PA weekend

since we weren't able to head out to PA for christmas because the kids were sick, we decided to go out there this past weekend. we arrived friday evening, a little before 5pm, and had a great time until we left on monday morning. we went to the park by the river and went on the "swirly thing" (as charlie called it - we would call it a merry go round) and fed the ducks. kim and nina went to gabe's and ollie's sunday afternoon. while they were gone, charlie and john had their own, mini version of a music weekend, spending about 2+ hours in the music room making beautiful music. and of course, we got to spend some quality time with granny and pappaw.

to see more from the weekend, check out my
pics page and click on the PA and assorted Feb 2009 folder.

sixburgh

big ben did it again. he led his team down the field with 2:30 left and made an incredible pass to santonio holmes, who in turn made an unbelievable catch to win super bowl XLIII. we had a nice spread of wings, chipped ham, guacamole, vege dip, kim's homemade spreadable cheese, cupcakes, cake, and banana cream pie. of course, to accompany all of that food, we had yueling beer and margaritas. even tux, our dog, got into the act.

congrats stillers!

Sorry!

i feel i've been shirking my duties as a blogger by not posting in 2 months, so i'm sorry for being neglectful and will try to make sure it doesn't happen again.

not much going on since my last post, just thanksgiving, st. nick, a day trip with the boys to ny, a special visit to our house by santa riding in a firetruck, christmas, both kids getting sick christmas, the giants getting beat in the playoffs, the steelers making it to the super bowl, a new president taking up residency in the white house, a christening, and our household becoming a part of a much larger family - the wii family.

on a monday at the beginning of december, kim, charlie, joey, my mom, and i went into nyc to the museum of natural history and rockefeller center. it was a bitter cold day, but we were unfazed. we took a 5 minute ferry ride to the city, and then jumped on a shuttle bus which dropped us off about 25 blocks from the museum. after our nice, brisk walk, we arrived at the museum and the large dinosaur that greets you in the lobby. charlie loved the museum. we got to see dinosaurs, all kinds of wild animals. we walked through a live butterfly exhibit, and a live reptile exhibit that included lots of snakes and lizards. it was a great experience and even more fascinating to watch charlie soak everything in. once we were done at the museum, we walked another 30 blocks or so to rockefeller center and went to the "top of the rock." it was beautiful up there. there were incredible views of the entire city, made even better by the fact that we were up there at sunset. we then went back down to street level and got a close up view of the beautiful christmas tree, lit up in all its glory. after we took a shuttle bus back to the ferry terminal and rode the ferry back to the jersey side, we got to our car and quickly warmed up inside. as we were driving home, we asked charlie what was his favorite part of today's adventure - the museum with all the dinosaurs, animals, snakes, lizards, and butterflies, or the top of the rock and the big christmas tree? his answer: "i liked the ferry ride and bus ride the best."
unfortunately, the night before our adventure, i took the battery out of the camera to charge it up, but forgot to put it back in before we left in the morning, so we only had our flip video to use for pictures and movies. with the software that comes with the flip, you are able to snap pictures from the movies that were taken. they are not the highest quality pics, but something is better than nothing.






christmas for us this year was a tough one. we woke up christmas morning and found that santa did visit us the night before, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn't going to be like it was in years past - charlie was sick with a fever. he didn't attack opening the presents with as much fervor as in previous christmases, and really only wanted to lay down on the couch, hoping to feel better. joey was unfazed about the whole thing. he just sat in his chair, taking everything in. little did we know that he was coming down with bronchilitis, which we found out the next day.



this past weekend was joey's christening. john, nina, mickey, and alan came out from pa to join in the festivities, as well as our good friends from new hampshire, jessica and larry mcgondel. jess and larry, along with my brother scott and his wife danielle, are joey's godparents. with my family and kim's family at the church, we made up about half of the congregation. after the ceremony at the church, the party continued at the langosta lounge, an eclectic restaurant on the boardwalk in asbury park. it was the perfect setting. with the bloody marys and mimosas flowing, and the food being exceptionally good, everyone had a great time. and to end the day on a high note for all the folks that traveled out to nj from western pa, the steelers won the afc championship game and are headed to the super bowl. i'd like to think that joey becoming a member of god's family that day was in some way connected to the steelers victory. ;)

also this week, we started giving rice cereal to joey this week, and he loves it. our pediatrician told us back in november we could start giving it to him, but with christmas and all the things we've had planned, we wanted to wait until things slowed down a little before we changed his routine. it appears that he's making up for lost time - he has devoured his cereal the past couple days and now thinks he's ready to upgrade to pulled pork, ribs, and chipped ham (which might be hard since he doesn't have any teeth yet.)

