It was the fourth Fourth for big sister Catherine. She and Nonnie decorated her bike and marched in the MVCMA kids parade.

The rest of our day was spent at the West Tisbury Farmers Market (where we met the Travel Channel’s Samantha Brown and drank yummy Limeade) splashing in the ocean, eating delicious grilled corn on the cob and otherwise generally enjoying the freedoms we have as Americans. Happy Fourth, whichever number it is for you!

Some that I’m keeping:

There are some really cute kids patterns. I love the simple lines of these little dresses and rompers! One of them is already in the works. Pics are soon to follow.

Some that I’m not:

Holy shoulder pads, Batman! And I’m pretty sure that’s Meg Ryan from the later portions of “French Kiss” there in the yellow pants. Not the yellow pantsuit. I think Meg had better sense than that!

Of special note:

That’s right, folks, a Snuggie. Or at least it’s older cousin.

Check out a bunch more here.

Papa and his submarine girls

What better way to spend my fourth Father’s Day than eating huge pancakes and piloting a submarine with my girls, all in lovely Portsmouth, NH? There’s much to tell about today’s adventures, so read on…The day started at 3:30am when I woke up to cries from Esme and mumbles from Mama about a wet diaper. So I got her out of bed, changed her diaper, and gave her back to Mama for some milk. Then I was luckily able to fall back asleep…

At 7:15am, Catherine woke up, and I made us some bagels with strawberry jam. Yum! The two of us went downstairs to watch some PBS Kids TV and do some computering. I wished all of the Dads I follow on Twitter a happy Father’s Day. Turns out there were enough of them to fill up three tweets (tweet 1, tweet 2, tweet 3)! I’m pleased to be able to follow so many great Dads on Twitter. I like to keep up with them and learn from them, as well as share my own experiences with them. Though I do know many Dads outside of Twitter, this group of folks is interesting in that they’re mostly close in age to me, and have similar personalities, interests, and family dynamics. Luckily for me, many of them also live in the area, and in fact are part of the Build Guild web-geek meetup that I attend on a monthly basis.

After breakfast and TV, it was time to get everyone ready and out the door to church. While we were getting ready, Catherine brought me my Father’s Day present: a book of homemade coupons for Papa and a poster entitled “Shiny Eyes: A Tribute to Papa,” a reference to a book we have called “Papa, Papa” which contains the line “Papa, papa, you are wise, I like to watch your shiny eyes.” We have always thought that line sounded a little strange, but it’s cute and meaningful nonetheless. I’m trying to decide whether to binge and use all of my coupons right away, or save them for opportune moments (diaper-free day, evening of peace, weekend day to yourself, etc). I should add that the poster and the coupons were cleverly made by Rebecca using her new favorite program, Pages.

Today was originally scheduled to be the Dane Street Church all-church picnic, and so that was our tentative plan for the rest of the day. However, due to the apparently now-standard rainfall, the picnic was canceled and we were left with the entire day open.

The King Cakes

So my suggestion was to go and visit a restaurant in Portsmouth, NH called The Friendly Toast. I’d heard many good things about it from my local friends on Twitter, and so I wanted to finally have a chance to try it. As its name might suggest, The Friendly Toast specializes in breakfast items (though they do also have burgers and such things on the menu). The restaurant is filled with kitschy memorabilia and definitely has a funky atmosphere (as many restaurants in Portsmouth do). I ordered the “King Cakes,” a stack of two huge banana and chocolate chip pancakes with peanut butter sandwiched in between, served with bacon, and accompanied by two small, individually packaged jars of real maple syrup (from California, though… what’s up with that?). I also ordered a side of home fries. All were delicious, particularly the pancakes (I’ve always been a fan of peanut butter on pancakes). I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who lives close to Portsmouth and wants a good, filling, funky breakfast (at any time of day, and 24 hours a day on weekends!).

Ahoy there!

