The "Jesus Painter"

This past Sunday, Easter Sunday, my Mom did some painting for Manassas Assembly of God. Basically, during praise and worship, and some of the service, she painted the face of Jesus, starting with just a cross on a blank canvas. Here are the final results:



To see an incomplete video of her doing the painting, click on the title. We got there a few minutes late, and then ran outta tape, so it's the middle, basically. But you do get the "blood" and then her taking it away, when "Jesus rose from the dead." Enjoy!

BOC!!!!

(translation: Bag of Crap)

Okay, for you die hard blogger fans, you've probably taken the time at one point to check out the links on the right hand side. One of those links would take you to a website called Woot!.com. Let me explain Woot. Actually, I'll let them explain themselves:

Woot.com is an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap. It started as an employee-store slash market-testing type of place for an electronics distributor, but it's taken on a life of its own. We anticipate profitability by 2043 – by then we should be retired; someone smarter might take over and jack up the prices. Until then, we're still the lovable scamps we've always been. But don't take our word for it: see what the online community has to say at this Wikipedia article.

The catch with Woot.com is that they only sell ONE item per day* and once it sells out, it's gone and you can't buy anything until tomorrow. Woots begin at 12 am central time (so we have to wait until 1 am here, in other words...) and usually, if there's something good, it's gone by the time you roll around to checking it out at work the next morning.

Now, Bag of Crap, or BOC (also seen on the Woot message boards as "Blinged-Out Cabbage", "Bandolier of Carrots", etc...) is essentially whatever they have lyin' around the Woot warehouse that they wanna get rid of. It's always a dollar a piece, and their flat $5 shipping rate applies (everything always ships for $5, even if you order a big screen tv, which they've had on there several times...) Usually, very few people are lucky enough to get in on a BOC, simply because they sell out so quickly. So how did we get one??

Enter April 1, 2006, also known as April Fools Day. Woot decided they would be nice and sell "Random Crap" for the low low price of $1,000,001. What a deal! Most people were like, "Aww, man, it's a joke," but I knew that there must have been a catch. Click on the pic of the item, showed the Beatles, and the words, "Please, Please, Please Me" with the second "please" underlined. What the heck, let's try that as a coupon. "$1,000,000 off your order has been applied!" Sweet!

And that's how we got the BOC. It sold out about a minute after we figured that out, a full 23 minutes longer than a usual BOC (they usually sell out after just a minute). But we were one of the lucky few... Awesome.

So what did our $6 buy us?? Some pretty neat junk!

The box... with all the stuff.

It's a cubicle door! Perfect for those moments when you just, "need some space." This kinda reminds me of William Wilburforce's Mom, who had like 8 kids, and when she would need a moment to herself, she'd put her apron over her head, and the kids all knew not to bother her when she did that. Like an apron, this won't completely hide you from the outside world, but Jeremy may be able to use it to get those, "me time" moments. :-)

A Drew Bledsoe figurine! Because everyone needs a Drew Bledsoe figurine... apparently...

Yeah man, nothing like a travel pouch for all your stuff when you're on the road. This is actually probably useful. But you don't buy BOC for useful... It's all about the ride, man.

The coolest part of the BOC--the Super Woot Monkey! Complete with "Woot!" cape! Supposedly he make noise, but it's broken (not uncommon with BOC items...) I think "very neat" indeed. Everyone needs a monkey!

*Except for Woot-offs, but that's a whole other can o worms.

Update: Jeremy opened the cube door box, and in it was ANOTHER monkey (cape-less, but still fun) and a mirror for your laptop (so you can see who's sneaking up behind you, in case you're trying to do some top secret stuff). And the monkey does work, you just have to LAUNCH it and it screams.

Can you tell we got a new camera??

Otherwise, we couldn't bring you all these fine pics and videos of Jeremiah! Yes, it is very nice indeed. Though I'm still kinda upset that we LOST the other one. Stupid junkies at the hospital... I know they're holding out on us. Probably some nurse kept it for herself. :-( Oh well.

How 'bout some pics of the cutest baby on earth??? That'll cheer me up! :-)

A Weekend with Granddad!

