(picture day)

Once you have kids, you will have a whole new appreciation for this show.
(why do my kids love this show so much?)

From The Finley Files...

I was checking Twitter the other night and Finley points to a tiny picture in my TwitterFox window and yells,

"MR. DAVID!"










They miss him almost as much as I do.

Kids TV, Part I (Jonah Edition)

It happens to us all.

If you're a parent, you're going to be watching some television programming for children. Granted, some parents limit their kids' TV intake to a very thin stream. Others pretty much let their kids watch whatever they want, whenever they want.

But unless you're the most strict parent on the planet (or) you have a child that doesn't watch TV, you're gonna' see some of this stuff.

Jonah has always been a TV kid. He's always loved it...and we have to be careful with how much he watches. Here are some of his favorite shows (right now.)

BEN 10: ALIEN FORCE

Jonah loves Ben 10. I think were three seasons of the "normal" Ben 10, but now Cartoon Network has created a new version. Ben 10 Alien Force involves the same characters, but takes place 10 years later. At this point, Ben and his pals are older, wiser and more powerful!







THE SECRET SATURDAYS
Jonah got interested in this through Cartoon Network's "cryptid" promotion. The Saturdays are a superhero family that seeks out strange and unusual cryptid creatures around the world. Oh, and they fight evil.








THE MIGHTY B

This show is hilarious. Mainly because of Amy Poehler's fantastic voice work. (Poehler used this voice on SNL for a sketch about a hyperactive pre-teen.) The voice alone is worth thirty minutes of my time...plus I love the simplicity of the animation. In a high-tech world, the Mighty B looks almost like something created in my day.






DRAKE AND JOSH
This show isn't in production anymore, but that doesn't keep Nickelodeon from cashing in on it!

There's some funny stuff on this show, but it tends to make Jonah wild. (Josh tends to yell a lot. Or is it Drake? The one who lost all the weight tends to yell a lot.)

This one can pretty annoying.



STAR WARS: CLONE WARS
I don't know any six year old boy who's not into Clone Wars. Jonah and I caught the movie when it hit theaters. We loved it. Imagine his shock when the new Friday night TV series was unveiled. Watching Clone Wars is fast becoming our Friday night tradition.




iCarly

I love iCarly. It's hilarious. Great characters, great writing, great online presence/sub-culture. I'm partial to Sam. She's awesome.





SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS

This one is, by far, the most popular. I don't really have a problem with Spongebob. Sure, sometimes it's a bit crude, but six-year old boys like crude. At least, mine does. Other than that, it's a pretty silly show that can be, occasionally, pretty funny. (I've found that it gets funnier the more you watch it. Lunacy is like that, I think.)

No, my problem is that this show is on ALL THE TIME. Shortly after we got our DVR hooked up, Jonah tried to setup some recording. Being new to the remote, he picked "all" instead of "once." A day-and-a-half later, we had 18 episodes recorded.

18 episodes.

That's too much Spongebob, gang.

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So, moms and dads....what are YOUR kids watching?

Do you find yourself enjoying THEIR shows?

My Favorite Blogger...

Some say I'm a blogging addict.
Some say I'm totally handsome and cool.
(I wholeheartedly agree with both statements.)

Sure, I love this guy and this gal and this guy and this gal,
but the truth is that my favorite blogs are the ones written by people I know.

That's right, gang - nothing brings me more joy than seeing YOUR post in my blog reader.
And of all of those...one blog stands out as my favorite.

I LOVE my wife's blog. I miss it.
Listen, being a Mom is a hard job. All of us know this.
And blogging is often the last on her list of duties or hobbies.
But if you're like me and you miss my wife's blog, then email her at dorothy_girl74@yahoo.com.

Listen - I don't want her flooded with emails from well-wishers who are just doing what I ask. (Although, I would love to have that kind of power...)
But if you do like the way my wife thinks, writes, laugh or looks (easy, now...) then send her an email.
And be sure to end your email message with
"YOUR BLOG IS BETTER THAN TODD'S." She loves that.

My Friday

Woke up around 7. Thankfully, my wife made me go to be early the night before, so I felt pretty good getting up.

