them.  For shame, Jake.  For shame.

I probably should have put 'reading' in quotation marks.  But...here's the Bird giving The King of The Ball Tossers a lesson in how cats can cross the road.  He seemed to be into it.

I spent some time this past week digging around online and physically in ONE pet store looking at fish tanks and equipment.  I had a tank when I was younger (junior high-ish) that was 30 gallons and I had a lot of fun with it.  The Elmhurst Library has a tank and every time I take the Babe there, it is our first stop in the children's section and she goes nuts.  I figure that this might be a fun family activity: keeping a tank.  Nat thinks this is a VERY bad idea for a variety of reasons including the work involved, the upkeep, my track record on things, etc. She's likely correct, but that doesn't mean I won't keep looking and perhaps even pull the trigger. Do you guys have tanks at home with your kids?  Tell me I'm nuts - that this will end up being too much work.  Or...do you and your kids love it?  I think big, so 10 gallons is too small potatoes for me.  I was thinking of 30 gallons as a nice middle ground starter tank.  Freshwater, too.  I'd loooove

Last week, Google (Full Disclosure:  I work there !) kicked off our fourth annual Doodle 4 Google contest - a competition open to K-12 students in US Schools.  Students are invited to create their own Google Doodle (those creative adaptations of our logo that run occasionally on our homepage) inspired by this year's theme of:  "What I'd like to do someday...". Google is upping the ante with some pretty rad prizes, but those are secondary to the top prize:  one lucky student gets a chance to have his or her artwork appear on the Google.com homepage for one day and admired by hundreds of millions of people! There are two key differences this year.  First, is that instead of making teachers/schools register their entire classes, we've now opened it up to anyone - parents can now register their kids, too!  Second, Google has recruited some celebrity judges (Whoopi Goldberg, Jim Davis - creator of Garfield and others).  To register now, head to the contest page