Christmas 2005 Recap....

I would have bet large sums of money that the boys, especially Nicky, would have gotten up bright and early Christmas morning and dragged Jennie and I downstairs to see what Santa had left for them. That was about as far from the truth as you can get. They slept until 7:00 am. To give you some perspective, the kids never sleep past 6 on a non-school day. 6:15, once in a blue moon. We all headed downstairs to open presents. The boys had a blast tearing into everything and seeing all of the new toys that they got. Alexis is still too young to have gotten into the spirit of ripping open the wrapping paper to see what's inside, so she spent most of her time observing. She was also woken up and brought downstairs, so she wasn't totally awake yet either.

Jennie did an amazing job (again) this year. She bought me a bunch of little things for under the tree and in the stocking. Which just goes to show how much of a schmuck I am compared to her. I only got her a few things (one of which she bought herself and let me put my name on it).

We got dressed and headed over to my parents' house for breakfast and more presents. The kids got a ton of stuff. The big hit was the Thomas The Train train set that Thomas got. As soon as he unwrapped it, he opened it and started putting the tracks together and played with the trains. He couldn't be pulled away from his new toy so Nicky was more than happy to help him out and unwrapped the rest of Thomas' presents for him.

We packed up the minivan with all of the presents and I made my first trip back to our house to unload while Jennie and the kids headed next door to her parents. Once all of Jen's sisters arrived at the house more presents were opened. Once again, the kids made out like bandits. The big hit for the boys were the Power Ranger guns that they had asked Santa for.

The day after....
Monday was spent purchasing a new bookcase for the playroom and putting it together. I also bought a tote to help in the reorganization of the toy room. All of the toys that are still in good shape but the kids don't play with any more will be heading into the tote and into the attic. There is still a pile of unopened boxes in the living room that Jen and I haven't gotten around to yet. Maybe tonight....

Final Thoughts
*Alexis will be the best dressed little girl for the next 6 months. She got so many cute outfits for Christmas.

*If I have off from work the day after Christmas next year, I am going to refuse to leave the house. The whole day will be devoted to opening and organizing all of the new toys. Half a day is no where near enough time to get it done.

*I will have to do something extraordinary for Jen for our anniversary coming up in 1.5 months to make up for my lack of Christmas spirit. She deserves better.

Things Overheard At TJ's Birthday Party....

While opening presents (both Thomas & Nicholas):

"Wow!"
"Cool!"

"What the hell is this?" Said by Nicholas (4.5 years old).

Milk Shower....

Playtex has these wonderful bottles available in their VentAire line.

With its unique bubble free bottom vent disc, the 2001 AMBY Award* winning
Playtex® VentAire® Bubble Free Bottle System offers virtually bubble free
feeding for baby. Less air means less gas and spitting up for baby, keeping baby
more comfortable.

For those of you not familiar with bottle feeding a baby, if a baby sucks in too much air it will usually give them gas and often causes them to spit up. The VentAire bottle prevents that from happening by preventing the baby from sucking in air. If you take a look at the picture, you'll see a green ring at top where the nipple is attached. There is also a green portion at the bottom. That bottom piece has small holes in it and has a piece of rubber in it. As the baby sucks on the nipple, air is drawn in through the bottom holes to replace the volume of liquid that is drawn out of the bottle. The piece of rubber then returns to it's position to prevent the liquid escaping when the baby stops sucking. A neat piece of baby paraphanelia. Now on to the meat of the story...

As I mentioned earlier, the bottom piece is removable so you can clean it. I have never taken the bottom off when putting the bottle in the dishwasher to be washed. My wife takes it off often because one of our other VentAire bottles had gotten some water trapped in the bottom piece and mold had formed. Yuck. But like I said, I have never taken the bottom off.

Sunday night, I was getting the kids' stuff ready for daycare the next day. Filling up their cups with milk and filling up Alexis' bottles with milk. So I take a bottle out of the dishwasher and fill it with milk then put in on the counter. I pick up the next bottle from the top rack and fill it with milk then place it on the counter next to the other one. All the while, Alexis is standing beside me watching what I'm doing. The next bottle I pick up is the VentAire bottle. Unbeknownst to me the bottom was removed prior to being put in the dishwasher. I take the bottle out and hold it about waist level as I pour the milk in from the gallon jug. As you can see from the picture, the bottle has a small bend in it. So as I was holding it so that the top portion was straight up and down, the bottom portion was angled slightly. Alexis is standing next to me looking up at what I was doing with the bottom of the bottle pointed straight at her. Yup - you guessed it. I poured the milk into the bottom and it went into the opening at the top of the bottle, straight down the tube and right in to Alexis' face, covering her in milk. She stood there stunned for 3 seconds before starting to cry.

