OUR LIFE IN 3D

19 May 2014

Can I get up now?

Once upon a time there lived a princess. From the day she was born she had her own spirit about her. She was always happy, optimistic and loving. Her facial expressions were usually smiles and grins as she went about here day. She was a happy kid from day one!

Somewhere, early in her development she learned people like to see these things. She saw how happiness exhibited can usually be returned. She found she could surround her own personal world in happiness by just being herself; smiling, happy disposition, never complaining or whining (well hardly ever).

And she gained a large following along the way including a host of many grandmothers, both real, adopted and assumed. She also gained a bit of a blog following over the last 3+ years too with her fun and unique outlooks on life. Want to see what I mean? Click on DYLANisms and go to the early days, for some amusing insights and remarks over the last 3 years.

And as she learned to surround herself in happiness she also learned how to manipulate the situation at a young age, by just being happy and cute. How do you girls just instinctively know how to do this?

Don’t know what I am talking about? Here is one of my favorite and most cherished photos and stories of her. Dylan was less than two years old at the time. She was having a hard time laying down to take naps at this point. We had just transitioned her to her own bed from sleeping in a crib and she seemed to enjoy her new independence. So much so that she would get up and wonder around instead of napping or sleeping at night. This led us to put up a baby gate at the door to her room, so she couldn’t get out when we weren’t watching her.

So one particular afternoon, Dylan just would not lay down for her nap. Once, twice, three times I had to go back and tell her to get back in bed and stop playing with her toys, each time growing a little more stern. She finally got the message on my third request for her to stay in bed and get some sleep.

Or did she?

About 30 minutes later I heard some movement back in her room again. So I got up from what I was doing to go see what she was up to this time. And this was the image that I found waiting for me at her bedroom door:

Can I get up now?

Take a good look at her. Her sunglasses on upside down, her favorite purse tucked on her arm, her favorite toys (Bunny and Bear) there to back her up. This was a well-conceived ploy! I walk up to her room and she says, “Daddy can I get up now?”

I stood there held out my finger to her and told her sternly “Do not Move one muscle!”

And I ran to get my camera. You could not help but smile at her uniqueness, cuteness and creativity to get what she wanted. I took a picture and gave her the OK. I just had to be with her after that.

Fast forward to last week in school. Dylan came home with a certificate where she was honored as “Student of the Month”! We were so happy for her! And so proud. The only thing we wondered, as any proud parent would, was the credibility of this award and why it took until April for her win this? Maybe it was a typo and the certificate was actually for Student of the Year!

Regardless, we were very proud of her and she continues to use her smile and happy, optimistic demeanor to her advantage. You go girl!

Of course, I have long since built up some resistance to her smile and charms! I know how she can work it…..

Yea…right! This princess still rules!

I would love to show you the cute Student of The Month certificate from her school displaying Dylan’s name on it but my computer and I are currently at war. It is slow and belligerent. If any of you are good with fixing computers and think you can help please, PLEASE let me know. Otherwise if you to take a shot at fixing it you can find it out along the curb, in various pieces, up and down the street.

Does anyone have any coupons for new computers?

Maybe I should take Dylan and let her bat her eyes and smile a little bit.

Please, please, pretty please?

Dear God,

Thank you for all the smiles, both big and small that brighten our day! They are the sunshine of our daily lives. They are contagious! Start a smile wave!

And thank you for happy kids that take all the stress and darkness out of our lives by just being themselves! The world can disappear in their presence.

Thank you for the many blessings of our girls as well as what we were each born with. You gave us each what we needed to survive and thrive at our birth. Help us to never lose these blessings but use them to find our own special miracle that you have in store for each of us.

And mostly dear Father, thank You for my two miracles, that have changed my life, as well as all the many miracles you have shown us this week, last week, and all the weeks of the year. Thank you for your mercy and abundant generosity!

Have a great week everyone!

Posted in Archives and tagged be happy, can I get up now?, DYLANisms, happy kid, student of the month

10 May 2014

14 Comments

Ketchup…

Hey gang,

It me! 3D! Coming to you live and in color…again. Gosh, its been over an entire month since we have last talked. Forgive me, for I am such a slacker!

