Can Being In A Rut Be Fun?

Ever feel like you are in a rut…digging and digging to get out, but getting no where fast?

Ever since Momma started staying at home with Ace instead of going to work, we have really had to watch where our money goes.  And now that we are living in a recession it almost like a noose around our necks!

We pay all of our bills on time, but what’s left over leaves little room for much entertainment or extra curricular activities.

The added stress and lack of doing things hasn’t really helped my blogging much. I mean, do you really want to hear about how we do the same thing every day?  I didn’t think so…  :D

I know that the recession has hurt many families much more than it has hurt ours and I am very grateful that we have done as well as we have throughout these tough times.

I have friends that have been laid off for over a year, depleted all of their savings, and ran up their credit cards.  Now they are living on a shoestring budget struggling to make ends meet.

So how has the recession put unwanted stress on your family?

What have you done to alleviate this stress?

What are some fun (and inexpensive) things that your family does for entertainment?

Using His Words…

Forever, I thought that ace was never going to talk.  But here lately he has really been jibber-jabbing about everything under the sun.

I recorded this video at dinner time the other night.  Ace had been saying PIIIZZA  all day, and so I figured he was asking for it…  Momma wasn’t home to cook dinner, and I didn’t feel like cooking again, so we ordered some Donatos!!

Looks like he likes pizza just as much as me!  He ate 6 pieces…  :D

Why Buy Toys?

I mean seriously.  Ace has a whole room full of toys.  Hell, you risk life and limb just to venture into the booby trapped maze of Fisher Price land mines!

With all the toys that Ace has, it never seems to amaze me the things that he plays with…

Favorite toy #1 is the toilet plunger!  How much more sanitary of a toy could he find?  If we leave the bathroom door open, it is a given that I will eventually trip over a tool designed to push a chunk of poo the size of a drain pipe!

Favorite toy #2 is the toilet brush…  If you find the poop pusher in the kitchen, you are likely to find the Porcelain God’s  loofah somewhere nearby.  Let’s just see how many places we can spread the fecal matter, shall we?

Favorite Toy #3 is the attachment for the vacuum.  But you know what’s funny..?  If I actually attach it to the vacuum and turn it on so that he will actually be doing some cleaning…he wants nothing to do with it.  :D

Favorite Toy #4 is the trash can lid.  If you take it off of the trash can, put it in the middle of the tile kitchen floor, stand on it until it is flat, and then jump off… it snaps back into shape with a loud POP.  Damned Rubbermaid…

And finally, Favorite Toys #5, 6, 7, 8, and 9…anything that is stacked in a neat pile, put away in a cabinet, on the counters, hanging from the Christmas tree, or otherwise purposely hidden from a two year olds view and/or reach…

What are your kids’ favorite “toys”?

Ever Lost Your Kid?

The other morning Momma woke up and heard the TV on downstairs…and it was on cartoons.  Ace has never gone down the stairs before in his life (without rolling down them).  She went downstairs to find Ace running around the downstairs nekkid as a jay bird!!

Apparently, he took off his jams and diaper and decided to let the boys air out a bit…

Then she noticed a Fed Ex package sitting inside the living room next to the front door.  She figured that I met the Fed Ex guy on my way out the door and threw the package inside…but I didn’t.

So our best guess is that Ace unlocked the front door and opened it when the Fed Ex guy knocked… probably greeting him in his birthday suit.   The Fed Ex guy didn’t see a parent around, threw the package inside and shut the door.

Thank goodness it was our honest Fed Ex guy at the door, and not a child molester!!!

We have had a few things in place to keep this from happening…a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs, and a chain lock on the front door.

However, when I leave for work I can not lock the chain lock because you can only lock it from the inside.  And the baby gate?  I know I shut it.  So Ace found some way of forcing it open and then shut it behind him…or he climbed over it.

Then a few days later I wake up to go to work and went to check on Ace before I left.  He got sick in the middle of he night and we had to change his sheets at 3 AM, so I was making sure he didn’t puke all over himself again…

He was not in his bed.

