Pbur’s Adventures

Funny how the time flies and you only post links to your blog. Heck, it wasn’t even me. It’s an automated thing. Well, here’s a honest to goodness actual post!

Friday, my little guy turned 4. He’s growing up so fast now. We took him to Chuck E. Cheese’s that night for some fun and play time, and man did he take advantage of that. He ran around like crazy for two hours and worked up a huge sweat. He played all sorts of games, earning lots of tickets which we turned in for some trinkets at the toy counter.

Yesterday, we had several of Brenden’s friends over for a birthday part at our house. That meant lots of kids running around and having fun. I grilled hot dogs and we had cake. Brenden was very excited about all his presents and couldn’t wait to play with all of them.

We saved the biggest gift until the end: his first bicycle! It’s Toy Story bicycle and we took it for the first “ride” yesterday evening. I’ll post more about that later (along with some photos).

Here are a few pictures from the party. You can see the rest in the Flickr Set.

Maggie did a great job getting the tables ready

Brenden getting ready to blow out the candle

More presents than you could imagine, we have generous friends

Emily loves riding all of Brenden’s old toy riders, she had fun during the party

Now that my work’s busy season is finally winding down, I can post some of the things that we’ve been up to.

Emily continues to grow and grow and grow. Maggie’s got the update post for you to check out.

Brenden’s also been growing and learning so much. Since my last post, he’s now able to tell us all the numbers from 1 to 9 as well as the letters of the alphabet. That’s been fun as he’s learning the alphabet from the ABC book from Dr. Seuss. We read it nightly and he loves it. We’re determined to make sure our kids are readers.

We joined the Dallas Zoo as members for this year to check that out. We’ve already been about 4 times. Brenden loves the place! Here are a few pics from our visits (Emily mostly sleeps during these outings).

As for me, I’ve been trying to keep working on my iPhone application. I sent out a first beta and based on the feedback I received, decided to start over on the UI and overall user experience. I’ve also started a separate blog for my Cocoa coding endeavors called CocoaDevNation. Look for more technical stuff to end up over there.

After going to the Train Show last Saturday, Brenden and I went back there Sunday for some additional looking around. Brenden really, really likes playing with Thmoas the Train Engine toys here at home and when we walked in, we went by the vendor who had some large Thomas the Train Engine model train sets in HO scale. They were pricey even at 30% off.

While looking them over, the gentleman running the booth came over and introduced himself and asked what I was looking for. I wondered aloud if there were smaller sets for Thomas to get started with? He said he had one that was $70 and had Thomas, Clarabell, and Annie and a circle track. To sweeten the deal, he threw in 2 straight pieces of track so we could make an oval. I added a Troublesome Truck and the Sodor Mail Car as well. Still stayed under $100 which is pretty good in my experience looking at model train sets. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I have always wanted a model train set growing up. Of course I bought the train for myself Brenden.

After bringing it home, I eventually got it setup to show Brenden and taught him that this wasn’t a “touching” train, but one we were to watch. He actually has grasped that pretty well. Today he even requested I bring out the set and play again. He really likes to watch and see if he can see Sir Topham Hatt in Thomas. He also checks Clarabell and Annie to see if there’s “hot chocolate” being served. He got that from watching The Polar Express a lot.

I plan to continue to add track and additional cars and engines. Hopefully one day Brenden and I can build an awesome layout together. ( Emily can join us too! )

Setting up the cars to go.	Brenden watching the train go around.

Brenden has been very into trains of late, almost exclusively playing on his Thomas play table with all his Thomas trains. As a reward for him being a much better sleeper this week ( which is another post in itself ), I was going to find a model railroad place to take him to. As luck would have it, I saw this tweet on Twitter this morning. It turns out this weekend is the Dallas Area Train Show!

We left Emily with grandma and took Brenden to the show. He ( and I ) had a blast! I’ve always wanted to have a model train set and going to this show certain rekindled that interest. Brenden wanted to look at all the exhibits and we had to tear him away from most. He really didn’t understand why he couldn’t play with the trains, so that complicated things at times.

There was also a ton of Thomas stuff and we ended up getting him a Toby car on a very good deal and he’s been happy adding it to his other trains.