and finally, we got a wii and wii fit this weekend. holy cow is it fun. i got it set up yesterday afternoon and "tested" it with a couple games of bowling, but last night was the official wii welcome into the household. charlie, kim, my mother, and i played it for a while after dinner and had an awesome time. charlie bowled a game first, and did pretty well (i think his final score was 87, which is fantastic considering i thought it was going to be difficult for him to understand how to do it.) after his bowling game, he wanted to do something different, so we chose to do boxing. everyone got into the act - my mom, kim, and even charlie. it was so much fun. i can't wait to fire it up again tonight. and we can't wait to unlock all the different games for the wii fit.

many of the pictures of all of the escapades you read about on this blog can now be found at the following website:
www.picasaweb.google.com/douglasraynor

Enjoy!

Mongo

well, mongo gained another inch and 2 pounds over the last month. at 4 months old, joey is now 26" long and weighs 18 pounds. he also rolled over for the first time this morning! i thought it was going to take another few months for him to do that, due to his size, but he was somehow able to work the momentum generated by his head and torso and rolled himself all the way over to his stomach. guess he'll be crawling soon.

Happy Birthoween

finally, i'm back in the office at my pc and can update the blog with pictures. i've been inside the house the last 2 weeks because we were having our porch painted, and since it was being done by someone we didn't know, i felt more comfortable working in the house than in the garage. now that it's done, i've returned to my 'hood.

this year, we decided that we would have a costume party for charlie's 4th birthday, and that it would be on the saturday after halloween, november 1. starting oct 30, we had a pretty busy schedule for about 5 days. thursday was his costume parade at school, followed by a costume parade on the asbury boardwalk that afternoon. friday was halloween, so you can imagine how hectic that day was. saturday, we prepared for that night's costume party. kim had purchased all kinds of spooky decorations and turned the house into a frightening party vessel. the party was a hit, and all invitees (just family) were decked out in their best halloween get-ups. sunday, we went to six flags great adventure for the last day of its season and had a ball. while we were gone sunday, dick and nancy dropped off a bounce house for charlie to use for the week (they know someone from their church who loans it out to people). monday, we blew up the bounce house and jumped for quite a while. tuesday was charlie's birthday. we went out to dinner and gave him his presents from us that night. we are all now finally coming off our sugar highs, brought on by all the candy from halloween and the 2 cakes kim baked for charlie's birthday - 1 for the party and 1 for his birthday. Both cakes were real cool!

i've linked all the pictures to my online web albums in picassa (google's online photo album storage site). please let me know if you run into any issues trying to view the pics.

Halloween parades 2008

halloween and charlie's costume party 2008

charlie bouncy house and birthday 2008

Mongo

for any of you blazing saddles fans, you know the charactor i'm referring to in the title of this post. if you're not familiar with blazing saddles, mongo was played by alex karras, a defensive tackle for the detroit lions in the 60s and early 70s (you may also remember him as the adoptive father in the sitcom "webster".) in the movie, mongo was a very strong, very large henchman sent to eliminate the new sheriff. however, mongo was defeated by the cunning new sheriff when the sheriff appealed to mongo's only weakness - candy. mongo then became an ally for the good guys and helped them defeat the evil attorney general and his band of misfits (if you haven't seen the movie yet, please watch it - it might be one of the funniest movies ever made.)

we've got a mongo jr on our hands with joey. he's now 3 months old and is 16 lbs and 25" long. he gained 3 pounds in a month, and has already more than doubled his birth weight. that milestone isn't supposed to be reached until 6 months or later. besides mongo, he's also being referred to as "the fire hydrant".

one of these things is not like the other

i just called xm satellite radio to cancel our car radio subscription and was on hold for a few moments. during that time, there was a promo announcement involving the merger of xm and sirius satellite radio. according to the promo, you can now sign up for the best of sirius, "featuring the howard stern channel, the nfl channel, martha stewart, the playboy channel, and nascar." what demographic are they trying to appeal to? do you think martha enjoys being lumped in with that crowd?

maybe they should have included martha in a grouping of stations that include ivan boesky, michael milken, bernie ebbers, dennis kozlowski, and samuel waksal.