Barry’s Daily Web News

We Have A Working Garage Door

We have a new garage door! The cars are parked inside the garage for the first time in two weeks. The new garage door opener is interesting. It’s a tiny thing, barely larger than the a normal garage door torsion spring, and sits where the spring would normally be. It’s fast, and it’s quiet; I couldn’t hear the door open or close from inside the house.

Sean Misses His Last Soccer Practice

Sean just wasn’t interested in soccer practice this evening. He was still restless, so we took a trip to McDonalds to use the play area. We went to a different McDonalds, and this one was easy to enter the play area, so Ethan could play as well. We ended up going home early because of a false alarm from Ethan. We smelled a dirty diaper. Rather than change it there, we decided to just head home, since it was bath night anyway. It turns out that Ethan just had some noxious flatulence. Oh well. It wasn’t too long after Sean and Ethan finished their baths that it was time for bed anyway.

New Yahoo Search

Yahoo has a new search engine. They are no longer using Google. I’m partial to this new search engine. While searching for Pendegrass on Yahoo, I come up as the top search. While searching for Pendegrass on Google, I come up as number 11.

Ethan Learns a New Word

Ethan’s word of the day is “bubble”. The door to the story room at the local library has glass circles on it. Ethan was tracing the circles with his finger, and I told him those were “bubbles”. He kept repeating “bubbles” over and over again.

The theme for tonight’s stories was noses. The first story was titled “where’s your nose”. I asked Ethan where his nose was, and he pointed right to it. I had been working on ears, eyes, mouth and nose with Ethan, but this is the first time he indicated where one was.

For the older child story time, Sean was very well behaved, and listened to the stories and sang the songs. Ethan was very rambunctious, and I had to take him out of the story room to let him play a bit before returning. What a change from when Sean was the child who could not sit through story time.

A Successful Monday

I survived the day, despite starting off feeling terrible. I even managed to get Sean to gym class without any problems. If I can just get a good night’s sleep, the rest of the week shouldn’t be so bad.

Nice Weather at Last

It was a nice day today, with high’s in the seventies for the first time in a few weeks. Unfortunately, I did not experience any of it. One of the kids passed on their cold to me, and I spent the day resting. I’m not looking forward to next week. Both Sean and Ethan appear to have cold symptoms. Sean looked a little run down today, but Ethan was packed with energy. I wouldn’t mind a cold at all if my energy level was that high. I suspect both Sean and Ethan will be over with their cold long before I get over with mine. Such is life.

Check Your Browser Version:

The new website layout should look like this. If it doesn’t, then I highly recommend using Firefox. Firefox has features that Internet Explorer doesn’t have, such as pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing, and appears to be stable and fast.

Live on the New Design

I decided to break the ice, and go “live” with the new web page design. I still don’t have everything working the way it should, but I decided to move forward anyway.

Some features of the new design:

• More white space overall, larger fonts in general.
• My new logo, attempting to “brand” the BDWN theme.
• Consolidated main menu and search bar, saving room.
• All non-essential navigation move to the right side of the page, keeping the content on the left.
• A “desert” color them, although I ended up going with more green.
• CSS design, no more layout using tables.

If you visit some of the older pages, they will still have the “classic” design. I won’t republish the entire site until I finish all of my tweaking.

Sean Misses Another Soccer Game

I really tried to get Sean to go to the soccer game today. He only has one more game left after today. I convinced Sean to wear his shin guards, so I thought I was in the clear. But, when it was time to go, he just didn’t show any interest. I didn’t want to force Sean, particularly since he has been fighting a cough for the last couple of days.

Sean Picks out a Valentines Day Gift for Mom

Cortney had a long day today, hosting a Valentine’s Day party for the MOMS club. So, I took Sean and Ethan to Burger King by myself. Knowing that I planned to pick up a Valentine’s day gift for Cortney, I went to the Burger King by the mall, instead of the one closer to our house that we normally go to. The play area in this Burger King does not have a ball pit at the entrance. So Ethan was able to climb in, and explore the entire area. He even want up the ramp to the upper level. It was go to see Ethan have fun playing on his own. Sean had fun playing with the other kids who were there.

When we left to go to the mall, I told Sean we were going to pickup a gift for Mommy. He said he wanted to pick out the gift. We went to See’s Candies. They were sold out of the large valentine box of candy, but they still had a nice-sized box with a picture of a dog and cat on it. Sean was happy to “pick” this box. He took it to the counter, and I paid for it. He wanted to carry the bag, and he ended up carrying the bag all the way back to the car. Sean was real excited about giving the gift to Mommy, so I decided to let him give it tonight, rather than tomorrow morning. On the way home, I had Sean practice saying “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mommy”. When we arrived home, Sean was more than happy to carry the bag in and give it to Cortney. I tried to coax Sean into saying what I taught him, but he ended up saying “Happy Birthday, Mommy” instead. Oh well. It was still a cute moment.

Sean Misses Gym Class

I’m batting 0 for 2 for the last two nights. I took Sean to gym class this evening, but we had to leave before class started. Sean had a dirty diaper, and I just didn’t think it was a good idea for him to be rolling around in it for an hour. I didn’t bring a change of diapers with me, since Sean had just went before we left. Next time, I will be more prepared.

Ethan is 16 Months Old

I forgot to mention Ethan turned 16 months old yesterday.

Sean Misses Another Soccer Practice

Getting Sean to soccer practice on Wednesdays is tough. Sometimes I just forget about the practice, and sometimes I have to work late. Today, I remembered the practice, and was able to get home on time to take Sean. We arrive at practice, and Sean refuses to put on his shin guards and soccer shoes. Frustrating.

Ethan the Sneak

I took Sean and Ethan to the library this evening. Ethan has turned into a little sneak. He kept running off, attempting to pull books off the bookshelf, then turn around to see what my reaction was. I also caught him more than once him grabbing one of the trains Sean was playing with and running away with it, hoping Sean would chase him. Overall, of course, Ethan is a good boy. At baby story time, Ethan attempted to do one of the finger plays. He raised his index finger, and waved it around, as per the finger play. This is the first time Ethan has done this. I should mention that Sean was very well behaved tonight at the library, although I won’t mention what Ethan did to his mother earlier today.

A Night with Ethan

It was Cortney’s turn to take Sean to tumbling, so I stayed home with Ethan. I tried reading to Ethan, but he didn’t like my pace of turning the pages (waiting until I finished reading), so I just let him turn the pages however he wanted to. Ethan ended up spending most of the time playing on his own. When it was bedtime, he had no complaints.