Toys-R-Us toy shopping

The other day when I picked up my son from school, he found a $20.00 bill laying on the grass. I was shocked and told him that when we get home to tell mommy. So when we walked into the front door my wife thought it was just a $1.00 bill and I said, No, Look at it closer. She was stunned when she realized it was twenty dollars. So I went to work and then she sent me a message saying that our son said" Mommy, put the money in your purse so we can go to the store and buy some toys" So thats what we did today. We went to toys-r-us and bought my daughter a kitchen stove set and my son got a new "chugginton" train set. He already has "Brewster the train" so we bought him "action chugger" If those reading this are parents then you'll know what I mean because the Disney channel has the kids show "Chuggington" on but I don't remember the time. When we went to toys-r-us my daughter found a pricess suitcase that macthed her shirt so my wife took a picture of it.

Carlsbad flowers fields in Carlsbad, California

Here's some photos of my wife, kids and me at the Carlsbad flower fields. Last week I took advantage of my day off by taking the kids and wife to the flower fields. My wife has been bugging me to take her because she's heard advertisements about the flowers blooming already and since she has her new camera, she want's to experiment with taking some photos of flowers to see how well they will come out. We got to the flower fields and it was a pretty cloudy day. Not the best picture perfect weather but since it was my day off, we took advantage of it. The flowers are so beautiful and blooming. Some of the flowers I seen where just exploding with beauty. If your lucky enough to live in San Diego, Ca you really need to visit the flower fields of Carlsbad, Ca. They have wagon rides and it will take you all around the fields. Tickets for the wagon rides are $5.00 for adults and $ 3.00 for children ages 3-10. Admission tickets to the flower fields are $11.00 for adults, $6.00 for children 3-10. If you have a pet, keep it at home as pets are not allowed. The flower fields are open from March 1 - May 13, 2012. It's worth the money to see the many different kinds of flowers.

Briannah is almost potty trained @ 2

Blog Photo Challenge

Yeah! It's official! I came home from work last night and my wife had good news to tell me. Yesterday when they went to bible study meeting, my daughter walked up to her mom and said "mommy, potty in bathroom"? That means that now my daughter is getting tired of wet diapers and she's getting used to sitting on the toilet to go potty which means soon we won't have to buy diapers anymore and my daughter will be potty trained. Another good thing is that my daugher will be ready to start pre-school either this fall or next year. Most likely this year. Yeahhhh! I'm so happy. Daddy proud of his little princess. My wife and I tried to teach her to go potty on the toilet but she would get scared and cry so we had to wait. But now, after seeing her brother use the potty all the time, she's not scared anymore. I'm sure the feeling of a full diaper also helped her to see the benefits of going potty in the toilet as well. Good going my daughter briannah! daddy's proud of you.

Little girl is a fashionista

Blog Photo Challenge

The optometrist called to let us know that my wife's prescription was ready for pick up so I took my wife downtown to the optometrist. As soon as we got inside and I put my daughter down she ran for the basket of chocolate. While my wife was having her prescription fitted, I checked out the selection of frames for my prescription. Then I turned around to look for my daughter and she was trying on her own pair of glasses even though she has good vision. My wife and I both laughed when we saw her with the glasses upside down on her face. My little daughter is growing up to be a fashion girl.

Girl dies after being forced to run for hours

Today I read a tragic story that really touched a nerve inside me. The reason I say this is because I have two children, one boy who is five years old and one girl who is two years old and I love them very much. If anything, I think I spoil them too much and don't discipline them enough. Anyways, this story made the headlines today about a nine year old girl who was forced to run for three hours as punishment because she had lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. She was severely dehydrated when several days later she had a seizure and died. Authorities have arrested her grandmother and stepmother and remain in jail on murder charges. The girl's name is Savannah Hardin. The grandmother and stepmother where the ones who disciplined Savannah for lying to them about eating some candy bars. I think this is so sad that these people would force their nine year old daughter to run over three hours because she lied to them about something as silly as candy. Some people who witnessed the girl running said they told deputies that the girl was told to run and not allowed to stop for three hours. The girl's stepmother called authorities about 6:45pm telling them that Savannah Hardin was having a seizure and was unresponsive. The sheriff's department released an autopsy report saying that the girl had been severely dehydrated and had a very low sodium level. They are trying to determine if the Savannah was forced to run by physical coercion or by verbal commands. What have people become in this world where children are dying because their family forces them to run for lying about a lousy candy bar? This story makes me sick. This is cruelty at it's lowest form. This shouldn't have happened, period. This is an insane world that we live in. You can read more about this story on yahoo.

Raising little boy and girl requires patience

Raising 2 kids has certainly been quite a task. As my son gets older he's learning a lot of things and one of those is having an attitude problem. And my daughter who is only 2 yrs old is in her terrible two's seems to be fussy a lot and want's things her way all the time. It's a constant battle every day between the two kids. My daughter get's so tired but it just makes her more fussy and the only thing that can help the situation is if we are at a store or some place and we put her in the car when we leave and drive home, she will fall asleep and that's a good thing for my daughter. Otherwise, she just won't sleep. My son just went back to school after a long winter vacation and he's so used to staying up so late at night playing Super Mario Bros. But then when morning comes early and he needs to wake up he's all sleepy still and gives us an attitude problem. Another thing I have problems with is feeding my son. He likes many sweet meals like some oatmeal, sweet barbeque pork, cinnamon french toast sticks and pancakes in the morning. It's so hard to cook meals that he actually likes. My daughter on the other hand is the kind of kid that will eat just about anything. It's hard raising children these days but I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love my children.

