Gearing up for Art Car Weekend!

  By Gwendolyn | May 2, 2010 - 7:57 pm | , ,
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what a productive weekend we had. we put the finishing touches (at least for now!) on CARpe Diem. we did the last little repairs, washed it, glued all the marbles on, and cleaned out the inside. man, that car is big! it seemed like we had so many marbles, but i’ll have to admit it looks a little skimpy now that they are on. i just need to make some more…like 500 more! i think the car is going to look really great once it’s all decked out. we can’t wait for the parade next weekend.  Check out other pictures of CARpe Diem here.

New Found Freedom

  By Jay | February 17, 2010 - 9:58 pm | ,
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Gabriel has found his freedom.  He no longer accepts crawling as the best way to get around.  We saw him take his first unassisted steps on Christmas day.  He had been pulling himself up on things for a few weeks and taking steps holding on to the coffee table or couch.  When Grandpa and I were putting together his Christmas gift, he took his first step from Grandpa to me.  We tried to get that on camera but Gabriel was uncessful to do it again.  For the following weeks though he got better and more brave as he went further and further.  I did try a few other times to get him on camera but he always seems to get camera shy, as you’ll see in the video.  Finally on Valentine’s Day we went to a park and got some good videos.  I’ve compiled them into this masterpiece:

Gabriel’s 1st Birthday

  By Jay | January 21, 2010 - 6:28 pm | ,
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Amazing. We have a 1 year old in the house.  Not only that, the little guy is actually starting to walk around!  He took his first steps at Christmas, and has been getting better and better.  Now it’s not unusual to see him walk from the living room into the kitchen.  There is still a lot of falling and crawling, but he is getting so much better.  It’s exciting and scary!

For his birthday we had an awesome Robot themed party on my birthday.  I imagine we will be sharing lots of parties together from now on.  At least non of the big birthdays will land together.  (me turning 50 while he’s turning 16 or something)  The party was lots of fun, with our friends and family over.  Gabriel also gave 12 people special presents that came.  In the week that followed 12 of us got sick with a nasty stomach bug!  We thought it could have been the food until we took Gabriel to Mothers day out and they said that the week prior all the kids and teachers had gotten sick also.

I know I haven’t posted in a while so here is a quick run though of the holidays:

Christmas was great.  I think next year will be more fun with Gabriel as this year he just seemed to enjoy the wrapping paper.  Although that’s not to say he doesn’t enjoy all his new toys, he does love them.  We finally put up most of his baby toys, and now he has big boy toys.  🙂  Like I mentioned earlier, Gabriel also started to take his first steps at Christmas.  We tried to get this on camera, but of course he is very camera shy.  ‘Oh look camera, I better stop what I’m doing!’  I don’t know if you may have noticed in my photo albums but Gabriel had a visit from Santa.  We got some great pictures and he seemed to really like Santa.

New years was pretty low key.  Gwendolyn’s parents came over and our friends Cory and Annie.  We played some Beatles Rock Band and shot off two fireworks.  It got way to cold to stay outside!  Luckily our neighbors had plenty of fireworks we can watch from the comfort of our home.

Check out all the photos: Santa, Christmas, 1st Birthday

Snow?

  By Jay | December 4, 2009 - 8:51 pm | ,
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Well that’s just amazing.  For the 2nd year in a row it has now snowed in Houston.  It was much better this year than last I have to say.  It also brought back memories of when Gwendolyn and I first started dating, and it had snowed on Christmas.  So Gabriel got to see snow for the first time and throw his first snow ball.  We didn’t get a chance to make a snowman though, or any snow angles.

I’ve uploaded some more pictures on picasa.  I put up an album of Thanksgiving which we spent with my family and some friends.  We had lots to eat as you can see, and everything was as delicious as it looked.  The other album is from the Texas Renaissance Festival, which we went to the day after Thanksgiving.  We took our friends Cory and Annie, while my parents baby sat.  Had a great time at the festival, and we can’t wait till next year to bring Gabriel.

Snow
Thanksgiving
Renaissance

Gabriel Feedings

  By Jay | November 24, 2009 - 1:30 am | , ,
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Here are some more pictures I wanted to share of Gabriel.

Actually I just wanted to try out picasa’s web albums.  I think I’m going to start uploading all my pictures here.  Since I’m using Picasa 3 on my PC it makes uploading them a breeze.  Then it also allows anyone to order prints.  I know the grandparents and great grandparents will love that!  When you are viewing a photo or album, click on prints, and then click order prints.  You than can pick where you want to order them from; and yes, your favorite photo printer Walgreens is listed as a choice.

Oh yes, here are two movies I got of Gabriel recently.  The first one is Gabriel smacking his lower lip while eating.  It was cracking me up.  The 2nd is Gabriel crying at the site of our friend Cory.  He has done this every time he has seen Cory.  Just had to get it on film this time. 🙂

Here’s a link to the Photo Album.  Going to try a embed it below also.

Another 3 Months

  By Jay | October 20, 2009 - 3:48 pm | , ,
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I can’t believe Gabriel is now 9 moths and 1 week old!  Amazing.  I can’t believe all the changes he’s been going through lately.  Gabriel is full on crawling now.  Although he was for a long time just using his arms to pull himself around.  He does still do that every now and then.  He’s also gotten two bottom teeth!  Wow is that weird seeing teeth appear.  Boy do they hurt too!  We’ve been feeding him lots of oatmeal and vegetables.  He’s pretty funny with new foods.  Never really sure if he likes them.  He will make his funny faces but still open his mouth for more.  Only a few times will he refuse to eat something.

