My Frakkin Blog!

Okay - got them downloaded!  Here are just a couple pictures of the outside of our house, at night.

Hopefully, you guys can make out these pictures okay.

These are the best angles I could get.  I was thinking about taking these at twilight - but - wasn’t sure if the full effects could be seen.  I think I will try to take some twilight pix tomorrow and see how they look.

After looking at all of these pictures, maybe you have noticed the same thing I have  - it is noticeably dark on the right side of my home.  Looks like I’ll need to put up some more lights, at least on the right side of the house.

I’ve also noticed that the corner of the house, just behind the choo-choo train needs something else.  Mary has to work tomorrow - so - I told the kids we’d hit target or walmart and see what other kind of lights or light-up yard ornaments we can find.  They’re really looking forward to it.  In fact, I think I’m looking forward to it too!

Alrighty - got the first set of pictures to show you guys - these are from the inside of the house.  Mary is still buying things to put up on the inside - so - as she continues to add - I’ll take a few more pictures and post them up.

First - a couple different angles of the Christmas tree.  Also - if you take a look at the mantle to the left - you’ll see the countdown calendar that I referenced in an earlier post.  Also - you’ll see that mantle is very bare - well - long story short - while I was putting the Angel up on the top of the tree - I hit the mantle on the way up - which knocked down and broke all the ceramic figurines.  I owe Mary a new Manger with all the pieces, a couple Angels, and one Santa Claus.  Oops!!

I also had to repair the mantle - I knocked it loose!  Also - you’ll notice there are only two stockings - Kylie’s and Ryans.  We actually have 11 - one for each kid, one for Mary, one for me, and one each for the dogs.  But, we figured with a 2 and 4 year old - it would be safer this year if we didn’t put them all up around the mantle.  I would rather have had the stockings up - at least I wouldn’t have broken all the

And - here’s one of the steps.  Mary likes to collect different figures - here’s the beginning of them.  I’m sure there will be more by the end of this Christmas.  Anyway - this is the last of the pictures for tonight - I don’t want to overwhelm you all!

Also - you’ll notice a gate around the stairs - some of you may remember the whole Kylie saga last April when she broke her arm.  For those of you that are new - she fell down from the third step there and broke her left forearm.  I’m kinda lazy and don’t want to hunt through the archives to post it up here - but - if you follow the tags for Kylie - you’ll find the broken arm posts.  Anyway - that gate is now our and her protection.  She can’t get up the steps any more on her own.

Well, of course, what is the next thing that happens all around this country after Black Friday?  Yup - the Christmas decorations start going up.  Well, I always do mine in two phases (mostly because I only have one day a weekend to do it.) - Phase I is all the outside ground ornamentals and decorations and Phase II is Outside lighting and inside.  Mary always does the inside work and decorates the interior.

So, like I said, I completed Phase I today.  I will put the lights up around the house next Saturday.  So, rather than post pictures of a half-complete decorated house - I will take all the pictures next weekend after I’m done.  I’ll take some pictures of what it looks like during daylight - and a set of what it looks like at night all lit up.

So - if I actually have any readers who follow this blog - you can expect to see some pictures next weekend!  Now that there are some decorations up - Ryan is getting extremely excited.  Kylie likes the decorations - but - she still doesn’t have an understanding of it yet.

Can you believe it’s less than one month from Christmas already?  Holy Frakkin’ Cow!

Well - better late than never!

Mary had to work today - so - it was just me and the kids all day.  We’re actually going to celebrate our Thanksgiving feast tomorrow.  The day is going to be quite busy.

Anyway - Mary tells me that working on Thanksgiving day in a hospital turns out to be the same as any other day - extremely busy.  I can attest that hanging out with the kids on Turkey day isn’t any different than any other day I have them when she’s at work - extremely busy!

We had a good time today.  However, I realized that this is actually the very first Thanksgiving where I did not watch any football games!  And..you know what?  I hate to say it, but I didn’t miss it like I thought I would.

Considering how busy tomorrow is going to be, I’m not entirely sure I’ll get back out here - but - we’ll see.

Hope everyone had a great  Thanksgiving.

Well - like I said, I took tons of pictures at Saturday’s concert.  I figured I would share a few more of them here tonight.  I have so many to share - but - I promise, I will spare you all!  I don’t want to be known as that guy that shows the vacation pictures every time you visit the blog!  LOL - kinda reminiscent of the old slide projector vacation pictures thing, eh?

Here’s the first one - this is Murray saying hi to the audience

And..this one is Anthony.  I’m not entirely sure exactly what he’s doing there.

This one is Sam.  They were doing Rock-a-bye Your Bear.  If you don’t know the history - this is the guy that took Greg’s place.  Sam was one of the Wiggly Dancers and Sir Singalotta before they passed the yellow shirt on to him.  Apparently, Greg became too ill to continue performing.  That’s too bad.  I really liked that guy.  He had a great voice.

And..this one is Jeff.  Ryan really likes him…especially when he gets to wake him up!

This one is Henry The Octopus.  He’s kinda creepy if you ask me.

And, finally, here’s Dorothy the Dinosaur

Well..that’s it.  Between yesterday and today - that is all of the Wiggles and The Wiggles Friends!  We really had a great time there!

Hi All - as promised - here are a few of the pictures I took at The Wiggles Concert this past Saturday. I’ll only post a few up here tonight - I’ll post more up over the week - I got a lot!