After our meal, we drove over to visit the USS Albacore. The Albacore is a former US Navy research submarine, designed to test new submersible technologies. It is permanently on display just off of I-95 in Portsmouth, NH. There is a small visitor’s center, and then a self-guided tour of the Albacore. We dashed through the rain to get into the submarine, and then spent time walking around its corridors, looking at all of the tiny little spaces, crawling through hatches, trying to get into impossibly high bunk beds, and listening to the audio tour. There were a few points where Catherine said it was “scary” and “dark” but overall she seemed to have fun. Especially when we got to the pilot’s seats, where there were lots of levers and knobs for her to play with. Afterwards, we took another quick walk through the visitor’s center, and after Catherine checked out some of the gifts, I bought her a squishy foam replica of the Albacore on the sly, and waited to give it to her until we were in the car (having apparently bought nothing). I experienced my first father-gift-giving disappointment as Catherine examined the sub, and then sadly said she wanted to have one of the “plastic ones.” There were indeed some colorful plastic submarines with wind-up parts, but I had passed them over since there was a pretty good chance they would end up broken before too long. After a few minutes of talking to herself, however, she came around and was enjoying playing with her new submarine.

By the time we got home, Catherine was at the end of her rope, so we need to move quickly into the bedtime routine. I ran out with both girls to pick up some Thai food at Siam Delight while the world’s hardest-working Mama had a few minutes to herself. We all ate dinner and watched Little Bear, and then it was time for bed. I gave the girls a “tubbath” together, passed Esme off to Mama, and did the rest of my usual bedtime routine with Catherine (jamas, bedtime snack, water, stories, and singing).

This was definitely a great Father’s Day. I thoroughly enjoyed spending the day with my family, doing fun things and eating good food, and I’m ending the day in high spirits. I’m very thankful for the opportunity to be the Papa to two great girls. I’m learning more about being a father each day, learning more about my daughters, and constantly trying to be better.

You can see all of the photos from my wonderful Father’s Day in the Father’s Day Gallery.

Connors Farm in Danvers was close, not to pricey and turned out to be chock full of plump, juicy strawberries. We arrived, took a quick tour of the farm stand and collected our cardboard flat. Catherine did a good job picking. She mostly stuck to choosing the nice red berries and didn’t wander off too many times. Her main concern is that we didn’t fill all six containers. When she got bored of picking she grabbed the camera and took a few pictures. We had a nice trip to the farm!

We ate our fill of strawberries, but still had plenty left over as we watched the rain on Thursday morning. A quick search led me to this recipe for Strawberry Jam. As we had all the ingredients on hand we set forth making jam.

The method was easy, hampered only by my lack of proper canning supplies. Catherine helped with the mashing and the stirring…and the tasting! The taste is perfect- sweet, but not exceedingly so (we cut the sugar in half, for health and our love of tartness). Last night I thought the consistency was too runny, more like a sauce, but after a night in the fridge it seems to have solidified into a more jam-like substance. I’m looking forward to trying the recipe again.

You can find photos of strawberry picking on Wednesday and jam making on Thursday by clicking here!

However, over the past few years, with the growth of our family, I’ve had less and less time to devote to running and supporting free web hosting. Though I enjoyed the opportunity to serve my friends, I found that I just wasn’t able to provide the same level of quality service that I once did. So, I’ve recently made the decision to end the free web hosting service, which will hopefully give me a few less things to think about.

In thanks to these friends for hosting with me, I’ve set up gone.prwdot.org, a domain to which their old websites will continue to redirect, and which contains links to all of their known sites, social networking profiles, or other pages. Thanks Will, Amy, Josh, Nathan, Jon, and Corey.

As a side note, this will also help out our family budget, as I’ve moved us from a slice at Slicehost to an account at NearlyFreeSpeech.net. Though I still will recommend Slicehost for folks who need a beefy, dedicated-virtual server with great support, we’re moving to NFSN because of their pay-as-you-go, bill-by-the-penny model. Web hosting will cost us around $5/month, possibly less, as we’re billed on a daily basis for exactly how much storage and bandwidth we use on that given day. I may write about NFSN in depth at a later time, but suffice to say for now I love their pricing and philosophy. While they aren’t the cheapest if you’re hosting large files or doing a lot of traffic, they are certainly very reliable, responsive, knowledgeable, and fair, and they have a business philosophy that I admire.

I can still remember the relief I felt walking out of Beverly Hospital with her and the joy of arriving home. She was finally ‘all ours’. There were no more nurses or doctors checking in or making rounds. No more protocols, no more tubes or beeps or cords. Just our little girl.

If you met Catherine today, not knowing the story of her first two weeks, you would have no idea she had such a rough start. Every day she amazes me with the things she is learning. She makes me laugh with her dancing and singing and jokes. She is a caring big sister and a loving daughter. She loves life and ice cream and ‘rice and beans that are not spicy’. She is polite and generous and helpful. She exceeds our expectations daily and is truly a joy.