Jeremiah got to meet his Granddad for the first time this past weekend. Ted flew down for the weekend to meet the little guy, and boy did they have fun! Several tours of the house were given, as Granddad did was grandfathers do best: walk babies around and show them things. :-) At least, that's what Jeremiah's grandfathers both do.

Jeremiah being Cute

I think Jeremiah is more interested in the camera than paying attention to Mommy trying to make him laugh... And then he gets irritated that I continue to try.... Oh well.

See First Video EVA! post for explanation on the whole "punch in the nose" thing.

Jeremiah talking to Daddy

Another video! Yeah, there's gonna be a bunch on here pretty soon...

Here we have Jeremiah talking with his Daddy. Well, roaring with him. And putting up his dukes! Listen for him trying to imitate Jeremy, it's so cute! This one you want volume for.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what the heck Jeremy was talking about at the end, here's Howard Dean's victory speech.

First Video EVA!

This is my first video on Google! Now, it's an unlisted video, so only you special people will have access to it.

I must warn you, however, it's not a very good video, but it gives you the gist of what Jeremiah is like on a day to day basis. Here we will see Jeremiah with his Granddad (Jeremy's Dad) who was down from Canada for a couple of days, just to meet the little guy! And there's even a guest appearance by Stephin-Rabbit! There will be some smiling, some punching, some crying, and a lot of talking in the background.

A few disclaimers:
"Mr. Bullfrog" is what I call Jeremiah sometimes... because he's 'Jeremiah' (who, at one point, was a bullfrog....)

We're always trying to "punch you in the nose" because his Uncle Jason was playing with him last weekend, and was doing just that (swinging his fist and saying, "I'm gonna PUNCH you in da nose!" [my Avo {Mom's Dad} used to always say that to us when we were growing up... usually to me because it would get a rise outta me... and then he would laugh when I got upset... anyways...}]) ANYWHOO, Jeremiah was HYSTERICAL when he was doing that, so we've been trying to recapture that laughter ever since.

The directions I'm giving are to my Dad, because he was gonna go to Legal Sea Foods to get my Mom some full-bellied clams--NOT easy to find in Northern VA, but they've got 'em!

Any other questions you have, please post in the comments, and I'll address them.

Feel free to watch it with no volume. The background noise isn't that interesting, and doesn't really take away from Jeremiah, as he's pretty quiet during most of the video. We get a few noises from him early on, but until he starts crying at the end, he's a mute.

Oh, and he was crying because he was hungry/tired. He's fine now. :-)

More meat!

Apparently, we don't feed him enough, as he's resorted to eating Daddy... I tried explaining that cannibalism is taboo, but i don't think he got it...

Chillin' at the Mall...

We're hanging out at Tysons, waiting for Daddy to close some deals so he can come get us-it's scary crossing 123. But we may have to anyways. For now, though, Jeremiah's workin the ladies... Such a flirt.

If We Were Hamsters...

I think this video illustrates most married couple pretty well... that is, if we were hamsters.

Not fun without sound! (And no, there's no scary guy yelling at you in the end...) Turn it up!


Hamster Cage Fight - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

Man, I miss my camera!

Figures, Jeremiah starts being all sorts of cute WHEN I DON'T HAVE A CAMERA! Grr... Luckily, I DO have one on my phone, however, the quality is just so-so (as you can see...) BUT! It's better than nothing, as now I DO have photo-proof of how utterly adorable my family is. He just hung out nuzzling his Daddy, smiling and cooing at him, and for a moment, we thought he was "rooting" for some "num nums". Grrr.... I miss my camera....


He never does stuff like that with me.... :-(

We've reclaimed our bedroom!

It took 11 weeks, but we can now call our room OUR's again! Jeremiah has moved into his "big boy bed" (a crib) and outta his mini-crib (the co-sleeper). Now, it was very handy having him so close for those early morning feedings. But now that he's sleeping consistently through the night, there's no reason to keep him with us anymore. I'll probably leave the mini crib up a few more days, just to make sure things go well, and then I'll take it down.

I'm happy with his room! It's almost done, I just need to put up a picture or two, and the curtains, and it'll be perfect! I'll post pics as soon as I finish it.