I checked the baby gate down the stairs and it was shut.  The chain was still on the door.  He has to be in the house somewhere!?

I checked all the closets thinking that maybe he climbed in there and slept for the night.  I checked all the rooms upstairs and even in the bathtub.

Ace was no where to be found!

So eventually I go downstairs to find Ace lying in the middle of the living room floor, fast asleep, with his Teddy and Blanky where he apparently fell asleep watching cartoons in the middle of the night.

He had shut the gate behind him and could not get it back open to go back upstairs to bed.

One of the scary things is that he isn’t the most graceful person going down the stairs, and he likes to carry 20 times his weight in stuffed animals down with him.  I know I am going to wake up one morning the sound of THUMP THUMP THUMP as he is tumbling down the stairs.

And the sad thing is there is no way to gate off the top of the stairs!!

Maybe we’ll have to lock him in his room…but I’m sure that is against all kinds rules to Children Services .  :D

So, we’ve been practicing going down the stairs.  If he’s going to do it, we might as well teach him the safe way to do it.  Hand on the wall.  One step at a time.  Put down the stuffed animals.  Quit horsing around!

And now I leave through the side door…which he hasn’t figured out how to open yet.  This way the chain lock can stay on the front door.

Can you imagine the look on the Fed Ex guy’s face when a butt naked two year old answered the door?  :D

New Look and New Reviews Section!

I finally got the new theme for DadThing done, and am happy with it!   In fact, I’m seriously considering starting a web design business.  In addition to DadThing I have also also designed the following sites:

All of these were designed from scratch…no FrontPage or DreamWeaver or any of that crap…just plain ole’ HTML and CSS typed in Notepad.  :D

Let me know what you think about the new DadThing design in the comments section!

Oh, yeah…I have also started a new Reviews Section at DadThing.  In the Reviews Section I plan to review items that can either be used by a Dad, or their children and family.

I’ve already got quite a few interesting products to review on the way, and and will continue to pursue other cool guy products.

If you have a product that you would like me to review, please email me at jared(at)dadthign(dot)com

Freeing Up Some Space…

So many times I take pictures and forget I even took them.  I downloaded all of the pictures off of my digital camera and realized that I completely forgot to write about the awesome time we had on a mini vacation in September!

The whole goal of this mini vacation was to get out of Dodge for the weekend, and go down to see the leaves changing along the Ohio river.  There were a few other festivals that we were planing on attending as well.

So, we loaded up the truck, and we moved to Beverly….not really…but we did go to the hills.  Not the Hollywood Hills, but the hills of Kentucky!

We drove down on a Friday night after work and got into the hotel kinda late.  Ace was zonkerred out and Momma and I quickly followed his lead.

Saturday morning we got up early to go to a harvest festival/car show a few towns over.  We get to the little po-dunk town and there was nothing…not one car being showed.  We drove around the 5 whole blocks of this town to realize that their website was wrong.  We finally found a sign advertising the car show… THE NEXT WEEKEND.

So much for the car show.  We had all day and a full tank of gas.  We just started driving and saw a sign for a National Park.  We had not visited a National Park since we lived in Colorado.  Ohio just does not have many extreme wilderness areas…ya know?

We paid for our day pass and drove about 10 miles back into this forest until we found ourselves parked at the end of a hiking trail alongside the Ohio River.  Ace has never been hiking…let’s do it!

Off we go…hiking through the forest.  It was pretty muddy because it rained the night before, and Ace hit every mud puddle along the trail.  I rolled up the bottoms of Ace’s pants to keep them from getting too muddy…and I had to roll up mine as well.  :D   We were having fun!

The cliffs were amazingly high…and steep!

