Going to LAX + Memorial Day Weekend = ??

This past Saturday, I dropped off my in-laws off at LAX mid morning. I was not looking forward to the trip. Just about everytime I go there I end up circling the airport twice because I miss the terminal drop off or I miss the parking structure that I am suppose to park at. Top that off with the traffic on a major traveling holiday and it's just not a fun ride period. Surprisingly enough I was in and out of the airport within 5 minutes or so. There was no traffic from the 105 freeway exiting and no traffic upon entering the airport. The terminal that I had to drop off my in-laws happened to be the last one. Fortunately just when you enter the terminal areas there's a shortcut straight to that last terminal. Sweet! So I took that and soon enough I found myself dropping them off with no hassle. In, out, bam! That was the quickest drop-off-going-to-the-airport-on-a-major-holiday experience ever. Still, I prefer not to drive up there unless I was taking a trip myself.

Grow, Grow!

Last week Fiona took the girls in for their 4 month wellness check up (4 MONTHS!!! Eek!). Let's just say they need to grow. Vanessa weighed in around 11+ lbs and Natalie weighed in at about 9lbs. Oy! Vanessa is barely on the charts and Natalie is not. I asked Fiona to ask the doctor when we can get the girls off the 3-hour feeding schedule. The doctor said to keep them on that schedule until they hit 14 lbs! Oy! That would probably be at least another 5 months for Natalie. Sigh....

Jadon's Church School Experience

This past Saturday, Fiona and I took the kiddies to Saddleback Church for the 4:30pm service. It is one amazing church with a congregation of 20,000+. The place reminds me of an amusement park with the way parking is set up and the festive atmosphere. Anyways, we dropped Jadon off at their children's class and then we took the girls and enjoyed service. Now the funny thing was when we were done and we picked up Jadon from class, we asked him what did he learn.

We asked "Did you play? Read stories? Sing songs?"
His response was "Eat cookies. Drink water."
We, of course chuckled.
Then he added "Hold girl hand. Like eet!"
We busted out into laughter after that. We figured they probably played some game requiring them to hold hands.
He must have repeated himself about a dozen times after that.

Pictures updated!

All pictures have been updated! Check them out!

Breakfast Surprise.

This morning I woke up extremely tired. -Now remember that I wake up at 4:45am every freakin' morning for work.- I did my sit-ups and weights groggily. I took my wake-up shower with my eyes barely opened and several yawns. When I got downstairs, low and behold, my wife had made me a breakfast surprise! She toasted two waffles with maple syrup, boiled an egg, sliced up some fresh strawberries, and poured me a glass of orange juice. Oh by the way, she even turned on the t.v. and switched it to ESPN! What an angel. What a way to start off my day! Babe, if you read this, I love ya!

Google Stock Watch:

As of 9:33 a.m. Google Stock hit 252.93/share, +11.32. Nice!!!

Watched: Star Wars ep. 3

I got to see Star Wars Episode III with my bud, Steve. I haven't seen a movie in the theater since Shrek 2. I saw in on Friday, 1:45pm showing. The movie was much better then the first two. The acting was much better especially by Hayden Christensen (since he did a piss poor job in episode 2). I guess the more evil he becomes, the less he speaks (which is good). I didn't know the details of how he becomes Darth Vader, but Lucas does a pretty good job on that. Special effects were good and the fights scenes were spectacular. If they were to ever come out with episodes 7,8, and 9 I hope it's directed by someone else other than Lucas and they have a better writer (with better dialogue).

Swimming Excursion #2

Fiona, Jadon, the girls, and I just got back from the pool. I took Jadon to go swimming for only the second time in his life. The first time was a little over a year ago. He seemed to enjoy himself and Fiona and I enjoyed watching him. I love it how Jadon just freely speaks his mind in public. We were in the pool and he looks at me and points at my pecks (don't laugh!) and loudly exclaims "dada's nee-pple, dada's nee-pple!" Then he farts in the pool and he says "Jadon fart! Jadon fart!" Then he busts out with a pretty loud burp. That's probably from swallowing too much salty-chlorinated pool water. Then to top that off he barfs in the water. I quickly try to scoop it out of the water. I think I got most of it out. I think he had some type of cabage for lunch. (*So if you want to go swimming, you probably shouldn't go when there are a lot of babies and young toddlers in the pool.) Other then that he seemed to enjoy himself. I'll try to post pictures of that soon as well as put up the movie file of him belching (we didn't get the barfing one).

