Milo lost his first tooth on Thursday night. It had been loose for a few weeks. He had started pushing on it with his tongue and it had a bunch of canker sores on it. We felt that we needed to get the tooth out. Scott got it out without any problem. Milo was afraid that it would bleed a lot. It did some, but it was ok. All is well now.
Monica already detailed her top iPhone apps. We do have some overlap, but I am going to give my thoughts on it all. I will also only provide AppShopper links as navigating the App Store through iTunes generally sort of annoys me. AppShopper is really the way to go. I am not going to bother to think about whether these apps work for the iPod Touch…if you own a Touch I presume you can think about that… 
Okay…so I was just going through my screens and commenting on the stuff I use a lot. It ended up being longer than I expected. I will do another post soon that covers the games…because I probably have more games than “normal” apps
Omnifocus is my todo list app. It is pretty complicated for a todo list app, but I generally like the GTD approach. I also LOVE iPhone apps that have a desktop client. It fits the bill and the recent update has helped tremendously. 2Do is another great todo app that is a bit cheaper and generally gets good reviews.
1Password is my password keeper application on my desktop. It is fantastic and the iPhone version in nice and syncs with the desktop version. I don’t use it much, but it is nice to have all of my passwords securely stored on my phone when I need them.
Twitbird Pro is my Twitter app of choice. It does cost a bit, but I think I picked it up for free. It allows me to do nearly everything I want with Twitter and doesn’t crash. That is sort of all I ask. I do use the feature that allows me to send links to ReadItLater. That way I can quickly move through the tweets and read the meatier stuff later.
Camera Genius is a camera app that has anti-shake and supports the 3GS touch to focus and expose. Those are my main requirements. It does have some odd issues and is a bit slow to save, but I don’t know of another app with the two features I require.
Weatherbug and The Weather Channel…I am sort of a weather junkie and this pair of apps has served me well. I love Weatherbug because we pull data from a weather station that is about a mile from our house. I feel like I have a better idea of the actual weather at my house that way. I prefer the map interface on The Weather Channel when I am trying to figure out what is going on with the doppler. This has come in handy several times while traveling or deciding whether to travel based on the weather.
Flashlight is an app that I use more than I expected. It is handy when checking on the kids or doing other random tasks at night in our dark house.
ESPN Scorecenter has been my default app for sports scores. It has the European soccer leagues I care about. Recently, I discovered Sportacular which I really like because it uses push notification to tell me when games start/end and goals are scored. Right now it only supports the Premier League, but I hope that they will eventually support the other European leagues, MLS, and most importantly Champion’s League. It is a VERY cool feature…especially when I am at work
Dropbox is a great app to get files on my iPhone. It integrates with the web service that you should know and love. The best feature is that you can favorite files so that they can be downloaded for offline use. Great stuff!
Redlaser is something that I think Monica uses more than I do. It is the best bar code scanner for the iPhone. Being able to quickly scan something and price check can be invaluable.
Pocket Universe isn’t something I use everyday, but it is very handy. Often when camping or looking up at the dark sky before I go to work in the morning I wonder which celestial bodies I am seeing. I don’t wonder anymore…I go to this app and it gives me a real-time map of the sky based on my location data.
GraphiX48 is great because I am an RPN guy. I know there are probably better RPN calculators, but this is comfortable for me as I used an HP calculator through my undergraduate years. I like this one better than the others I have tried.
Clock GT is just a simple clock I use when I am presenting and there isn’t a clock in the room. It is handy and free.
I am not really a music critic. In fact, I know very little about music theory and the like. I listen to a few of the NPR critics and don’t always agree or understand. I do find new music mainly through them though as I haven’t seriously listened to the over the air radio in years. Anyway, here are the 10 songs I loved most this year. You may not like them, but they help me make it through the day at work. Enjoy!
1. Lisztomania by Phoenix – I was a bit slow to jump on the bandwagon here. The album was released in May and lots of folks loved it. I never got into it until I heard it again in November. The album is decent, but I totally LOVE this song. Milo walked in while I was doing this and immediately started singing along
2. Party All the Time by Black Eyed Peas – I am not a traditional fan of this type of pop/dance stuff. I have gotten into it a bit more this year. This song is just fun and keeps me awake. I have often used the phrase, “Let’s rock and roll party people” to indicate it is time to get moving. Given this song has a similar idea it has sort of become a family anthem…just try not to listen to many of the other words outside the chorus…and try not to take the chorus to heart…okay, maybe a bad choice for a family anthem…forget I mentioned it.
3. Temazcal by Monsters of Folk – I am generally not a fan of super groups. I wasn’t planning on grabbing this album, but amazon had it on sale for a couple of bucks. It sounded nice at a time when I was looking for something new, so I grabbed it. I like a few songs on the album, but I think this is the best one. It is slower than the previous two, but I like the beat and the words…that may be due to the mention of the Mayans…I think I have become a bit enamored with the idea of seeing the Mayan sites while living close-ish to them.
4. My Girls by Animal Collective – I am generally not a huge Animal Collective fan, but I latched on to this song for some reason. It has maintained a place on my go to playlist for essentially the whole year. Not too bad…
5. Horchata by Vampire Weekend – I enjoyed the first Vampire Weekend album and was looking forward to the second. They released this track early and I just loved the up tempo song. The lyrics are a bit on the too clever side, but I kind of like it. I was hoping to find more of this on the full album, but I was left wanting…maybe I will have to give it another listen later.
6. Charlie Darwin by The Low Anthem – Probably the most mellow of my favorites. It is a simple song with brilliant lyrics…
7. Gimme Sympathy by Metric – This was my first encounter with Metric. They are a nice straight up rock band. I have several songs from their most recent album on my go to playlist. This is probably my favorite.
8. Dimestore Diamond by Gossip Many of the fans of Gossip and the critics hated this song and album. It actually worked for me. I like the grittiness of the song and the tempo of the song. The lyrics sort of fit into that mood. Overall very nice…
9. Bull Black Nova by Wilco – Shockingly this was my first lasting exposure to Wilco. I often like this style of British band, but I hadn’t found anything from Wilco that I really loved. When they released a new album this year I checked it out and stuck with this track.
10. Fitz and Dizzyspells by Andrew Bird – Probably the most hipster-style band on my list. It is a mellow sound that incorporates Andrew’s amazing ability to whistle. It is relaxing enough that Monica will even voluntarily listen to it
The last day of school before Christmas break was Milo’s holiday party (as well as their Polar Express Day, hence why he is wearing pajamas). I had decided to help with the party. I arrived early to set up. It was a good thing I did as there weren’t many parents who could help. They were able to decorate cookies, have a snack, play bingo, and make a craft. I helped with the sugar cookie table. It was fun. After the party Milo and I walked home. It was a good day! Here are some pictures of Milo at his party.
Scott and I decided to do a photo of the day, starting today. These photos will be published via our Twitter accounts. You can find us at calittle14 and scottLittle. We hope you enjoy the pictures.