Tall Cliffs Near The Ohio River

Tall Cliffs Near The Ohio River

Ace got to see a lot of things he had never seen before…big cliffs, the Ohio River, people riding horses, and even a few barges hauling stuff down the river (one was hauling port-a-potties…a whole barge full of porta-potties!)  :D

We hiked and hiked…and hiked!  I’m surprised  that Ace’s little stubby legs still worked!  But he did stop a few times to take a rest…

Taking A Rest While Hiking

Taking A Rest While Hiking

We hiked all the way back to the truck where ace decided that there was something wrong with the front tire..

Dad, Here Is The Problem...

Dad, Here Is The Problem...

And after he fixed the problem…not real sure what he did…we headed back out on the road.

We came across a little park that marked a battle site from the Civil War…or something.  ( I never have been a history buff.)  There was a cannon that was used in the battle, and for some reason an old cabin.

Looking Down The Barrell Of A Cannon

Looking Down The Barrell Of A Cannon

Notice the jacket that Momma is wearing?  It’s the one I reviewed…  :D
Which by the way has been moved over to the new DadThing Reviews Blog!

Sitting On The Front Porch Of An 1800's Cabin

Sitting On The Front Porch Of An 1800's Cabin

We quickly bored ourselves with a history lesson and headed back out onto the road.  This time we ended up at the Louisville zoo!

Just so happens they were having a trick or treat night!!  So, we got Ace dressed up in his best Fire Fighter Uniform and went to keep all of the zoo animals safe from any blazing infernos.  :D

Firefighter Halloween Costume

Firefighter Halloween Costume

And wouldn’t you know it…Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow from Oz were there!

We just had to meet them…and get our pictures taken with them…

The Tin Man and Dorothy

The Tin Man and Dorothy

The Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion

The Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion

Dad and aat the Emerald Palace!

Dad and Ace at the Emerald Palace!

Notice the bottoms of my pants?

Yup, some ‘tard forgot to roll them back down after hiking… :D

I guess Momma is right…I am special sometimes.  :D

All Is Clear On The Home Front…

Some of you might have noticed that DadThing was labeled an Attack Site…again… a few hours last night.

I quickly backed up the site and wiped it clean….reloaded a fresh new install or WordPress…using my old theme…and now Google says my site is no longer an attack site…thank goodness!

The last time this happened I went through everything…and deleted a ton of extraneous stuff from the site that had compiled over the past few years…and a few weeks later, the site is “bad” again.  WTH?

My only inclination of what could possibly be wreaking so much terror on the site was the Google AdSense ads that were scattered across the site.  They were the only thing that was not hosted on the DadThing server!  So, they are gone…forever.  :D

I have also done my research on web site security and applied a few more techniques to prevent this type of thing from happening again in the future.

So all is clear….again…  :D

I’ve been working a new site design and will hopeful release it in the near future.  I am also opening up a “Reviews” section of the blog where I will be reviewing many interesting Dad/Guy/Kid/Family related items.  The future is looking very exciting here at DadThing!  :D

Back to your regularly scheduled DadThing fun… :D

EDIT:  Went back to the blacklist.  I did really find the problem this time. I had to dig through over 10,000 fies on the server, but finally found the culprit!  The site has been submitted for review.  This theme is only temporary until I get the new on done… :D

Our Yearly Photo Shoot With Lotz Studios!

Remember a few weeks back…I told you I was excited to go get our yearly pictures done?  Every year since ace was born we have called up Lotz Photography, here in Columbus, and they do an amazing job of capturing  Ace’s personality…

Ace

They have posted some of the pictures from this years photo shoot on their blog:
http://www.lotzstudios.net/blog/hoylman-family/

I just got the rest of the pictures today (125 pictures total!), so I’ll write up a post about our experience, and post a few more pictures in the very near future.  :D   Stay tuned!

…and while you are at the Lotz Studios website, see just how many pictures of Ace you can find…leave a comment with the number of pictures you found, and if you are right?  We’ll see…  :D

Dad, Here Is The Problem…

Wordless Wednesday

Dad, Here Is The Problem...

How Do You Know You Spend Too Much Time Playing Bejeweled Blitz On Facebook?

