Rabbit Heart (Raise it up)

Hello friends. Another quick one. It's getting late, and I've gotta fold some laundry before heading off to bed. Mia had some gnarly molar teething and went to sleep a little while ago. Not fun. Anyways, here's a quick run down on how the Thanksgiving festivus went. After working a very busy day, I met up with my family for dinner. Before hand, my oldest brother, my nephew, my sister and my Dad kicked the ball around. It was a lot of fun, and good practice for ME for the next game I can get in. (HOPEFULLY THIS SUNDAY) Dinner was amazing, desserts were super tasty. Mia thought her cousin Alex was the coolest kid and would give him a hug every once in a while. The next day we headed off to Illinois for round two, Jill's familia. Once again, awesome dinner but this time, Mia slept straight through the meal. Right on the floor. Poor kid was tuckered out from running around during the day. It was quite weird not having her next to either Jill or myself eating. Mia got really into taking pictures with our Nikon. She'd say "picture Grandpa, cheeeeese Grandpa" and do that with everyone in the room, including Remi the dog. She just may be showing signs on what she wants to do after high school.

Today, Mia and I watched my lil bro play some pick up hockey. Of course she had a blast. We soon headed by Jill for a quick visit, then Grandma, THEN my Dad just in time to watch a very frustrating game between my Chelsea FC and Fulham. Way too many chances blown by the Blues. They've got to get their act together and win this Sunday against West Ham.  Now that the Stamkos picture is complete and in my Dad's possession (he surprisingly loved it) I continued work on Mandi's family-inspired tattoo. Did some good work yesterday and a little today on it. Once I get the scorpion done and the rest of the zodiac signs, I'm going to take my sweet time on the lettering and numbers to make sure everything looks real tight and smooth.

This weekend-Breakfast with Santa at my old high school and a Christmas party later. We're both stoked for the party because it's with a group of friends we haven't talked to or seen since Mia was born. Sad,  I know but a kid really consumes your life. We don't have a lot of time to spend with friends  unfortunately. We barely see each other, but hopefully things will change some day. Like I said, hopefully I'm playing Sunday night. Keep the fingers crossed. Thanks for reading :)

In Vein

Evening folks. Going to make this one as quick as possible. I gotta get up at 5:30am to take my faithful buddy Remi out for a walk before working the zombie shift at 7am.  Afterwards, it's Thanksgiving dinner with my family (super excited by the way), plus celebrating my parent's birthdays. Speaking of which,  successfully completed my Dad's Stamkos picture. My final thoughts on it, is that it's an acceptable attempt at a rather tricky picture. I'd post it here, but had issues with the Nikon D70 shooting a picture. This was my third hockey picture. The previous two were of my two brothers. Both turned out pretty good. So this one, I had some tough issues getting the sizing just right. It still feels a bit compacted on paper but I hope my Dad likes it. The detail is defiantly there and overall, it's passable.  Should be fun seeing everyone Thursday after work. May even get to kick the ball around with my bro's if the weather is decent.

In other news, my brand new Samsung Galaxy sII came in the mail the other day. Activated it with Mia  at US Cellular. Nice people working there. Mia was extra awesome and behaved quite well. Lately she's been letting her shy guard down some. Been saying "hi" more often to new people. Anyways, the phone is pretty great. Taking time to get used to a full-touch Android smart phone since I've used real basic stuff for 10 years. My first phone played "oh Canada" for it's ring tone and I thought THAT was real cool. Haven't put a lot of apps on it yet. Just in the experimental stages with the awesome device. The camera is real great too.

Heading to Illinois this weekend for the Thanksgiving holiday. Hopefully the following weekend I can hit up the indoor soccer place and play a game. Speaking of soccer, totally bummed Robbie, De Mateo was axed from Chelsea FC today and replaced with a douche from Liverpool. The team lost a fantastic manager and I surely hope this new temporary manager can get the team's act together and win some games!!

Okay that's all for now. Short and sweet. Off to bed. Have a great holiday everyone.

A Praise Chorus

Hey dudes. Been super busy with art, mainly trying to knock out this birthday gift for my pop. I doubt he'll enjoy it as much as I'd like but we'll see what happens. I've restarted this sucker so many times. It's not at the level I'd like it to be as far as what I know that I can do, but overall, it's good enough, I suppose. I've got a few things to discuss so let's get right into it. Worked the early shift last Sunday because I had planned on playing some indoor soccer at 9pm that night. I was nervous and excited because my parents, my sister and of course Jill and Mia were making it out to watch me play. So we drove out in the rain and I casually looked around for any guys playing in the 9pm game. There were 3 girls league games going on so I figured it wouldn't be too difficult. Saw a guy chilling on his phone and asked "hey you playing in the next game?" He responded with "Actually I'm looking to sub". Perfect, I said I was too so we both headed downstairs to see if any teams arrived yet. We found one bunch of guys and asked them if they needed any subs. The goalie responded with "no thanks. Wonderful. We turned around and saw a large team they'd be facing shortly. Looked like kids straight out of High School or something. We didn't feel like they would want us to play so we didn't bother asking them.

