Dad's Web Page

I love the summer! 90 degrees today, sunny, and it was beautiful! The girls went swimming with Kaiella, then we ate a light dinner and went on a bike ride to the park. There was a softball game going on at the end of the park, so we stopped and watched for awhile. I saw Dan Pardini, of all people, so I talked to him for awhile. The girls were offered some peanuts from a mom in the bleachers so they all took over the bag of peanuts. The moms in the stands thought it was pretty funny.
I got them away from the bag of peanuts and we rode home. Showers, some XBox, and the night is done. The girls were asleep in 15 minutes. Kayla cried because she didn't get to play one more game of Richard Scarry's Busytown on the XBox, but she was just tired. All in all, a nice ending to a beautiful day!

Mom came up with a great rewards program for the girls. She made 'scales of justice' out of coat hangers and cups. It's simple. The cups hang from each side of the coat hanger. One cup has a smiley face and one has a sad face. If the girls are good they get marbles in their smiley cup and if they are bad, they get marbles in their sad face cup. At the end of the day, if there are more smiley marbles than sad marbles, then they get snack or they get to stay up late or whatever the reward may be!
Kayla is really taking advantage of it and is behaving really well! ZZ is hit or miss. And let's just say that poor Ari has not been racking up the smiley marbles! We've just started doing this, but I love it so far!
In other news, the girls are learning to keep things clean! It's always been a struggle to 'teach' them how to be clean. Lately we've downsized their toy collection and added some things like a jacket hanger, a backpack box, and another shoe rack so that things always have a place to go. It's been about three weeks and things are looking up. They know where things go and now with the scales of justice, they have some incentive to put things where they go. Today, as soon as ZZ got home from school, she went upstairs and put her backpack away and hung up her jacket without being told to do it! I was so proud that I gave her two smiley marbles! It's so funny how little things like that make me so happy, but they do!

The whole family is going on a diet! Zara and Arielle had their check up and the doctor suggested no more sugar snacks and no more juice! Surprisingly, the girls are all on board! They are OK with apples, oranges, bananas, etc. for snacks. I think that they will miss juice more than candy. A wise old fireman once told me, "Moderation is the key!".
Dad needs to diet too. And exercise. I'm not saying that it will happen, but I weighed in at a svelte 165 lbs. 2 years ago and now I'm pushing 200. And summer is just around the corner!

Whoever thought that I'd be helping to teach kids?! 15 years ago, nobody would! But I do, regularly. Today I helped out in ZZ's class and I help out every Wednesday in Kayla's class. I feel very lucky to be in a position (unemployed) to be able to help out in their class, because it really is fun! Both classes let Arielle come in and join the class and she really likes it too.
In other news... we have been really busy lately and I have not had much of a chance to update. Besides voluteering in class and general dad stuff, I am taking classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights. So much for learning guitar, no time for that!
I finally got all the girls new style web pages up. I like the blog design better. It gives me more flexibility to write and not stick to my monthly updates which I wasn't sticking to anyway. I haven't posted any 2013 pics yet, but I will.

So I started to learn to play guitar! There are no blisters on my fingers, but they sure hurt right now! I am starting with a simple version of "Sweet Home Alabama". We'll see how that goes. I really do think it would be great if the kids made their own band! How cute would that be? If I can get myself to learn some guitar, I think that they will get interested in it also!

Speaking of bands... Dad can apparantly sing! I won a karaoke contest last weekend! No lie! We went camping with Blake and Tiffany and "Stinky" Pops at the R Wild Horse Ranch. They had a karaoke contest on Saturday night and I rocked out to "Cowboy" by Kid Rock and won $50! The kids got up there and sang "Red Solo Cup" all by themselves and sang a few others with Dad! All in all it was a really good time!

I think I am done keeping track of posting my NFL bets. It did work to motivate me to start posting on here, but I made so many bets in the last two weeks, I don't remember what they were! I won 7 bets in a row at one point, but then lost every bit of it last weekend. I lost over $10,000 last weekend, so this weekend I really have to double up!

The San Francisco Giants won their second championship in three years tonight as they swept the Detroit Tigers in four games! I told the girls they could stay up and watch the game, but it went into extra innings and I had to put them to bed! The Giants won in the 10th inning and they heard all the commotion and fireworks going off and called me into their room. They acted happy that the Giants won, but I don't think they quite get it yet!

Kayla and Zara have been coloring fools lately! They go through so much paper drawing pictures and coloring in coloring books. Arielle likes to color too, but not nearly as much. Kayla and ZZ like to draw unicorns. Kayla also likes writing notes, like get well soon cards, love notes to her "boyfriend" Haaf, and happy birthday cards to anybody even if it's not their birthday! Her spelling is getting better and better. When she attempts to spell a new word she usually comes very close. She remembers words like happy, birthday, and Haaf.