Bejweled Blitz

Bejweled Blitz

So how do you know when you spend too much time playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook?

Maybe you check the leader board while on break at work to make sure that no one has beaten your score!

Could it be that you find yourself organizing the cans in your cabinets into groups of three?

Do you dream up ways to sabotage that person’s computer who will always get 200,000 points every single week and you’re lucky to get 100, 000?!

Or maybe…just maybe…a good sign would be your two year old, who only speaks the language of Nick Jr, running around the house saying, “One Minute…Go!”…”Bang Bang Crash”…”A New High Score!”

Maybe…just maybe…that would mean that you play just a little too much.  :D

More Of A Treat Than A Trick

Ace Trick Or Treat 2009So this year was a pretty fun one for Trick-Or-Treat!

The past few years Ace could really give a crap.  I think it was more of an inconvenience for him actually.  He probably saw Trick-Or-Treat as just wearing some uncomfortable clothes…being made to walk (ride in the stroller or Dad’s arms) an insanely long distance…being surrounded by people with bad customes…and it was all for nothing!  He didn’t even like candy!

But, this year was a different story.  I was so proud of him.  We took off from Grandma’s house walking…yes actually walking this year.  He was carrying his candy bucket, kept his hat on, and only tried ripping his costume off a few times.  :D

Ace walked house to house, up and down stairs, for six whole blocks without even being asked to be carried.  (My arms thanked him)  :D

There was some people trying to be scary to the little kids by wearing scary masks while passing out the candy.  We walked up to one house and here comes a girl about Ace’s age with tears flying.  I thought about walking past this house to keep Ace from getting scared, but then I changed my mind.  After all, Halloween is all about being a little scared, right?

Ace walked up to the scary guy with some weird mask on and just stared at him like he was thinking, “What the hell is wrong with your face?”  Ace took his candy and calmly walked to the next house.  I was rolling… :D

After about 6 blocks Ace has had enough and his candy bucket probably weighed about as much as he did.  We called it a night and went inside to check the candy for tampering.  There were a few pieces where I deemed that a taste test was necessary…  :D

Next year’s post will probably be about how out of breath I will be after chasing him from house-to-house, keeping him out of the street, and my sugar deprevation.  :D

DadThing Is Healthy Again!

So, yesterday Google reported DadThing as an attack site.   Yeah, real viscious isn’t it! :D

This is probably the third time in the past year that DadThing has been hacked.  I’m getting pretty good at fixing it now.  The first two times it was obvious.  If you would view the HTML you would see an encrypted JavaScript being ran in the background.  I had to remove this code from about 100 files throughout the WordPress core.   But this last time I’m not real sure what Google considered malware.

I removed all of the little widgets and chicklets to random sites that promise to send you traffic…cause they weren’t working any ways!  I removed an ad that I added the day before, and I removed a bunch of questionable links left by commenters.

I submitted my site to Google for review around lunch time and 12 hours later DadThing is reported as a friendly site again.  (Click for proof)  Hip Hip Hooray!

So, now back to the regularly scheduled (or not so regularly scheduled) content…  :D

DadThing Hacked!

Hello loyal readers!

It looks as though DadThing.com was hacked and is now being reported as an “Attack Site”!

I have went through all of the code on the site and removed any suspicious code, widgets, and links.  DadThing has been submitted for review to remove the label of Attack Site.

I will post again, when the coast is clear!

Thanks again for your patience!

Jared

A Stress Reliever…

I drove three hours to Cleveland today to fix some machinery.  That’s what I do.  If you follow me on Facebook, you see my updates every now and again from different parts of the country…fixing machinery.

It is very stressful.  If they call me in to fix the machine there has many times been two or three other people before me that couldn’t. 

Traveling, long hours, tough problems, businesses losing money because their equipment is not running, and it is all on my shoulders to make this large machine do it’s job once again.  I am the last defense.