Sister Spats

I was emailed by Fiona something that I thought was really funny. Here is an excerpt:

"I was interrupted with Natalie crying all of a sudden. It's unusal for her to cry like this.... I leave them on the bed unswaddled and with the mobile on. Well, Vanessa is such a squirmer that she moved from the spot I had placed her and she was kicking the top of Natalie's head. Natalie did not like that."

And so it begins.....

Another boring day at work...

No patients today, no CEO, no VP of operations, no VP marketing, no IT director, no office manager, so what the heck am I doing here? I have surfed the web to my hearts content and have come to an impasse. I have hit all my news sites probably a dozen times at least and I have probably clicked on all the blog sites that I usually visit just as much (no one is writing out there). There is no work for me right now (and the work that needs to be done, I'm waiting on my IT director). So here I am typing out this blog with nothing much to say at this time. I guess I'll wait until after lunch to go home.

Happy Friday the 13th by the way.

Weight Problem.

Two weeks ago Natalie weighed in at 8.5 lbs (with not clothes on). Yesterday she weighed in at 8.6 lbs (with clothes on)! She's been in around that weight group for the past month and a half. The magic number for when babies sleep through the night is supposedly 12 lbs. That's not going to happen for a long long long long long time. I can just picture it, she gets older, but stays the same weight. She'll be the size of a baby but have a mental capacity of a grown up. That would be interesting. I just hope that our twins won't turn out like the movie "Twins" where one twin has the smarts, height, looks (Vanessa as Arnold Schwarzneggar) and the other twin is a short riff-raff (Natalie as Danny DeVito).

Quick Update....

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

Here is a quick update:

Jadon: he can recite numbers 1-10. The question is can he count? His grandparents think he can count (they also think he's a genius). Fiona and I are so-so on his counting. We'll ask him how many dogs are in the picture (there'll only be one) and he'll say "three!" But then when we were at Babies R' Us yesterday, he collected three stuffed dog and he actually said "three doggies!" We're also trying to teach him colors. Except when we ask him what color some object is, his response is "green!" even though it's red, or yellow.

Natalie: her eating habits are a little bit better, I think she is smiling a little bit more, and she looks like she is a little bit more receptive of her surroundings. She has this skin problem on her body that seems to be leaking on her shirt. The doctor prescribed anti-biotics for it but isn't helping at all. It's making her diaarhea which probably isn't good for her weight gaining.

Vanessa: she continues to do well. She smiles so much. It doesn't matter who holds her, she just smiles. She continues to only poo once in a blue moon which makes her farts.....really .....smelly. The other night Fiona woke me up for a feeding and when I went into the room, it smelled so bad. I could not believe it. I accused Fiona of making that smell because I couldn't believe that such a small thing can make such a horrific odor.

Fiona: she is doing as well as could be. She is still going, even though she lacks the sleep that she needs. I'm proud of her though. She's a good mama.

Me: I started to do some level of exercise. I wake up 15 minutes earlier and do some situps and weightlifting. I just hope I can keep it up.

Jadon the Mac Daddy....

I don't know if I mentioned before in my previous posts how much of a flirt Jadon can be, but boy is it funny to see him at work. When he meets someone (especially a girl) for the first time, he'll either be really shy and not want any contact from that person or he'll be shy but have some level of interaction. Now he doesn't flirt with girls his own age, they have to be much older woman (people our age). On Saturday, I took Jadon with me to grab some lunch at a local Japanese take out restaurant. We ran into an acquaintance and she was saying hi to Jadon. He just said "no" and looked away. I kept on telling Jadon to say "hi" but he kept saying "no" and looking away. He did eventually say "goodbye" and blew her a kiss. That night, Fiona, Jadon, the girls, and I were out eating dinner (Pasta Bravo by the way) and we ran into Fiona's co-worker. To see Jadon's flirt-mode go on was hilarious. His laugh became nervous. He laughs with a "heee-heee." And then he sways his legs and sort of paces. He got so nervous that he didn't really know what to do with his hands. So he started to pick his nose. I'm going to have to work with him on that one. I wish I could have recorded that.

Midnight feeding + going to the bathroom = too much work

A long time ago my mother had me print a sign on our old Macintosh computer for the main bathroom. The sign said "To All Men: Please Sit Down When Peeing." I didn't fully comprehend the conseqeunces of this until last night. I just thought that there was a little mess as far as a few drops here and there. Last night....well you can kind of see where I'm going with this.