With the green leaves of Spring upon us and the warm air of Summer sneaking in, Catherine and I have replaced our ‘oatmeal for every breakfast’ routine for something a bit cooler- Smoothies.

Or “Sweeties”" as Catherine has been calling them. They’re thick, fruity, sweet and they fill our tummies up for days full of adventure. In the world of natural and healthy eating they’re known as Green Smoothies. We whip up a batch every morning- mine is gone quickly, while Catherine savors hers in between reading her Richard Scary books and ‘Dressing the Bear that Josie Gave me’; two favorite morning activities.

Here’s our recipe if you’re interested (amounts are approximate and vary based on what I have on hand)

In blender, combine: 1/2 cup frozen Blueberries 1/2 cup frozen Strawberries 2/3 of one Banana *note- I cut bananas into thirds and freeze ahead of time 1 large handful Spinach leaves, chopped well 1 cup (or more) Plain, No-fat yogurt Splash of Orange Juice (optional and yummy)

Blend until smooth. A word from Catherine- “The blender is not scary. It is just loud. But not too loud.”

The yogurt we have been using the past couple weeks is a batch that we made ourselves. We put our crock pot to work and followed the instructions found on the blog Nourishing Days. It came out a bit runny for normal yogurt eating, but is perfect for smoothies!

The fruit combo above is easy for us and we like it, but feel free to try other combinations. We should mix it up sometimes as well… Any good suggestions?

Mama and her girls

From managing the cooking and grocery list, to hunting for bargains, to getting all kinds of great free stuff, to wrangling a feisty nearly-three-year old and a hungry two-month-old all day every day, Rebecca deserves much credit for keeping this family and house running in tip-top shape. She does it all while staying true to her beliefs in honoring God, protecting the environment, nurturing our children, and saving our pennies.

Thank you for being the best Mama and wife that we could hope for!

Esme is two months and two days old today. She had her checkup yesterday at which the doctor confirmed what we already know; she’s doing great! She’s gaining weight, getting taller and meeting her milestones. We are all loving her little coos and smiles and giggles. Maybe my favorite thing about her lately is that she has a little cry that sounds exactly like she is saying, “Esme”.

Long story, short, she’s awesome and we can’t imagine life without her.

Big sister Catherine is leading the way. She has been picking out clothes for little sister and showing her how all the baby toys work. I’ve found her, more than once, lying inside the ‘baby floor gym’ batting at the hanging toys.

Catherine has been charming the pants off her Mama by reciting her story books (”Mother and Gloria were inside at the table drawing place cards for the party”) and by never using contractions (”I fell, Mama, but I am okay.”) She also attended story time at the library today for the first time. We talked about how the other kids would go in alone and she had no qualms leaving me behind!

Life with two has its super sweet times and its super hectic times. I’ve found that the best way to manage and keep our sanity is to be compulsive about planning ahead. Luckily, it is one of my better qualities (if I do say so myself) I’m always mentally composing lists of things to pack in the diaper bag, noting where all the restrooms will be when we go out, categorizing to-do lists based on the number of girls napping…that sort of thing. It doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for daydreaming or creative thinking (I cram that in before bed) but it does help our days and outings run so much more smoothly.

What do you do that helps keep your days stress free?

• Trust Your Friends
• Time Is Precious
• Ideas Need Exposure

In the following article I’ll discuss the guiding principles and then I’ll talk about the rules that help me stick to the principles.

But First: Who I’m Not

I’m not an entrepreneur (or serial entrepreneur as some people like to style themselves). I’m not a social media junkie. I don’t have a product or service to promote over Twitter. I’m not trying to reach millions of people. I’m just an individual who is trying to make Twitter a useful part of his life. If you are any of the above, this article may not be for you. Then again, you’ll never know if you don’t read on.

Guiding Principles

Trust Your Friends

Because if you can’t trust your friends, they’re not your friends. What I mean is that I could choose to get advice from and follow just about anybody. But I’d rather see the advice that my friends have already tested and vetted for me. This only works if I trust them, and that trust has to be earned.

Time Is Precious

I work a full time office job, and I have a wife and two kids who need me, and I have countless other responsibilities and interests. I don’t have time to spend all day staring at Twitter, even if I was using the best Twitter client. I want to see only those things that are important to me. For what it’s worth, the Twitter clients I use are the Twitter-provided web-based client when I’m on a desktop, and Tweetie when I’m using my iPod Touch. Sure, other, more complicated clients may help me manage a much larger list of friends and searches, but I still wouldn’t have time to do anything meaningful with it.

