Kris Kringle Crunch Time

Good Morning. I'm a bit late on the blogging. Totally forgot to write yesterday morning. Over the weekend, we spent Saturday in Illinois exchanging gifts with some of Jill's friends who were in town
for a short time. Mia played with her old pal Caleb like they've known each other forever (which they have) After playing at lunch and at Jill's parent's house, I came to the conclusion that Mia is full of crap. The whole "boys are yucky and gross, I don't like them" is a total bunch of BS, she had so much fun with Caleb. She did specify that she doesn't want to kiss them (which is fine) when Caleb went in for a smooch, but they had a great time. He was showing her all of his karate moves, and she'd try to imitate them. Maybe that's why she likes him. He could protect her :P

Sunday, we drove up, and I worked 2-10. This week, we've still got a lot to do. This morning we're going to make the effort to wrap Mia's presents (and hopefully not wake her). We were going to yesterday, but Jill had a pinched nerve in her shoulders and couldn't get her self moving. An acupuncture appointment helped with that.

Forgot to mention this: Thursday, I took Mia to her school's Christmas program. She got all dolled up, dress, tights, her red heels etc. She was invited to sing, but of course said "no thank you" but we went anyway to watch her classmates including longtime friend Hannah. She had a great time. She proudly walked to the gym showing me the different rooms and where she plays etc etc. She clapped for every song. She actually knew the lyrics to the 3k songs, but just was too shy to sing. After the concert, she got to hang a bit with her friends. Her teacher was so happy Mia came. Friday when I picked her up from school, she gave Jill and I the most beautiful ornament she made.It was a thumbprint with antlers like a reindeer. "THIS IS FOR YOU GUYS BECAUSE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH"

I finished my Didier Drogba portrait. At the time, I was quite stoked, but the more I look at it, the more I realize it could use some work. Overall, it's not bad. I'm probably going to move on to another player this weekend.

So the other week while listening to the Chelsea FanCast, I wrote in to the show about how Mia and I are big fans, blah blah blah, and last week, they read it on their show and showed a photo of Mia. (with her David Luiz tongue sticking out) Totally awesome. Mia loved it. "MOMMY THESE GUYS IN ENGLAND SAW MY CHELSEA PICTURE!" I sadly missed the Stoke game yesterday, but on my break, I saw we won 0-2. I'll watch the highlights after I post this blog. Doesn't feel like Christmas with the 40 degree temps and rain. Last day of work today. WOO! Thanks for reading :)

The Good, The Bad, and the Depressing

Greetings. I'm just going to dive into the recent happenings and events, alright? Okay then. Last Friday evening post-work, we packed the car and headed down to Illinois for a weekend with the in-laws (and Jill's pals) Mia was super excited, in fact she was so excited, she crashed before we even got to Lake Geneva. Good. A nice quiet drive is always preferred when we're making the late-night road trip. Arrived at 1:15am, and got right to sleep since Jill had to be up early for her plans with her friends in the morning. Saturday, she met up with her longtime friends to celebrate one of the friends' birthday, so we didn't see her the rest of the day. Mia and I enjoyed our time with Jill's parents. We even got to watch the Penguins/Blue Jackets game. It was a great win for the Pens. Sunday, I got up at 8am to watch the big Chelsea vs Liverpool game. It was quite enjoyable to see our team, with most of our usual starting men out and injured, beat an otherwise healthy Liverpool. Even during breakfast, Mia quietly asked me in my ear "Daddy, I'm done eating, can I go watch the Chelsea game now?" Love it.

This week's game against Atletico Madrid was far more nerve wrecking. The anticipation to today, was intense and with last week's leg drawing at 0-0, anything could happen today. We had a few of the injured playing with high hopes of going on to the final against Real Madrid. Fernando Torres had a great goal that had me thinking "Okay, maybe we can pull this off, just need a few more
goals to finish the game" but Atletico responded with an equalizer. Bummer.

2nd half, the game only got more intense with Atletico getting stronger in the back, and muscling our forwards to ground. I can't remember a time when Eden Hazard wasn't getting shoved. I still don't get how they didn't call a foul on the heavy shove to Andres Schurrle. However, Eto'o's challenge in the box gave our possible new striker come Summer time (it's still in the talks of course) Diego Costa a PK. The turkey did get yellow carded for taking way too long to set up for his strike, but when we finally settled on his ball placement, he fired in the 2nd goal for AM. Crap...

