Worst Toy Ever

Today while shopping I decided to buy my little Princess a new toy. I thought the Fisher-Price Baby Gymnastics 1-2-3 Tetherball looked like it would be loads of fun for Libby to play with. It is horrible. Libby and I became bored with it in the first 3 minutes. One of the play modes is "tethered mode", where "as baby grows, keep the ball attached with the tether. Encourage baby to bop it right off the base, roll it around, and crawl after it." But the problem is, the tether is only about 2 inches long, so the ball has no place to roll. The sounds and music are horrible and way to short. This toy gets 2 thumbs down.

Speaking of toys, Rudi's mom emailed me this cute video clip of Rudi unwrapping his Nintendo 64 on Christmas Morning. He sure was an excited little cowpoke.

Pick Pickler

My niece Maddy and I are huge fans of Kelly Pickler from American Idol. I found this horrible picture of her before prom on BWEB. I thought she was a good wholesome southern girl.

Standing Libby

While Libby hasn't gotten the hang of sitting up yet, she has started to stand on her own (with the help of her music station and her Dad standing behind her to catch her when she topples).

Don't Shoot the Puppy

If you have some spare time have fun playing this game. It is much more difficult then it seems. I haven't been able to make it past the second level. I bet Rich won't make it past the first level.

TV shows I watch

I have been asked to again post a list of what is on my DVR. With new shows popping up all the time, it really keeps me on my toes staying current.

Sunday:
Malcom in the Middle (final season)
King of the Hill
Simpsons
War at Home
Family Guy
Free Ride (replacement for American Dad)
Sopranos
Big Love
Number One Single
Surreal Life

Monday:
King of Queens
How I Meet your Mother
Two and Half Men
New Adventures of Old Christine
Prison Break
The Apprentice

Tuesday:
American Idol
Hope and Faith
Scrubs
Teachers (starting this week)
Sons and Daughters
The Real World (great season so far)
8th and Ocean
Blow Out
The Amazing Race

Wednesday:
Black. White.
Out of Practice
Courting Alex
American Idol (results show)
The Heist
Good Eats
Ham on the Street

Thursday:
Will and Grace
Four Kings
My Name is Earl
The Office
Survivor
The Loop

Friday:
The Soup
Best Week Ever

Saturday:
This Old House Hour
Hometime
The New Yankee Workshop
Saturday Night Live

My new favorite TV find is America's Test Kitchen, it is on 4 times a week here. It is a PBS cooking show and I have found more good recipes there in the past few weeks then on the Food Network in the past year.

People always ask, "How to you find time to watch so much tv?". I always tell them that you find time for the important things in your life.

Don't Avoid the Noid

I never thought I would be saying this after what they did to my brother Dave, but Domino's Pizza is excellent. It has been at least 15 years since I have had a slice of pie from Domino's, but in the last two days, I've had 1 1/2 medium pizzas for various meals. On Sunday night after finding nothing in the house to eat, Beth and I order the 5-5-5 deal (three medium pizzas each with one topping on them for $5 apiece). I think it shall be a while before I order from Papa John's, they are way to expensive and their quality has really gone down in the past few years.

By the way Rich, the toppings we got were mushroom, sausage, and ham.

Great Article

I read an article today on the BWE Blog that really spoke to me. I have been saying this exact thing for years. While my choices of shows may differ, I still feel their pain. You would think having a dual channel recording DVR would help, but there are nights that there are three shows on three different channels on at the same time that I would like to watch. The solution has been to record two shows and watch the third one in the other room, not a great cure, but it works. Most of the time I have 75-85% of my DVR full, barely watching enough TV during the day to make room for the new shows at night. Some might say "just stop watching so much tv", but we all know those people are being rudiculous. Here is the article:

I've been frustrated for a long time by the fact that there are too many good shows to keep up with, but last night after The Sopranos, I reached my breaking point. Already exhausted from having been through the tense campaigning in The West Wing, I was totally drained after watching Tony fighting for his life and his family just fighting. So drained, in fact, that I couldn't watch Grey's Anatomy. I had planned all along to Tivo Desperate Housewives and Big Love, but missing out on Grey's was just too much. How am I expected to be able to talk to my coworkers about Sunday television on Monday morning when I can't even watch half the good shows?

