Thursday, April 24, 2008

The Next Generation

As most of you are aware, I work in the cable industry so I pride myself on knowing how to use a DVR (TIVO), the difference between HD and SD (4:3 vs. 16:9), watching Video On Demand programming etc. You get the jist (if you are not familiar with a DVR or VOD stop reading because the rest will not make sense). Of course Logan and Peyton are also very much aware of these as well. I found out yesterday morning before I went to work just how familiar they are with these technologies.

Logan was in our room and asked to watch TV which I responded with "Get dressed for school and then you can watch TV." Whoever said you shouldn't negotiate with your kids must not have had kids, how is a parent supposed to get through this thing called parenting without negotiating (do tell...).

Logan is getting dressed and I am putting on my socks. He was very worried that I was going to leave for work without turning on the TV for his highness. I was dressed and I turned on the TV (Higgleytown Heroes on Playhouse Disney...gotta give the company its props and promotion, they still sign the checks) before Logan was in my room. Ten seconds later, Logan was in our room and was very distraught that the I turned the TV on before he came in the room. The conversation followed like this:

Logan: "Daddy, rewind the TV."
Me: "Logan, I can't do it on this TV."
Logan: "Yes you can, rewind, start the show over."
Me: "Logan, I can't do it, I can only rewind TV downstairs where the cable box is."
Logan (Now very angry and wimpering): "Your not fair Daddy, why won't you rewind the TV to the begining of the show."
Me: I looked over at Joie and said "this is insane, yet so very funny and interesting to me" I told him once more that I can't rewind upstairs and asked him to look at the remote and tell me which buttons I should push to rewind. At which point I just turned the TV off then on again real quickly and I think he thought the show started over.

On my way to work, I couldn't stop thinking about the conversation. I ended up calling my boss and telling him the story. He was laughing at the whole scenario and he said it would have been a lot funnier if Logan would have said "Hey dad, stop being such a cheap a$$ and pay the extra $12.99 to get the DVR box upstairs so Mr. P and I can watch our shows when we want to watch our shows."

It dawned on me that Logan and Peyton's generation should be coined the "On Demand" generation. Music On Demand with iPod's, TV On Demand with VOD, DVR's, online video On Demand with You Tube and ESPN360.com (another plug for the company, they are still paying me you know!). So very interesting! I Should have had Logan and Peyton attend the "How Cable Goes to Market" training that folks from my work attended.

Friday, April 4, 2008

You hit the jackpot!

Obviously its been a while since I last put a post, SIGH...it's late and I am D-U-N (thank you Natalie BB9!). It maybe a few days until our next few posts...its' almost Spring Break and we're gearing up for our visit with Grandpa and Grandma. Until next time...keep coming back, check out our favorite links, surf the web on Google below, click on any of the ads! Each ad counts and pennies will be added to the boys' college accounts. Imagine what a few pennies a day could add up to...you guessed right! A few pennies a day...well it doesn't matter, just keep clicking away!

No April Foolin' here...

On the car ride down, I taught the boys all about April Fool's day. Didn't play any pranks on them, maybe next year, but talked about silly things like, Here's some coffee for you! HA! April Fool's...they just kept laughing and laughing. They even started to get the idea of it and said, we're going to Disneyland...April Fool's. The big thing in our house is when heading to a not-an-every-day-run-of-the-mill location, it's kept tight lipped. So generally that means, they never know when we are going to Disneyland. So their April Foolin' wasn't so far off...

What do we do for birthdays? We go to Disneyland! In honor of Lene's birthday (happy birthday Aunt Lene') we headed to Disneyland. We actually spent most of our day at California Adventure where we checked out the very cool redone Playhouse Disney Live show. We went on some rides, toured the factories and got samples. We even tried the Bugs Life show, but left during the scary part. The highlight of the day was the new Pixar Party parade. Lots of water (terrific for a hot summer day, not so great for a cool spring evening), we were pretty wet.

Sometimes you wonder why people make and sell certain things... these pictures are proof of one of those times!





It's Tough to Be a Bug! Wearing the special "bug eyes"

Silly faces in the stinky fish net on the wharf

Cars, Cars and more Cars

It absolutely amazes me that boys at very early ages, without any prompting know how to take a car and start rolling its wheels and going vroom...

A boy's interest in cars will never tire (no pun intended). And the visit to the Petersen Auto Museum http://www.petersen.org/ proves it. Not too sure who had more fun, Logan, Peyton or Grandpa. All in all, it was a lot of fun and the boys couldn't believe all the different kinds of cars they saw from race cars to candy trucks to Cars the movie cars to Hot Wheels to hot rods to old jalopy cars the list goes on and on...they were in awe and are looking forward to going back again.

The boys with Grandpa and Grandma with the REAL Lightning McQueen






Logan on the left, Peyton on the right in the Indy car, note the background...pretty cool!




In front of the yummiest car of all, the candy car!

Trophies

Well, flag football season is almost over. Yup, 5 weeks have passed just like that! For some reason, the award ceremony did not happen the last week of the season, rather the week before. Adam and I were away at a retreat and the boys were with Grandpa and Grandma. What a treat! They were thrilled to be showing off their trophies. They were just the coolest trophies, since the little football spins around. We do have to have Peyton's trophy redone since Peyton's name is spelled P-E-Y-T-O-N (see video on previous post for clarification) and not spelled Patton...geez, poor guy is probably going to spelling goofs all his life, guess we should have thought about that when we were naming him!

The last game of the season is this Saturday, the boys are so sad. Hopefully it's nothing that a little pizza party can't cure. More on the season in a future post...by the way, not pictured are Adam and I's trophy (coach and team mom). We're thinking of hanging them right as you walk in...just kidding!



How cool is this trophy?



Hurry up and take the picture so I can play with my trophy!



Go Giants!



Thursday, April 3, 2008

The joy of gardening

By nature (no pun intended), Adam and I are not gardeners. Our neighbor however is. He loves to go out and trim his identical three tiered privets. Unfortunately for us, we don't have the roundness and eveness of our neighbors plants. The boys were so fascinated watching our neighbor trim the plant that they decided that they too would trim the plants. Voila! There you have it...working hard and having a blast!





Riding on my bike

So if you read the previous post, you'll see that Logan has ditched the training wheels and is now a regular ace on his bike. And you'll also see that Peyton is now a full-fledged pedaler! WOOHOO! Both boys only needing help on their bikes at certain times, in these videos, Logan needs help getting started and his comfort level with the brakes on the bike are minimal, so he just lets the bike fall to the ground when he wants to stop. Peyton only needs help with the uphill, cause it's too hard mommy!

Pretty soon I will have to get ready for the Look Mom, no hands!

When I am bigger, I will have a bike with two wheels too! Until then, I will master the three wheeler and show you I can wave to you.

Been so long...

What a busy, busy few days we have had! WOW! Every day we don't blog, we lose "millions" of readers and "millions" of fans. So to our readers and our fans, we hope you are still with us and we are back! Well, at least sort of...keep reading!