A lazy move by Hazard let them finish us off with their 3rd goal. It was a tough match, especially at the end. Perhaps we shouldn't have been playing some of our injured guys, or maybe we were just making too many mistakes, regardless, it wasn't enjoyable. Mia even said "Daddy, I'm sad Chelsea lost too"

The week has been quite overcast and rainy, so me and Miss Mia have not been able to do anything outside. I did however see some sun this morning on my daily early walk with the dog. New art coming hopefully soon. Not sure what we're doing this weekend. Jill's got to work Saturday, and I've got a 7-3pm shift. That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

Bring it on 2014!

Greetings. With New Years Eve coming tomorrow, I thought I'd do my traditional year end review of how everything went. Before that,  let's get Christmas out of the way first. Christmas Eve, I worked a very busy early shift till 2pm, then we headed over to my brother's house with the rest of the family. Mia got some great new stuff including an awesome doll house. She's in Illinois right now with Jill so I imagine she'll be exciting
to play with it again when they come home tomorrow. My parents got me an AMAZING Chelsea FC away jersey ( I had customized with Oscar on the back). My amazing wife got me a nice, warm and awesome Chelsea FC winter jacket. I think that I'll be truly thankful for it today when I go to work since It's -11 degrees out. BRR! I picked out a bunch of clothes for Jill for Christmas, so she was happy. I hope :) Christmas morning, Mia slept in till 11ish. She wanted to "wait" for Santa Christmas Eve, and eventually fell asleep. She woke up, opening some gifts and loved everything. Her pink PowerWheels Mustang was waiting for her in the driveway. Too much snow to thoroughly enjoy. Come Spring time, she'll get to cruise.



Back to the year end review. Last year, I had made a small list of goals to accomplish. Let's take a look.
First Goal- Play in an adult indoor or outdoor soccer league-in 2012, I started to regain my love for soccer, and really wanted to play more soccer in 2013. Well, I didn't get to play in a "league", I did play some adult pick up. Played a few outdoor games in the summer and some futsal a month or so ago as a sub. Man, playing soccer is so incredibly fun. The most amazing work out and exercise. Was hoping to play last night, but there was no need for any subs.
Second Goal- Possibly find a 2nd job. ALMOST HAPPENED! In fact, a graphic design job almost happened. Over the summer, a good friend of mine from college had told me that a woman she works out with at her gym worked at a company that designs neon beer signs for companies. So to get in with this job, I had to create a website for my art work. Which is perfect because that was one of my other goals from LAST year :) So I designed a clean site that's easy to navigate. In the end, the job fell through, but for a few weeks, I had a creative spark to design some new things and challenge myself.

Third Goal-Play pond hockey before the end of Winter with my brothers Didn't happen. Maybe this year we will.  Last two-Try to complete a killer water colour picture and Maybe do a series of some really nice photographs. Water colour didn't happen, but one rainy day, I was able to shoot some awesome photographs of Mia in the rain with an umbrella.

2014 GOALS
1-Another series of great photographs 
2-If the weather cooperates, make a Snow-Minion 
3-Draw a portrait of a Chelsea player  
4-Work on my endurance/Get in better shape 

Not a lot of goals, but how I look at it, everything on here could happen and I need to make them happen.

Real quick, the highlights of my year: 
Mia turned two, which lead to all of the wonderful new things she can say and sing with me.
We lost our Guinea pigs. Both passed away :( 
Started taking Mia to play groups and we both made new friends. 
Chelsea became the Europa Champs :) 
Turned 30 in July :/  
We took a family trip to Indiana and I got to see Chelsea vs Inter in Indianapolis 
Completed more art then last year (including that picture of Remi above next to the one of Haily Jill did for her aunt) 
Saw Alkaline Trio with my brother. First show in a few years and it was fantastic. 

Okay, that's it everyone. Thanks for sticking with me over the year. See you in 2014!! 

