Life

I am quickly realizing that being a parent isn’t just about raising your children, but it is also about having to make sacrifices. Last night I got a call from my Godfather and he quickly offered me a ticket for the UNC vs. Dook game tomorrow night. As a HUGE UNC fan and this being one of the greatest games of the year, this one was a tough call. It would have really been easy to say yes, but a few thoughts quickly jumped into mind:

1) The game is a 9pm tip off, so that would require a hotel room – probably around $150-$200
2) The drive is about 6 hours from home, so that is 3 tanks of gas at $150 roughly & taking a day and a half off from work.
3) My wife just started a new job, so that would/could have posed problems as well for taking care of the kids.
4) Did I really want to be away from the boys?
5) And most importantly, how can I say yes to a game that would have cost about $300 to go to the game, when I have asked my wife to cut out some expenses.

As much as I would love to be at the game tomorrow night, I realized that part of being a parent, is that sometimes, I have to make sacrifices, including passing up on tickets for the game of the year. But, there will be another game next year and the year after that as well.

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Every night, before I lay the boys down, I say a little prayer over them. It is simple and basic, but goes something like this:

Dear God,
Thank you for today and thank you for these boys. Please watch over them tonight and protect them from harms way. Please help my wife and I be better parents and love these boy more every day.
Amen.

I think that it is important to get the boys use to praying now, as it is a part of our lives.  A book that I’ve read a few times now, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?, by Philip Yancey, has really had a powerful part into not only the importance of prayer, but how to pray.

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A co-worker and I were talking today and she seemed surprised by how involved that I was in the raising of the boys. In fact, when we talked about how I was taking them to their doctor visit today for their 9 month checkup, she remarked how she wished that more men were that active in their sons lives.

This really got me thinking. Are father’s today less involved in their children’s lives than in the past? In a day in time, when in most house holds, it requires both parents to work, and often times one of the parents, if not both are working more than one job. For me, I can not imagine not being there for the doctor visit or anything else. I love being there for my kids. I love being apart of their lives. I can’t imagine a day without them.

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I’ve really tried to stay on top of my writing and publish posts about every 2 days. I’ve realized that it is time to back off a little and streamline my posts to 2 a week.  This will free me up a little more to spend more time with the boys as well.

So starting Feb 1, my goal is get 2 stories a week and then if I feel like writing more that week, I will. But I still my focus for these posts will still be on the boys, family, finance, etc.

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As most Americans yesterday, my wife and I sat down and watched the Baltimore Ravens vs. New England Patriots. The game lived up to the hype to say the least, but with 20 seconds to go, the Baltimore Ravens kicker, Billy Cundiff had the opportunity to kick a 30 yard field goal to send the game into overtime. As the pressure mounted, he pushed the kick wide left, the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl and the Ravens are going back to Baltimore. And as I sat in my chair in disbelief, my wife shaking her head asking how he could have missed a kick that he has made thousands of times, I simple said, “It’s just a game.”

Now, please understand, I love sports. There were three things that I was told when I was a kid:
1) That we support and love UNC
2) That the Yankees were the greatest dynasty every built
3) Under no circumstance do you cheer for duke (or as we were taught to spell it, dook)

And when it comes to the UNC vs. dook game, all bets are off. I save all of my bad language for those games. But at the end of the day, it’s just a game. So, last night, as I was thinking about that, I realized I don’t want my boys having that much pressure put on them for sports. I want them to play, but I want them to play and love it, because it is what they want to do. I want them to understand, that sports is just as much about teamwork, as it is winning a game.

So when I read the press game comments last night and I read Ray Rice and Ray Lewis talked about how this is a team sport and that the blame should not fall on Billy Cundiff, I was really glad, because they are right. The team lost the game, not the kicker, he just happened to miss a field goal. The game was not won or lost on 1 play, but a series of plays. My hope, is that when it is time for Billy Cundiff to retire, that he will be remembered for his off the field actions – helping raise money for hunger programs, Teammates for Kids to name a few, but the sad reality, is that our society will remember 1 kick, from a game.

And at the end of the day, it’s just a game.

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As January 2012 is quickly coming to an end, I sit back today and reflect the last year, there were both highs and lows, but mostly highs:

Highlights:
– The boys were born and are healthy and growing
– My wife and I are closing in on our 4th wedding anniversary
– Family and Friends are doing well and healthy
– My sister welcomed her daughter into the world, so we are aunts and uncles again
– Our careers are doing really well, even in a down economy

Lows:
– There were some trying times after the boys were born for us.
– Financially. You know how they say with twins, it is two of everything. They aren’t kidding. It has been hard financially on us, but we have gotten by and have been able to start learning to live on less.

All in all, 2011 will go down for my wife and I as a great year. We were able to welcome our sons to the world and they have been able to bring us so much joy and laughter, that I can’t imagine a day without them. And spending time reflecting on the past, is helping me plan for the future.

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Today is a sad day for my family, as it was 3 years ago today, that my wife’s mother was killed in a tragic car accident.  Our lives have been forever changed due to an event that happened in a split second and though my mother in law has never seen or held our sons here on earth, I will forever believe that she got to see them before we did.  I don’t know why I feel that way, but it just gives me a little bit of comfort in knowing that.

Moms, you are loved & missed and there isn’t a day that goes by that you are not thought of or that we tell the boys about you. Even though the boys will never physically know you, they will know all about you, both through the pictures that they will see and the stories that our family and friends will share with them.

Here are the lyrics to Mark Schultz’s song Remember Me, which is what I was listening to when I got the call that snowy afternoon. I will share with you with the chorus only:

And age to age
And heart to heart
Bound by grace and peace
Child of wonder, Child of God
I’ll remember you
Remember Me

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Somedays you just have to laugh at life. This past Friday, several things happened:
1) My Jeep was paid off
2) My wife was offered a new job
3) To celebrate, my wife ran off the road, hit the curb and blew out her tire.

Now, I’m sure that you are asking yourself, how can you laugh this off? Well, it is simple, my wife wasn’t hurt. Yes, a new tire cost about $325 that I wasn’t expecting to pay, but my Jeep is now paid off, my wife got a new job, and she wasn’t hurt.

So, I laugh and just chalk it up to being just one of those days.

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Marriage is hard, but the first year of marriage with kids, is pretty rough too. Focusing on each other is important and shouldn’t be overlooked. Yes, the first priority should be the kids, but then, you still have to spend time for each other.

Here are some things that we do:

  • Date night is important and we have tried to focus on going out once a month. To help save money, find another couple and offer to baby sit for free so that they too can enjoy a date night and then they can watch your kids when you need a night out on the town.
  • Eat dinner together after the kids go to bed and talk about our day. I think that this will change once the boys are able to talk, as I hope that we will all eat together at the dinner table together.
  • We talk, and we try to avoid the basic small talk, but we talk about the kids, work, if we are on track with our goals for the year. And actually listen, not think about 10 things that have to be done tomorrow.

Remember, before there were kids, it was just you two and you have to spend time on each other as well.

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After almost 9 months, we are still asked if the boys are identical twins. Anyone can look at the boys and see that they are not identical, they look nothing alike. Each boy has his own personality, his own mannerisms, his own uniqueness. This is what makes them so special.

I would have thought that by now, some of the questions would have slowed down, but I guess that this is something that we’ll have to deal with the rest of our lives? I think that it will be interesting now to see how the boys respond and deal with it as they go through life. But, it is amazing to watch them interact with each other, because you can tell that they will not only be close brothers, but best friends.

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