A Christmas Carol

The Kids Rock!

Two days before Christmas I took the kids around the block to my parents neighborhood to partake in a little Christmas Caroling. Contrary to what the photo may show, there were quite a few people that went. The kids had a great time and enjoyed singing all the classics. Grandma, or my mom, is the pair of hands clapping in the photo.

As I'm writing this, it appears as though it's Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a great day.

I'm going to get my butt chewed out in the morning. :) Someone neglected to make sure we had blank tapes for the camcorder. That someone, obviously, is me. Hopefully my parents have an 8 mm tape that I can steal. If not, I'll never hear the end of it because I knew the tape that was in there was full. Santa, can you help me out dude?

Enjoy the day with your family.

Christmas Is Approaching...

Joseph And The Wiseman

Just a few more days and Christmas will be here. I hope most of you got your Christmas shopping done, because the buttheads are out there! Shelly did the vast majority of our shopping again this year. She's one of those wackos that starts in October. :) But I suppose it makes things less stressful in the end. A good 80% or so I'd say we did online anyway.

It's been busy lately here on the homefront, as I'm sure it is for most people right now. This past weekend the daycare Cade & Cale go to put on a Christmas performance. Cade played the role of Joseph. Cale was a wiseman. Cale had a blast singing (yelling) Jingle Bells and was dancing all around.

That same weekend, actually the day before, we went to Shelly's Christmas Party for her office. There I got to meet most of her co-workers for the first time. They're all nuts (wicked cool) like my co-workers. It's nice to have people @ work that you get along with. It makes the day a little more bearable when things are a little fun.

Good luck with any last minute shopping! Check out photos of the Christmas Performance and Shelly's Office Party by visiting the Flickr photo site.

Gingerbread House 2005

Gingerbread House 2005

Every year, for as long as I can remember now, we get together with Kelly (Shelly's Sister) and build our own version of a Gingerbread House. Everyone, including the kids, helps out. The guys mainly attacked the manly things like the roof. The ladies basically did the meat of the work and trimmed out everything else.

I was quite happy how it came out this year. Looks rather nice in my humble opinion. ;)

Check out more pictures of the Gingerbread House and some Christmas decorating photos over @ the Flickr site.

Tattoo Factory - Chicago Trip

Cale Is Now Included (Tattoo Before Detail Is Added)

A few years ago I got a tattoo of Cade when he was around 18 months old. I was visiting Chicago on a work related trip and searched the internet for a good tattoo artist. When I got the tattoo, I had it offset a bit so I could add another one when we had another child. Anyway, Cale is nearly 3 now and I wanted to get him added before it got too late. I'd been saving money on the side by doing computer work for a few small businesses I deal with and decided to make a go of it. The picture I used was when Cale was also 18 months old.

Yesterday I flew out to Chicago for the day. Ken, my bro, let me crash @ his house the night before to save on travel time to the airport. Originally the plan was to fly out, do a little sightseeing, and then fly back. But they were calling for some substantial snowfall back home, so the plans got changed a little. I didn't get to do that much sightseeing because I tried to catch an earlier flight back. But by the time I got to the airport, I found out I had just missed the flight before mine by 30 minutes. My flight was 4 hours away and it wasn't worth leaving the airport to do anything because I didn't have a lot of time to play with anymore.

So, I had fun hanging out at the airport watching people. :) My flight got in on time without delay, but snow had started to cover the ground. It snowed fairly good on the way home and it took forever due to having to drive so slow. My head hit the pillow shortly after 1:00 am.

I'm pleased with the tattoo. The picture you see is early on before all the detail is actually added. Right now it's still a little bruised and red, but I'll try and remember to post another picture when it's all healed up.

See some more of the pictures I took of the trip over @ Flickr.