I Was a Fool

Greetings. Getting late so let's get this underway. Over the weekend, we made a visit to Illinois so Jill could have a girls night with her best buddies. They live in different part of the midwest which means they don't get to see each other that often. Needless to say, they had a good evening, I'd imagine. Well, Jill said they did. Sushi and drinks are always awesome, right? Sunday we went to the park before dinner and heading home. A bit windy, but nonetheless a good time for Mia. Who doesn't love the park? I'm starting to think she gets a bit intimidated around the bigger kids running wildly around. Today, same thing. Had some fun, then these bigger boys ran around with fake swords and knives. She was ready to call it a day. Later today, Jill came home and we went for a nice family walk with Remi. Totally highlight of my day. Why? because it's the simple things that can make you happy. Spending time with the two of them always makes my day. Plus, it was quite nice out, and it's supposed to only get better. Super stoked about that.

Most of last week and part of this week, we were getting way too much rain. Was able to get some cool photos of Mia wondering around in the rain and puddles. Gave my Lil Wayne portrait to my buddies daughter and I was quite surprised how much she loved it. Could I have done better? Probably. It wasn't easy but I'm glad she was happy. Trying real hard to complete a picture for a birthday gift. Hopefully I can pull it off. Hoping to get a bike ride in with Mia either tomorrow or Friday morning. Okay,that's all for now. Thanks for reading :)

Just Keep Swimming

Hello friends. Lots to discuss tonight, so let's get to it! Last week (and into this week) everyone in the house has been ill. Jill's got a double ear infection (mostly better now) and of course Mia's got a gnarly cold. Nothing worse then a snotty, upset and angry toddler. You wipe the nose, get all that crap off her face and she takes her arm and swipes her nose again bringing out MORE boogers. Gross, and redundant, but pretty much happens ALL day. Hope she gets better soon. I've got a lingering cold that needs to leave too.

Monday, our guinea pig sadly passed away. Not the best way to start out the day. Mia and I walked in the room and she was just laying there...Mia asking "what happened to Riley? I don't hear any squeaking". Pretty much talked about it the last few days. It was incredibly sad to break the news to Jill since it was HER piggie. We love our pets and when we lose one, its like losing a family member (as lame as that sounds). The good news, is that we can turn the guinea pig room into a nice play room for Mia. Going to get some new carpet in there, and I've got a mural to paint eventually. If the weather stays nice tomorrow, I hope to take her to the park, either play some soccer or maybe basketball. We've got to build her new play house in the yard too, but I want to wait till the 30 degree temps are gone. Come on Spring!!

No days off this week. Worked a Wednesday for the first time in a few years. Luckily, Jill's pop drove up to spend the day with Mia. Got some nice work done on the LIl Wayne Portrait. I want to get this thing done quickly so I can work on a last minute idea for my older bro's birthday coming up. Plus, a slew of other projects that I need to work on.

Mia had a great Easter. We didn't make it down to Illinois on Saturday, but we did visit with my family and have Easter dinner PLUS a little egg hunt for Mia. She loved looking for the eggs and after finding them all, she wanted to do it again. We may do something this weekend.

Oh, and one last thing-The announcement for the new Nemo sequel sounds great. Hopefully it won't go the same route with the last sequel (Cars 2) and not be that great.
That's all for now. Thanks for reading :)

Calling All Skeletons

Well, Mia survived her very FIRST trick-or-treating. I worked a very early 6am-2pm shift at KT. Mind-numbing and busy all day. The whole shift I kept my eyes peeled on the weather like a kid hoping for a sunny day for recess. All I wanted was to be able to walk around the neighborhood with my kid, Jill and my family that stopped over. It was on-and-off raining. Rats. My nephew didn't mind the weather at all. He tore New Berlin a new one looking for candy. We just wanted to take her out as Nemo just to say she went "out" on Halloween. Next year, she'll be running all over the place. Seeing all the kids out made me excited for next year. Watching Mia run up and down the driveways.

Still working hard on my Mia picture. Haven't been the last few days, but plan to put some good hours in it this week. Did a little work today in between her naps. I love my Wednesdays off. Jill especially does because we get to spend the evening together which is pretty rare. Mia couldn't have been happier with us BOTH home. It's pretty amazing to see her just super excited shrieking and laughing. Any bad day can be lifted by hearing her giggle. This weekend, we're heading to Illinois for a day to visit with Jill's parents. Her Dad is due for some serious Mia time since he doesn't get to see her often. Remi will be excited too. He loves loves loves Jill's dad and running all around their house. I feel bad for him that we can't always give him all the attention he'd like. He was our 'first born' and got used to lots of play time with his 3 walk minimum. Today, the rain kept him from going out for a #2. It'll be an early run Thursday morning for sure.