I’m hoping to maybe get a small set started sometime this year. The biggest problem right now will be finding space for it unless I want to keep putting it up and tearing it down when I want to play.

Some photos to entertain:

In the interest of giving some equal time to the big brother, I present some pictures of Brenden…and sneak in a couple of Emily.

Brenden has been enjoying having some of the baby stuff back out. He really likes Emily’s car seat as seen here:

He’s also been having all of us play trains with him near constantly. This time Grandma was being a good sport:

On Sunday, our friends Amy and Brandon brought over their son Will as well as a wonderful lunch. Will and Brenden played a lot!

Of course, Amy got some baby holding time in:

For Christmas, I got a bunch of Best Buy gift cards, and with them, I bought Guitar Hero World Tour. Brenden has been very interested and of late has been trying to play. Here we are with Brenden hitting the buttons and me strumming. Needless to say, he’s got a long way to go, but it’s fun:

This was tonight before Brenden’s bedtime watching an episode of Kipper The Dog on Sprout:

And lastly, a nice close-up of Emily, spit-up and all:

We’ve made it home and Brenden continues to love his little sister. This morning the first thing he asked me when I got him out of his bedroom was “Where’s the baby?”. It’s pretty cute. He’s also very gently with her.

Here are more pictures.

Brenden checking out his sister in her hospital roller crib		Emily hanging out with her daddy
Emily hanging with mommy		This is too cute. Brenden reading a book to himself going to bed
Taking a little siesta on daddy’s shoulder

On Monday January 5, we welcomed Emily Grace Burleson to our family. She was born via a planned c-section at 3:58 PM and weighed in at 9 lbs 12.3 oz and was 19 in long. Maggie and Emily are doing very well.

As for me, I’m excited as I was when Brenden was born. The adrenaline rush from the birth didn’t wear off until around 2 or 3 in the morning. I maybe got a total of 3 hours of sleep last night, and that was certainly not contiguous. ( It doesn’t help that I quite possibly have the most uncomfortable sleeping surface in the history of the in the fold out chair that’s in our room )

I’ll keep this short as I know most of you just want to see the pictures.

Maggie just as we got settled in to wait until the surgery		Amazingly enough, this is Maggie after the surgery while they were putting her back together
The nurse cleaning off Emily and getting the first cry		Maggie holding Emily for the first time
Maggie’s mom checking on her once we got back to the room		My dad holding his new granddaughter
Maggie’s mom getting her first time with Emily		Maggie and Emily
The new arrival		Maggie finally able to get up and hold Emily
Brenden meets his new sister		He was actually really excited about it
But he did miss his mommy

The past two days have been long, but amazing as we saw a lot of family and friends. Brenden had a blast as he got to play with his cousins from California while also playing with a ton of other kids. I should tell the tale in pictures.

We start visiting my best friend Andy’s grandparents’ house in OK. This is his dad Andy ( far right ) and uncles Benny and Scott ( left to right ).	Next, we went to Andy’s parent’s house. This is his mom Linda opening cards.
Andy and his dad having a discussion during present opening.	Brenden playing with Andy’s nephew Noah. The boys had a great time playing with the microwave in the background.
I really liked this shot of Andy laughing at a joke. Andy’s a chef, which leads to the next picture.	Moving to Christmas Day, with Andy’s instruction, I made my second Prime Rib. It was scrumptious.
The entire Christmas Dinner spread showing the smoked ham my dad brought. It was equally scrumptious.	The tree just before presents were passed out. Lots of gift card envelopes this year.
Brenden got this very cool elephant that he can sit on.	He really likes it.
Brenden also got a lot of gifts. The child might be a bit spoiled.	Maggie’s sister Rachel and her husband Frank who drove here from CA with their other sister’s boys.
Brenden “playing” with his cousins from CA. The older boys were engrossed by their game systems.	Maggie’s mom and dad and my dad watching the festivities.
This is the coolest thing. A neighbor builds this train up in his backyard and gives kids free rides from 6 – 10 PM every night from the day after Thanksgiving till New Year’s Day. Here are the boys from CA, Ely and Dylan.	Trying to capture the epic-ness of this guy’s back yard is hard. The next few pictures are my attempt.
Epic-ness.	Epic-ness.
Epic-ness.	Epic-ness.
Epic-ness.	In the end, Brenden was exhausted after two days of running around and no naps. After our guests left, he crawled on the couch and passed out. I carried him to his room and he’s still there in his clothes sleeping away. I think he really enjoyed the days and so did we.