Well, today I was stressed out because I was waiting for UPS to arrive with the part I needed to fix this particular problem.  It was delaying me by a couple hours already and I really wanted to get out of there and start that three hour drive home, so that I could sleep in my bed tonight…not a hotels. 

My cell phone rang.  The caller ID said it was from our house phone.

I answered, “Hello?” All I heard was silence…

“Heeelllooo?”, I said.

And then plain as day I hear, “Hi Daddy! (Click)” 

I call our house back and Momma answers the phone.  I asked her if she just called me and handed the phone to Ace to say “Hi”, and she said “No?”.

Momma has tried and tried and tried to get Ace to say “Hi Daddy!” over the phone when I am out of town for work, and he never does.  He listens for a while and then starts pushing buttons. :D

And today?  He picked up the phone and called me all by himself…just to say “Hi Daddy!”

Yup.  Today was a good day.  :D

Social Networking For Two Year Olds

We do not know any other parents with kids Ace’s age.  All of our friends either have 4-5 year olds or babies.  No toddlers.

So, Ace has really been deprived of interacting with other children his age.  Do they have a Facebook for toddlers?  He is an only child (although we have been working hard to change that, just no luck yet), but does get to interact frequently with older kids…which is good…but not what he needs.  We do not want him to grow up and be socially retarded.  :D

So, Momma found a “Mommy & Me” class for them to take, but there was only one other kid there besides Ace.  So, she dug a little deeper and found a Gymboree class for him to attend.  Tomorrow will be Ace’s third class.

It really is kinda fun…even I enjoy it!  Miss Alissa, the teacher/activity leader is very good with kids.  She sings and dances and is extremely animated which draws the toddlers’ attention away from their shoe-laces (or whatever may have caught their attention).

There are multiple group activities separated by “play time” where the kids can go down the slides, shoot some hoops on a two foot tall basketball rim, climb different obstacles, and interact with each other.

The first visit Ace was very shy (gets that from me) and the second visit he opened up a whole lot.  He actually participated in the group activities, but not so much with the other kids.

However…so far Ace has successfully knocked down a girl, head butted the same girl, and climbed on top of a girl…the same girl (whoa whoa buddy!).  Aren’t little boys mean to the girls they like?  I’m going to have to watch these two… :D

Overall it is a good time had for all, and I hope that Ace gets something valuable out of it.  Momma has already made a friend with one of the other Moms there and they are planning a play date outside of Gymboree.   Maybe Ace has made his first friend his own age?  We’ll see…  :D

Happy Birthday Momma!

momma-throwing-highSeptember is a month of celebration in our household.  Between our anniversary, the blogiversary, and Momma’s birthday we usually get to go out to dinner, usually the bar, and I get to have 3 easy blog post topics.  :D

So, today is Momma’s birthday.  She is *cough* twenty-nine *cough*.  No, really she is!  And she will probably remain this age for the rest of her life.   Isn’t that how most women do it?  :D

Tonight, Momma is having a Girls Only party for a few hours (and so that means, by default, the guys get a Guys Only party too). 

Then later, we are all going out on the town together to do some bar hoppin’…consume more (insert your poison of choice) than we probably should…get a little bit crazy…probably indulge in some bad dancing…and if all works out we’ll stumble our sweaty, crunk, giggling selves to our hotel rooms before they start spinning for the night.  :D

So, here’s to my wonderful wife…the stay-at-home mother of our child…Momma! 

Happy Birthday Momma!  Put your party hat on…tonight is gonna be fun!

PS:  And a special “Thank You” goes out to Grandma S for babysitting for the night!  :D

100% Boy…

Wordless Wednesday

100% Boy

 

Happy Blogiversary!

I was so busy recovering from vacation, that I totally forgot to celebrate my blogiversary!  That’s right, DadThing is now two years old!

In celebration, I will list some of my favorite posts from the past two years:

And I will also list the blogs that have sent the most traffic my way.  You have to check them all out…they are the best of the best!