So I came back down to Earth with my NFL betting going 0-3 and losing $7000 for the last two weeks. My totals for the year are now 4-3 and I am up $1200. I need to bounce back this week!

Last night was Zara's fourth birthday party! She got a Lalaloopsy doll, a WALL-e toy, Lightning McQueen shoes, lunch plate, and learning toy, a horse, and a Hello Kitty outfit. Hello Kitty is definitely the thing to wear with the kids lately. If they don't get Hello Kitty chonies (yeah, they say chonies for underwear) they get disappointed and cry. Dora chonies are the bottom of the barrel choice. Arielle will scream, "NOOOOOOOO! Not the Dora's!!!". So they've become the punishment chonies. If you pee or poop in your pants you are wearing Dora's for a couple days! Fortuneately Dora's are becoming more and more obsolete.

Anyway, Zara's birthday month was fun. They get 2 or 3 weeks for their birthday! We went to Reno and had Zara's birthday everytime we went out to eat. We had a birthday cake on the 16th, and we had a party and another cake last night! Uncle Whitey and Auntie Lucy, Uncle Ace and Auntie Meghan, Kaiella, Nico, Weston, and Tiffany all came to the party and we celebrated ZZ turning 4 and watched the Giants beat the Cardinals in the NLCS!

Speaking of sports... I won my bet again last week, taking the Giants (vs. 49ers) to the Falcons (vs. Raiders) on a 7 point teaser. Yeah, I bet against the home teams. I bet $2500 to win $1800, bringing my record to 4-0 and my winnings to $8200. This week, I'm undecided at this point, but I like the Browns over the Colts and maybe the Cowboys over the Panthers. I don't like betting on two road teams, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.

I don't know why, but it seems like every time we go on a family vacation somebody gets pukey sick! There was the nightmare trip to Pismo where all 3 kids got violently ill. There was Zara's birthday vacation where Kayla puked on Dad on the BART train. Another trip to Pismo, Kayla and Zara puked on the car ride there. This time it was a trip to Reno, Nevada with Dad and Arielle getting sick! It didn't ruin the vacation, but it did put a downer on it a little!

I was amazed on the car ride home. For the first time on a long trip, the kids did not demand to watch a movie! Instead, we listened to music and sang! Songs on our playlist include:

Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepson
Big Girls Don't Cry by Fergie
Put on Your Sunday Clothes (from the movie Wall-E)
Let Me Down Easy by Billy Currington
Ours, Our Song, and Love Story by Taylor Swift
Irreplaceable by Beyonce
All the Small Things by Blink 182
There are more, but those are their favorites.

I am 3-0 and up $6400 with my NFL team betting account since posting my picks here. I took the Giants -8 vs. the Browns this week for $2000 and won. I also hit a 3 team parlay at the Atlantis in Reno. I've been lucky so far!

Boy oh boy, the girls have really taken it to new levels with the crying bit! They cry about everything lately! I really think that it started with Arielle. She really cries about everything. I have to put her in time out just for crying. Zara and Kayla never cried as much as they do now. I don't get it either. Arielle gets in trouble when she cries, why do they do it?? I've heard the whole "attention, even if it's negative attention" argument, but is time out really attention?! Something really needs to change! Dad is supposed to be raising soldiers!

On a positive note, I won my Thursday night NFL bet. I lied though. I said I was betting $1500. Well, I went big and bet an even $2000 to win $1800! So, I am 2-0 and up $4600!

So I finally got rid of my trusty old Toyota Tercel. Well, actally I haven't got rid of it yet, but I did get a new car! A 1999 Chrysler Sebring... convertible! I am riding in style now, huh? It is really a big piece of junk, but the kids love the convertible, and anything is better than a 1991 Tercel.

So my NFL picks weren't very good last week. I was 5-10-1 overall. But I won the one bet I made. I had the Broncos,Jets, and Falcons on a 7 point teaser. To make things easier, I'm just going to post my bets. Who cares that I picked the Packers last week and they lost on a last minute inter-touch-ception-down or whatever you call Monday nights debacle. I bet $2000 and won $2800 on a 3 team teaser last week! Ok, the money amount could be exponentially lower, but that's not the point.

So, tomorrow night... I'm taking the Ravens to the under as a 6.5 point teaser, to make it Ravens -6.5 and total score under 50.5. I'm only betting $1500, there are plenty more games this weekend!