Family fun at Sea World

I took the kids and wife to sea world the other day and we all had a great time. We took them to the snow and my son was enjoying himself immensely and my daughter started to get into the snow for the first time. We only have till the end of the month and our membership pass will expire so I want to take the family several more times. I could see my son was excited as we drove to sea world because he was talking so much about shamu and all the rides like the "Elmo's flying fish ride" and "Abby's tea cup ride". My son wanted me to take him to climb the "net climb" over at the "Bay of play" for the kids. Not only did father and son climb the nets once but we did it three times. I was beat after the third time. The kids like to play a game were as there's these plastic ducks swimming in a pool and they must pick one to win a prize. They both won rubber ducky's. We took a ride on the sky ride and got a bird's eye view of san Diego. All in all, we had a great day and look forward to one more day of fun at sea world before the year. I hope you like the video of the sky ride.

Day of fun at SeaWorld & Chuck E. Cheeses

I've been promising my wife and kids for over a month and a half that I would take them to Sea World and Chuck E. Cheeses on my day off but I've been putting in so much overtime that I've neglected to hold my promise to my family. Well, today I decided not to work overtime on my day off and spend some quality time with my family. I took them to Sea World And my son got to play with the snow in the snow world at Sea World. My son Ethan had a lot of fun and he started to complain about his hands being cold. My daughter Briannah on the other hand was reluctant to walk onto the snow but with a little help from daddy, She was able to explore but only for a little while. My son was making snow balls and snow castle. We went to the Sea lion show, the pets rule show with it's many dogs and kitty cats, and last the Shamu show. We ended the night by visiting our friend because she called to invite us over for dinner. It was perfect timing because we were so hungry. One night down, one more to go.

Taking time to bond with my kids

I've been so busy lately working a lot of overtime at my work, this is the first week I've had 2 days off for about a month in a half now. I kinda feel bad because I haven't been able to take the kids any where for awhile but I'm going to make it up next week and take them to chucky cheeses pizza parlor so they can play some games and have some good old fashioned kids fun. I also want to take the kids to sea world so they can play in the snow because our year membership pass will expire in december so I want to go there a couple more times. I'm not sure what amusement park we will get tickets to next year but most likely it will be sea world. The kids always have fun at sea world.

R & R for my family

Yesterday we spent the whole day doing advertisers campaigns and my wife and I needed to rest our brain so this morning we went out in service to share the good news about gods kingdom and after that, we came home and ate some Chinese food, then took the kids to the beach for 4 hours and relaxed our minds. We both really needed it and it felt good to get out of the house. My kids were antsy yesterday as well because they had been cooped up in the house all day. After my kids were done in the beach, they played in the park next to the beach in imperial beach. I took some video of my kids playing. Even kids need some rest and relaxation outside. It was worth it and now I'm ready to get back to work.

Put the wet stuff on the hot stuff!

Legoland has a show called "fun time" with a bunch of volunteer fire people. They perform various kinds of comedy acts with a stationary fire truck along with the usual fire equipment a fire man uses like a ladder, fire hose, buckets, mops, etc. They even have a dog that is part of the act. The dog is appropriately named "stationary" because the dog never moves. It's made from thousands of Lego blocks. If you decide to take the kids to Legoland, this is one show I really recommend you take the kids to see. One word of caution: If your sitting in the first five rows of seats, be prepared to get wet. I shot some video with my phone camera and in part of the video, you can see my hands interfere with the video because of an unexpected burst of water shooting from the fire hose towards me. Lots of fun for the whole family. I highly encourage you to see this show as there's lots of laughs.

Day of fun at legoland

My wife, kids and I went to legoland the other day and boy did we have fun! There are so many things to do at the park that we just didn't have enough time to see everything. We bought a day pass but we took advantage of the special were we can return a second time within 9 days of the first visit for free. Hopefully we will be able to visit the rides and attractions that we couldn't see the first time we visited the park. My kids especially enjoyed the water park. They were all giggles when it came time to play in the water. Here you will see my kids having so much fun! They want to go again soon. Hope you like the pics.

Play time for Briannah

My wife and I went to JC Penny the other day to do some shopping and while there, we took our daughter briannah to the play area where the kids can ride on different kinds of rides. My daughter loved the rides and when it came time to leave to go pick up our son, she didn't want to leave. She started crying and we had to pick her up and hold her because she wasn't leaving quietly. I'm sorry baby but daddy and mommy has to take you home so we can go pick up your brother from school. There will be other times that we can take you on the rides, just not now. It's hard to be a parent these days.

