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Leprechauns visited our house!

I played around tonight with posting some videos. I started down the path of using YouTube, but ran into trouble. On my first attempt to upload this 8 minute video clip I waited for about 20 minutes for the upload and then it never appeared in my "Uploaded Videos" list. There was no error displayed or anything that gave me a clue as to what happened.

Then I made a really short clip and uploaded it. The upload succeeded, but my video clip was not accessible for playing for over 30 minutes. It appears that YouTube has to convert the video to a "Flash" format before it makes the video available for playing.

So I did some searching around and came across Blip TV. Their uploads were much faster and the video was immediately available for playback. I read some nice things about BlipTV vs YouTube.

Derek's Sick

Derek came home from Nanna and Poppy's with a nasty cough. He crawled into our bed during the night and started coughing. Helen got him some expectorant and I sent him back to his own bed. Helen doesn't mind the boys sleeping in our bed even though she admits that we don't sleep as well. Like many things involving the kids, she figures that there's only so many years of those kind of things before they're grown and gone. I tell her that I agree to an extent, but I'm not sure that "bad sleep" is something I'll miss.

Helen left early from school and took Derek to the doctor. He has bronchitis and tonsilitis. The doctor gave him some antibiotics and said that he should be fine with some rest.

Derek has a school project to design a family flag. He worked on it today and Adam wanted to work on his own flag.

Trial Cake

Helen did a trial run on the cake she's going to make for Derek's birthday party. The recipe was for a round cake and she wanted to make sure that it would work as a sheet cake. It turned out fine. She's made the cake before and it's really good. She got the recipe off of epicurious.com where one of the reviewers of the recipe said they were done searching for a chocolate cake recipe after trying that one.

Helen has definitely spoiled me as far as cooking is concerned. Store-bought or not-from-scratch recipes just aren't the same. When I complain that I can't eat all the stuff she likes to make she says that I can always take it to work. Somehow, I usually manage to dig down and power through it on my own.

Helen also made rum raisin ice cream and strawberry ice cream in her new ice cream maker. She got distracted and cooked the rum raisin filling too long so that it turned almost custard like. It was still good and had a kick to it. Helen got a little loopy eating it. She decided that she'll puree the strawberries next time, otherwise the strawberry chunks taste like big ice cubes.

The Leprechauns

Adam and some of the remaining magic muffins

We woke up on Saturday morning, St Patrick's Day, and found that some leprechauns had made a mess while we slept. They had overturned chairs, pulled out drawers, played with Adam's toys, and strewn "magic dust" (green construction paper confetti) all over. However, they were nice enough to leave us some delicious muffins for our trouble. The boys were very into it. Adam was sure that he heard them playing during the night.

Helen took the boys to Adam's baseball practice while I went to my tennis match. Adam is on the Pirates and Derek is on the Mariners. Adam has the same coach as last season. The coach just loves Adam because of how Adam's motor never stops. He hustles all over the field.

After baseball, Helen and the boys stopped by my tennis match and ate some of the goodies. It was a little early for the hamburgers, so they decided to go grocery shopping.

I finished up with my match and got home in time to help Helen finish putting away the groceries. Then we all jumped in the car and headed to Derek's practice. Adam ran around with his new friend, Patrick. Helen and I walked around the field to get some exercise and catch up.

After Derek's practice we made a quick stop by a shoe store to get Derek some new cleats. One of the drawbacks of being a younger sibling is that you always have to wear hand-me-downs. We buy Derek more things than we normally would because we assume that, even if Derek doesn't get full use out of something, that Derek and Adam will together.

After the shoe store we took Derek to a birthday party for his friend, Kevin. The party was at the movie theater and arcade. Adam and I played air hockey and then Derek won Adam some tickets so that they could exchange the tickets for prizes. Derek got a plastic sword and Adam got some Power Ranger figures and an alligator. We left Derek at the birthday party and picked him up after they saw "Bridge to Terebithia".

When we got home, I continued working on painting the playroom windows and Helen mowed the lawn. Adam chilled inside and played with various action figures.

We thought about going out for dinner, but we were tired and neither one of us wanted to spend the money on the unnecessary calories, so we made some rice and beans and ate in.

Last Week

We've been enjoying the nice weather and the extended daylight hours in the evening. One evening, Helen and the boys rode their bikes to the book fair at Derek's school. Helen was sad when she saw that I had removed the child's seat from the back of her bike now that Adam can ride his own bike. Just last Summer, Adam was riding in the child's seat when we would ride our bikes to the pool. He just wasn't quite up to riding his bike with training wheels all the way to the pool.

At the book fair, Derek complained when Helen wouldn't buy one of the books he wanted. She made a deal that he could have the book if he put back one of the other books he had chosen. He picked "The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe" to put back. She told him he had to return one of the other "trash" books (Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, or something along the same line) and not one of his "real" books. He wasn't happy about it.

Helen had planned to ride bikes to Derek's piano practice the next day, but her butt was too sore from the ride to the book fair.

I went to the other Mens tennis team's practice on Wednesday since rain was expected on Thursday, our team's regular practice night. It looked like the rain was going to hold off and I was going to get to play on Thursday as well, but the rain started right before practice. We were at Derek's baseball practice when the rain started and everyone had to make a run for cover. We ended up finishing practice in the gym. Adam romped around the playground with his new friend, Patrick.

Pancakes on Daddy's Lap

One of my favorite memories is and will always be Adam sitting on my lap eating pancakes. The picture above is from a couple years ago, but he still likes to sit on my lap whenever we have pancakes. Helen makes the most delicious blueberry pancakes and we had them for dinner the other night. Derek had three plate refills and Adam had two. Helen thinks she may have to start using two skillets in order to cook enough eggs to satisfy the growing boys. There were still some pancakes left the next morning, so I warmed some up and Adam asked if he could sit on my lap and eat them together. I said, "of course you can" and sat him on my lap.

Mommy are you crying? I thought this one might get you.

Derek's Birthday Plan

Derek made up the itinerary for his birthday party and listed the presents that he would like (you can see a larger image by clicking it). If you haven't already guessed, the theme is Legos.

We're scrambling to try and figure out when we can get to the Lego store and buy a bunch of "loose" Legos for the Lego building contest. We've got baseball and tennis starting, Derek's birthday party, various friend's birthday parties, the beach, Adam's birthday party, Easter, finishing up the school year, and Disney World. It's fun, but crazy!