So cute! Very exciting.

Bummed Out

I miss our camera.

It disappeared shortly after visiting Katharine and Laurence in the hospital when Lilly was born. We were taking pictures with it, and we haven't seen it since. Our only theory is that the couch Jeremy was sitting on swallowed it up. We both thought the other one grabbed it, and now it's gone.

Laurence and Katharine don't have it. We don't have it. The hospital has disavowed any knowledge of its existence.

:-(

The cheapest I've seen it for online is $150. Okay, we only paid $99 shipped, I'm not about to pay more to replace it.

Sigh....

It's spring! Jeremiah's cute! L&K had a baby! So on and so forth!

LOTS to write about, but it's late, so I won't be able to go into great detail...

However! I must admit I'm excited it's spring. After being in Mexico for a week, and the fun we had by the pool, I'm anxious for summer to arrive. Enough 30-40 degree weather. I WANT SUN! And HEAT! More more more! It's supposed to be nice this weekend, around 70 one day, 60's the rest. Hopefully that doesn't pull a "last week" and get really cold with freezing rain immediately afterwards...

Speaking of that whacky weather, what a time to have a baby, huh? Well, that's what Laurence and Katharine did! I've been lucky enough to be able to spend some time with them in the hospital. Katharine's doing great! She's really up and around, which is very impressive for someone post-c-section. She's well on her way down the road of recovery. And Lilly... what can I say... She's so tiny! My goodness, she's got to be the smallest baby I've ever seen--even smaller then Kris' baby, Cody (well, he's no baby anymore, but he was small... 6lbs, 1oz. Although I guess that's actually pretty big, considering he was almost 2 months early! Can you imagine how big he'd a been had he gone to term??? Probably bigger than Jeremiah! I'm glad, for Kris' sake, he came early!) Anyways, I think they're home now, and hopefully continuing to recover well, and enjoying their new life as parents. It's a blast. JUST SURVIVE THOSE FIRST TWO WEEKS! They can be really tough, but if you can get through those, you're set!

Can I just take a second to talk about how cute Jeremiah is? Well, it's my blog, so I'm gonna. :-) He's so cute! He's got just the cutest little face (big for his age... people always look at me aghast when I tell them he's 10 weeks... they think I mean 10 months. I guess it's POSSIBLE that he was a really REALLY small 10 month old... on the low low side, he'll be that size in probably another week, though the average is somewhere in the 20-21 lb range. But nope, 10 weeks is correct. ) I love how he wakes up in the morning, just smiling, laughing, so happy to see Mommy (or Daddy, but usually Mommy). He's not like that for his early morning feeding, though... Man that kid has lungs. But I love it all!

Now, if only we could get rid of the stupid cat. I left the door open today, hoping he'd go "explore" the outside (normally, he's rushing to race out the door as soon as we open it when coming home), but gosh darnit, he barely stuck his head out! Oh well. There's always next time....

Anyone else watching American Idol this season?? We are. Some good stuff, some bad stuff. I think it's kinda stupid, however, that it's a "pop" singing competition, and they have contestants singing non-pop songs. But whatever. I'll probably skip "country week", if they do that again this year. Although it may be interesting to see Blake Lewis beatbox a Keith Urban song... Anyways, just wanted to throw that out there. I'm interested to hear other's opine about such deep issues as American Idol. :-)

And finally... eh, I got nothing. I've misplaced my camera, otherwise I'd post some new pics of the babies. Hopefully it shows up soon... I miss it... I think I may have left it at the hospital. Oh, I hope someone found it.

Congratulations to Laurence and Katharine!

Katharine gave birth yesterday to a beautiful little girl, weighing in at 5 lbs, 11 oz and 19 in long (which is pretty long, considering how little she is!) Very fitting that she be born on St. Patricks Day, being a McKenny and all. :-)

Mom and Baby (and Dad!) are all doing very well. Katharine's on her way to a speedy recovery from her c-section (Lilly just didn't feel like cooperating. But that's okay, everyone's healthy, and that's all that matters!) so they should be home hopefully in a couple of days.

We're planning on visiting tonight, and will try to snap some pics for ya. For now, check out the pics on Katharine's blog here!