Now, you might be thinking that it's not such a big deal and that I can just catch up on the second-tier Sunday shows on Monday. But then when do I watch Wife Swap and 24? Do I Tivo them while I watch stuff from Sunday? And then what happens to American Idol? Scrubs? Do I put those off too? And don't forget about my Netflixers. I'm in the middle of Lonesome Dove, but I've been stuck at the beginning of the cattle drive for a week because I can't squeeze it in to my viewing schedule. What's worse is that I hear about all these other good shows that I can't get to like Lost and House, to say nothing of the stuff on FX, Showtime, and who knows what else.

So I have a request to all the network executives out there: Stop making so many good shows!

Bucket-head

Not many toys hold Libby's attention for long. But these soft buckets that her Aunts Rudi and Errin got for her for Christmas are her new favorites.

Click here to see more of Bucket-head Libby.

Oxymoron

Helpful IRS. Yes I know it sounds like an oxymoron. Today I got a letter in the mail from the IRS stating that instead of getting a large refund I actually owed $59. They said that one of us didn't have a social security number and so we weren't eligible for the child tax credit. I figured it was our big goverenment at work and they messed up with Libby, as she is new. Of course I had double checked all of our social security numbers before I mailed in the tax returns. So as usual when I have a problem I call my Dad, but he wasn't home. So I called the 800 number on top of the letter, figuring I would be on hold forever and have to make 20 other phone calls and fill out pages of forms. As I was waiting on hold for about 20 seconds after only having to hit two options (1 for English and 1 for tax refund questions) I looked at Libby's social security card and at the copies of the tax forms I had and noticed I had entered a "7" instead of a "1" for part of her social security number. So when the guy answered the call I explained the situation to him and he had everything fixed within 10 minutes. I don't even have to resubmit anything. He couldn't have been any nicer or more helpful. He even asked how Libby was doing. So I say "Yay" to the IRS.

It was definetly worth my 10 minutes on the phone for the $1800 swing.

Delirium

This afternoon Beth was given two tickets for us to go see Delirium by Cirque Du Soleil. We have seen a few other shows by them in Las Vegas. Jen was nice enough to babysit Libby. We delivered ourselves to the Fed-Ex Forum at 8 p.m. sharp. Then there was a 20 minute opening act of some crazy lady singing along with her band. Then a 20 minute intermission before the real show got going at 8:40. The show got off to a very slow start, lots of singing and not many feats of strength. It continued this way until about 10 when they started hulu-hooping and doing some outragous strong man stuff. I guess what I was most disappointed in was that 90% of the things they did on stage, I could have done myself. For those of you who have seen "O" or Mystere this was NOTHING like that other then both are under the Cirque Du Soleil umbrella. As Beth said, it was like watching "O"'s red-headed step-child perform. All I know is that I would have been very angry if I had shelled out $115 per ticket to see this. On the brighter side, we had great seats, about 12 rows from the stage right in the center and we got a nice evening out by ourselves.

Rich made it on QVC

Looks like Rich loves his new Dell that he got on QVC.

Solid Food

Last week Libby tried a piece of solid people food for the first time. At the suggestion of her pediatrician we bought her mesh food holders. You cook the food until it is soft and then the baby can suck on it throught the mesh and not choke on any large pieces. She tried a carrot and wasn't overly impressed with it. Oh well we will have to keep trying. After all Libby's cousin Matthew didn't eat solid food until he was 4 years old.

The Munchkin Fresh Food Feeder can be found at most target stores (we bought ours at the SuperTarget on Germantown Parkway).

To the zoo we go

Libby woke up on Sunday morning with a smile on her face and a hunger in her tummy. She seems to have totally recovered from her sickness. Since it was a beautiful sunny day and was suppose to get in the mid 80's we decided to take Libby to the Memphis Zoo before running the rest of our errands. She seemed to really enjoy it. Her favorite animals were the brand new polar bears that just arrived in time for the March 1st opening of the Northwest Passage exhibit. There were 3 of them and they swam and played in the water right in front of us.