We had an amazing couple of days and I want to wish all my family and friends a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 2009 will be an exciting and new year for us as we welcome our new baby shortly after the new year.

Every year for the holidays I make my favorite appetizer: a ham and onion cheese ball. I learned the recipe from my dad and I’m going to share it with you.

You will need:

3-4 packages of Philadelphia Cream Cheese ( I do not recommend the fat free version for this )

8-16 oz deli shaved ham

1 bunch green onions

Garlic Salt ( optional )

How to make it:

1. Chop green onion

2. Chop ham

3. Thoroughly mix cream cheese, onion and ham in bowl. ( Optionally sprinkle with garlic salt )

4. Place mixture on serving platter

At this point you can use a flipper to smooth over the outside of the ball to remove finger and hand prints.

Once complete, it should look something like this:

I recommend serving with Ritz. Enjoy!

Today we took Brenden to the Owens Country Farm in Richardson. That’s the same Owens as the sausage. There they have animals to feed and a hay ride. During the Fall, they also have pumpkins. Brenden had a really good time and got to see a lot of animals and rode like a big boy on a little tractor ride. He even picked out a pumpkin to take home.

Yes, that’s right, we’re going to have another baby! This one is due Jan. 15th, but as Maggie noted on her blog, it will probably be earlier due to her diabetes.

We will post updates as things move along.

We went to the Dallas World Aquarium on Sunday with some friends and their one-year-old boy. Brenden was wiggly, but looked at stuff when we pointed it out. He has been really into Finding Nemo and this was a great way to show him all sorts of fish and other creatures. At the end of the day, both boys were exhausted ( as well as the parents ), but I think we all had a great time.

Maggie and Brenden checking out the birds in the “Rainforest”	Maggie and Brenden checking out one of the many fish tanks
Stingrays at the DWA	Brenden playing in the dirt next to the Stingray tank
A huge Grouper at the DWA	Brenden standing in front of the Grouper to give some perspective

I wanted to wish all my family and friends a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 2007 has been a good year for us and here’s looking forward to an even better 2008.  

Been a long while since I’ve posted. In that time we’ve had Halloween where Brenden went as a adorable dragon ( pic at Maggie’s site ) .

We also went to Maggie’s sister’s wedding in California and has a great time. Well, except for Brenden not having the best sleeping patterns. You know, like screaming his head off until 1 and 2 AM. Other than that it was a lot of fun. I went sport fishing with the men of the family and caught a lot of mackerel.

Thanksgiving was also very nice. Maggie’s aforementioned sister and her new husband came to visit with Maggie’s other sister’s two boys. We did the normal family stuff of playing Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. I lost at Trivial Pursuit ( darn you Maggie ), but completely dominated Monopoly.

We got a real Christmas tree for this year. ( see pic of Maggie and Brenden while we were tree hunting ) I think once in my life my family ( or wherever I was staying ) had a real tree. This will be an interesting adventure. We have baby gates setup so Brenden can’t get to the tree and destroy it. He’s unamused by these gates since we haven’t had anything like them before. He’s not use to be unable to get somewhere in the house that doesn’t have a door.

School is going well this semester. I have a final on Monday and I think I have a pretty good shot at an A+ for the class.

In two weeks, Maggie and I will be off to Vegas to celebrate her graduation from college with a degree in English. We’re very much looking forward to that.

So I think that gets me all caught up and ready to either post more or again neglect the blog and have to make another catchup post in January.

Over Labor Day weekend, Maggie, Brenden and I went to Denver to visit friends of mine and their 3 boys. Did I mention we drove there? 13 hours of driving there. I was actually amazed at how well Brenden did with being confined for that long. It did make us alter our return drive to try and help him by planning in more running around time.