Just a few more...

Here are a few more pics from Cabo. I love the one with Jeremy & Jeremiah... And the one of us is "okay". Not my fav pic, but proof I was there. :-)

Pictures from Cabo!

Almost all of them are of Jeremiah, but that's all anyone wants to see anyways, right? :-)

Enjoy!

So....

I realize now that I start many of my posts with "So..." I think I need to be changing things up a bit... find a new way of looking at things, or something.

Just wanted to quickly post a few pics from our Cabo trip. Once I have more time (hopefully some time this week!) I'll write up a bit about the trip itself, and link to all 100+ of our pics online.

I will use one sentence to describe each day in brief:

Day 1: Travel Day
We arrived in Cabo early afternoon, picked up our rental car and drove the 40+km to our hotel; We checked in and basically did nothing--we all fell asleep around 7 pm and didn't wake up until 5 am the next morning. High for today, 80's.

Day 2: Shopping!
Realizing our hotel did not have quite the amount of amenities we hoped for (i.e. conditioner) we drove to town to pick up a few essentials and foodies from "Mega", a Wal-Mart type store. High for today, 80's.
Day 3: Beach Day? Don't remember....
Yeah, I don't remember anything significant happening. I think that this day was maybe the day we tried to take Jeremiah to the beach to give him his first taste of the Pacific, but it may have been "Tobasco's" day... Eh. Whatever.Day 4: More shopping downtown!
We had lunch at Hard Rock (the only place that didn't serve us tacos, quesidillas, or guacamole) and then perused the shops to find that "perfect" souvenir. While I don't think we found the "perfect" one, we were happy with what we got (cheap t-shirts always good... pottery even better!)Day 5: Move to the nice hotel!
Don't get me wrong, our hotel in Cabo San Lucas was nice (the kitchenette was very handy for sterilizing Jeremiah's bottles), but the Sheraton in Cabo Del Sol, SO much fancier and much more comfortable beds. And there weren't a million people trying to sell you everything from hats to timeshare.

Day 6: Me chill, Jeremy Work
Jeremy had meetings Wednesday morning, so Jeremiah and I went to the pool and waited for him to join us. Mucho Margaritas and sun later, Mexican Fiesta time, courtesy of Forrester.

Day 7: Snorkeling Trip!
We hopped on a huge boat and went snorkeling and had lunch on the water. Well, Jeremy plunged into the cold ocean, while I stayed with Jeremiah on the boat. Then they served Chicken Sushi for lunch........... yeah.

Day 8: More chillin', more workin', and then more partying.
That about says it all. Mucho sun, mucho relaxin', mucho margaritas.

Day 9: Travel Day
Or so we thought! We did make it out of Cabo, but as you could tell from our other posts, we didn't actually make it home until....

Day 10: Arrive home.
And we couldn't be happier!

After doing all this posting, I realize that my days are a bit off, so I'll hafta update that later. Also, I tried to get a pic to go with each day, but that didn't work out quite right either. Oh well. It's late (though my mind's on 11 pm right now, not 2 am...) so I'll fix it another time. Enjoy for now!

We made it!

We just landed in DCA. Jeremiah did great, we're glad to be home!

Livin' at the Airport

So, yeah... We're not making it home anytime soon! No confirmed flights until Tuesday. We'll try standby tomorrow, but no guarantees...

Stranded in Houston...

So, our flight leaving Cabo was late leaving... We got to our connection after racing through customs right on time, only to still miss our flight... Maybe we'll be home by Tuesday.

Timeshare...

So, we're in Mexico right now, sittin' on a computer in a lil' cafe that supposedly has the best margaritas in Cabo! Still waiting for it to show up, so we'll see if they're right.

We're having a great time so far, getting some shopping in, Jeremy got quite a bit of sun (from walking to and from our car.... that's it...) and Jeremiah's being a good boy. He actually did quite well on the plane, only crying when he was hungry or dirty. The first leg of the trip was terrible, in that we had to squeeze into two seats, with someone next to us at the window. Not fun. The second flight, though, we had the whole row to ourselves, and it made it sooo much easier... Hopefully we're as lucky on the way back.

