Miss Lady DJ

She's got her Gemini mixin with a funky crossfinger and her two 1200s just ready....to let us....have it!

The title of this entry is from the current song I am listening on my iPod. RuPaul's Miss Lady DJ. From her first album. A great song to get down and funky with.

Well, I have so much to update everyone on. I don't even know where to begin.

I have been elected on the Board of Directors for the Cooperative. So I will serve for three years as secretary.

Scout and Sneakers were taken into the Vet today.

Scout has nothing wrong with him that the vet could find. We were worried, because he used to weigh 25 lbs. and now he ways 9 lbs. The doc thinks he may have a thyroid disease, so his metabolism is running high. If we fix the thyroid issue, he could have kidney failure, so we will leave the thyroid and just keep an eye on him. He also has arthritis, so we have to make sure he doesn't have to jump to far for anything. (Translation: Lots of carrying and babying the poor kitty!)

Sneakers we brought in because he had this lump growing on the back of his spine. And it got big. They believe it is cancer, but to tell if it is benign or malignant would cost $1000. To treat it would cost even more. So we are leaving it. They think it is benign, because if you touch it, it doesn't bother him. If it was malignant, it would be painful. So we need to watch him and if it becomes painful for him, then we know it will be time to put him to sleep.

Riley is just a walkin everywhere! Sometimes he runs. It is so cute to watch him walk all over the place. Nothing feels better than to have your child walk to you with their arms outstretched. And he loves to make sounds! Any kinds, as long as they are all different!

We want to plan a trip to Disney World next year and the Disney Cruise. We need to save like $14,000 dollars to do the trip we really want to do.

We would also like to buy land and move our home onto it, with a basement. I still want a Dome home, but that may have to wait...

Hmm.... I really can't think of anything else. I thought I had more than that... oh well.

Good Mornin... Good MORNin'...

Good Morning all you people that are asleep as I write this.

I was out of town last weekend. Went up north to my Sister-in-law's house for the final Family Christmas on my wife's side.

Oy Vay. That is all I am gonna say. We had our fun moments, but, oy vay!

The kids did put on a pagent. That was cute. I use dmy projector to cast a background for them to use. Next year I will take more time and actually create various scenes and stuff!

Nice to be back. I have so much stuff to do though!

1. Scrapbook night on Friday
2. Pinewood Derby on Saturday
3. An online presentation on Thursday
4. finish up PRC stuff this week

Just a lot to do!

Riley is talking nicely, more sounds than actual words, but he is getting there.

He knows some sign language that Amy is teaching him. He can ask for a bottle, food, more and toys. They aren't the actual signs, but he understands when we sign them and he has his own version (with a sound to go with) to tell us what he wants.

He is so smart too! I can't get over how smart he is for his age!

We have a meeting with the Dean of the Elementary and a few school teachers in regards to Dominic.

They think there is some issues there and I think they need to know how to handle him. His actual teacher had no problems with him, when she went off to maternatiy leave, all of a sudden we are having issues... oy vay!

Well, got to get back to the imaginary work to do here...

Christmas Photos

In case I missed anyone, Here is our Christmas Card for this year:


And our "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" one:


And one of me:


And of course, my funny pose:


As usual, all photos were taken by me and the Christmas Card is a Bert Jones Original! Enjoy!

Christmas Memories

Well, Christmas is over. Seems like it went by so fast this year.

The kids got a lot of presents this year, I think they got everything they wanted.

Where to start, where to start?

This was Riley's first Christmas, so of course I had to videotape them coming down the hallway. Seeing all the presents and then reading Santa's note... too bad I didn't hit the record button. So they had to 'do-over' the whole thing! LOL.

Riley was his usual smiley self. We tried going round-robin style with the presents, but he was getting unhappy, so we had him open all his. (Grandma helped). He liked ripping the paper open.

Mikayla got a doodle bear, some other toys and hair stuff.

Dominic got He-Man toys that he was really excited about! Lego Star Wars (which him and I played on Christmas day and Yesterday. We have finished both episodes and only have episode 3 left!

Courtney got hair stuff and a few other goodies (I honestly can't remember what thought, I know some stuffed animals).

The kids all got Guitar Hero II. I thought they were gonna pee their pants they were so excited! I also got the whole family a 300GB network storage drive to store all their files, since we all shared computers around the house.

Amy got the food dehydrator she wanted, a makeup kit from Mikayla, A bath set from Courtney and one from Cindy. A crystal Lamp (pink) from Dominic.

I got some scrapbooking supplies (Oh and so did the girls!) and a pajama/sleepwear set and a replacement white long sleeve shirt that got ruined in the wash.

I will be getting the World of Warcraft Expansion Pack in January as well.

then the family became sick (except me). So that was tough, missed a day of work (add to that getting no holiday pay) so this weeks hours are gonna be really short!