We had a very good visit. For Friday, our friends had things going on, so we took Brenden down see the Denver Children’s Museum. It was a very awesome place where kids get to just run around and learn about stuff from Firetrucks, to art, to being a vet, to sports. Brenden really liked the simulated grocery store where he pushed a miniature shopping cart around and picked up plastic vegetables and other fun things.

After that, we headed over to the 16th Street Mall and walked up and down it looking for the Tattered Cover Bookstore some of my friends had told me about. We parked, walked to the other end of the mall and didn’t see it. So I finally asked someone and they said “oh, it’s way at the other end”. Turns out, we parked practically on top of it, but we started up a block and missed it.

The next day we went up into the mountains and went to the top of Mt. Evans, which is a lovely 14,000 ft. When we got to the entrance of the summit road at 11,000 ft, there was a weather board there to tell us the temp in Denver ( 80ish ), were we were ( 60ish ) and at the summit ( 40ish, with windchills in the 20s ). It’s amazing how much colder the higher altitudes are.

After coming down off the mountain, we went to this cute little play place called Tiny Town. Brenden loved it! It has all this houses built to toddler size. He kept going back to the same ones, but he certainly enjoyed himself. We even rode their little train.

Sunday was lots of fun at a local rec center that had this amazing water park. It was all indoors and had a lap pool, a lazy river, a kids area and two slides. I rode the slides a bunch and so did Maggie. Brenden had fun in the water, but would occasionally put his face down in it accidently and surprise himself and start to cough water he tried to breathe.

We had a lot of fun with our friends and their family. Brenden got to watch 3 older boys ( ages 2 – 5 ) and learned a bunch, like how to go up and down stairs. He just started practicing it the minute he was shown how to go down the stairs ( he had figured out up already ). The boys loved him and I think enjoyed playing with him.

We’re going to have to make that trip again, but I think next time, it might be better to fly. Or to maybe have an RV so that Maggie and Brenden can run around on the way.

For pics, check out Maggie’s post.

For the longest time, Maggie and I have talked about going on a cruise and we decided for our 5th anniversary that it was the right time to book it and have some fun.

After about a month of searching and looking at deals, we finally decided on a 7 day cruise to the Western Caribbean aboard the Carnival Conquest. We were told that we were being “brave” by bringing along Brenden, who’d be about 12 and a half months old for the trip. Even though it caused some interesting things to occur to his normal sleeping pattern, I couldn’t imagine the trip without him.

We left on Mother’s Day out of Galveston and looked forward to 2 days at sea before making our first stop. Those 2 days were a lot of fun and very relaxing. We explored the ship and I even played in a Blackjack tournament, where I almost got to the final table, but alas, was knocked off the board just before round play ended. Monday night was formal night, and we had fun dressing up and being fancy for an evening. We walked out on the main deck afterwards with Brenden to let him run around.

First stop was Montego Bay, Jamaica, which was very nice. It was cloudy and did eventually rain, but it didn’t seem to bother us. We shopped in the morning and for the afternoon we had booked an excursion to go out on a glass-bottom semi-sub to check out the coral reef. Once we got to the reef and after going over it a bit, we got the opportunity to snorkel, which I took advantage of. Maggie was a little scared of the creatures in the water and stayed on the boat with Brenden. They served us Rum Punch on this little trip and it was very strong, although quite tasty.

Next up was Grand Cayman which seemed like the shortest day due to everyone needing to use a smaller boat called a tender to get to the shore. The cruise ships are too large to dock because the water is pretty shallow. It didn’t help that we had an early excursion planned, and that it took most of our time during the day. We did get to stop and get my required Hard Rock Cafe shot glass ( I collect them and have them from just about everywhere I’ve been that has one ). We then rushed over to our excursion and were off to visit Hell, Grand Cayman, a sea turtle farm, and to swim with stingrays. All of these were great and the sea turtles were awesome, but being in the water with the rays was a definite highlight for me. Maggie did make it into the water and held on to Brenden ( who loved splashing and playing in the water ) while dodging the rays.

