Reality?

I don't even know where to start.  Let's just just jump right in.  Ethan's newest trick is that he can open every drawer in the house.  It's not a great trick.  The cat used to do it all the time.  Speaking of the cat, what do they make feline cuisine out of?  I only ask because dogs seem to prefer it to their own food, and babies don't seem to mind it either.  Mostly Ethan likes to play with it, but he has managed to sneak a couple of bites.  At least he isn't a picky eater.  This week he has also had a healthy dose of asparagus, beets, and a few other things that most people won't eat.  In dental related news, he finally has a couple of teeth coming in.  His two bottom front teeth are poking through just a little bit.  I am quite relieved.  Last week he was drooling like Niagara Falls.  I can't believe Pampers hasn't invented a product for this.  The drool seems to have subsided for now, and other than being a little cranky for a couple of days we came out unscathed.

"The Rant"
So I come home from work the other night, and Tiffany is watching a show called Toddlers and Tiaras.  It should be called White Trash Parents Who Dress Their Kids Like Hookers & Pimps.  Basically this show is about beauty pageants for children.  When I say children, I don't mean teenagers.  They actually have a category for 12 to 24 month old kids.  Anyone that would whore their kids out like that deserves to be shot.  The highlight of this particular episode was a five year old girl with a spray tan and an $1100 dress.  I'm going to leave it at that.  The rest of the things I have to say on this subject are probably not blog appropriate.  I will mention that this show was immediately followed by something called I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant.  You guessed it.  Somehow these people go nine months without any idea.  Reality TV is making people stupider; it has to be stopped.  Maybe we need a reality show where we round up all of these morons and put them in a Roman coliseum and let them fight each other to the death.  Maybe we could throw some tigers in there for good measure.  That would at least be entertaining.  Consider that my contribution to overpopulation.  I have a few other ideas as well, but I will save them in case I need future blog material.



Ok, I'm over it.  I feel much better now.  Tiffany should be home from work shortly.  We are going to hit the party store in preparation for the first birthday celebration going on here in a couple of weeks.  I still think first birthday parties are stupid, but I have been outvoted by all of the women on the planet.  I am sure Ethan won't remember it.  I only remember one birthday party from my entire life, and I was at least ten.  If nothing else, I guess it gives us a reason to show off how cute our baby is.  He is adorable when he isn't acting like a little devil.  The adorable comes from me, so I guess his mother is to blame for the other part.  There will be more details to follow on this whole ordeal.

some clever blog title

In an effort to get a few more pictures up, I will also grace you with a few choice words.  First off, what is up with everybody dying?  I mean we had Dio, Paul Gray, and now Gary Coleman.  Luckily Bret Michaels seems to be immortal.  It occurs to me that most people who read this blog probably don't even know who these people are.  If you don't care, fine.  If you do care, google.  Second on my agenda today is this:  our house is haunted.  Last night after we had gone to bed, Tiffany and both heard some noise from the living room.  I got up and checked everything out.  All the doors were locked.  All of the windows were closed tightly.  The baby was sound asleep.  We went back to bed.  Twenty minutes later, the metal basket that hangs in our shower fell with a loud crash and once again startled us out of bed.  No shampoo bottles were actually harmed.  I guess that could be just a freak occurence, and I still have no idea what the first noise was.  Another thing is that many of Ethan's toys seem to make noise when nobody is anywhere near them.  Maybe I watched Child's Play one too many times as a kid, but I think a few of these things are inherently evil.  Since we built this house, I am pretty sure nobody has died in it.  I am not sure whether or not we built on an ancient Indian burial ground.  I will do some research and get back to you.  One thing you should know is that the prospect of having a haunted house doesn't bother me in the least bit.  I mean it bothers me that it is keeping me awake, but I don't have an issue with dead people hanging around.  Perhaps my house is just the place people go before they move on.  My guest bedroom is available for anyone who wishes to come check it out.  By the way, for anyone who cares, I am glad that Lost is finally over.  I have come to terms with the finale.  Note that I didn't say I liked it.  I think like anything else, the reality just could not live up to the hype.  There probably wasn't an ending that I would have been completely satisfied with.  Maybe I will watch it again in a few years and think that it was the greatest show ever.  Right now I am just glad to have an extra hour a week to be more productive.  Actually I have two hours, since 24 no longer exists.  Its finale was amazing, and I am totally looking forward to the movie.  You know it's coming.  Summer is officially here.  Maybe not officially--I'm not looking at a calendar, but I know that it is hot outside.  Who knows when summer starts around here anyway?  We really only have hot and cold (or Hot N Cold for you Katy Perry fans).  I talked to my sister last night.  It sounds like wedding plans are coming along great.  Tiffany and I are thrilled for Callie and John, and we can hardly wait until September.  Also, here is a shoutout to Slim, Shelley, and Ethan's first first cousin, Kaycee Danielle.  In other family news, my cousin Emily is here tonight.  Ethan gets to meet his cousin Elizabeth for the first time.  I will do my best to get pictures.  If I don't, you can always read Emily's blog.  She is much better at this than me, and if you are reading this from Google Blogger instead of Facebook or Posterous, there is a link on the page.  Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Reunion pics

I am still testing a new blog site, so I don't know how this will look.  Here are some pictures that we took at the Murray reunion at Lake Brownwood last month.  After looking through the pictures, I realized that almost everything we took was of Ethan.  Hopefully somebody out there took some of everyone else.  I know Maegan took some of Ethan as well, but I haven't seen them.  They are probably better than what I got.