Still really tired from having so much fun though this weekend... Can't wait for New Years Day when I can get drunk in World of Warcraft!

A long overdue update.

Well, it has been quite awhile since I wrote last. And, I guess, a lot has happened that has kept me busy.

Let’s start youngest to oldest.

Riley is getting pretty big. He can stand himself up on things. He crawls VERY fast. The roomba is his friend. He will sneak over there and turn it on whenever he can.

He is also getting in a lot of his teeth. He also gives this great big cheesy grin. Matter of fact, it is the same cheesy grin that Dominic and Mikayla had when they were younger. The one where they scrunch up their whole face and all you see is a big toothy grin. I love it. I could stare at that face the rest of my life and be content.

He also loves the computer even more now. He will play pogo with grandma or Amy, or watch me play WoW.

He still takes his naps with me in the afternoon when Amy sneaks him in bed with me. I never know he is there until he wakes me up. If Amy gets him before I wake up, then they come in around 2:30 and wake me up. There is nothing better than having your baby boy sitting next to you on the bed, gently patting your back to wake you up and going “da da da da”

Mikayla is just like her mother. All attitude. But cute attitude. And she is still my baby girl and still a little princess.

She is still in dance. Unfortunately we don’t know for how long she will be able to stay in dance. She is currently in Pre-Comp. But after that she would go into a competition line. Trouble is, it is EXPENSIVE! So far this year I think comp line has paid about $400 in dues, and that is just since September! They still have more to go!

Dominic is doing pretty well in school. He still will have his moments where he likes to screw around and not pay attention, but we are working on those. He and I have nightly talks. Sometimes we talk about whatever he wants to talk about and sometimes we talk about what I want to talk about and sometimes it is to talk about serious matters (like behaving).

Courtney is doing great in school. Smart as ever, still in the Talented and Gifted Program at school. She does have this knack for turning in homework late. So we are working on that one.

My mom is doing pretty well. She is known around here is the beddie-time grandma. It is her job to put Riley to sleep at night. I think the record is 2 seconds. She literally picked him up, he rolled over to look at her and out he went. He seems to sleep better at night if grams puts him to bed. Sometimes though she has to wear him out by playing pogo with him or watch some TV. It is there special bonding time together.

Amy is busy as ever. It is Girl Scout cookie season and being the Service Unit Cookie Coordinator for the entire Centennial Service Unit (60 troops this year). It is her job to make sure everyone gets their troops order in on time, train the “cookie moms”, and organize all the paperwork. I helped her out this year by putting together a PowerPoint presentation for her to use, so she could make sure that all the trainees (in three different training sessions) got the same information.

I am doing so-so. Working third shift does take its toll. I am always tired. I feel like I never get anything accomplished at home. I still am on the Board at our cooperative. And still the Communications/Marketing Committee Chairperson and Committee Relations Advisor. Not easy work, I am constantly busy.

I have been going back and forth with the decision if I want to run to be on the board again this February, or not. And if I want to stay involved in my committee or not.

• The pro is that I get a say in what happens where I live, I get to be a part of something grand (in its beginnings too!).
• The con is that it takes up so much of my time, some of my neighborhood friendships have deteriorated, I get frustrated with the in fighting and drama.

So I try to figure out if it is really worth it. I know that there is no one else who could do the jobs I do. No one is as organized as a secretary as I am. No one has the skills (let alone the design programs) to do the creative work that I do to try and make this park more professional.

It is also hard being in the ‘public eye’, since I am such a private person.

I hate not having free time and being lazy, like I used to be. Every waking moment is filled with things to do.

But anyways. Enough of that.

Not sure what else I should write. I want to write more, but finding the time is exhausting. I have so many things I want to do. Lose weight, eat right, write more, home projects, office projects. The list goes on and on and on.

In my iPod:

• Aquarius - 25th Annviersary Edition
• Take Me Out - Franz Ferdidnand
• Vacation - Connie Francis
• Eldest - Audiobook (Eragon Book 2)
• Hurt - Christina Aquilera

My Life is My Life

Well, I am on my last week of training for my new assignment. I can’t wait to get started, but I am a little nervous too. It will be different once I am ‘out on the floor’. But I wish all my other clients had training like this. Very comprehensive.

Riley is getting so very big. We had to buy him a new car seat. I can’t get over how happy and smiley he is. Whenever he sees Amy, my mom or me, he just lights up and smiles at us. He loves to laugh at me. I tell Amy, it is because of my hair!

Recently we sat him in from of my laptop and he was so engrossed in it.

He would try and tap on the keys and just watch the monitor. A few days later, Amy put him in from of my moms PC and he would just attack those keys and watch the screen. When something would pop up, he would try and make it reappear by hitting one side of the keyboard and then the other. And if it worked, he would do it again. He is very smart and will be using a computer in no time.

