Happy Easter!

Hello Everyone! It's Lisa here. I am filling in for Joe a bit. I think he has gone on strike with posting to the blog. It probably has something to do with the fact that I keep saying I'll help him get pictures up for everyone to enjoy. Well, I guess I should put my money where my mouth is...

The big Easter festivity we planned was to go to the Easter Egg hunt put on the fire fighters at the local football stadium. Who knew that it wouldn't be so much an Easter EGG hunt but more of an Easter Have-a-bunch-of-candy-in-the-center-of-a-big-circle-in the-middle-of-the-field-surrounded-by-a-hundred-or-so-kids-and-their-parents-who-are-standing-around-waiting-for-a-buzzer-to-sound-so-they-can-make-a-mad-dash-to-the-center-to-get-the-big-stuffed-animal-in-the-center Hunt? Of course, Joe and I seemed to be the only ones who were overwhelmed. It didn't seem to phase Reece or Lorelai one bit. They each had their own method of enjoying the event. Reece got in to the swing of things when he realized one of the candy boxes made a nice rattle noise when you shake it. From there he proceeded to select those for additions to his bucket. Lorelai's technique was a bit different. She found a spot, plopped down on her butt, picked up one piece of candy and placed it in her bucket. Then she took it out and put it back on the ground. Then she picked it up again...rinse and repeat.


All in all it was a fun day. I bought some plastic eggs to hide (i.e. toss on the lawn) for the kids. On Sunday it rained like the dickens, so we did our egg "hunt" on Monday instead. They had a good time. Reece would put the eggs in his bucket and Lorelai would follow him around and take the eggs out of his bucket. It worked out well, because there was a constant supply of eggs to either pick up or take out depending on their choice of activity.

Here are some pics of the Easter egg event:
Lorelai is showing of her piece of candy.

Reece is getting into the action.


Here they are checking out their loot.

Reece liked the candy ok, but the CONES were really something to write home about.

And this is what the kids really liked to do with their buckets.

Catching up on video backlog

Here's a video from the twins first birthday. The balloons were a huge hit!

Here are several random videos of daily life:
Flying Baby
Moo Cow
Lorelai's favorite hat
More Hats

Finally, Reece LOVES to clean the floors. (Unfortunately he likes to make them dirty too, but we'll leave off video of that for now.)
Vacuuming
Sweeping

--This blog posting was a joint production by Joe and LISA :-)

Amazing Grace

If you haven't seen the movie Amazing Grace with Ioan Gruffud (Horatio from the A&E Series Horatio Hornblower), you really should see it. Gruffud plays William Wilberforce, a young British Lord in the 1700's who rises to power and makes it his life's mission to fulfill his uncle's dream of ridding the world of slavery. His uncle, a former slave ship captain, is the same man who wrote the song, Amazing Grace, and later became a minister to try to atone for his sins.

It's a very powerful movie, well acted and inspiring. Definitely worth watching.

Morning Glory

Lorelai was awake and standing up in her crib this morning before I left. I just watched her from the doorway. So cute. She was trying to sleep standing up I think, and kept rubbing her nose with her blanket. She sounded really stuffy. A couple of times she made little sounds that Reece responded to, even though I think he was asleep. He really doesn’t sleep very deeply. I was a little late getting out of the house because I stood there so long.

Watched a movie last night - The Kingdom with Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman, Chris Cooper and Jennifer GArner. Pretty violent, but a great plot, well scripted, acted and directed. Didn't feel great at the end of the movie, but it did keep me watching.

So where the heck have I been?

Okay, okay, I know I've been gone a while. I wouldn't doubt if many readers have stopped visiting. I don't blame you. Life has just been changing a little bit.

Like I said in one of my last posts, I started a new job, and have been focused on getting up to speed on technology so I can be effective in my new role as a lead systems architect. Well, I don't know how effective I am, but I have been keeping to my word about studying my ass off. I've finished three technical books (one over 1500 pages), read god knows how many web sites, and spent my work days cramming as much into my brain as possible. I've been working on ASP.NET 3.5, CSS, LINQ, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server Reporting Services. Yay for me.

To relax, I've spent time reading (probably 7-8 novels/books since Christmas), and playing with the kids. (I'll get to them in a minute, hold yer horses). I just finished a reread of one of my favorite books from my childhood, Lost in the Barrens by Farley Mowat, which wasn't as great as I remembered, but was still a good story. I also finished the last of the Sharpe's Rifles series by Bernard Cornwell (22 books plus short stories in that series that I've read over the past 2 or 3 years), and six books from SM Stirling, which I started last fall. I also read a book called Life In a Medieval Village, which was quite dry, but interesting at times. Basically, I've been a reading machine since I started riding the train. It helps that the writers strike has made TV pretty much irrelevant so I have time at night as well. I don't really miss TV.

I've got a lot more technical reading to do over the next couple of months, but I will try to intersperse it more with something fun. I read for at least 2 hours a day, sometimes longer if I need to, and I think it is paying off. My confidence in my skills is growing, and I really feel that I made the right decision to leave my old job.

The kids are doing great. Both are walking/running around the house. Both have 'Mama' and 'Dada' down pat, and both know that a cow says 'Moo', though Lorelai says it more with a "Mllllll' sound. Her tongue gets in the way a bit.

We went out last Saturday after to a Rhododendron garden nearby to buy some plants for our yard, and they just loved running around by themselves. Reece is high speed all the time, and I spent the time there chasing after him. He just loves being outside. Fortunately, the weather has been great here for the past week, and they've been outside a lot.

Our nanny took them to play time last week at the local elementary school gymnasium, and they both seemed to like it. They were a little in shock, with 30 kids running around, from the sounds of it. Boys kept coming up and hugging Lorelai, which I guess was okay until one of them knocked her down. Reece wasn't used to kids taking toys away from him, since he is usually the taker, but he survived as well. I really wish I could have been there to see it.

We're getting more photos done tomorrow, which is great, except both kids have bruises on their faces from recent falls. Hopefully they can touch that up.

Lorelai is our reader and constantly walks around with a book in her hand, looking for someone to read to her. She's also practicing all the sweet facial expressions and actions to bend us to her will. She loves to lay her head down on whatever is nearby and flash those huge eyes and big eyelashes. I don't know where she learned that from.

Reece is just go go go all the time. He's sweet too, and loves to cuddle, for a minute, then he's off again running circles around the living room. He likes to be thrown high up into the air, and loves to wrestle. He is all boy.

Lisa is doing well, just enjoying her time with the kids. She started talking about doing some blog posting here as well, so she may drop in from time to time to post pictures of the kids. I'll believe it when I see it.

The other thing I have started to do again is write. I have a story in my head, and it's just begging to come out, so I've been spending some time getting it down. I know it's not very good yet, but writing is something you need to practice, and that's what I'm doing. I would really like to get to the point where I could write for a living, but I need to get some success under my belt first. Maybe if I wrote a seven book series about a boy wizard....

Anyway, I'm hoping I may have more time to be blogging in the near future. Things are just settling down, and I'm into a routine where writing is becoming more important in my life again. Of course, the good weather and longer days are just around the corner, then who knows what will happen. We'll see.