Arielle is so darn cute! She is so little, but she is very precocious because she picks up so much from her big sisters. She comes up with really witty remarks and she can be genuinely funny!

About 2 months ago, at bedtime, she was not satisfied with her usual routine goodnight kiss. So she says, "Dad, I want one hug and one kiss!" I thought it was funny, so I gave her one hug and one kiss extra, and of course, Zara and Kayla wanted one hug and one kiss!

So this has carried on and they still ask for one hug and one kiss. Sometimes I'll try to hurry and kiss them really quick and put them to bed and somebody will say, "Dad, I didn't get one hug and one kiss!" or "Dad, I want 2 kisses and one hug!"

So, I need some motivation to get my "Dad chronicles his experiences as Dad" more entries. So I've called on something that will keep me going at least until February. NFL football! Each week, starting here with NFL week 3, I will make my picks vs. the Vegas odds. Maybe I will post Kayla's too and see who has the best percentage at the end of the season.

Of course I will add in a little anecdote about the girls and/or mom, that's really what it's all about, right? These are my week 3 picks. The capitalized team is my pick:

GIANTS      -1    Panthers
RAMS       +7.5    Bears
BUCS       +7    Cowboys
49ERS      -7    Vikings
LIONS      -3    Titans
REDSKINS   -3.5    Bengals
JETS      -3    Miami
CHIEFS    +9    Saints
BUFFALO    -3    Browns
COLTS      -3    Jaguars
EAGLES    -4    Cardinals
FALCONS    +3   Chargers
BRONCOS    +2   Texans
STEELERS   -4    Raiders
RAVENS    -3    Patriots
PACKERS    -3.5    Seahawks

What a typical Giants torture game tonight! Zito started the game and left in the fourth inning behind 2-0 (91 pitches 7 BB's). Neither team scores again until the bottom of the ninth inning when the Giants tie the game in dramatic fashion and now we are going to extra innings!

Now, I love NFL football, but it is so great to get in bed after a tough day with 3 kids and watch the end of a baseball game! Especially when the Giants always seem to have a nail-biter ending! Uh oh... Mike "This year you can call me Giancarlo" Stanton just hit a one out solo homerun off of Casilla. We'll see if the Giants can come up with another run in the bottom of the 10th.

So we took Kayla and ZZ to the Giants game last Saturday night after cousin Weston's first birthday! The Giants and Big Time Timmy Jim beat the Padres 2-1. We took the ferry to the ballgame and sat in the left field bleachers listening to "What's a matter with Guzman!" all game long! Turns out he's a bum! Anyway, it was kind of a rough day. It is difficult to get 2 little girls interested in a baseball game. They loved the cotton candy, the soda, the slides, and the ferry, but they had zero interest in the game making it very hard to keep them occupied. We will probably wait until they are older to do that again!

The Giants went down 1-2-3 in the 10th. What a disappointing loss! But the great thing about baseball is that we will do it all over again tomorrow night!

Well chronicling my experiences as Dad obviously isn't going to happen very often! That's OK though, the rest of the website is much more interesting and important to write.

The holidays are over and I actually enjoyed it this year much more than in the past. I also enjoyed the 49ers beating the Saints last weekend and our Bodog account being at $1400! I'm still calling it Bodog for as long as I can, because 'Bovada' is lame. And how is Bodog not on my list of favorite websites?!?! What an oversight that was, I will have to fix that soon!

The kids are doing good! They, of course, liked Christmas and everything that goes along with it (including no school for Kayla). We are still enjoying sunny weather and playing outside almost everyday, but it has been cold lately! I really can't wait for rain and snow! I can't wait to see the kids snowboard again!

Wow, what a summer so far! In June, we had Auntie Nen Nen & Uncle Ace's wedding, Auntie Maureen and Uncle Eric's wedding, a Baker family reunion, and then right into Fourth of July weekend at Blue Lakes!

This weekend was Kaiella's birthday and Kayla's birthday is on July 28th! And there's also Rich Allen's big summer party, too! Fun, fun, fun!

I've been so busy having fun, I haven't had much time to update KAYLAandZZ.com, but I will eventually.

It's Sunday night after the Petaluma Butter and Eggs Day Parade. I kept my drinking to a minimum today (Yes, things are definitely different these days) and now I am enjoying a glass of wine (Yeah, wine ... A cab. Weird, huh?) and I am starting MY Web Page.

I've been doing KAYLAandZZ.com for almost 3 years now and finally getting around to doing MY page. Not that it will be anything special or anything. I plan to keep it pretty simple, nothing extravagant. Anyway, that's it for now. We'll see how long it takes me to actually get it online.

Until next time...