Okay… I know… I haven’t posted in a while and then, today, I post twice.  I’m so spontaneous!

Anyways, the purpose of this post…

 It seems that my beautiful wife over at www.bosssanders.com has graced me with an award.  Not sure what I’ve done to deserve such an honor.  I’ve only been blogging now for maybe 3 or 4 weeks.  I can’t have done anything to warrant an award already.

 However… I did get it.  Its the “You Make Me Smile” award.

Just a quick note.  If you think anything that what I write is funny, you’ve got a weird since of humor.  This is supposed to be a serious blog about my life at the speed of dad.  No one can laugh… no one!  Damn it!  Stop right now!

I digress.  Thank you dear loving wife for your sweet and oh so generous giving spirit.  God knows I need it!

Hungry for more “dad” news?  Well check out or new friends over at Alltop.com.

DadSpeed.com was just listed on Alltop.com as I see others before me have as well (Busy Dad, Joeprah, DadThing, etc.).

In their dad section, they’ve listed 30-40 different blogs related to being a dad.

Anymore it seems like everyone is “Going Green”.

My wife jumped on the bandwagon about a year ago and has been dragging me behind her kicking and screaming the whole way, but once I opened up and tried changing the types of things I use… I really never could tell that there was any difference as far as convenience or comfort (except for hair product, face wash, and shampoo - I don’t think I’ll ever be able to change from the products that work so well for me).

So… in the spirit of “Going Green” the wife and I have been using cloth diapers on Baby L.  Not the original cloth diapers that were a pain in the butt to use (you know… the ones where you stick yourself with the diaper pin 5 or 6 times before you can finally get the baby to hold still long enough to fasten them), but the new generation cloth diapers.  These cloth diapers, I’ve learned over this past year, are just as easy as messing with disposable diapers.  And a lot cheaper!

There are no pins only velcro or snaps (aka no bloody fingers or baby) and they have a special coating on them that soaks up the pee and rejects the poo (makes it easy to just toss the stuff out of it)… I know really gross huh?  But, you just take the diaper off, dump whatever is in it, out, and…. uh oh, now what?

How about putting them in a Sterilite container from walmart (less than $10).  It seals up the smell, and it’s clear so you know when to open it, turn it upside down into the washing machine, and turn the machine on.  How much easier can you get with cloth diapers?

So that’s my “Going Green” post for ya… and maybe it just might move you to try it yourself.

Speaking of “Going Green” I’ve designed a shirt for all bloggers that is 100% Organic Cotton.  So if I’ve not convinced you to use cloth diapers but you’re still interested in doing something towards “Going Green”, check out this new t-shirt.  (You can find it on my left menu).

The t-shirt is fully customizable, which means you can have your own blogger logo put on the back for FREE!  Kind of a custom t-shirt that represents your blog world.

So… I’m sitting here at work… working… or at least pretending to work (what person in the computer field doesn’t), and I get this email from my wife.

It seems she thinks I need something to wake me up and make my day better… so she sends me these pictures:

Very Artsy (Yeah… like that’s what I’m thinking)

Work it baby!

I love summer!

You can get these this outfit at Walmart too… of all the places.  Only $7.00. 

Not sure where I was going with this post… I just got so excited about the thought that spring and summer are closer than ever, and I’m gonna get to see alot more shorts (and legs :)) and a lot less jeans.  (And of course… it makes me think of our trip to Sandals Resort in Jamaica coming up in May)

I’ve been doing some research on creating videos and putting them on my blog for everyone to see, and I have some good news.

About 5 or 6 months ago, the wife and I were experimenting with youtube and doing some videos, but using our camera was way too complicated.  We would record the video (on our videocamera that still uses tapes - read “Old”), spend forever uploading the video to my computer via a crappy video capture device (only to then realize that the audio and video would be out of sync - read “Old chinese movies”), try to edit them using Windows Movie Maker (I now have Adobe Premier Pro), and when I was finally finished, spend 2-3 hours trying to upload them to youtube only to then get a message that said it was unsuccessful.

What a bitch!

So… like I said, I’ve been doing some research on video cameras that would make the process simple, and I’ve finally found the perfect camera for making movies for the web.