We head back upstairs pretty bummed out. So we sat behind where the teams were taking the pitch to warm up. This guy next to us "who I SWEAR looked & sounded exactly like Washing Capital's Alex Ovechkin, yelled out "HEY where's the rest of your team?" to the goalie. He responded with "you wanna play, man?" Me and the dude I met were like "this guy had to see us there, what in the HELL man??" So we hoped they would lose for that BS. And sure enough, 10 seconds into the game the guys were scored on immediately. Me and my anxious family left after the kids scored 3 goals. I couldn't have been more bummed out. I just picked up some new soccer cleats (or boots) fore a pretty good price. Didn't even get to use them. Mia was looking forward to watching some soccer as well as my Dad. The other sub ended up sticking around to play at 10pm with other teams. I just wanted to head out, there was no way Mia would last till 11pm. I really hope I get to play December 2nd when Pork plays the team that rejected me and the other sub.

In other news, today I ordered a new phone. the Galaxy sii went on sale this week for super cheap for US Cellulars Thanksgiving sale. Yes, it's outdated compared to the siii but that phone is WAY too much for me. So the new phone will be here in a few days.


The picture above I took while colouring with Mia. The lighting in our kitchen was perfect and she was being super cute. A lot of photographers know that most successful photos is skill AND luck. With kids, it's a LOT of luck if you can pull off a really amazing shot. Her smile lights up my heart in ways only a fellow parent could really understand. That's all for now, it's getting late. Adios!

Plastic Cup Politics

Greetings people. Well, it was a long long campaign but it's FINALLY over with. Some are thrilled with the outcome of President Obama getting re-elected, others are very upset. The House went to the Republicans, the Senate went to the Democrats, which means not a lot will get accomplished. Every election, the people want both to work together so lets see what happens. Didn't work so well last term. No one can compromise on anything. Guess we'll have to see what unfolds.
Back to the rock.

Rainy today on my Wednesday off. Not cool, but we made the most of it. After a nap, we drove around, stopped by Jill for a quick "hi", and had lunch over by my Dad. Mia was in such a good mood with him. It was great. We shared a bowl of pasta. She gobbled it up like a hungry little monster. Later, hit up over at Grandma's for a quick visit. Always a fun time. Got some banana's and we soon headed home. All the playing, running around and jumping around tuckered her out and she was soon asleep. Love it when she's passed out on the drive. It's quite relaxing, and when I glance every once in a while to see her adorable face, a smile grows on my face :)

Last Sunday on my drive home, I couldn't decide if I wanted to play some indoor soccer at 9pm. When I walked in the door, I found Mia sleeping on Jill's lap. She was hungry so I ended up making her dinner and we had some apple pie. I decided that family time (when Mia woke up) would be a better option. And, ladies and gents, it totally was. This Sunday, I plan to play and hopefully will get on a team. Totally stoked and hopefully will play better. If the weather was better, I could work on my ball control with my brother. Rats.

As I was printing out some reference art for a tattoo design for my buddy and co-worker Mandi, I couldn't help but think how incredibly lucky Jill & I are to have such an amazingly smart, beautiful, loving and always funny kid. She's just amazing in every way. She counts, knows her ABC's, sings songs, plays instruments, loves soccer and hockey, gives great great hugs etc etc. Her earlier months up to a year were some of the hardest times we've experienced but if you can ride out the waves, you can make it to the next steps. I'm not excited for when she's a teenager dealing with heart aches and pain, but as a parent the best thing Jill and I can do is be there for her no matter what. Okay, that's all for now. Thanks for reading

This is Halloween!

Holy jack o' lanterns Batman! Do I have a lot to discuss tonight, so let's get right to it! Sunday morning, I went out and played a soccer/futbol game for the very first time in 16 years. Really! I took Remi out early in the morning for a warm up run. Got to Brookfield Indoor about a half hour before game time. Found a team to play with and we hit the pitch. I was nervously excited because I was watching some of the earlier games when I arrived and let me tell you, these guys played HARD CORE! They were super quick and fast, and could really boot the ball. As excited as i was to play, I felt sorta intimidated. Outdoor soccer is totally different then indoor. You sort of switch positions as times, but I ended up playing striker. next time, defense. It was defiantly a learning experience and look forward to playing the night games. What was great, was that Jill told me that Mia kept pointing and saying "daddy! How awesome. Legs were pretty sore after the 9-12 loss, but it was totally worth it.