Ideas Need Exposure

People’s ideas need exposure. If you’ve thought of a great idea, the next step is to get feedback on it. Positive and negative feedback are both helpful, assuming you have the fortitude not to take things too personally. Not only is it important to get exposure for your own ideas, but its important to be exposed to the ideas of others. They serve to help reinforce where you stand on issues, as well as to open your mind to new ideas you haven’t even considered.

How I decide who to follow

Given the above principles, I tend to be choosy about who I follow. If you’re on Twitter, I give you a base score of -5. If your final score is greater than zero, I’ll probably follow you. If it’s lower than zero, I probably wont follow you. So essentially, you have to dig your way out of a hole. Here’s how I figure out the points:

+1 point for any of these:

• being located near me
• having met me in person
• posting interesting, original thoughts
• posting links or information that directly help me accomplish my goals

+2 points for any of these:

• having attended my alma mater
• being a current or former co-worker
• providing a helpful response to one of my questions

+3 points for any of these:

• being an off-line friend
• being a family member
• being a company or representative of a company whose products or services I actively use

-1 point for any of these:

• frequent swearing in your Twitter stream
• more complaints Tweeted than anything else
• re-Tweeting more than a couple times per day
• more Tweets per day than there are hours in a day (that is, Tweets that I see: I don’t see @replies to people I don’t follow)
• live-Tweeting an event that I don’t care about

Well, actually…

In reality, these points don’t exist. This is just an attempt to give some shape to the largely subjective process I go through when deciding who to follow. And if you’re trying to win me over as one of your followers, it’s going to be an uphill battle. Only 137 have succeeded.

How I decide what to Tweet

One of the first things I think about is, “Who is my intended audience?” This determines many things, including the content and style of my Tweet. I usually shoot for one or more of the following audiences:

• my family and friends: they’re interested in news about me, pics of the kids, etc.
• inhabitants of my local area: they may be interested to hear about my plans and activities in the area, reviews of restaurants, etc. They may also be able to help if I am looking for something in the area.
• people in my areas of expertise: web developers, photographers, parents. They may like to hear my thoughts and ideas on these subjects, and they may be able to help me if I have queries of my own.

The next thing I think about is, “What do I have to say?”

For example, I might have just been listening to a song and encountered some lyrics that are particularly meaningful to me. I want my friends to read them, in the hopes that they’ll get some meaning of their own from the lyrics. I might also discover that one of my friends enjoys the same artist, giving us more to talk about down the road.

Another example: I’m headed out to dinner at such and such a restaurant. I want people in the local area to know about restaurants that I like. I also want to know if they’ve had a bad experience, or if they know of an even better restaurant, or a new dish I should try at the restaurant.

Sometimes I find an interesting article or website, and I want my friends to know about it. So I post the link to my Twitter stream, with my own commentary. Since I assume that my friends trust me in the same way that I trust them, I feel that I’m doing them a service by providing a pre-filtered link to content I think they might find interesting. I do also post quite a few links on Delicious, and I try to be descriminating in what I post on Twitter, although sometimes I worry that not all of my friends are aware of or subscribed to my Delicious stream (go there now!).

One more example: Say I’m having issues with a particular piece of code that I’m writing (of course, since I’m awesome, I never have issues with code, so that’s besides the point. RIGHT!). I happen to know that several of my followers are experts in this particular language, so I send out a Tweet, and get a response back with a great solution.

Finally, one thing to note is that I have set up an application to post from Twitter to Facebook. So when I consider what to Tweet, I also consider that it will go not just to my 181 Twitter followers, but also my 222 Facebook friends. That’s 403 people… a big responsibility!

The bird is the word

I hope that my Tweets are enjoyable for everyone, and I hope that all of our blog readers are reading our Tweets as well. You can find mine at twitter.com/prwood, and Rebecca’s at twitter.com/rebecca_wood

I will leave you with a conversation between me and Catherine:

• Catherine: Papaaaaaaaaaaaa! I have a question for you!
• Papa: What’s your question?
• Catherine: How birds talk?
• Papa: I don’t know, how do they talk?
• Catherine: TWEET TWEET TWEET!