Our final port of call was Cozumel, Mexico. This day was hot, like really hot. Amazingly, none of us really burned on the trip. I chalk that up to 50 SPF sunscreen applied at least twice a day. In Cozumel, we didn’t have anything planned so that Maggie could take full advantage of the shopping there. They sell a ton of silver since it’s mined near there. Also, I got to go to a Tequila store which had over 200 varieties. I sampled several ( many of which tried to put me on the floor ) and decided on a nice smooth sipping tequila and one that was infused with pomegranate juice which tasted like fruit punch.

We had a scary moment in Cozumel where we thought that maybe we had overheated Brenden ( did I mention it was hot? ), but we did not. All the heat did make him pretty lethargic the rest of the night.

One more day at sea and then we were back home. It was a fantastic trip and I would recommend taking a cruise to anyone. In fact, Maggie and I have decided that cruising is either our first choice or our plan b for future vacations if we can’t think of a place to go.

Here are some photos in fairly random order

The beautiful water of Cozumel	Dad and Brenden hanging out before taking a nap
Dad and Brenden hanging out on the deck	The Burleson Family out on deck on Formal Night
The Burleson’s and the Stingray	Me “kissing” a stingray
One of the many towel animals that were made by our cabin steward	We finally caught a sunset on the last night on the boat

As I mentioned earlier, we decided to take a trip to visit New York City to see friends and our favorite New York places. As the time to travel neared, I began to get a little more anxious about this “taking a 7 month old on his first plane ride”. Well, as Maggie points out, Brenden was great during the trip. Which was amazing considering some of our travel woes.

It started with our departing flight. We got rushed into boarding the plane and after finally getting arranged in our seats, on a plane with malfunctioning air conditioning, the following announcement is made:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have good news and bad news. The good news is your flight isn’t cancelled. The bad news is that the flight that the pilots for this flight was just diverted to Alliance airport. It will be at least an hour before they will be here and ready to take off.

We are offered to de-board the plane if we want, but if we do, we need to take anything we brought on board. Since we were loaded down with a lot of baby stuff and our backpacks, we decided to wait it out on the plane. Well, 45 minutes later, we’re told that they still haven’t taken off to come to DFW and that it would be at least another hour before they got there. At that point, they recommended that everyone get off the plane. We decided at this point, that was probably the best idea.

Once we finally got on the plane, with a flight crew, Brenden actually fell asleep before take off. So I held him for the first 2 hours or so of the flight asleep on my arm. It made getting a drink and other things an adventure. Once he did wake up, he was in a good mood and made faces with the people sitting around us. Little did we know, we’d need every last ounce of his good mood before we got off that plane.

We land just fine at Newark and start to taxi to the gates. I noticed we stopped quite short of them and then we get the following notice from the flight deck:

I’m sorry to add insult to injury folks, but we were scheduled to park at Gate 34, and unfortunately Gate 34 is currently broken. The ground crew is working on it, but in the mean time, we’re waiting for one of the planes at gates 32 or 33 to pull back and we’ll park there. Sorry for the additional delay.

So we finally get out of the plane at 3:30 PM EST when we were scheduled to arrive at 1:00 PM EST. Gotta love the airline industry.

We had plans to meet with the people I used to work with at 5 PM. Needless to say, we were a bit late for that after getting a taxi and checking into the hotel and getting into the City. But we did make it and had a very good time seeing those folks and them meeting Brenden. Afterwards, we called up some more former co-workers, who had also moved on, and met them at Ruby Foo’s in Times Square. After some delicious Pan Asian food, Maggie, Brenden and I headed back to the hotel to crash as we were all very tired from a long day of travel.

The next day, we made a plan to meet up for lunch with my childhood friend John and his family. They have a new daughter that we hadn’t seen and of course they hadn’t seen Brenden either. They have the cutest little girl and their older boy had definitely grown and was a lot more talkative than I remembered when we lived there.

After lunch, Maggie wanted to go to Century 21 before our dinner plans with some of our dog walking friends (Mark and Valerie, and Suzanne). We went there and braved the crowds, which by the way, were huge as it always gets just before Christmas in NYC. Before coming back to New Jersey, we stopped and looked at the new photos they had put at the World Trade Center site. No matter how many times I see it, when I start to think about it, the events of that day still bring tears to my eyes.

