I love my girls!!!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my girls? Ella will laugh at the drop of a hat. (Literally and figuratively) She is so quick to smile and melt my heart. Anna while she can drive me absolutely crazy at times is total sweetheart. I put her to "bed" last night. (I say "bed" b/c she refuses to sleep in the bed and prefers the floor?) She begins to play rather than lay down so I lay my head down on her pillow and pretend to sleep. She then gets real quiet and begins to get her covers together and cover me up and tuck me. She even goes over and turns off her night light. She then covers herself up gives me a kiss and says "I love you daddy. Goodnight daddy." She is soooo cute!!!

*Bonus

I was trying to think of something to blog so I blogged about my new job just moments ago. Just as I was finished one of my best friends calls me and leads me to this following picture of one of my other best friends he took while they stopped at Disney World on the way back from a business trip. It was just too funny not to post. So here is Lee.

SEO

I may have a new job with the same company before too long. I will be in charge of SEO, which is search engine optimization. The easy explanation is that I try to make sure that when people do a google, yahoo, excite, etc... search that our site for our company comes up as at least one of the top 10. It is challenging and I won't have direct interaction with customers anymore. Plus I will probably not be in the mix of all my colleagues but rather in my own space. But I think I will enjoy the challenge and if not they said I can always come back to where I am. So wish me luck as I venture into this new area of work.

Trick or Treat!!

Some more pics of the girls

The girls in their matching sweats.

Anna picking out a pumpkin.

Ella's fist cereal.

Anna "helping" Daddy.

Anna being silly!

I Wonder...

...how much or what I would need to blog to deserve one of these???

New Blog Fad

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

Goose Egg

That is what is on Anna's head today. She thought my e-z chair was a trampoline last night. As I went to get her off she turned to try and avoid and cracked her head hard on the corner of the wall. I was so freaked out. I am so glad that Amber was there. I cannot handle to see my little girl in pain. I picked her up and I ran and got the ice. I let Amber handle it from there. God must make toddler's head nice and thick. She was okay after just a couple of minutes.

Blue Like Jazz

Besides Greta, has anyone read this book? Or even one of his others like "Searching for God Knows What"? Just curious what others have thought. I think I am going to buy it here soon.

Fun @ Work

We have a warning sign on the door into our work area. It is a yellow caution sign that read "Watch For Flying Objects". We have 2 of these poofy balls and 2 of the regular foam poof balls that we play catch with. Or hit people with depending on our mood. The cool part is our boss participates too. How many of you can throw a ball at your boss why he is not looking and not get in trouble? It is still by far the not the best job in the world, but all things considered, it's not that bad.

Off to Pizza Hut with the guys today. Please be praying for a friend of mine. A long story, but his name is Ron, God knows so just pray. Thanks.

The Chiropractor

So I went to the chiropractor for the first time the other day. It really wasn't painful at all in spite of the picture. I had a real bad pain in my shoulder the other night and mentioned to the massage therapist. (We get massages every other week at work!) She thought my shoulder felt out of place and suggest I see a chiropractor. So since we have been taking Ella and she has been doing so well. (Here is that story) So I decided to give it a try. Turns out I had two misalignments. Supposedly this could be the reason for a lot of my headaches as well.

So the table adjustments were no big deal. The weird part was when he is holding my head and says to relax...no problem. Suddenly....my head is being twisted and making noises the bad guys necks make when Segal is twisting their neck. Except they don't seem to go...Wow that feels better thanks!!! They just don't seem to move anymore??? But it turns out I was still able to move afterward and everything was okay. Just not sure I could relax as well if their were to be a next time???

A thought from Albert Day

From The captivating Presence:

"I came to a new understanding why Jesus passed up the religious establishment of his day, the economically secure, the socially prestigious, and sought out the poor, the outcast, the sinner, the broken, the sick, the lonely. He felt, as we so often do not fell, their sorrow. He was acquainted, as we too seldom are, with their grief. On Calvary he died of a broken heart. But that hear was broken long before Black Friday, By the desolation of the common people. "In all their afflictions he was afflicted."

Most of the time we are not. We seem to have quite a different conception of life. We avoid as much as possible the unpleasant. We shun the suffering of others. We shrink from any burdens except those which life itself inescapably thrusts upon us. We seek arduously the wealth and power that will enable us to secure ourselves against the possibility of being involved with another's affliction. Lazarus sometimes makes his way to our door step. We toss him a coin and go on our way. We give our charities but we do not give ourselves. We build charitable institutions but we do not build ourselves into other's lives."