Weekend Recap With Lots Of Pics....

Friday morning we got hit with our first snowstorm of the season. Saturday morning the boys helped me clear our driveway and sidewalk of all the snow.

We also built a couple of snowmen, but they're pretty pathetic and didn't get any pictures taken of them. Nicky got tired and went inside to watch tv while my little shadow TJ stuck around and I had to drag him back inside when we were finished.

After playing in the snow we got cleaned up and dressed for my nephew's birthday party. While we had all three kids dressed and looking nice we decided to try to take a picture of the three of them for our holiday card this year. Here are some of the pictures that didn't make the cut:




Joey's birthday party sported a pinata for the kids to bust open for candy - always a favorite of the kids!
Here are a few of them sitting in the basement waiting for the fun to start:


After the party my sister and I went to the Nets/Sixers game. The Nets lost to the hot shooting Sixers. Iverson went off for 42 points and 12 assists. A couple of memories from the game which I won't be forgetting soon:

• Iverson going against Jacques Vaughn, crossing over, stutter step at Vaughn, stepping back, Vaughn tripping over his own feet and falling on his ass, then Iverson pulling up for the jump shot and swishing it home.
• Kids wearing jerseys backwards. When did this become a trend?

Sunday we went into the city and stopped by Jennie's parents' apartment. Jennie, her mom, and her sister Veronica did some shopping on Canal Street while the rest of us hung out in the apartment. When they got back we all caught a train and headed off to see the big tree at Rockefeller Center.



We decided to walk back to the apartment and stopped by the Disney Store.

You Will Never See A Guy Do This....

Go out to a restaurant with 3 of his buddies and order 3 appetizers to split between the 4 of them as their main meal. An order for an entree, sandwhich, etc. will always be placed in addition to the appetizer.

Weekend Visitor....

This past weekend my buddy Joe came to visit. My parents moved us to teaneck in the beginning of my 6th grade school year and Joe was my first friend I made in school. That was in 1987 and we've been friends ever since. He now lives in Arlington, VA and has been living in that area for the past 6-7 years. It's rare that we get to see each other anymore. We got to hang out and catch up on things and had a good time. We also introduced him to playing poker in person. He had played online a bunch of times but never sitting at a table with other people. Saturday night Max, Evan, Joe, and I played a game of hold 'em and then on Sunday we went over to Brian's place for some poker and the Giants game. Joe was the first knocked out in the first game we played but placed 2nd in the next game. Not too shabby for a first timer. I think Joe is hooked now on playing poker. Maybe he'll move up north to NJ or NYC just so he can get in on our monthly games.

In addition to playing poker, here's what else Joe could be found doing at my house:

That's Joe and Nicky playing Lego Star Wars on our Play Station 2.


And here's Joe holding Alexis (who took a liking to him right away - surprising because she never likes strangers) playing with the the boys. Joe is a "monster" and is scaring Nicky and TJ. TJ also took a quick liking to him and TJ is the shyest of the bunch. Although when Joe first got to our house, it was just TJ and myself at home and TJ was napping. About 5 minutes after waking up and meeting Joe, I took TJ downstairs to get something and TJ asked me "Daddy. Did your friend leave yet?"



And here's a picture of Alexis for no other reason than that she's a little cutie.

Texas Hold 'em....

I recently played in my first serious tournament last weekend. There were 24 people who bought in for $50 + $5. Everything was well organized and the tournament went smoothly. We started at 8:00pm and it ended around 12:30am with the winner being ME!!!

Enough about me.

It's been almost a week for me to reflect back on my play and I'm pretty pleased with how I played (obviously). I went into the tournament with a plan to only play premium hands pre-flop and play pretty tight. The plan worked pretty well and only once did I have my entire chip stack at risk with an "all in" call. But with that hand, I had a very strong hand and I didn't get any calls so my chips weren't at risk.

While on the subject of premium hands, I read an article today which had some striking statistics which really surprised me. How great does it feel to be dealt two cards, take a peek at them and see two cards of the same suit? I have to admit, I always like to see that happen and I've played a lot of suited cards pre-flop hoping to hit the flush right away. But check these stats out:

Odds of being dealt suited cards: 24%

Which means if you're playing in an 8-man game, it's very likely that there's someone else at the table with suited cards. You're not the only one.

Let's say you stayed in the pot with your suited cards. What are the odds of flopping a flush draw? Meaning two cards on the table will be the same suit as the two in your hand.

10.9% Or 1 out of 11 times.

Then you're only going to get the flush by the river 35% of the time after that. Not good odds. Unless you paired up, it's a bad idea to stay in the hand.

Now how about flopping a flush right away? 5%? 4%? 3%? Nope

0.84%

I don't think I'll be playing suited hole cards as often anymore....