Once back in Jersey, we grabbed a bottle of wine and met our friends at this great Italian cafe that was in our old neighborhood. It was quite an evening as there were two huge parties there making a lot of noise. And this wasn’t the largest of places. The food was amazing as was the conversations. Mark and Valerie were also gracious enough to offer to baby sit Brenden on Sunday, more on that later. They all walked us back to our hotel and we settled down for another good night’s sleep.

Sunday morning, we took the whole family to Central Park. The one big thing we wanted to do while there was to get hot chocolate at this place we had always gotten it while we were living there. Sadly, we found that it was closed at least for the day. We’re hoping not forever.

After that, we made our way back to New Jersey to drop Brenden off at Mark and Valerie’s and made our way back into the City. We ate at our favorite place in Chinatown where we got their amazing steamed pork buns. After that, we headed off to see the New Jersey Devils play the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. I was in hockey heaven as it was a hockey game at MSG and also one of the biggest rivalries currently in the NHL. ( My wife is the best for letting us choose hockey over broadway ) New Jersey ended up embarrassing the Rangers 6-1 and the crowd got “rowdy”, with a fight breaking out two sections over.

We went back to Jersey to pick up Brenden from Mark and Valerie. They had a good time watching him and came to the conclusion that they weren’t ready for the work it takes to have a baby. Not that Brenden was bad or anything, just that they didn’t realize the amount of energy needed.

For Monday, we planned a lot of stops. First we hit FAO Schwartz, then the new 5th Ave Apple Store, Rockefeller Center to see the tree, then M&M World, then we had my favorite meal in the whole city: Street Meat. Yummy! Then we went to see the Macy’s windows and finally headed back to the hotel after a very long day.

On our final day, we went to go see Maggie’s former co-workers at a place in New Jersey. They were very excited to see Maggie and Brenden. After hanging out there, we left for the airport, where we had another fun adventure flying home. Luckily, we were only delayed an hour this time.

Overall it was a great trip. It was really good to see everyone and for us to be able to have a good time bringing the little one along. He won’t remember it, but we have plenty of pictures to prove he was there:

Brenden asleep on the plane

Brenden and Maggie in Central Park

Brenden and I in Central Park

The skating rink from Serendipity

Brenden bundled for NYC

Brenden really, really, liked this mirror in our hotel room

Brenden plays on the piano at FAO, the one in the movie Big

Final score of the hockey game

The Macy’s Windows

Finally, Brenden and I spend a little recoup time waiting for the plane ride home

So I broke the streak yesterday since I didn’t blog. But I’ve definitely gotten the grove back. Today was a great celebration with family and friends. I’m so very thankful for my beautiful wife and son. They show me everything I need to be thankful for. Love you guys!

When Brenden first started sleeping through the night about 3 months ago, he was really good about being put down in his crib and he would go to sleep on his own. For some reason, about a month or so ago, Brenden decided this wasn’t acceptable. As soon as we put him in the crib, he would start crying at full blast. We would pick him up and console him. He quickly learned that crying = get picked up, and we fell for it.

About 3 weeks ago, Maggie was at the pediatrician’s office and asked how we could break this habit now that we’d formed it with him. And the advice we got wasn’t pleasant… “Sit in the room, don’t look at him, and let him cry to sleep…he will eventually learn that he won’t get picked up. It will probably take 3 painful nights.”

Maggie tried the first night, but wore down and sent me in to finish the job. It was painful at first. But eventually, I actually got to where I was drowning out his cries and whimpers. In fact, I almost fell asleep before he did.

We repeated this process for about 5 nights and Maggie even got to where she could outlast him. And I am happy to say that now, Brenden barely makes a fuss, if any at all, when we put him down in his crib for the night. Now to get him working on his nap times, which are still a battle zone.

With my new iMac comes a program called Comic Life which allows you to take your photos and quickly make comic book style pages with them. Here’s my first one which took a couple of minutes:

I know it’s not nearly as good as my friend’s comics, but hey, I can still try and get into the act. Now if I could only think of funny things to say.