So let me start this off with a few weeks ago. I did a midnight feeding of the girls and I went to take a piss after. I usually do this with the lights off using the natural moonlight. Let's just say my aim was off. I tried to clean up the mess as fast as possible without Fiona noticing (sorry honey, I'm a bad boy) but she ended up noticing the next morning because of the smell. She cleaned it up but for some reason it still smelled. Apparently she didn't realize the extent of my damage until she removed a plastic bag housing our plunger (on the side of the toilet). Oops. So for a while I relegated myself (at the request of Fiona) to sit down when I take a piss.

Fast forward to last night. I was doing a midnight feeding and I, as usual, went to the bathroom. The past week I decided to take a risk and take a piss standing up. I have been using a little bit more light to see where I was aiming. Well unfortunately I found myself a little groggy going to the bathroom this past incident and I found myself pretty much in the same predicament as I was a few weeks ago. I knew I wasn't going to be able to hide this. So I just confessed and cleaned it up. I cloroxed wipped the toilet, the floor, and chuck the plunger bag. That was not fun at all, especially when you're tired. I got so worked up from that that it took me an hour or so to get back to sleep. Time to follow that sign that I printed out years ago and take a piss sitting down. What a pisser.

To Scalpel Or Not To Scalpel?

Over the weekend, Fiona had been doing some research on vasectomies (insisted by me, really!) and she came across a site that does, get this, no-scalpel vasectomy! It's true! This site is my new best friend (almost). I am going this route. Two procedures of numbing, freezing and no-needle. The no-needle anesthesia sounds better. Less pain, quicker recovery, quicker procedure, this is a no brainer. The only cringing part is when you click on the Diagram illustration of nsv. So I think it's almost time to start the process (probably need to schedule a consultation appointment first). Yippee!

Restaurant Searching....

Having kids is changing the dynamics of our restaurant choosing in terms of enjoyment, price, and time. We can no longer just freely pick where we want to go and what to eat. Our criteria for picking a restaurant (when we go with the kids that is) are:

1) What can Jadon eat?
2) Is it loud enough (to drown out the girls' cries)?
3) Do they have "Kids Eat Free Nights?" (or something close to that)
4) How far is the restaurant? (we usually limit about a 10-15 mile radius)

So what did we come up with? Here is a list of some restuarants that we seem to be going to on a regular basis:

-Rain Forest Cafe: It's extremely loud and has a lot of distractions with the animals and decor. Plus every now and then they have a balloonist. They have "Kids meal for $1.99 Wednesdays." Considering that they typical price for kids is $5.99 to $6.99, that's not too bad. Unfortuately I find their portions slightly on the small side and Jadon gets a little scared of the ambiance. The past three times we went, he won't sit in his high chair. He ends up sitting on my lap the whole time (that means having a 30+ lb kid on me for about an hour.) . Distance wise, it's just under our limit (about 10 miles).

-IHOP: This is always a favorite of ours. Portion size if good. When we go, there place is sparce with patrons so that compensates for the sound (or lack thereof). I am not sure if they offer a kid's program (I'll have to look into that). The best thing about the place is they offer coupons quite frequently in the newspaper (or coupon book mailers), and it's extremely close to us.

-Dave N' Busters: This place is pretty loud. Loud enough where I can't even hear one of the girls cry. =) Food prices are slightly on the high side for us but they have a decent selection to eat. I don't believe they have a kid's program. Distance wise, it's about 10 miles (maybe less).

-Oscar's (formerly Pat & Oscars): Kids eat free every Tuesdays. Loudness is adequate and distance is close. Can't really go wrong with this place.

-Pasta Bravo: Not sure if they have a kid's program but it's right next to Oscar's and so we frequent this place too.

Other Notables:
-Marie Callendar's
-Island's
-Rubio's fish tacos.
-Ruby's Diner

There was this Japanese restaurant that Fiona and I use to frequent a lot called Minami. It was this cozy restaurant that had a total capacity of 30. We use to go at least once a month (enough to be considered regulars). We no longer can go there because we would take up a good chunk of the restaurant, plus it's too quite.

I would like to go back to some buffets (like Souplantation) but having to take care of three kids and trying to grab food seems a little overwhelming. I guess we'll have to take the grandparents with us for that.

I've done some web searching for "kids eat free" programs but those sites are limited so maybe I'll start a list.