First up - We got one really happy and excited boy here!

And..if you recall from yesterday’s post - I mentioned that Kylie started coming down with something just as we were leaving…here she is at the start of the concert - she laid in my lap the whole concert

And…here’s The Wiggles coming out in The Big Red Car

And..then I got a really great shot of Wags The Dog

And - this last one here is of Captain Feathersword. He slid down these silk …whatever? As you can see - by the time he got to the bottom - he ended up head first…that guy is a nut!

You can also get a good look at just how close we were to the stage! Way to go Mary! She bought the tickets. Anyway - that’s it for today. I don’t want to fill up the whole page today with pictures.

Like I said, I have many many more - but - I’ll go easy! LOL. I’ll just post up some of the really good ones. And..as I said yesterday, if you have young ones and haven’t experienced it yet - I highly recommend catching a Wiggles concert when they come to or near your town. These guys are great and the kids just love them!

In searching for some pictures for the Wordless Wednesday pictures - I typed in the word “creepy” in google images search - and I found this!

Almost looks real doesn’t it? If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve actually seen the inside of a digit - I could possibly have been convinced it’s real. I found that image here . It was initially captioned as “pacifier” giving the allusion that this is what could happen if you repeatedly suck on your fingers.

Many of you with children who are habit thumb-suckers know exactly what a finger looks like - it gets quite elongated and pruny looking.  But - will never look anything like this.

Anyway, since I found this picture - and I just couldn’t stop looking at it - I figured I would share this with all you good folks.  Creepy isn’t it?  All I know is that whoever actually created this picture did a helluva great photo-shop job on it.

I think what is especially creepy about this whole picture is the fact that the edge around the “holes” actually look little teeth.

I won’t get in to my politics here on this blog - that’s not what this blog is about.  But - what I will say without a doubt is that I am really glad this election is over!

We’ve been inundated for well over two years with political speeches, political ads, political phone calls, and political flyers.  I live in a battleground state - so - for the last three weeks I’ve been receiving flyers in my mailbox every day that were about an inch thick!

One of my kids registered for a party opposite of mine.  So - we’ve been receiving campaign mail and phone calls from both sides!  OMFG!  The robo-calls were getting ridiculous!  It’s a good think I have caller ID.  While I never answered them personally, the fact is - they still went to my answering machine.  I was deleting at least 3 - 4 daily!

Who’s bright idea was it to make these elections last so frakkin’ long?  Does it bother anybody else that those Senators were getting paid by we taxpayers for the past two years even though they weren’t at work?  I know if I didn’t go to work for two years - I certainly wouldn’t get paid.  In fact - I wouldn’t even have a job two years later!

I’ve got a question - what happens with Biden’s seat?  He was re-elected for another term in the Senate in Delaware.  Surely, he can’t be both a Senator and a Vice President can he?

Oh - BTW - If you follow my other blog - you will know that I’ve been invited by Matt Urden of Meltwater. Torrents. Meanderings. Delta to join him and other bloggers in a new endeavor - Inside Government .  I think I’ll be answering my own question really soon!

The purpose of that blog is to provide answers to the many questions that everyone has about the way our American government and politics work.  I’m really excited about joining that great team over there.  Go check it out and see who the other great bloggers are over there.

Well - there aren’t really a lot of them!  Sorry!  But - I have two separate sets - the first set is of the costume we got Ryan specifically for Halloween - that he asked for.  The second set is what he actually wore!

He said he wanted to be Wolverine for Halloween - here he is trying on his costume and posing.  Lil sis wanted in on that pic also!

Another pose for the camera. Watch those claws!

Our little Pirate Princess!  Unfortunately - this was the one and only picture she would let us take of her that night.  She’s finicky like that!

If you guessed he reverted back to his Batman costume for Halloween - you are correct!  I don’t know - he was sooo excited about being Wolverine - until the day finally came.  I guess he likes Batman over Wolverine.

If anything - he just has one more costume to wear now when he’s playing superheroes.

I tried to coax him in to getting a Superman costume also - but - he didn’t want it.  Not because he doesn’t like Superman or anything like that - his reason?

“I don’t have that curl on my head like he does.”

Oh well!

And - lastly - if you haven’t already done so - regardless of who you support in this election - GET OUT AND VOTE!  It’s your right and you earned it!

This time, it’s not because I’m lazy - this time it’s because I’m a dolt!  You’d think that someone who prides himself in being technologically literate would remember that batteries need to be re-charged!

Yup - that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.  I went to upload my pictures to my laptop and the camera wouldn’t come on.  Hmmm…what the?  Just when was the last time I charged this thing anyway?  Isn’t this one of those lithium or titanium type rechargeable batteries?  Aren’t they supposed to last almost forever between charges?

Can’t someone in the industry build a better battery that doesn’t need to be recharged after every 10 or so pictures?  I have that new Sony Cybershot.  It is a great little camera - but - I find myself recharging that battery more frequently than I thought.  I guess it’s better than those other digital cameras that rely on the AA and AAA batteries.  Those barely lasted a day!

Anyway - to those of you who actually were looking to see a few pictures today - I apologize.  I promise they will be up tomorrow after my camera finishes charging over night!

BTW - Steelers vs. Redskins MNF tomorrow night! Booyah!