SteveMart.in

It’s official. Makenna’s first words are…….. “Hi Dadda”. She says it all the time. I’ve been practicing with her and since she loves her daddy so much, she decided to make those her first words. She is “scooting” around everywhere these days. She is still working on the crawling thing. She knows how to get up on her knees but when she wants to move, she just uses her arms and toes to drag herself around. She is a very happy baby and only really gets fussy when she hasn’t eaten for a while or when she has been in her carseat far too long. I know I shouldn’t brag, but I just have the cutest kids ever.

Posted in Family | 2 Comments »

My oldest daughter Abby is in 1st grade now. I can’t believe it. She loves riding the bus to school. Jenny carpooled with a friend all through kindergarten so the bus is something new and cool to Abby. She has made friends with one of the boys in our neigborhood and they sit together on the way to and from school. This is a little video of her on her first day of first grade. She is a cutie.

abby 1st grade video

Posted in Family | No Comments »

I bought this book because I thought it would be interesting to learn and understand the love languages of my kids. I was quite right. As of this post, I have a 6 year old, a 3 year old, and a 6 month old. I am not certain what love language the 6 month old is yet but I have a pretty good idea what the other two kids are and because of this book, I now have some great ideas on how to show my love for my kids in ways that make them feel loved. I always try to show and tell my love to them, but I didn’t know that I needed to do this in different ways depending on my child’s love language. What might let one child feel loved may not work for another child.

The book is all about keeping your children’s “love tank” full. when you are successful in keeping it full, your children will behave better, obey better, and grow up to be more loving and understanding in all of their relationships with others throughout their lives. I found the chapter on discipline very interesting as it is important to discipline differently depending on your child’s love language. I found that I often do not discipline very effectively and found many suggestions on how I could improve.

If you want to help your child feel loved, you should pick up this book and try to incorporate the ideas into your interactions with your child. It has also helped me to understand my wife’s love language a little better and be able to show her love more effectively and even though she has not read the book, she has taken a more active role in trying to show me love based on my love language as well. To try to help even more, I am also going to read: The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate.

Posted in Family | No Comments »

I’m not really sure how it happened but I have become the resident finger and toenail painter in our house. Abby knows that if she wants her nails painted she should come to me and not to her mom. Mom just doesn’t have the steadiest of hands and ends up painting just as much skin as she does nails. She will claim that it is because of her lack of coordination.

One time Abby had a friend over and they grabbed a bunch of “The Friend” magazines and came up to my office and made my office their salon. They would sit and “read” their magazines while I painted their nails for them. So, if my day job goes bad, I guess I could open a salon and paint nails. I already have a great clientèle of 6 year olds. They don’t pay much and I’ve never gotten any tips. But they sure are a couple of silly kids.

Posted in Family | 1 Comment »

We are on our way up to Idaho for the 4th of July weekend. My wife is driving and her sister Jessica is sitting shotgun. The kids are watching Alvin and the Chipmunks for the 1,000th time with their headphones on. I am in the back with Abby trying to get some work done along the way. I put my headphones on and set Windows Media Player to random. It randomly picked an album that I haven’t listened to for many years. It is the album “Love Among the Ruins” by 10,000 Maniacs. This was their first album after Natalie Merchant left them.

Anyway, listening to it brought me back about 10 years and flooded a bunch of memories into my mind of Europe. While attending college, some friends and I took about a week off and headed to . Germany and France. The trip was awesome. We rented a little VW Jetta wagon which held the four of us and all our gear just perfectly. We brought plenty of tunes including this album. I think it was fairly new at the time and so we listened to it a lot. Hearing it now is like going back in time.

It makes me realize that this life is short and we should try to create lasting memories and make the most of each day. Back then I wasn’t married and didn’t have kids so it was easy to make sure I was having fun and making my own memories. Now that I am married with 3 kids, I want to help my kids to have fun experiences that they can look back on throughout their lives. It’s funny because in the process of trying to create these lasting memories for my kids, I find that I am having just about as much fun and that I get to keep the memory too.

Posted in Family | 3 Comments »

That’s right, this is my SON, not my daughter. I thought it would be funny to put Makenna’s headband on him. He thought it was funny too and even posed for a picture. Isn’t he pretty? Tyler is crazy. This weekend he and I went to “Fathers and Sons”. It wasn’t anything fancy but he sure did have fun. Any time we went anywhere, like to the park, to the bathroom, to the car, etc. He would say “Let’s hold hands” so we walked everywhere holding hands. I think it helped him to like his Dad a little better as he has been a little poo lately and testing his boundaries quite a bit.

When we got home, I set the tent up in the basement to let it air out a little before packing it away. They have had fun playing in it and last night, Abby, Tyler and I slept in it together. I love my kids.  (Update – I guess I left the tent up a little bit too long. Tyler decided to try to climb on top and broke one of the poles. Now I have to try to find a place that has replacement poles or repair pieces, fun)

Posted in Family | 3 Comments »