Finley was up, too, but Jonah was still sleeping away in his room. We all started rushing around like crazy because we were heading to Lufkin for some early "trick-or-treating" with our families. (The last time we went to Lufkin, we ended up leaving WAY later than we had planned, which no doubt frustrated all those anxious grandparents back home who were dying to see their grandchildren.)

We also were FREEZING, so we fired up the heat in the house. (First time to do that...it's like the official start of Christmas, isn't it?)

We all got ready and headed to Lufkin by 8:50. We got on the phone to make sure all our various family folks knew we were headed to town. We got to "Sugar's" house by 10:30 and had some of her delicious fudge! Her house was decorated for fall, candles are lit and the fudge was still warm. What a welcome!

I headed to lunch around noon to meet up with some of my Lufkin buds. Since moving, I hadn't seen Chris, David or Clay. We had a great time - spent about two hours just laughing and catching up on what's been happening.

After lunch, came home. The kids played outside, watched cartoons, and Kristen and I just lounged around with them. I took a 20 minute nap (my favorite kind!) and then got up so we could start getting kids ready to go trick-or-treating. Yes...we did the Halloween thing a week early. More on that at a later time!

The kids had a blast - their costumes looked great and our families had loads of candy for them. We ended the night at my grandparents. We scheduled that later so that we'd have more time to hang out. In fact, since we bathed the kids before leaving that evening, we threw them in the PJs so they'd both go to sleep on the way home! We got back to Sugar's around 9. Both kids were asleep. I edited some video while Kristen and her mom talked for about an hour or so.

Just before going to bed, Kristen got sick. Like, you know...sick. But ever since her whole gallbladder incident she's turned out to be a real trooper when it comes to sickness. She stayed a little while composing herself before bed. Once she was resting, I took a shower. All in all, all were in bed and accounted for by midnight.

It was a fantastic day!

Todd Lives...

Hey, gang...

First of all, thanks to all of you've who have emailed me or called me or in some way communicated your sincere dismay at my blogging absence. I've always thought I was an profoundly influential and world-changing blogger. Now I know it, thanks to you all.

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Things at the Wright House are good. Things got a bit crazy for us over the weekend. Our church scheduled 2 meetings with a consultant on Friday and Saturday, which, as you can imagine, wasn't the most fun way to spend a weekend.

In addition to that, my cousin Tracy lost her husband. Danny was in his late-30s and died Friday night of a heart attack. Death always hits hard, but this experience has left us all a bit shaken.

Sunday night was a bit of an emotional roller coaster as we prepared for Jonah's first day of Kindergarten. Monday morning, he was ready to go and I swear he even looked older!

So far, the week's been pretty hard on Krist and me. We simply hand't prepared ourselves for how little we'd actually be seeing Jonah each day. Example: previously, I'd stay at home until 9 or so, helping out with breakfast and getting ready. I'd work for two or three hourse, then come home and see Jonah during my whole lunch break. I'd be home about 5, which usually gave three hours or so to see him. Now, we drop him off at 8 and I head to work. I come home for lunch (still forgetting that he won't be there.) So far, I've gone with Kristen to pick him up at 3, but then I'm back to work until 5. He's so exhausted that he's asleep by 7:15.

On a more enjoyable note, I had a mondo-practice Monday night for gig on September 18th. Many of you who've played with me before know that I'm not a big fan of the long-practice. If we can't get it in 2 or 3 passes, we move on, right?

So on this Monday night practice, me and the gang (Romack on drums, Brad A. on bass, David McElveen on keys and Ryan Finnerud on electric guitar) worked 3 songs for two hours. Yeah... at the end of practice, I played them my new song, "Waiting for Me." I was already liking the song, but after hearing it with a band, I'm loving it. Very different sort of song for me...like a weird mix of Americana and AC Piano Pop.

Thanks for stopping by the blog, and all jokes aside (as in the first paragraph,) thanks for checking up on me.

The Courtship Has Begun...

Sure, they enjoyed a Coke Float together. But can they overcome Jonah's addiciton to peanut butter?