I know some have been requesting new pictures, so hopefully this won’t disappoint.  Check out all these pictures!

6 Months

  By Jay | July 12, 2009 - 4:33 pm | ,
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Wow, its hard to believe it’s already been 6 months! Here we are though, and Gabriel is as cute as ever. I think we are finally getting used to the little rug rat. We are starting to get good routines down, nap at 9 and 1 and bedtime at 8pm. He’s doing pretty good at night, normally only waking up 2 times. We’ve gotten lucky a few times and had him sleep from 12-7! Like I mentioned in the previous post, he is learning how to crawl. It won’t be long before we are chasing him down and wondering where Gabriel went. Here’s some pictures I took today of him. (click for full size pictures)

Greetings Strangers

  By Jay | July 8, 2009 - 4:32 pm | , ,
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Anyone still visit this site?  You do?  Awesome, well here is some stuff that’s been going on!

First my favorite new project, our art car is going along smoothly.  My dad and I towed it out to my uncles (Thanks Uncle Dick!!) house in tomball, so it is now much more accessible to us.  It’s also stored in a garage with all the tools I could possibly need.  The best news though is we got it moving!  Turns out that the axle bearings were bad, so 100 bucks later and we are driving around.

Gabriel is doing great.  He’s almost 6 months old now.  I can’t believe that.  He’s takes notice of everything around him now, and tries to grab everything.  He’s almost at the sitting up stage.  I should also post new videos of him laughing.  He finally has that down pat.  🙂  Other achievements have been his baptism on June 7th, with his Godparents Jonathan and Delena.  Unfortunately they couldn’t make it to the ceremony so we had to have my cousin Dan and Sarah stand in for them.

Gwendolyn turned 30!  We had an awesome birthday party.  We did a murder mystery set in the 1920’s.  Gwendolyn and I were hosts to the new speakeasy, The Four Dueces, in town and throwing a grand opening celebration.  All the high society players were there, when Big Jim Ravioli was murdered.  We had to spend the rest of the night figuring out who would do such a thing and why!  It was an amazing party and everyone really enjoyed themselves.  I am still amazed by the costumes and how everyone really brought their characters to life.

We went to the Art Car sneak peak back in may with our friends Cory and Annie.  Gabriel was also there for the first time checking out down town.  The cars were amazing and we were able to talk to a few of the owners for tips and support.  The next day we meet our families downtown to watch the parade.  We enjoyed the show and can’t wait to be in it next year!

The end of May Patrick and Mandy came down to visit.  Gwendolyn and Gabriel spent the week with them, and had a great time.  I think Patrick and Mandy fell in love with Gabriel, and Gabriel loves them just as much. Maybe we’ll be getting a niece or nephew soon too? 😉

The end of June our friend Beth was also turning 30, along with another austin friend Evans.  Beth decided to through a big birthday/house warming party which we attended.  It was our first long trip with Gabriel and I have to say he did amazing.  This gives us hope for our trip next week to Wisconsin.  The party was awesome, lots of great people and it was good seeing Jake, Beth, and Brian.

And thats about it.  Wow that wasn’t so hard.  Why haven’t I been updating this?!  Gwendolyn has also said she has been interested in writing a post or two.  It must be because of twitter.  She needs more than 140 characters. 🙂

Gwendolyn’s Twitter
Jay’s Twitter

Photos:
Easter
Gwendolyn’s 30th

Oh and happy 123456789 day! (12:34:56 on 7/8/9) or 040506070809 (04:05:06 on 07/08/09)

Dreams came true today

  By Jay | March 22, 2009 - 11:39 pm | , ,
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Our Dream:

  • Step 1: Buy old hearse – Check
  • Step 2: Turn into art car
  • Step 3: ???
  • Step 4: Profit!

P1000564.JPGYup, we spent Gabriels college fund on a 1969 Cadillac Superior Coach, aka an old beat up hearse.  Gwendolyn and I have had this idea to turn an old hearse into an art car since 8-28-05.  Young Jay and Gwendolyn sitting at Stars pizza talking how cool it would be to have an art car.  Then we brain stormed some ideas and came up with an old hearse covered in fortunes from fortune cookies.  Oh the irony.

The past few years we’d always keep an eye out for hearses for sale.  You’d be surprised by how many we’ve seen.  Normally they would be too expensive or not the style we want.  That was until my father told us of one for sale in Sealy.  We immediately got online and found it also listed on Ebay.  It was perfect.

We were excited, thinking this could really happen, but we also took our time and made our big pro/con list.  In the end, is there really any con to having a 1969 Cadillac hearse?  I didn’t think so.  I made an offer for the hearse and we picked it up today.

P1000570.JPGIt’s a project car, as it needs some work.  Currently it needs as new rear differential.  Basically that means it doesn’t move on its own right now.  The engine runs fine though.  The body and interior is also in really good shape, except for the front seat.  As you can see from the pictures it is currently an art car, but not to our tastes. 🙂  We look forward to decorating it in our style and hope to get lots of help along the way.  So start saving your fortunes so you too can take part in our project!

More Pictures!