Sorry for the deeper than usual post...but I felt I needed and many of you may have needed it too?

Gran is coming to town

I go to pick my mom up at the airport in a couple of hours from now. She is flying up for a week to spend sometime with her very missed granddaughters. She is coming up from Florida and is really excited about seeing her granddaughters again. She has not seen Ella since the week she was born. I know, she lives in FL why aren't we going to see her. Answer, it is a lot cheaper to bring one person up here then to take 4 of us down there. Hopefully this summer we will make it down.

One Year

A Year Ago I found out what a blog was. This how I started this one...

I don't really have deep thoughts, but hopefully they are not shallow thoughts...thus Med. depth thoughts. Thoughts like, if your 18 month old daughter is quiet for too long before going to sleep, check on her she may have taken her pants and diaper off and have a left a mess for you to clean.

Thoughts like, despite doing things like that, there is nothing greater than seeing your daughter's big smile just because you came into the room. I know every parents says this but, I really have the cutest little girl in the world. Once I figure out how to post pics on here I will put one on of her.

12 months later I have a 30 month old girl and an almost 5 month old girl. They are still the cutest girls in the world. And there is still nothing greater than seeing them smile. Except now instead of just a smile, Anna RUNS from one end of the house to the other, arms out, screaming ...DADDY'S HERE!! There is no better way to start your evening when you get home!!!

16 years

It was 16 years ago today I lost my best friend, Tim. I wasn't even 16 yet when it happened. It is hard to believe that more years have passed since than year I had yet been alive at the time. He is still one of the largest influences on my life. If you want to know more about him you can click on Tim's Stories under my links. I will mark the day as I always do and have some pretzel sticks and iced tea. And call Lee to talk about old times.

I took some great pictures of the girls last night. I will try really hard to remember to get them posted later today.

The Chase for October

Okay so I am a huge Phillies fan. But since living in Ohio and having several friends who are Indians fans and having gone to several games with them, I have become a huge Indians fan too. So much so that while my wife was watching her season premier last night,(and since we have only 1 tv, 1 too many really, but anyway..) I couldn't get the Indians game on the radio inside so I went out to the van to listen to the game until her show was over. In case you are not aware, the race to get into the post season is close as ever in both leagues. As few as 1/2 to 2 games separate 3 - 4 teams from wild card spots or even division leaders. It has never been a better time to be a baseball fan!!!

Ouch

We are all feeling better now. Except I have an infected syst on my arm. Hope everyone else is doing well. Promise to put a real post up soon, just been really busy lately. Being praying for me, I preach on October 9.

*addition to the events

Somewhere along Monday afternoon I was alone with the girls for a couple of hours. Anna came out with a basket on her head and showed me her hat. Ella was laying on the floor looking up at me and giggling. And I decided I am so ready to be a stay at home dad. Now if I could just figure out how to afford it.

Very Ill

Series of events:

Months ago we plan to take Anna to the rides @ a local festival on 9/10.
Amber starts feeling sick Thursday night.
I start getting a sore throat on Friday afternoon.
Saturday morning my voice is gone.
A few hours later, Anna and Ella have fevers.
The rides for Anna are now cancelled.
Saturday early afternoon Amber thinks she is feeling better.
Later the same afternoon things get worse for her.
Sunday morning Anna seems to be better.
Sunday afternoon Amber thinks she may have an ear infection it hurts her so bad.
Sunday evening Anna's fever comes back.
Monday morning the doctor's office has no appointments.
Monday evening we all seem to be doing not too bad.
Tuesday we are all at work and baby sitters still feeling the effects of the weekend.
Tuesday afternoon you all read this and pray for us.
Tonight we will all feel better!!! Thanks!!

Fantasy Football

I had two live drafts, two nights in a row. One with a group of 10 guys, mostly from my softball team. Another with 7 others from my church including my wife and 2 other ladies. All 3 ladies managed to get the first 3 picks last night and did pretty well for claiming they did not know what they were doing. We shall see. Here is a list of my starters for my two teams in case anyone is interested.

The league with only 8:

QB - D. McNabb
WR - P. Burress
WR - A. Lelie
WR - H. Ward
RB - T. Barbar
RB - W. Parker
TE - A. Crupler / H. Miller Will both get starts
K - D. Akers
DEF -Philadelphia

The league with 10:

QB - B. Roethlisberger
WR - D. Driver
WR - D. Mason
RB - E. James
RB - T. Barbar
TE - T. Gonzalez
K - D. Akers
D - B. Dawkins
D - M. Strahan