That was some moving and unforgettable Spring Break though! I didn’t hit PUBLISH the entire month of April! Well, not at least on WordPress. I wish I had a good reason other than life took over. There has been some extremely busy weeks; a lot of highs and a lot of lows as well.

Frankly, I just have just been too distracted to write with everything going on. You know if I skip one of my girl’s birthdays some thing is up! Well I skipped telling you about both of them!

Dylan’s came and went at the end of March. By the time I finally had her birthday picks loaded into WordPress it was Skylar’s birthday. If anyone wants to get a glimpse of their birthday’s here is a brief one:

One of Dylan’s birthday wishes was for Daddy to pick her up from school and spend the rest of the day with Daddy at work. She knows that’s where the snacks hide. As you can see, she had an OK time with the Snack Man and even scored a big bag of Pirates Booty for her birthday…along with some crackers and cookies and chips…

She had a great time opening some super generous gifts from all her five grandmothers, family and friends. She always gets some of the best clothes from her grandmothers! Here are a few pics that I recorded:

she looks entirely too old in this outfit for Kindergarten

Skylar’s Birthday came upon us and she made out OK too. Each girl had a very special time and didn’t lack for anything; especially attention.

We’ve had our share of woe’s as well as celebrations this past month t0o which rocked my focus.

For example, our mortgage company paid out county taxes 2% too high for our property taxes which is going to raise our mortgage $500 per month!

Ouch!

So I had to work with my county to get a rebate (they were not going to tell me!) and then send that rebate back to the mortgage company to bring the payment back down.

While my health continues to be quite good (Yay!!!!) My doctors could care less. They just want their money.

My insurance company was denying a payment to one outfit. To my insurance company, they felt three procedures done to me were not necessary.

What??

Each month I would get a bill for $1750. I would then consult the insurance company (everyone knows what a treat that is) on what the issue was. Well a few weeks ago the doctor’s invoice came in red ink saying my account was being turned over to collections.

Excuse me a second, parents turn your kids away but,

WTF?

My credit was going to be put at risk due to a tardy insurance company?

Just the day before the receipt of the scarlet letter I received one of those ‘Explanations of Benefits’ page from my insurance company stating only $1650 were valid charges, that I owed something closer to $700.

So I had to take that statement and present it to the doctor and told them its $700 or nothing.

They took it! With luck now, with luck….ALL my doctor’s bills are paid off from the itty bitty procedure way back in September. (knock wood)

Ohhhhh, also on that same day I received the letter of collections from my doctors I hit my wife.

Woe! Woe! Woe! With my car!

NO wait! I hit her car with my car. We had just finished lunch at a local restaurant. We were at a stop light. I thought she went. I hit the gas. I reached down to turn up Jimmy Buffet (it was a gorgeous day and my sunroof was already cranked), I looked up and she was still stopped!

Apparently the guy in front of her didn’t move to fast. I saw the hood of my car just scrunch up in front of me before I could stop, as the bumper of my car went beneath the spare tire on the back of her CRV.

The cops were there in not time but didn’t write a ticket since the accident was ‘in house’. Her car was relatively fine. The worse part was that our girls were in her car. So that scared me. I was able to drive the car home and then to a local body shop. ~~which was closed for the day, as was the rental car place beside it….after I drove my debilitated vehicle up there with no back up on a Saturday.

One thousand dollar deductible met with the Lexus! Cha-Ching!

But I did score a cute little toy from the rental car place on behalf of my ‘good-guy’ auto insurance company (shhhh..State Farm) to be able to take Dylan to school….complete with a CD player where we can listen to Princess Ana sing ~~our~~ her favorite song from Dylan’s favorite Frozen CD.

They told me air conditioning was extra!

I felt a little like Fred Flintstone when it came time to stop this vehicle! But it is a fun little Fiat and we are enjoying the break. Dylan is enjoying sitting up front because the apparent back seat is for ornamental purposes only. You can’t really sit back there. That Godzilla commercial is lying!