Later in the day, we went trick or treating. Mia almost napped through it. Because it was pretty windy and cold, we only went out for an hour, which honestly was long enough. She did pretty well. It was cute watching her drag her little pumpkin full of candy around. She wouldn't wear the hat to her purple crayon outfit. Oh well. My mom and Tommy joined us. 

Tonight, we got he into her awesome pirate costume and hit up Waukesha. She plundered the streets in search of M&M's and Kit-Kats. Once again, didn't stay out long. My sister and Mom came along. We all had a great time, plus Mia looked awesome. 

Mia and I hit the voting polls and I casted my absentee ballot early. Just like Jill and I did before the last election before we hit NYC. It was cute how Mia asked me when I was filling out the envelop "Daddy, what are you colouring?" And after I finished at the poll, she said "yayyy Daddyyyy!" Love this kid so much. 

Making great progress on the Stamkos picture. Could be done in a week or two. Still, have lots of other art to do. 

All Hollows

Hey peeps. Short blog post today. Gotta be up early Friday morning. Just had some cool things to share. The warm weather has been great (even though it's gone now) Today, Mia and I took advantage of the seasonable October weather and raked up some leaves. I'd rake the ones out of the drive way, and she'd pick them up and put them back. Eventually she would realize it was more FUN to just throw them up in the air and put them in her hair. Strange kid. Anyways, so my Wednesday off was quite busy. The first and important stop, was to Brookfield Indoor Soccer complex. I recently discovered that they host Men's Open soccer on Sunday nights. Games beginning at 7, 9 and 10pm. So we ran down and checked out the place and got more info. When Mia and I walked in, it was pretty dark in the complex since they had no games going on, but Mia could tell what wasn't lit up: 5 beautiful soccer fields/pitch and she quickly said "DADDA SOCCER!!!" We talked to a woman who gave me the run down that you basically show up on game days for the first few weeks to see if anyone needs an extra player. Since THIS Sunday is trick or treating, I didn't think I'd be able to play at night..BUT she did inform me that the Waukesha Men's 35+ group meets and plays Sunday mornings. Even though I'm 29, she said I was "close enough" so she gave me some contact info. Today I got a response from the guy who must run it on game days. No permanent spots open for anyone, however he did say I could come down and see if they needs a field player. As stoked as I am to go down and play, I will not get too excited because who knows if they truly need a player. He said it's no guarantee but most likely I'll be able to play. So Friday morning, Mia and I need to hit up Steffans and get some shin guards, long socks and a pair of shorts.

When we left, Mia was pretty bummed she didn't get to watch any live soccer. She loves watching live hockey so I know that if daddy gets to play Sunday, she'll have an absolute ball. The complex is pretty cool. Very big with great seating everywhere.

Like I mentioned, Trick or treating is Sunday, so we're pretty stoked to take her out. It's gonna be 45-48 degrees so hopefully it won't be as windy as it is now, or we won't get that far for a 2nd year in a row :(

Anything else to discuss? I dunno. She pooed in the toilet a few days ago which is rad because it's one step towards her getting potty trained! Yay. Alright, that's all for now. Thanks for reading!

This Is Only A Test

Hello friends and loyal readers. Or... casual readers. Taking a break from drawing at the moment. Really kicking the Steve Stamkos portrait for my dad into high gear. Also, did a little work on the soccer home jersey. It's going be interesting. It's good to being able to put some creative energy into some art. Sometimes I feel like my days at work only destroy the already numb creative brain sells in the ol' noggin. Hence, why I need art in every way. I need to be doing something creative as often as possible. And that's a fact. Would be great if I could do it for a living. You know, actually be excited to go to work for once. Wonder what that's like. We carved pumpkins with my family over the weekend. As you can tell from the picture, Jill and myself carved Elmo and Cookie Monster. My sister with the help of Jill carved Big Bird. I'm quite happy with how they turned out.

Mia had a doc appt today. Would love to tell you what he weight/height is, but frankly, she was incredibly upset the whole time that I could barely hear the measurements. It started with the scale. She's much too big for the small one they used to be able to lay her on. I stood her up on the "big girl" one and she pretty much lost it. She used to be able to handle the head measurements and such, but she just freaked the HELL out. She's at the age where she remembered what the doctor and assistant do when we come in for the visit. Her next visit is at 2 years old, so hopefully we will be able to explain to her the situation and she'll handle it better, but it doesn't sound like it'll be that easy. Her and I kicked the ball around earlier today. Weather was perfect for some soccer. Couldn't have been better. She even did some dribbling around with her ball.

Other then that, nothing else to talk about. I defiantly would like to get the Samsung Galaxy S2. It's on sale currently online at the US Cellular site, but I need to go into the actual store to use my discount so hopefully we can work around or with the online deal for the phone. If I have to order it, then fine, I just want to get the phone and use my discount :)

That's all for now. Thanks for reading