Jennifer’s After-Baby Haircut

Jennifer Hair 1So…Jennifer got a haircut this weekend. She had six inches slashed off. Here are a couple of photos of the final product.

Read More

Willits Family Circa 2004 (VIDEO)

Sam making a faceI came across some old videos we’d made years ago and this one, in particular, has always been one of our favorites.
Basically, it’s just a montage of different clips from the year Tommy was born.
Sam losing his first tooth. Walt with a broken leg.
Lots of early memories all blended together using a soundtrack by Colin Hay from Men at Work. Enjoy!

Read More

Radio Archive #5: Scott Appleby from Notre Dame

cndpodcastrssCourtesy of Sirius 159/XM 117 (The Catholic Channel), it’s The Catholics Next Door podcast! Featuring segments from The Catholics Next Door and occasional extra surprises, you can get a full three hours of The Catholics Next Door, Monday through Friday from 10AM to 1PM EST, only from Sirius/XM. Sign up today!

In this episode: Professor Scott Appleby from Notre Dame joins us for a heated debate about the University’s decision to give President Obama an honorary doctorate. Also, Father Leo Patalinghug from Grace Before Meals offers his feedback on this news story.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and other podcast aggregators with this RSS URL: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thecatholicsnextdoor

Read More

Lullabies for Lily

Lullabyes for LilyA couple weeks ago our friend Dan Harms from the band Popple was here for a visit.

While he was here we were goofing around, playing some songs on the piano and guitar. Near the end of the night I picked up Dan’s guitar and was amazed at how easy it was to play his compared to the guitar I typically play.

The guitar I play is actually one Jennifer bought long before we even met, but she never uses. So when we got married, it pretty much became my main guitar. It’s a very nice guitar, but after playing Dan’s, I realized I could probably have some work done on it to make it even easier to play and better sounding to boot. So last weekend, I dropped off the guitar at a local music store and ever since picking it up on Monday, I’ve been playing the guitar quite a bit again.

The cool thing is that we’ve also discovered Lily has an instant reaction to the guitar. In fact, just about every time I’ve started playing when she was fussy, she’d stop crying almost immediately.

So last night when she was getting particularly fussy, I went and got the guitar and Jennifer, Lily, and I ended up recording a couple of videos as we serenaded our little girl.

Read More

Good Grades Get Dairy Queen

The boys brought home their report cards today. Tommy doesn’t get one yet, and Ben only gets ‘S’ grades for Satisfactory.

But Sam and Walt both came home with all A’s and B’s on their cards, which was great considering their mid-term grades were not so great.

Considering the fact that they’d made so much progress, we figured ice cream after dinner was a suitable treat.

Read More

Spring!

We’re finally starting to see the results of our labor from last November when we planted 39 trees in the back yard.

Actually, it was 34 trees and 5 shrubbery things, but still, 39 plants put in the ground in a single day.

The other day I was talking to our producer Adam on the phone as I walked through the backyard, looking at the leaves popping out on various trees.

Adam, who is in New York, heard birds over the phone and immediately shouted his frustration.

This, of course, meant I needed to hang up the phone and take pictures to send to Adam and the other The Catholic Channel folks in New York just to taunt them.

Read More

Waffle House

We’ve been eating a lot of waffles lately. So much so, that I feel like we could give another Casa de Waffles a run for their money.

I think Tommy agrees:

Read More

Radio Archive #4: Nathan Fillion and Dan Harms

cndpodcastrssCourtesy of Sirius 159/XM 117 (The Catholic Channel), it’s The Catholics Next Door podcast! Featuring segments from The Catholics Next Door and occasional extra surprises, you can get a full three hours of The Catholics Next Door, Monday through Friday from 10AM to 1PM EST, only from Sirius/XM. Sign up today!

In this episode: Nathan Fillion stops by from Castle, Firefly, and the hit series “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog”. Also, Jennifer returns from maternity leave and we’re joined in the studio by Dan Harms from Popple as he performs a brand new tune called “Fishers of Men.” Tons o’ fun!

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and other podcast aggregators with this RSS URL: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thecatholicsnextdoor

Read More

Radio Archive #3: Internet Tech Support

cndpodcastrssCourtesy of Sirius 159/XM 117 (The Catholic Channel), it’s The Catholics Next Door podcast! Featuring segments from The Catholics Next Door and occasional extra surprises, you can get a full three hours of The Catholics Next Door, Monday through Friday from 10AM to 1PM EST, only from Sirius/XM. Sign up today!

In this episode: Jennifer stops by the show during her maternity leave as Greg rants about tech support and the Internet disappearing.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and other podcast aggregators with this RSS URL: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thecatholicsnextdoor

Read More

Slip and Slide

On Saturday a bunch of local businesses were offering an open house to get the word out about what they have to offer.  In the past, these kinds of things seem to be a bit of a bust, in my opinion.

But this time around they offered 20+ inflatable attractions to get families out there.

My worry is always that they’ll end up charging for tickets or that there will be some hidden charge.  Even though they kept advertising all of the inflatable stuff for free, I still suspected they’d end up charging us for tickets or something.

I warned the boys ahead of time that I wouldn’t be buying any food and if they tried to sell tickets, we’d have to leave.

To our pleasant surprise, the rides were all indeed actually free.

And they had a blast.

The boys did try to get me to spend ridiculous amounts on food they were selling, but I wouldn’t budge.  Even still, they had an absolute blast and it didn’t cost us a single penny.

Here’s Ben and Tom climbing up the stairs to one of the slides:

Climbing into an inflatable obstacle course:

Tommy making his way over one obstacle:

This was Ben and Tom’s favorite one.  It was a huge inflatable train they could climb inside of:

Sam and Walt enjoyed the inflatable contraptions for older kids.  This one was funny to watch.  They were strapped in, then ran forward to see who could get the furthest before a bungee cord jerked them backwards.  It really made me laugh to watch them.

They were determined to beat each other on this race thing.  Too funny.

Read More

Just Call It What It Is

I was just buying a thermometer for Lily and saw this box.

I’m not sure any further description is necessary.

Read More

Radio Archive #2: The Power of Penance

cndpodcastCourtesy of Sirius 159/XM 117 (The Catholic Channel), it’s The Catholics Next Door podcast! Featuring segments from The Catholics Next Door and occasional extra surprises, you can get a full three hours of The Catholics Next Door, Monday through Friday from 10AM to 1PM EST, only from Sirius/XM. Sign up today!

In this episode: An interview with Msgr. Chris Walsh about his book, The Untapped Power of the Sacrament of Penance.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and other podcast aggregators with this RSS URL: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thecatholicsnextdoor

Read More