And that ruthless, Bad Bart, monopoly of a cable provider, who I can’t really (com) say their name here (cast) wants to gouge me with higher rates now that my first year ‘honeymoon period’ is over at our new house. So I have been spending hours on hold with there ‘world-class’ customer service department trying to come to an understanding with them.

So folks, if this blog disappears again, well, we sacrificed the Internet with this company of crooks in order to prove a point.

I can’t sacrifice the cable as we just got a new, bigger, bolder, louder TV! Yes, going back to the beginning of this long ~~ketchup~~ catching up, there has been some rocky lows and some super highs! God is good!

And He works in mysterious ways!

Last week we had a guest Pastor at my church. He did a great job and (sorry to say for our incumbent) a hard act to follow. And he is now semi retired with preaching being his part time job.

He spends most of his time as an ambassador for Feed The Hungry, a charitable Christian organization that tries to feed the malnourished in the Caribbean. He talked to us at Sunday school and then touched on it again in our service. Right now, Feed The Hungry is trying to feed the people of Haiti, which is still trying to survive from those earthquakes years ago.

We had our two girls listen good as he talked about how the children have to ~~suffer~~ live in these areas. Yes, many of us throw out more food in a day than these kids can eat in a week.

Dylan listened intently and we talked to her later about her thoughts on the Pastor’s presentation. We talked it over and decided we could contribute enough money to buy a new water pump in a village some where in Haiti (no new financial tragedies with standing). Dylan wanted to help write the check. Yes, God is good. He does things! He stirs in all of us when we open our hearts to the possibilities. Dylan and Skylar are our prime examples.

And let me give a special shout out to all you Mothers out there!

Happy Mother’s Day .

…to the hardest working people out there! You are the Best! Thank you for all you do. You are loved, needed, invaluable and always a musing! We love ya!

Have a great day!

Posted in Archives and tagged break the bank, Cha-ching, Fiat, First time in forever, Food For the Hungry, Frozen, God is Good, He does things, ketchup, my Angel, Princess Ana

24 Mar 2014

20 Comments

I may need some more rest…..

Hello everyone!

How is your winter going?

If I hear one remark about ‘global warming’ this summer I may choke someone!

Yes we have been bundled up, like the rest of you this winter, and not being as busy as we would like.

But finally this past week we had a wee bit of good news. Dylan received her 3^rd report card for the year. That’s right, all A’s again. She did great! She even received the highest marks in PE and Music.

Possibly the best news on the survey though was on the back of the report card where the teacher rates everyone on Personal and Interactive skills. Dylan received all A’s there as well. Her teacher goes on to mention, “Dylan is at, or above grade level, in all areas. She shows leadership daily in all activities in the class room.”

You go girl! We are so proud of her! ~There’s some new news, right?

So Friday she asked if she could go to Chucky Cheese and help ‘celebrate with her sister and a few of her friends from school. Sure we thought? She’s earned it and she also has a big day coming up.

She had a great time! She played with her friends. Ate some pizza. Collected a gazillion tickets from playing the games. It was a lot of fun…

Its like old times here..in this ride…

Dylan’s first time to Chucky’s just before her first birthday

girls being girls

Saturday she invited those same school friends to our now monthly ‘Vacation’ Bible School at our church. Again, they had a good time, making crafts, playing games and decorating cupcakes I hear. (Skylar was using the icing for lipstick). She was worn out!

Sunday was Stingray Hockey night again! Dylan had won the ‘trifecta’ by reading 3 books in one week, good enough for free tickets to the local hockey team. So she and I spent Sunday afternoon at the hockey game. Dylan claims she is getting to be quite an expert at getting around our local coliseum with so many trips that she has made there recently. .(2 hockey games, the circus, and helping daddy with an American Lung Cancer event there.) She insisted I was going the wrong way in the parking lot at one point

All in all it was a pretty fun, busy, and rewarding weekend for me. Ahhh, I mean a fun weekend for her! Lots of good clean fun! Now, the only thing she has left to look forward to is her BIRTHDAY tomorrow!

…I may need to get to bed early tonight!

Posted in Archives and tagged bible school, birthday, Chucky Cheese, global warming, report cards, rest is good!, sting rays, trifecta

16 Mar 2014

4 Comments

DYLANism: Was that a trick question?

