Its A Boy (At Least It Will Be)!

Erica and I are happy to report that by October 1st, Brady will have a new brother.

Adventures in Fatherhood: Building a Swingset

A swingset can't be that hard to assemble, right? Wrong! This past weekend, Erica and I took advantage of a deal at Toys R Us and bought Brady a swingset. After bringing home all the boxes on the flatbed trailer, we quickly got all the pieces out of the box and spread out in our garage. Then, we started to look at the 40-step manual. Amazingly, none of the 10,000 wood pieces are marked. In the directions, it is referred to as the "front/back swing side support", or the "sandbox front". It is up to you to find the dimensions of that piece in the glossary, and then serach through all the wood until you find that very piece. Needless to say, it is a time-consuming rpocess. The result of our seven hours of work on Saturday can be seen in the picture, and we are only in the middle of step five. I included a picture of what it will look like when we are finished...thirty years from now. Oh the adventures of parenthood!

The Moss Just Got Greener for the Pats!

With the addition today of Randy Moss to the receiver corps, Brady should have plenty of talent to throw to next season. Nice pick-up, NE!

Try Something New: GRILLED pizza

Yep, you too can use your outdoor gas grill to make pizza. I had heard of this being done, but now I am on a quest to perfect this pizza cooking method. I tried it tonight for the first time. My experiment produced an ok pizza, although it was a little burnt on the bottom. The following is my revised recipe (I'll put up any revisions after I test them).

1. Pre-grill prep: Start with a pizza dough (store bought is fine...Shaw's makes a great one). A baseball-sized dough ball, when stretched out, will yield a perfect personal-pizza size (and make it easy to flip). Brush both sized of the stretched-out dough with EVOO. Get all your toppings together, and take everything out to the grill.

2. Grill the dough: Start with a ripping-hot grill, but make sure you only light part of the grill. Put the dough down on the hot side of the grill. In a couple of minutes, the dough will be cooked enough for you to flip it. When you flip, place the dough ont he cold side of the grill. Now, add all of your toppings, cover, and let cook for about five minutes.

3. My favorite toppings always start with a simple red sauce, a four cheese blend (mozzarella, jack, parm, and romano), and oregano.

Enjoy!

Summer Tease!

For the past two days, we have been enjoying 80+ temperature days. It has been a great break from winter, and it is hard to believe we had a snow storm just two weeks ago (not even). I made the most of the weather....and my yard is ready for the season. I got the grass dethatched, raked, mowed, and fertilized. All of my planting beds have been edged and I just spread 8 cubic yards of mulch in various beds around the yard. I sprayed for ants, and I rebuilt all of my stone walls. Yep, I was busy. I wonder how many calories I burned....

Biggest Loser

I know you have all been waiting on the edge of your seats to find out how I'm doing in Sanborn's Biggest Loser Competition.

Well, I'm in first right now, down 14 lbs. 22 more to go to reach my goal!

18 Months Old Today!

Brady is officially a year and a half today. My my my how the time flies by! Every day, he is adding new words to his vocabulary, and he is learning to do many new things. He is recovering well from his operation. We go in next month for his kidney test, and that will tell us what happens next as far as his kidneys go.

Update on Brady and baba 2 (by Erica)

So it has been one week since Brady's surgery and he is doing fabulously! Although it still looks really sore he is doing so well. Pretty much by the day after the surgery he was down running around. He has had some days that we can tell he has been in a little pain or possibly itchy but he has been such a trooper! Brian and I count our blessings every day because Brady is such a laid back kid. he just goes with the flow! I wonder where he gets that from. Certainly not from me!

As for me I have entered the second trimester. I'm 14 weeks along today. I have had a little more nausea this time around and possibly a little more tiredness (however last time I wasn't chasing around a 1 year old either) I still find it hard to believe that we have a second child on the way. I'm so excited and nervous at the same time, but I guess that's normal. I can't wait to start to feel movement. I remember with Brady how active he was, we'll see if this one is as active.
That's all for now. Both kids are doing well and we hope will continue to!

Biggest Loser

So I've decided to join Sanborn's Biggest Loser competition. The winner takes home $250 and bragging rights for the whole year. People from all over the School District have joined in.

So far so good, after two weeks I've lost a total of 8 pounds. My goal is to lose 36 pounds between now and the end of the competition, May 29th. It may be a bit ambitious, but who knows, right?

My strategy is really not to make too many drastic changes. I'm running two miles every morning and eating better, that's it.