It’s called the Flip Ultra.  You can find it here: http://www.theflip.com/  I just bought the wife and I 2 of them. Yay!

Using it is so easy.  Step 1: Record  Step 2: Connect to Computer  Step 3: Upload to youtube or edit with built in software

So easy…. A caveman could do it

Here is a Review of the Flip Ultra done by another “youtuber”.

Do you remember last weekend when I posted about Baby L eating leaves at the park?  Well… it was probably around 60-70 degrees that day.  Oh so beautiful.

 But today… snow everywhere.  I think we got about 4-5 inches, which is a lot around here… especially since it’s the second weekend in March.

I’m ready for warmer weather… but it seems like Baby L isn’t.  Instead of trying to eat leaves… we had her eating snow.  She was hesitant at first, but after I got her to eat some, she seemed to enjoy it… except for the cold part.  And I could definitely tell that she still prefers those leaves.

We didn’t spend much time outside in the snow because we didn’t want Baby L sick again… but if you’ll click the picture you can see some of the photos we took of the fun.

In the fight for who is better among the democrats and the republicans it seems America has overlooked the real political party…

The Angry White Man!

Gary Hubbell of the Aspen Times has written an article explaining the overlooked party and just what they stand for.

I don’t want to get into any political debates here… just thought it was an interesting, and very funny article, and you may even be a part of this party and never knew it.

Click here to read a pdf version of “The Angry White Man.”

Okay… I’m squeezing this post in just before midnight.  I’ve gone all day thinking, “I don’t have anything to post about today.” But here at the last few minutes of the day I’ve come up with something.

As you know… my wife runs the blog over at First Impressions and does a very good job of it, might I add.  She’s put everything she has into her blog for the past 3-4 months and it shows.  She’s got quite a following.

But… she is splitting off and is now going to put some of her energy into a second blog… a more personal blog.  Check it out here: www.bosssanders.com.

Yes, you read it right.  It says Boss Sanders.  For some reason she thinks she’s the boss around here, and instead of busting her bubble, I continue to let her think she wears the pants in the family.  (Did I just say that out loud?)  I mean… she is the boss… yeah…  I love you hunny!

Anyway, check her out.  I know she’ll go just as far with this as she has with First Impressions.

Ok… so today was a very uneventful day… just normal work, then come home in time for Baby L to go to bed… so I’m trying my hand at a little blog topic created by my beautiful wife over at First Impressions.  And since I love to cook and love to eat even more, here you go…

Easy Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients:

•  1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed

• 1-1/2 cups  finely chopped cooked chicken

• 1/2 cup O’Charley’s Blue Cheese Dressing

• 1/2 cup  Hooters Buffalo wing sauce

Directions:

1. MIX all ingredients in medium microwaveable bowl.

2. MICROWAVE on HIGH 5 min. or until cream cheese is melted and mixture is heated through, stirring after 3 min.

3. SERVE hot with Ritz Crackers.

*Note - Not responsible for addiction problems.

I see fire and I see rain.  That’s what I was singing today when I got home from work.  What does this have to do with anything you ask?

Today was the day I told the wife I’d cook some steaks on the grill.  Today was also the day it happened to be raining.  Not just your ordinary rain, but I swear it could easily have been mistaken for a monsoon.  I fired up the grill anyways, backed it up to the edge of the garage, and stood just inside the garage door as I cooked some of the best tasting steaks I’ve had in a long time.

What does this have to do with my life as a dad?  Well, nothing really, and I guess the fire and rain part is covered with this story, but the fire I’m talking about has nothing to do with grilling steaks in the rain.  My fire has to do with the fire starter I used to start the grill.

I stood in front of my 10 month old baby girl, and clicked the fire starter.  She followed the flame with her eyes, amazed at what she saw.  Then I took a breath and blew it out.  I did it a few times while she watched.  Then I lit the starter one more time and held it as close to being in front of her as I could where she couldn’t reach out and grab it.  Then the most amazing thing happened…

She took a breath and blew at the flame.  It wasn’t a strong enough breath to blow it out, so I let the flame go out to make her think she did it herself.

She laughed.

Kids are amazing, and Baby L is absolutely the smartest baby alive.