The other day at the book fair mommy bought Dylan and Skylar one of those discovery books, The X WHY Z Book Of Understanding. It is a cute book designed for youngsters to help them understand why certain things work the way they do but also foster the understanding that for everything there is a reason. Make sense?

For instance, on one page it talks about why we get goosebumps, why we have eye brows and why we have boogers…Yes, it says boogers!

So Mommy likes to read these to the girls but sometimes will ask them why FIRST just to get them thinking about it. So she asks Dylan, “Why do skunks stink?”

Dylan enthusiastically chimes in right away with the right answer, “Its because Skunks don’t wipe their butt! No animal wipes their butt and that’s why they stink! Hey mommy, was that a trick question?”

Thursday morning I was getting ready for work and Dylan was sitting on the chair where I sit and tie my shoes. She was playing with those foam, skin colored cups that mommies sometimes where when their shirts are too thin and someone may see through them.

So I explained to Dylan what the cups were for (or at least what I THOUGHT they were for. I still can’t figure out all this girlie-girl stuff). So Dylan gets a grin and decided to put them in place under her shirt.

I smiled and went along with the idea, looking at my little girl growing up. She maneuvered them in place, kinda overlapping each other and said, “Nah, I don’t like them. I don’t like the way they look.”

Disappointed she felt that way I helped her take them out from beneath her shirt, sensing some chagrin about attempting this in the first place.

But being the happy and optimistic kid she always has been, she places a cup on top of her head and quips, “But they sure do make a nice hat!”

Like Daddy, like daughter!

Posted in Archives

09 Mar 2014

20 Comments

My girlfriend

I have a confession to make.

I have a girlfriend. (shhhhhh) Yep, that’s right. She is thee Best! In fact we even went out on a date last night and I am not to afraid to tell you about it because we had such a GREAT time! We always do! Actually, we had a few rendezvous’ Saturday. Our dinner date was just the topper.

We regularly share a special moment each morning on my way to work (and her way to school) and I always try to make some time for her at the end of the night and ‘give her a kiss and tuck her in.’ She smiles when I do this of course and tries to think of any and all reasons for me NOT to leave her and say good night at the end. She is quite good at this actually.

Here is a copy of the last precious mail she sent me earlier this week:

Can’t see it too good? That’s because she is generally soft-spoken in nature. A real jewel but soft-spoken. She is asking me if I want to share an ice cream sandwich with her. Can you make out a ‘I love you’ there towards the bottom?

Earlier in the day we had talked about upcoming summer getaways, where we would like to go, when, where and we also looked at some pictures of some paradise, envisioning her and her other two favorite girls coming along with us! Nice! It was fun to imagine. The plans are still in the works.

So, last night Mom’s stomach was full at dinner time and she said “why don’t you all fend for yourself”. Seeing a golden opportunity, I quickly asked my girl friend if she would like to go out on a date. All smiles, she nodded her head Yes!

Our youngest wanted to stay with Mom so off I ran out the door for a cozy date at her favorite watering hole.

We had a great time! No, the best once-in-a-lifetime time! So good in fact that I couldn’t keep this special time all to myself. So, if you can keep a secret, here are some pics from our date:

All this while we were waiting for our dinner to be served. We had a blast. Everyone should have a girlfriend like the one I got!

And this date was just the topper for the day. I mentioned how we went on another outing or two Saturday. One of our dates was to the Circus in town. We had a special time there at’ the Greatest Show on Earth‘. It was Ok! (future blogs are in the mix).

Yes, we hit the circus on a prearranged date, along with my other girlfriend:

One can only wonder, ‘How good can this get?’

After the circus we went out to my favorite BBQ spot, the succulent and saucy Alabama BBQ of Jim and Nicks. It was D-Lish! (shhhh, it had been my secret wish to go there the whole time!)

We had such a good time everyone went home to bed afterwards…. And took some naps. I can really tire my ladies out!

Have a great week everyone! Pencil in a date with your special someone(s)!

Posted in Archives and tagged circus, date, greatest show on earth!