Author: Albert

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Hoagland Halloween Party 2017

For the first five years we were been Matrix black, vampire hunters, the princess and the paparazzi, greasers to the Hoagland’s preppie, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, then in after a trip to Europe where we returned on the day of the party we have been largely meta, we were the safety inspectors, security, the caterers, the entertainment, doctors in the insane asylum, and this year costume contest judges. We gave away 25 trophies including best skeleton, best superhero, and best costume, 24 medals, “Nice Costume!” participation stickers, and an Amazon Kindle Fire grand prize. Continue reading “Hoagland Halloween Party 2017”

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Elia October 2017

The longest stretch that Elia wanted to wear her Belle dress was something like 45 days with a few gaps in the middle when it was not practical like birthday party at a jump place or trampoline place (BTW the only other outfit that she would choose to wear was her Batman one – teachers say for Elia every day is dress up day); we talked about whether we had to do something about it but decided that it was a phase and she would decide at some point to change her mind. Much like Curie with Natalie and Chloe driving her flamingo dress to be Elsa, Continue reading “Elia October 2017”

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The Flower at the End of the Bed

We normally blog in third person so that it there is a consistency in the writing, but here is one that I wrote in first person that I really wanted the kids to read some day. I want them to know that though we often wish it weren’t, parenting is often survival and getting through the day. Today, thankfully, was not one of those days.

I’ve been very tired and tonight, I was lying in bed in the guest room with Elia who was waving around an artificial flower from IKEA, I was just about to ask her to stop, because it might be dangerous, when Continue reading “The Flower at the End of the Bed”

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Curie September 2017

A sign of our times perhaps, but one of Curie’s milestones is that she can make Alexa work on her own with voice commands. When we first got the Amazon Echo, Curie would try, but her voice was too high or something and Alexa would not respond. Elia still can’t reliably make Alexa respond. It is similar to the remote control, Curie is proud of the fact that she can turn on, select the kid’s profile, find a show, select an episode and fast forward, reverse, and pause or play her show. We are just starting to teach Elia. Continue reading “Curie September 2017”

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Best, Most Recent, Nap

From Albert: “Best most recent nap I’ve had was the second half of the movie when Elia fell asleep on my lap in the reclining seat at the Courthouse theater. My Little Pony the Movie: will need to ask Curie and Erin what happened after the mermaid pony turned into a hippogriff when the talking cat rounded up the bird pirates and gave the ponies a pep talk – yep.”

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Hard Drive Found

In April of 2016, I lost the hard drive with all of our pictures on it and had to resurrect it from a back-up and many flash cards (I stopped reusing flash cards a while back). I thought I had lost it in Indiana on a work trip. Fast forward to yesterday, it turns out I put it into the appropriate drawer just in case I did lose it and then forgot. The funny thing is now one TB is no longer sufficient, so it is just an archive drive now.