Amy has him on baby food now. He loves it! She will mix the baby food with rice cereal and he just eats it up.

And of course, he loves his snuggle time. Last night mom had him asleep and not 5 minutes later he was awake. Mom put him next to me on the couch (where he could watch me play World of Warcraft) and not 5 minutes later, he was back asleep!

Amy will put him in bed with us, in the early morning, and he will slowly edge his head close to me, and push Amy off the bed with his feet. So she ends up going to sleep in another room and Riley and I have the bed to ourselves. And he will sleep for a few more hours.

Courtney has been gone most of the summer. She switches weeks with her dad, but the last time we had her she was at Girl Scout Camp. Then the when she went back to her dads, she went to their church camp. So she has been just a camping away.

Dominic and Mikayla are both doing good. Just hanging around the house, getting on each others nerves. They play nice one day, fight like hell the next. Usual sibling stuff.

My dad has been in the hospital since June 14, and I finally went out to see him last night. Time just flew by and I had so much going on with the family that I didn’t have a chance to visit him. That, and I don’t like hospitals unless a baby is being born.

Dad had to have the back part of his leg removed, and if it doesn’t heal, they may need to take off his leg from above the knee. He is doing better. He originally went in for pacemaker problems and tiredness and they found out his leg was infected (I think there was a blocked artery). He is not expected to get out for another 8-14 weeks!

Not much else has been happening around the house. Been pretty quiet.

Currently in my iPod:

• Popular – From the Broadway Play WICKED
• Evanescense
• Beautiful to Me – Dolly Parton
• Not Ready to Make Nice – Dixie Chicks
• Everything for Free – K’s Choice
• One – Mary J. Blige & US

He Works Hard for the Money

Well hello all, it has been awhile since I wrote.

I started a new job on Monday. I am working with a company in St. Paul. I have three weeks of training during the day and then I will switch to 3rd shift.

Not quiet looking forward to the whole 3rd shift thing. But it is more money, and then Amy will have the car during the day.

Riley is making lots of sounds. He is figuring out his voice and making noises from low to high squeals. He likes to gurgle and goo. He is getting so big as well.

He had a doctors appointment on Tuesday and he is in the 90 percentile in weight, the 75 percentile in height and 99 percentile for his head size. So that means, he can hold his head up, but not for too long, because he is 'top heavy'. His head is too heavy for him. Hopefully by his next appointment in 2 months, that will have corrected itself.

Other than that, he is doing great!

His hair is growing out so he looks so cute cause it is spiking on his head!

He had a doctors appointment yesterday and it seems he has an ear infection. We had thought that he was teething (he wasn't rubbing his ears at all) so we were giving him teething gel and a teething ring and it seemed to work. To doctor told us why it seemed to work was because it was relieving the pressure in his ears as he would chew on it.

We also had the doctor look at his big toes. Ever since he was born the nail on those two toes grew a little different. And his big toes were very red. Well, it turns out they are infected. So we have to clean them out and apply antiseptic on them to help them heal.

He also had two shots in his leg. So Tuesday night he had a fever. From the ear ache and the shots, he wasn't very happy. He just wanted to snuggle. Poor guy.

He seemed to do better in the morning, although his fever was starting up again.

Not much else is going on. I will keep ya posted!

This Ain't the Life For Me

Well, it has been a month since I last worked with Best Buy.

In that time I have:

1. Scrapbooked
2. Cleaned My Desk
   
3. Tried to Find a Job
4. Been Re-elected to serve on the Paul Revere Board of Directors
   
5. Worked on cooperative issues
6. Cleaned my Desk
   
7. Prepared for photographing a wedding in June
8. Cleaned my Desk
9. Helped Amy organize stuff
10. Cleaned my Desk
11. Been to Dominic's Spring Celebration at School
12. Cleaned my Desk... Did I mention this already?
    
13. Been to Mikayla's Kindergarten Program
14. Taken a Shower

Okay, so I took a few more showers in between there, but lately I have felt like a bum. I don't know what I would do if mom wasn't living with us. She has kept us afloat.

But, I hopefully will have an assignment starting June 26th. It is second shift (yuck) but it is work, will last 3-4 months. So keep your fingers crossed.

Riley Update: He is getting that cute baby fatness. He looks just like Dominic and myself. He is so cute. We even do this 'Bounce, Bounce, Bounce--Wiggle, Wiggle, Wiggle' that he gets a kick out of.

And he just loves his daddy! When Amy plays with him, she will get a smile and maybe a chuckle. But when I play with him, he must think I am hysterical, because I get these full-belly laughs. It's great!