 


30dayAnd if you are not tired of clicking liks yet, please click on over to Dad Of Divas and sign up for his 30 Days To Better Parenting series!

OBX – The Outer Banks

We spent the last week of our vacation in Duck, NC.  We (PaPa, Grandma, Uncle Charlie, Uncle Mike, Livi Shea, Ace, Momma, and I) rented a beach house about 500 ft from the beach…our little home away from home…

Ace and Livi

We were greeted in NC by Hurricane Bill with large bone crushing waves and high winds, but everything calmed down by the third day.

We did not do a whole lot there (isn’t that the point of going to the beach?). 

Ace, A.K.A. FishBoy, and Olivia had never seen the ocean before so they were in complete amazement when the waves would crash down and roll over their feet…

Ace and Livy Playing In The Ocean

We went on a Dolphin Cruise where we took a relaxing boat ride out into the sound and saw live dolphins in the wild… Did you know that wild dolphins have pink bellies?  Me neither…

Dolphins In The Wild

The Dolphin Cruise was a sunset cruise, so we got to see the sunset…it was breath taking to see the sun set over the water…

The Sunset Over The Water

And the skies after the sun set were equally as eye cathcing…notice the moon peeking it’s head out into the daylight…

Beautiful Skies

As fun as the dolphin cruise was, nothing beats playing on the beach.  Of course someone has to be buried…

Buried Alive

…and sand castles have to be constructed with precsion…

Sand Castle

We even got to experience the beach at early morning and at night.  At night the crabs run wild.  We went down with our flashlights and chased the crabs across the sand back into the water.  Those little buggers can scoot!

We got up early one morning to watch the sunrise.  I have never in my life took time to sit down and watch the sunrise.  I mean, I’ve seen it rise while driving to work, and I’ve been outside when it has risen, but to sit and watch it’s every move is something that I will have to try and do more often.  The view was overwhelming…

Sunrise On The Beach

All in all we had a fantasic time!  It had to be one of the most fun two weeks that we have ever had.  Momma is already busy planning next years vacation…

Jared and Momma On The Dolphin Cruise

Two Year Old Wrestles Alligator!

On our last day in Orlando, we stopped in for an afternoon of Gatorland!

If your are weary of large bone crushing jaws equipped with flesh piercing teeth…you could not even get in the front door…

Gatorland Entrance

And once inside you better keep your fingers to yourself, or else you might go home looking like a veteran maintenance man. :D

Gators Galore

They also had a bunch of colorful birds…  Apparently these little buggers will bite you pretty hard too.  I did not get close enough to find out… :D

Tucan Sam

But the least colorful, yet most intriguing, were the white alligators!  Can you imagine seeing one of these bad boys running at you leading with their mouths wide open salivating as they imagine what you would taste like?

Leucistic Alligator

They are not albino, they are leucistic… They still have skin pigment around their mouths and their tails.  Albinos are known for their red eyes due to lack of pigmentation.  The leucistic alligators have bright blue eyes…

Leucistic Alligator With Blue Eyes

Don’t let them baby blues fool you…  :D   These guys are just as big and dangerous as the colored variety.  :D

We got to see some crazy dude wrestle an alligator too!

Gator Wrestling

After watching for a few minutes, Ace and I decided it would not be that hard to wrestle an alligator if we worked together.  :D

I distracted the gator by making hand bag jokes about his mother.  Ace ran up and jumped on the gator’s back, riding him like a rodeo cowboy.  After Ace had the reptile worn out, I jumped on the gator’s back too and subdued him by grabbing his jaws…nearly losing a finger…and pulling his head back till he tapped out in submission.

Then I yelled, “Ace, look over at Momma so she can take your picture!”

Ace Wrestling an Alligator

And there he is the 2 Year Old Gator Wrestler.   Sitting proud atop his defeated opponent!

What are you talking about?  Tape? Where? I don’t see any tape around that gator’s mouth? That must be a glitch in the photo…  :D