Back! (sort of)

Hi friends! Michael's wife here. Just giving you the head's up that blogging will commence here at Picky Bear! Cool posts in the making include:

-update on life since April 2011 (two sons to update you on!)

-plans/projects for our house 

-thoughts on suffering

-thoughts on faith

-thoughts on family life

-making hard cider

-game nights/review of new board games we enjoy

-thoughts on my super wife

Okay...so maybe these are just post ideas that *I* would like to see him write on. But I'm hoping I can coax him to at least write about a few of these topics. 

STAY TUNED!!

Baby pictures!!

Well, just thought I should make a blog post because if I don't do it, I'll just keep putting it off and then it will be 6 months will go by. Well, I was just thinking and I don't think I posted any pictures of Josephine on this blog! My wife has been stealing all the pictures! Luckily my iTouch takes decent pictures so I can use it and the pictures are safe from here stealing them and posting them on her blog. Well Kayleen woke up with the mother of all headaches on Sunday so I did something very foolish. I decided to take both girls with me to church by myself. Since Josie is still nursing I decided to go to the latin rite nearby. For the first half of mass I was in the church narthex begging Louisa to behave because she was very interested in wondering around. Well, luckily Kayleen's aunt and Uncle were there and I spotted them after the homily so I joined them for the rest of mass and things were so much better. Louisa wouldn't let her great aunt or uncle hold her but she behaved a lot better. It's funny how Louisa takes her time to warm up to people, especially at church. Every sunday she doesn't want to go see grandma or grandpa but when she visits them at their house she is so much friendlier. Maybe it's the suckers. Well, I only talked about Sunday because I took these pictures Sunday morning.

It may be early but it looks like these girls got the same nose.

Josie is such a smilely girl! It's funny but I could get the almost 4 month old to smile but the 2 year old, not so much.

As far as the table goes, I finishes the routing for the table top and stained it but keep forgetting to take picture of the stained parts. Oh well, at least it gives me a reason to blog about something in the future.

My wife, the celebrity

So for those who were not listening to EWTN radio today at 1:30, or to the encore show at 8:30, my wife was listening to EWTN and they were talking about valuing human life. I recorded her during the encore show. Sorry for the poor audio quality, it's from my phone and Josephine is talking in the background and Kayleen started making comments about her 15 minutes of fame. (Well this is just 5 minutes of it so far, so she still has 10 minutes.)

The caller after Kayleen mentioned a documentory called the Demographic Winter, which is about the decline of the human population and how it could be a bad thing for people especially when you have so many young people have to support so many older people. I looked at the trailers and it looks interesting but with 2 kids and the prospect of a house, (will talk about that in later posts), I don't think I can afford $20 on a DVD. I already checked and they don't have it on Netflix either. Come on!!

Table Update

So it's been a while since I've posted any news about the table I'm working on at my parents. With the rise in gas prices Kayleen and a minivan that is about 5 mpg (Okay, so it's not that bad but the gas mileage is worse than my little gray car.), we have found ourselves not wanting to drive as much. This and also the busyness of two kids and one child's demand to only sleep in familiar placed (i.e. only her crib and car seat and not in another person's bed or in the arms of mommy or daddy) has translated into fewer visits to family. Well last Sunday we went over and I got to spend some time even with my sister distracting me with a rebuttal documentary to the documentary "Super Size Me", called "Fat Head". I watched some of it but tried to save as much as I could to watch with Kayleen. What I saw was very interesting and definitely recommend it.

So with my sister's movie and my nephews to harass, I didn't get a whole lot done. What I did do was to route the edges of the apron of the table on my dad's new spiffy table router! After a few slightly promising practice cuts I moved on to the actual table and was pleasantly surprised when they came out looking great. I was using scrap wood for my practice cuts and with it being smaller and a softer wood, I found it harder than the actual cuts. Here is a picture of the apron:

What's left to do is to route the edge of the table top, stain it, poly-urethane it, glue it and screw it together than Louisa and Josie will have their very own table! Louisa is already very excited. Mommy and I will be able to have her sit at her own table for dinner and mommy and I will be able to have plates and glasses that we will not have to defend from a certain child who is to remain nameless.

Sorry if this post is randomly put together. I came in to write about the table and remembered the movie and needed to hurry to help Kayleen with the kids.

Ash Wednesday

Well lent is officially here. Actually for Eastern Rite Catholics, lent has been here since Monday. I went to a Roman mass today so I actually did get ashes so it kind of felt like a double dip, I got an anointing on Monday and then get the ashes today to give me strength for the fast, so I should have super strength to avoid candy and soda. Here I am at work with my ashes. My hair is so long that I don't think anybody noticed them. At least no one said anything.

Even before lent started I was starting to ween myself off soda mostly because I had finally succeeded in getting kayleen addicted to soda (Which she is very bitter about since I'm giving it up) and also it is probably healthier for me. I've done google searches to see what the con-soda people say and looked for anything the pro-soda say. Unfortunately it's sort of a one sided argument. I'm thinking it's a conspiracy against those who don't drink coffee and are looking for a way to get caffeine. I like mint tea but they all say de-caf.

Well, I'll end this post with a video. I had wished a friend a happy lent but just got a strange look and disapproving head shake, so to really lift spirits here is a clip from the movie Spinal Tap. Unfortunately I can't embed the video so just follow the link.

Happy Valentine's Day

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Happy Valentine's Day to my lovely wife! St. Velentine, Pray for us!

I'm making a table!

I'm home sick right now because Louisa, being th kind and sharing girl that she is, shared her cold with me. I know I can't be upset with her, this is just what happens with kids. I just to be less nerdy since some people think that a lot of the things I do are nerdy, I won't make a SQL table. Kayleen wanted a kids table that should look something like this when it is done:

Okay, maybe not. Maybe not even close. Kayleen wants a children's table and they are pretty pricey at the store so she asked if I would make one instead. I haven't done much wood working but I thought it would be fun. I'm working on it at my parents place with my dad and will post pictures of it's progression. It has been slow since I actually started it just before Josie was born and I haven't been able to get over to work on it much but last Saturday I finally finished the tenon and mortise joints. Now I just need to route the table edges, glue the joints, stain the wood and possible forgetting a couple other steps but shouldn't be too much longer.