Pictures

Pictures! You know... Pictures!

My girl has always loved bathtime.

We need this hoodie in a bigger size now. 

So fresh and so cool. This is right after bath time.

This was at a rest stop somewhere in Washington State. 

We were on our way to The Gorge to see Dave Matthews.

Nice hat! It's a toss up between this and the hoodie.

There are no words to accurately describe the cute.

We had a lot of snow in 2010 for one day. By the afternoon it was nearly all gone.

Her first taste of homemade cookie. I ate the 75% that was leftover. 

And I can say with good authority that it was delicious!

This was looking down on the city of Seattle from our hotel room. 

We don't live in the USA, but we sure like to visit!

A very quick picture post of Baby Bean's first year. That was easy. 

Company

Company! You know... Company!

I have visitors on their way over right now. In fact, they are running a little bit late, which gave me time to do this. Blog.

She is napping, and seems to nap for 2.5 hours now. This is not a usual nap timeline for her. I'm used to 1 to 1.5 hours or even less. Those are difficult days. All this napping gives me a lot of time to hang around my house. Today is Wednesday so I don't have a vehicle until later in the afternoon. So I try and organize with someone to come over to my mountainside suite and visit. But they are still not here yet.

BUT

Company is coming, I've vacuumed, made cupcakes, and cleared off the kitchen table... now I'm just sitting here on my exercise ball in the middle of the living room waiting. Not for too long I hope.

Maybe just one cupcake while I wait...

More interesting posts in the future! I promise!

Marvel vs DC

Marvel vs DC! You know... Marvel vs DC!

Whoa. Life has been busy!

This weekend we were at 2 different birthdays. I had to do some overtime at work. We had to squeeze grocery shopping in there somewhere, which we did not totally manage, so we will be finishing that today. And we brought Baby Bean to the park. It's nice to have a good portion of the day free to catch up from the weekend.

As a result of the busy weekend I have not had time to watch very much. We're working through the PVR list and also getting rid of shows we can't be bothered with. Last night we finished Come Dine With Me Canada, the Redemption episodes. We deleted a cooking show, and Mama Bean decided she just didn't have time for Dr. Phil anymore. Before I sat down to blog today I watched Young Justice and Star Wars Clone Wars. Both cartoons, and both very enjoyable for me to watch.

At one of the birthday parties on the weekend I had a conversation with the birthday boy about Marvel vs DC comics and their movie counterparts. It felt great to show off some of my comic book knowledge, which I consider to be 'better than average'.

My favourite live action movies are Marvel. What they have been doing with The Avengers characters and their movies is nothing short of brilliant. Even if the movie is only mediocre, it's all leading to the team-up movie. Talk about great planning! But as for direct-to-video movies, the animated DC movies are better storytelling by far. I'm also partial to DC because the characters are superior. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman live at DC comics. They're just cooler than mutants, which is really all you get with Marvel.
Batman: Year One is coming out on DVD soon (tomorrow), so I'll be checking that one out. With animation they basically have all the storyboards from the comic, so animating it should be a no-brainer. With live action, it takes much longer to make, and most of the costume and set designs don't translate well to real life. Can you imagine Hugh Jackman wearing the yellow spandex Wolverine costume? Or Jeremy Renner wearing the purple horned Hawkeye costume? It would look ridiculous.

Marvel is making better theater movies. Period. DC just doesn't know how to tell a great live action story. But they dominate the animated movie.

TV Finales

TV Finales! You know... TV Finales!

Whoa... I just finished watching the Season 4 finale of Breaking Bad. That show is cool. Turns out the scheme that the two main characters put into action was totally based on overthinking it. But now, because of their scheme, the bad guys are dead, the meth lab is burned to the ground, and there's practically no one to force them back to making meth. How are they going to pull another 16 episodes out of this series? It will be interesting, because the only bad left over is recovering from a gunshot wound on the other side of the Mexican border. But he can be an awesome bad guy with the right writing.