Okay, so everywhere we go, there are people asking us if we want to buy a timeshare. NO WE DON'T! One thing being in Mexico has taught is how to be rude, in that the only way to get people to leave you alone is to blow them off. So blow them off we do. I hate being rude, but y'know what, I'm on vacation! I don't want to be bothered with talk of "timeshare" or "a great deal on silver!" and NO, I don't want to buy a hat.... Grrr....

Anyways, it's been a nice trip thus far. Jeremy stuck Jeremiah's feet in the Pacific, and boy did he scream! :-) I was watching from our seats about 70 feet back, and all I saw was Jeremy dunk him, and then pull him up quickly and hold him against his chest... And then I heard, "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Apparently, Jeremiah didn't like that to much. :-) Aww.... it took quite a few minutes to calm him down, but we were finally successful, and decided we'd try the pool from now on, which is a little bit warmer. :-) The only other time I've heard him scream that way was when Jeremy was feeding him this morning, and sneezed really loud... must have scared Jeremiah, because all of a sudden, he wasn't so fond of eating, and more fond of screaming! And scream he did! But he's okay now.

And that's about it so far. I've been trying to post pics via cell phone, but I can never get the network to authenicate my request... So they'll have to wait until we get back, I guess.

Tomorrow, we head for our final destination--Sheraton Hacienda del Mar in Cabo. We'll head back to the states on Saturday, with Sunday to recover, and then back to the daily grind on Monday. Talk to you all soon!

Oh, and if you would, please pray for Katharine and Lilly (and I guess Laurence to--might as well!) They found out last week that Lilly is breech, which makes having a home birth a little more difficult. Best case scenario, she flips in time and they can proceed as planned. Worst case scenario, they end up with a c-section. :-( So please pray that she flips and that Mom and baby make it though the whole experience happy and healthy (and that Laurence can be the wonderful supportive husband he's been thus far, even though their plans may be changing...) Thanks!

Off to Mexico!

Jeremy, Jeremiah and I are off to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for a much needed vacation. Jeremy actually won the trip at work, for being so awesome at what he does. Yay Jeremy!

Anyways, I gotta get to bed to get at least a couple of hours of sleep. We'll be sure to try to post at least a few pics while we're gone (via mobile picture message).

Have a great week! See ya Saturday!

How 'bout a few more...

We still haven't figured out what color his eyes are gonna be... some days they look green-ish brown, others just brown, others just hazel... So who knows! In this pic, they look kinda blue... Hmmm...

So, he doesn't like "sitting like a baby" anymore... He insists on trying to sit himself up all the time. Here, he's trying to do just that--and falling over to the side doing it. Such a big boy already!

Such a concerned look... But how 'bout them cheeks, huh?! Doncha just want to eat them up! SOOO CUTE! I love the chubby cheeks! He's stolen that title from the Stephin-Bunny... "Chubby Cheeks!" So cute!
Now that's the happy baby I know and love! He's at the point now where if he sees Jeremy or me, he'll recognize us and smile... Aww, it melts your heart!
That's his "duh" face. Has it's own kinda cuteness to it. Those cheeks, man... Definitely from Daddy!

Now we're just waiting for his hair to grow back. He's been losing it around the front of his head, but it's kinda starting to return... slowly but surely. It will be interesting to see what color it ends up being. It looks brown when it's all down around his head, but much lighter when he's had a bath and it's all sticking up in every direction. So who knows...

7 Weeks! (Now I'm caught up!)

6 Weeks Old (I'm a week behind...)

Better late than never!



He's liking his swing more and more. Sometimes he'll even fall asleep in it. Just don't expect it to occupy him when he's in his cuddly mood. He insists on being held then.

This pic kinda scares me... I don't know why... but it's just.... not.... normal? I dunno. It's cute. A little TOO cute... ;-)

More pics coming soon!

I promise!

Just wanted to tell y'all that.

I've been busy! And the camera's dead.... hafta find the charger before I can move the pics to the lappy and then onto the blog. Phew!

More Cute Pics

These are about a week old. You can see how his clothes are already too small (0-3 months). And now his clothes are too big (3-6 months). At some point, they'll fit just right!