Riley also loves our cuddle time in the morning. While Amy takes the other kids to school, he comes and sleeps with me in bed, and we both get a few more hours in. We usually don't wake up until about noon. At which point, Amy comes in and complains that we both stink and need to get out of bed! Riley and I are both 'heaters' and give off heat.

OH! Before I forget. A few weeks ago, Mom and I were up late watchin a movie, and she finally got him to sleep, so I stayed up a bit more and watched some TV.

I finally went to bed about 1 a.m. and just as I finally fell asleep, we wakes up. It was 1:30 a.m. I was so upset and frustrated, Amy was telling me to just calm down, it was okay, so I finally just brought him in bed with Amy and I. She turned on her side to face us, and I was kind of on my side with him in the crook of my arm.

Riley, looked at me, then turned and looked at Amy, then turned and looked at me. He did that a few times, back and forth, back and forth, finally he snuggled back and sighed. It was like he was saying, "I have Mommy, and Daddy, Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy--I can sleep now."

He then woke up a second later and did it again to make sure we were still there! It was so cute, I was no longer upset and frustrated!

Well, time for me to clean my desk. Talk to you all later.

Riley is here!

Well, I was gonna write out the entire 3-day stay at the luxurious resort of Fairview Hospital. But I don't have that much time. So here is the skinny:

We arrive at 6 a.m. They did their usual checks. Amy got an IV (and did very well for not liking needles) they started to induce her on a very small drip of Pitosin around 7:30 a.m. Her contractions started naturally on their own and they did not need to up the dosage.

We debated if she would have a spinal shot of Phentinal-Markane to numb her from the waist down around 9:00 a.m. Which after a few minutes made her blood pressure drop down to 68/39, And it is usually 140/70. So they had to flush her with fluids through her IV to get her BP back up for about an hour. With the last two she never had any pain medication (the nurses were too late in getting it to her)

After a few hours of that (around 10:45) Amy's contractions started getting harder (she said is was more pressure than pain). The doctor walked in, and she had one push while the Doc was putting her stuff on. Once the doctor was set Amy had three more hard pushes and Riley was out!

That was pretty typical with the other kids as well. Amy does very well at childbirth.

We were able to rest for a moment and then they moved us across the hall to a smaller room. Where Amy, baby and I all took a small nap.

We did find out, while Riley was getting his photo taken, that the people before us in line live in our community.

We came home, to a room full of drawings by the kids.

To see photos go here.

Tis the Season to be Jolly...

Fa La La La La, La La La.....BLAH!

I haven't posted in a while, but a lot has been going on. Well, not a lot, but enough to keep my lazy.

I may have a job beginning in January, so hopefully that will go through.

We are busy, busy, busy making Christmas presents for everyone.

Not much else is going on. Amy has had to take it easy for awhile. Riley has been a little too active. She had early contractions a few weeks ago. But she is okay now, she just has to take it easy and relax.

Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Boy

Well, it’s official. We ARE having a boy.

We had our first official Ultrasound today, by a registered sonographer(?) and she confirmed that it was a boy. We even got some new pictures...

The first photo is of his face. He kind of looks like a He-Man character I have called Man-E-Faces. I told Amy he is wearing a mask for Halloween already.

The next one is his foot. I have outlined it for you.

And the last one is his body and head.

Sweet, Sweet Baby

Well, I think it is time for a baby update.

Riley is doing good. He is keeping mom on her toes. Literally, her sacroiliac joint is acting up and it is hard for her to sit or lay down. She is borrowing her grandmother's lift-chair that her mom had.

She has had to stay off her feet. It seems that when she was pregnant with Courtney, she slipped and fell on her tailbone. She damaged her joint and her doctors have never done anything about it.

And none of the other doctors ever looked into it. Of course, it never happened until the last two months of pregnancy, so it wasn't that big a deal. She just was given bed rest and was fine.

But this time it started up in her 14th week. So our new doctor was concerned and sent her to family practice, which put her on Physical Therapy to correct this. The PT was so pissed that the doctors never looked into this, and was amazed that Amy was even able to walk.

So she goes in about once a week. We have another ultrasound next week. Hopefully they can confirm that we are having a boy. The first ultrasound surely shows something, but there is still some doubt. So, hopefully we can put this to rest.

We have the crib now, the stroller, some clothes, a few toys, some stuffies. So we are gettin ready.

I honestly can't wait. I love being a dad. It is such a wonder to watch my kid grow up from these curious dependent little things, to these independent - know it all - little people. But their my little know-it-alls.

Well, I should turn in for bed. Another round of edits on my current assignment.

I should go outside and see if were flooded yet.

G'nite

(ultra)Sound The Horns!

It's official!

Riley Montgomery is due March 7th!

I am very excited. And the fact that it is a boy! Now we will finally have some sort of balance in this house. It's been 2 boys against 3 girls for too long!

We are so excited and here is the ultrasound.