After the zoo we went to our favorite mexican restaurant for lunch, el Porton. The food was great as usual, but I made the mistake of telling the waitress that I needed two more minutes to look at the menu before ordering and of course she took 10 minutes before she came back. Since Beth was very hungary, I am lucky there were chips and salsa on the table for her to eat, or I would have gotten a beating.

From there we went to Target, Micheals, and Old Navy to get me a new pair of pants.

We would like to thanks everyone for the nice calls, emails, and letters asking how Libby was doing. You can all rest easy knowing your granddaughter, niece, and friend Libby is doing just fine now. If you would like to see more pictures of Libby in her "going to the zoo" outfit, click here.

Healing Power of the Weiner Dog

I am sure all of you have heard the old Irish folk stories about the healing powers of the miniature dachshund. Well it seems to be true. Stretch hardly left Libby's side the entire night that she was sick. Libby would reach over and grab at his fur or yank on his ear. She has quite a grip and each time Stretch would wince in pain until we could get Libby's hand off of him. But at no time did he growl or try to bite Libby. He is a good boy. As I have always said, Stretch has NEVER tried to bite a good baby.

Poor Baby

Beth had a much needed weekend off, so we decided to go and get Libby's six-month pictures taken today. In the past we had gone to Sears Portrait studios and have had horrible luck. Libby cries alot and the pictures don't look very good. So this time we went to Picture People in the mall. They shoot with film instead of digital and the pictures turned out great and they are ready in about an hour. They are a little more expensive, but well worth it.

As we were driving home from the mall we stopped at Backdoor Burger to get lunch. As we pulled into the parking lot Libby vomited up a copious amount of formula and applesauce. For the next 4 hours she threw up and screamed the entire time. Around 5 p.m. we finally got 1/2 ounce of apple flavored pedialyte to stay down and then we got her to drink about 2 ounces every hour until she fell asleep exhausted at 9 p.m. Hopefully she will feel better by tomorrow.

I know most of you are probably blaming Libby's friend Isabelle for getting her sick, but we don't. I am sure Isabelle didn't mean to do it.

Libby Lou

Libby is really starting to grow up fast. She is now rolling over from her belly to her back all by herself and with a little prodding will go from back to belly. Isabelle's mom, Jen, has been giving us lots of good exercises to do with Libby to improve her arm strength and coordination. Jen promises to have Libby walking before she is 7 months old (2 months before her cousin Matthew).

As you can see the exercises are really starting to pay off and Libby can now stand by herself while leaning up against the ottoman. One week ago she was unable to do this. She still can't seem to get the hang of sitting by herself, but we work on it everyday and am SLOWLY seeing improvement.

Odd Landscaping

It's springtime in the mid-south and flowers are beginning to bloom in our yard. We were quite shocked when we saw what a plethora of plant life we have growing in our jungle of a backyard.
Some are coming up in the middle of the lawn.

While others are growing through the rail-road ties that separate the "lawn" area from the "foresty" area.

And we are still trying to figure out what the previous owners of the house were doing when they planted this in the middle of the yard. It is almost a perfect rectangle and then dotted in the middle with random plants. I have tried standing on the roof to see if from the sky it forms a word or picture, but it dosen't seem to.

Laughing Libby

Here is a cute video of Libby laughing at her toy firefly (and by "her toy" I mean her cousin Elise's). I apoligize for the poor quality of it, but the camera we use to take short videos with is out of commision because my brother Dave hasn't yet mailed me one of his spare batteries that he has laying around (and isn't even using anymore). So it had to be filmed using my cell-phone.

All is good

Libby went for her follow-up appointment with the pediatric ophthalmologist today. After applying the cocaine eyedrops twice to her eyes and then waiting 30 minutes, it was confirmed by the doctor that Libby does not have Horner's Syndrome. She just has one pupil that is a little bigger then the other, or in medical terms "Opticus Stinkus".