Kids and the stomach flu

My poor kids have been sick with a stomach flu they somehow acquired. My son Ethan missed the last 3 days of school because he was throwing up and had diarrhea. I was surprised that while watching channel 8 news yesterday, the news anchor had a short bit about what was going around in our city. They said that doctors in the south bay area where seeing kids with this type of sickness. Just after our son started getting better, our daughter got the virus. It was surprising because my kids never get sick at the same time but they did. One week later and they still have this sickness. The doctor at the hospital told us there's no medicine they can take to make them better. Just drink plenty of fluids so that's what we're doing now. Doctor said to give them Gatorade or pedialite. Well, that's all for now. Hoopefully they will be better before the new week starts.

Bright beginnings baby products for less

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of PBM Products. All opinions are 100% mine.

When it comes to raising our children, we have always strived to give them the best care and love possible. With the rising cost of everything from baby diapers to formula it’s difficult to raise a child these days. I can remember many times when my wife and I would be wondering where we are going to get the money to purchase diapers for our little son Ethan. We used to buy all our baby stuff at one store but that all changed once we found out how much we could save by searching around town for the lowest prices, namely diapers and formula. My wife and and used to always buy brand name products for our baby's because we thought "more expensive" is always better until we learned that the cost we were paying was for advertising and that cheaper is not always better. Diapers can be expensive but we learned that we can save money if we buy on diapers.com. Whats even better is that we can get free 1-2 day shipping on our order if we spend $49 or more. I'm sure we can spend I don't know of any plave online that can give us that kind of deal. Anyways, bright beginnings sell all kinds of baby products for less so you should go on over to their website and check them out. Don't forget to visit Bright Beginnings on Facebook and tell the what you think of the bright beginnings products.

Another hot day

This is a picture of the overhead display panel in our toyota sienna van. It can display all kinds of useful data for the driver. Today we drove to El Cajon to visit my mother and my sisters son thomas. The weatherman said it would be hot today but nothing could prepare us for just how hot it would get. As you can see, the temperature actually reached 101 degrees though when we got to the hospice care where my mom stays, it actually cooled down one degree. Good thing we had a well working A/C system in our van to keep us cool. We stayed for an hour and dropped by Sonic to have their sonic cheeseburger and onion rings. We had a great day visiting my family but it's back to work tomorrow.

Enrichment activities website for your children

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of KidzmetJen. All opinions are 100% mine.

I can remember growing up as a kid in our small town. I was raised with 5 other boys in my step family. The fun times I can remember is when my step mom used to sign me up for boy scouts every year during the summer time just so that we had something to do. When I was going thru school we used to take a lot of nature field trips so us kids could learn about nature and things. I miss those days. Being the father of 2 children I have trouble with activity planning for my children. My oldest child Ethan, will soon be going to school but until he goes we need to provide him with something to keep him active. Many time's we just don't know where to take him but now I'm learning that this website can really help me and my wife plan activities that would be fun and educational for my children. It will also relieve some of the stress and pressure associated with trying to find enrichment activities. One thing I like about the search engine of this website was the simplicity of being able to find multiple activities for my sons age that would fit into my busy schedule and within my tight budget.

Farmtown

My son is so funny. Every time i log into my facebook account and start playing farm town, my son will see me and he instantly breaks out his farm toys from his toy chest and displays them right in front of me. Silly boy! So today i decided to take a picture of it and post it on my blog for the world to see. You might ask "why is there a giraffe in the background? Something you wouldn't normally find on a farm huh? I guess my son thought maybe the giraffe needed a home because he was lost. My son said the giraffe's previous home was McDonald's. Hehehe Don't know where we would be in this day and age without children in our life?

The magic of a baby swing

Our little daughter will be 2 months old tomorrow and she sure is growing. She's eating more also. Before we can only feed her 2 Oz's of formula at a time but now she's drinking 3 Oz's. I still have a hard time accepting the fact that she will cry for all kinds of reasons I've never thought possible. She crys when we pick her up, crys when she's hungry AND cry's when she's full, cry's when we rock her to sleep, etc, etc, etc. It drives me crazy! literally! Thank goodness for this baby swing that we bought when we had our son. She doesn't like it when we're driving in the car. The only thing that will put her to sleep is the swing. I asked my wife why she cant just close her eye's and sleep? I mean she's not like us you know where it may take us adults to get to sleep longer, right? She's a baby. Baby's normally don't have a hard time going to sleep right? Feed them a bottle and their out like a light switch right? Forgive me for being dumb but is this normal? Honestly, i don't know whats normal anymore. That's all for now.

Update on our daughter

I just wanted to give an update on the status of our new born baby daughter. Well, she's growing and getting bigger that much i do know. I don't know how my wife can do it every day but she manages to take care of our 2 children. Our daughter has become dependent on my wife for breast feeding. She rarely will take a bottle of enfamil. Many times i feel sad for my wife because our daughter doesn't let her get the rest she needs. It's like our new born baby is taking advantage of my wife and it's just not fair. I really don't know what to do but then again, i think much of this stuff is beyond my control. Friends and family say that our baby daughter will change and it will get better. I'm hoping it will happen soon. Our son wasn't as bad an he was a formula baby and he's smart for a toddler who just turned 3 years old on October 8th. That's all for now....