By the way, I had a cell phone incident the other night and pretty much obliterated my contact file.  If you have time, either shoot me an email with your number or text me with your name.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Brian's posterous

Untitled

I am experimenting with a new website for blogging.  I will let you know how it goes, but I think it will be easier to keep up with than this Google nonsense.

Posted via web from Brian's posterous

The Circle

Time is flying.  I have been so busy I can barely think.  I made two trips to Dallas last week.  The first was by myself.  My friend Matt and I went to the Mavericks game on Wednesday.  It was my first, but hopefully not my last.  We spent some time after the game and the next afternoon installing new speakers in my truck.  I came home and worked on Friday before enjoying three more days off.  Sunday we packed up the whole family and went back to the big city.  Tiffany and I had tickets to see Bon Jovi.  You can laugh all you want, but I had a great time.  Apparently I am not the only one--they sold out American Airlines Center two nights in a row.  Maybe there is some nostalgia at work here.  Bon Jovi was probably the first band that I was really in to.  Here is the setlist for anyone that is interested:

Blood on Blood

We Weren't Born to Follow

You Give Love a Bad Name

Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Born to Be My Baby

When We Were Beautiful

Superman Tonight

We Got It Going On

Bad Medicine/Hot Legs (Rod Stewart cover)

It's My Life

Homebound Train

Make a Memory

Bed of Roses

Squeeze Box The (Who cover)

Something For The Pain

Keep the Faith

Work For The Working Man

Who Says You Can't Go Home

Someday I'll Be Saturday Night

Have A Nice Day

Wanted Dead or Alive

Livin' On A Prayer

I guess I forgot to mention that we left Ethan with Sarah and Josh.  I don't want you to think that we just left him with the roadies for the band or something.  We spent all day Monday running around Dallas.  We got to check out the new house that Sarah and Josh are building.  Ethan was a trooper, even though he had to eat most of his meals in the car.  It took me about two days to recover from this trip.  I guess I am just getting old.  Next week is the Murray reunion.  We are all looking forward to relaxing and introducing Ethan to the rest of the family.

One thing I didn't mention is that my sister got engaged on Sunday night.  She and John are coming to the reunion, and we are excited for them both.  These posts are usually cut short by Ethan waking up, and this one is no exception.  I can hear him moving around in there.  The good news is that most of you just read this blog for the pictures.  Some might ponder that there are 2000 extra words here.  Of course it won't be 2000 seconds before my mom asks for some more.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Technically these were my birthday balloons, but the best part about these photos is that the helium will last forever.  It's kind of like a re-gift.  Have a great day! 

Operation: Sippy Cup

These pictures are a couple of weeks old.  I was trying to get some others up here, but for some reason Google won't upload some of my pictures.  I guess I will keep trying.  I know there are some people out there (my mother) who cannot have enough pictures.  It has been an eventful couple of weeks.  We made a trip to Amarillo to visit Tiffany's grandmother who had not yet seen the baby.  Over the course of the weekend, all of us ended up with a stomach virus.  It was not pretty, and I will spare you the details here.  After making the long drive back home, neither of us ate much for about three days.  I didn't mind, as I could afford to lose the weight.  Since then, things have pretty much gone back to normal.  By normal, I mean dividing my time between work and watching the baby.  A year ago I would have given you an entirely different definition.  We do still manage to get out some, but life seems to have slowed down a bit.  Ethan is now pulling himself up on all of the furniture.  We have removed all sharp objects from lower shelves in the house.  He continues to grow at an alarming rate.  Due to my previous experience with baby math, I can safely say that he is nine months old this week.  I expect him to be walking any day.  I'm pretty sure he is advanced for his age, both mentally and physically.  This is based on nothing scientific and just my own observations.  I do work with the public though, and he seems more intelligent than many of the people I deal with everyday.  I was about to wrap this up, but I just realized that two hours ago when I started this post I gave it a clever name.  I hate to leave readers in suspense (not really), so here is where it came from.  Yesterday, Tiffany decided that today would be a good day to see if Ethan could drink from a sippy cup.  I'm not even sure sippy is a word.  Let me add that Tiffany is at work today, so actually she decided that I would be around to clean up this mess.  We did get some milk into his mouth, but not enough to call it a success.  At this point we will just call it a work in progress.  Ethan did enjoy every minute of it though.