TV show Finales can be tricky things to execute. There haven't been too many that I have found all that memorable. I haven't heard good things about Entourage or Sopranos, so I hesitate to even start those shows. The Friends finale was sort of okay. Seinfeld just kind of ended. The Lost finale makes more sense once I learned (recently) that the showrunner had no plan and was just kind of making it up as he went along. He even tried quitting a few times. Apparently J.J. Abrams made the first episode without any long term plans, just lots of mysterious things happening and no answers. I think he fixed his formula for Fringe.

By far, the very best television finale was Six Feet Under. It makes all the death and misery of the previous 6 seasons all worth it. I felt like the final montage was the most important part of the show, and everything was leading up to it.

Also...
I watched the first 3 episodes of the new Archer season. Now there's a break until the new year. I don't know what happened in animated technology, but for some reason the faces seem to be more expressive during those episodes. Usually the expressions are either blank, or basic emotions. 
And...
Now during her naps I'll have to start a new show. Boardwalk Empire? Justified? Spartacus? Human Target? Strike Back? I still have Season 2 of Eastbound and Down to catch up with too. There's just all these shows that Mama Bean isn't that into.
Lastly...
Baby Bean's naps taken a new development too. She's not as tired at her usual nap time, so she stays awake for longer. But first we have to get through the 10min car catnap. That seems to recharge her for another hour and a half!

Yesterday

Yesterday! You know... yesterday!

So yesterday... yesterday was a busy day. No time for blogging.

I drove my wife to work (there's got to be a cooler way to refer to her in these posts... I'll revisit that.) On the way, my little Bean (daughter for the uninitiated) fell asleep. Oh great. Now her nap is going to be a little bit later, and that puts her whole schedule off for the day. And she's going to Grandma's house for a couple hours in the afternoon, so she needs to wake up for that.
She stayed awake for the ride home, and I let her play for a little while once we got home. Then it was Nap Attempt #1.
Followed closely by Nap Failure #1.
She chatted happily to herself in her darkened room with an occasional loud freak out from what I can only guess as her leg getting caught in the crib rails. She freed it within seconds, this I know because of the following "Yay!".
After 30mins of this, she decided to scream and cry and carry on until I eventually decided that Nap Time would have to wait a bit longer. More like she had decided for us.
While we were playing, my wife called sick from work, which meant I had to go pick her up, which more than likely meant our Bean would sleep on the way again. She only lasted 5mins awake in the car and slept the rest of the 40min ride.

Now that Mama Bean (nickname for now I guess, pending approval), was home, Little Bean's visit to Grandma's wasn't necessary. But a Nap most certainly was. Altogether she had only slept for less than an hour, and she usually naps for 2hours.
Nap Attempt #2 was met quickly with Nap Failure #2. This girl was not going to nap today.

That meant I had to go to my afternoon shift and leave sick Mama Bean with a potentially cranky Little Bean.

Thankfully, when I got home, Mama Bean reported that Little Bean was an angel, and had played so well during the afternoon.
Bedtime that night, obviously, was very easy as we had a very tired Bean on our hands.

Hey, because I'm the Dad, does that make me Fava Bean?

Sleep

Sleep! You know... Sleep!

I'm so very tired right now. I should be napping too, my wife even tells me so. She would know best as she has to live with me and my tired self.

My tired self is the guy who's energy level is drained, doesn't help out very much, and is generally miserable about everything. (Except when it comes to family, that is something I will love forever.)

I also have a sleep self who's a real jerk. My wife tells me many a story where I've kicked her in my sleep, or stolen most of the covers. Once when she got up to tend to the crying baby in the middle of the night, she came back to my sleep self hogging the whole bed.

I guess that's why I have days off. To catch up on sleep. I'm looking forward to the upcoming weekend, because I feel like September has lasted for a month and a half.

Sesame Street (part 2)

Sesame Street! You know... Sesame Street! (still)

Where was I? Oh yes...

Abby's Flying Fairy School. It became apparent early on that this was not my little girl's favourite part of the show. She would start playing with other things. So naturally it did not endear itself to us. And now we are not huge fans of Abby's Flying Fairy School.

My favourite part these days is when Elmo asks a baby something. I don't know why, it just cracks me up.

One day I want to own this book.

That would be so cool.

Well, she's not napping right now... but I've been reading Brightest Day during her nap, so I haven't been making time to blog.