Happiness, Sadness, Old Pictures, Bad Pictures and Just For Fun

And not necessarily in that order...

1st order of business

Happy Bday Sis. I love you and miss you.

2nd order of business

Disclaimer 1: I am on Day 5 as Mr. Mom and it is 11 pm at night. (although Teri Garr was a blonde and Chrissy is a brunette, I still have a job, and unlike Michael Keaton I only have one kid...so maybe a bad analogy.)

Happiness: Look at the last picture. How does a little boy that runs around in his underwear, using a fake, pink Dora cell phone while wearing Mardi Gras beads not make you smile???

Old Pictures: The picture immediately following is an old zoo pic - taken during another one of my Mr. Mom stints (bad analogy or not, it is working for me so I am sticking with it.)

Bad Pictures: If you remember two posts ago, I already told you I am not a good photographer. It does not help matters that Chrissy took the good camera leaving me with the Gen 1 digital camera from 1999....Might as well replace my cell phone with the back pack communication system used to call in aerial attacks in Vietnam...

With Pictures 2 and 4, E and I are not winning any modeling contests any time soon.

Just For Fun: You can never have too many pictures of me and my serious face. (although to be honest, the real reason I took this picture is because Ethan mangled my sunglasses. So after 18 minutes of adjustments, I wanted to see how straight (or crooked) they were...Not bad not bad....

Disclaimer 2 - Chrissy hates these glasses. No, I am not cool. But I now make a mean Blue Cheese Spread for heirloom tomatoes. Love me for me, so they say....

Disclaimer 3 - Any resemblance of my hair in this picture to that of Gumby is purely coincidental.

Sadness: The picture starting this post is a picture taken in Tacoma, Washington in 2003 - it is a photo of my cousin Jeneva, my grandmother Felipa and me - taken by my uncle Mike (you can see him in the reflection if you look closely.)

My Grandmother passed away a month ago....I still don't think I have dealt with it.

Why is this on E's blog, you ask?

Easy. He never met her. He never will. I harbor regret.

Not only for the fact that I can't post a picture of E with his great grandmother, but for the too few calls, etc.

So at the risk of channeling Ann Landers: call the people whom you care about often. Get pictures of your babies with the people who are important to you.

The babies won't remember.

That is what the pictures are for.

Good night.

Bachelor Pad!!!

With Momma in Chicago this week, E and I are living the lives of free men....

Unfortunately....my freedom isn't quite what it used to be these days when Chrissy travels.

One of the (many) things I promised to do was to add a few posts so Chrissy could keep up on the Ruiz Men.

So Sunday started with me putting together Ethan's big boy potty, which is an attachment that goes on top of the toilet. Let's just say Ethan is not ready yet.

If you zoom in on this pic, you will notice that it is the parents' guide to potty training that Ethan is standing on. 'Nuf said.

After some morning toons, we turned our attention to the real work of the day: FOOTBALL!!!

After gathering up our tailgating gear, we headed over to the rival Viking house of G&G Trish & Doug. We enjoyed brats and dogs and other goodies that are still counteracting all of those boxes of Cheerios I have eaten for the past three years

Yes. I know. It is terrible. That is a Viking bib that Ethan has on. Those are purple beads.....And that is Allie - another Viking fan. In my defense, I have Adrian Peterson on my fantasy team....

Doug - you have no proof I was cheering for AP on Sunday. That is my story and I am sticking to it...

This is Monday morning. Remember the monthly photos from this chair??? Where oh where has my little baby gone????

YO GABBA GABBA!!!

Welcome to my second installment as a 'Guest Blogger' on E's site. I have to start this with the disclaimer that these photos are not Mom approved. As I don't spend much time on blogs (or behind a camera) I don't have much to compare them to....

So a few weeks ago reading the Sunday paper (more than likely on a Wednesday or Thursday night) I came across an add for a Target sponsored event featuring Yo Gabba Gabba. For those of you out there not familiar with Gabba Land, it is Ethan's generation's version of Barney on acid. There are five monster friends living inside of DJ Lance Rock's Boombox. During the course of each show, through songs, art, skits and cartoons, the friends learn important lessons, such as never giving up, eating veggies and my favorite: don't bite your friends.

Anyway, so I woke up today and the reminder came up on my calendar. I did not know much about it and as I did little planning (ok - even less planning than I normally do) I was not sure if I would go or not. But I figured, why not? It was free and worse case scenario we would leave early if it was lame. As it was a 'Reading Festival' I really did not see how it could be cool - Gabba or no Gabba.

So E and I quickly dress and get out to the site (early - can you believe it?!?) and it turns out we have to park and get transported to the site.

Now I am starting to think this is going to be a little bigger than I expected.

We get on the bus and after a 10 minute drive arrive at the site. Much bigger than I expected.....We're talking a mini taste of Chicago.

So Ethan and I trek up a hill and there, on stage, is DJ Lance in person.

Lance gets right to business, and even though it is hot and humid and Lance Rock is wearing a wooly hat and a polyester jump suit, he dances and sings for about 40 minutes.

After Gabba finished, the show did get lame (live children book reads aren't cool at all) but E and I had plenty to do, from the nature center's hawk to paddle boats; we had a great time.

I do have to admit we had to make one stop back at the car as I forgot my wallet. Somethings will never ever change..

E's First Festival
This is Brobee. Hard to believe someone is making millions off of this goofy thing...

This is Ethan's first experience with a sound man at a mixing board. Coincidentally, Ethan was the only kid interested in the sound board to the point they had to rope it off because of him.

In this picture, you can't see him but Ethan is looking at the sound guy. Many a nights I have looked at sound men the same way....wondering what the heck they were doing....

Sadly, Ethan's legs were too short and I had to do all the paddling....I was able to work off the hot dog we just ate.

And here is a little video sample. I am happy to say Lance did not lip sync. Brobee, on the other hand, took a page right out of Britney's book....Shame on you, Brobee. Shame on you.