Today my ears hurt

I think today was the loudest day of my life. Both kids were up super early, Maison may be having some sort of teething issue, Madeline is just Madeline. One would scream and the other would scream louder. We almost got kicked out of the library. The security guard asked me if I had a pacifier or bottle that I could give Maison. My ears are still ringing, my shoulders are in knots, tomorrow will be better.

Halloweenie

We did a few different things this Halloween. It is really the first year that Madeline knew what was going on, picked out her own costume and was excited to wear it (almost every day for a week and a half). On Wednesday we took the kids to Ian & Max’s school for their costume parade and classroom trick or treating. Madeline was so brave walking around the whole playground with the other kids holding Max’s hand. And she got to hone her trick or treating skills.


On Friday the boys and my mom came over to decorate some pumpkins. My kids painted. The rest of us carved, except mom she carved at home. Hers is the fancy cat. Ian’s is the big one. Mine is the small smiley one and Max’s is the other small one. Maison’s painting attention span is short, but very intense.



We had some family over on the big day. Miss Piggy showed up with her Harvard student boyfriend. We also had a hippy and a cat. Next year the rest of us losers are going to dress up. Maison was a train engineer. He wasn't paying attention and I was able to get the bandana on him. We chowed on mini pumpkin pies, mini caramel apples (which turned into apples in watery caramel goo, unfortunately) and chili and cornbread.


We went through a disgusting amount of candy again. I had chocolate withdrawals for a few days after because I didn’t stash enough chocolate and Madeline traded all of hers with the boys for Starbursts. We took the kids up our street and back down, until the boys wanted to leave us in the dust because we were slowing them down, and both of our little ones wanted to be carried everywhere by then anyways. Maison learned right away how to hold his bag out for candy.

Thirty-eight

Holy cow, that's almost forty!


For his 38th birthday last week, Thor asked for BBQ'd hamburgers, tator tots and a Spongebob cake. So, of course, that's what he got!




Spongebob turned out pretty cute, although he was falling apart by cake cutting time. Too many layers, not enough support. He was in BAD shape by the end of the night. The grand finale was us chanting as he fell over backwards right after Thor blew out his candles.

We had a nice dinner out on the porch and the kids and Thor beat on a pinata for a little bit. Thor doesn't trust his family enough to believe when we scream that he's about to bash in our living room window with the pinata (broom) stick. Thank goodness Gpa interveened and got him turned the right direction.

FALL!!

Brrrrr....

We're not complaining.

Faster than a speeding bullet!

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!


Also, likes to shop with her mom...



Nerd rope sword fight with her brother...


And go to birthday parties...


IT'S SUPERGIRL!!

We're getting our money's worth out of her costume this year, that's for sure.

Family Pictures!

Yay for family picture time! I get so excited to have our pictures done. Then I stress out to no end getting ready for them. This year I scheduled earlier than usual and I decided I’d get ready early so it would be No Stress. Ha! Whatever. I’m a horrible clothing coordinator. Although I think I now know the KEY to making my life easier this time next year. Pick out Maison’s outfit first. Then coordinate the rest of us with him. Little boys just have so little to choose from. And even less fun outfits to choose from. So there’s my tip to myself for next year.

At least our session was short, sweet, and fun. Thanks to the Wonderful Lesley. I think the kids would have jumped in her car and went home with her if she’d have asked them too. We decided to take the pictures in front of a neat looking library, so there wasn’t much walking and there was lots of shade, which was nice since it was still so stinkin’ hot outside.

You can see most of my favorites here at Lesley’s website, but these two are my favorite faves. I love them and they are hanging in my dining room right now looking beautiful!

First Word

I think we have a first word here. I've been throwing out guesses of what I thought his first word would be for a few months now, as I waited for him to say something. At first I thought it would be "SOPHIE!" because that's what we're always yelling. Madeline's first word was actually "GO!" because we used to tell Grizzly that all the time since he was ALWAYS breathing right in our faces.

Then I thought it would be binki because he loved his binki SOOOOO much there for a while. Which he's gotten over, thank goodness, but he still uses it when he sleeps. And I thought I heard him say banana not too long ago, and I thought that could be it since he eats 3 of them a day and begs for them constantly.

I certainly didn't think it would be what it has ended up being. I wasn't even aware that we said it very much, but I bet between me and Madeline we probably do. Maison's first word, which he's been saying for 3 days now, is "TA-DA!". He says it when he finds something that he's looking for, when his hands come out the end of his sleeves (he still loves the "uh oh, where did your hands go" game) and when he does tricks.

I'm pretty sure he's saying "hot" too, but since it sounds more like "argh" Thor won't confirm that one.

My most handsomest boy is going to be 2 years old in 2 months and 2 days.



And since he was mentioned, ol' Grizzly Bear...

Wednesday

I'm a mess. I have only one leg shaved, and mascara under my eyes. I can't find the cookbook that has the recipe for tonight's dinner. I can't find the socks that I pulled for Maison to wear today. I have a load of dishes running and another waiting in the sink. I have laundry up the yin yang. And I just finally feel recouperated from my mom's and my yard sale last weekend. It wore me out.

Our yard sale went well, but I still have some stuff I need to try to sell on Craigslist or Ebay.

Both kids have gone up a shoe size recently. And I just noticed that Maison's socks are too small, but his pants are all still too big. He must have short legs or something.

Madeline has started earning a quarter everytime she helps me clean up the toy room. She values quarters more than dollars because she can put them in the vending machine at the grocery store and get a little doggie, or the machine at where we like to eat breakfast and get a "squishy thing".

Thor is on a workout rampage again (his current motivation is a trip he's hoping to take to Florida for a music festival). And we're all trying to eat better. Thor does lots better than I do, but I have been planning healthier dinners lately. I even found a no-meat bean & avocado wrap recipe that Madeline will eat. Not that she'd eat it if it had meat. She really only likes PB&J.

Madeline seems to have stopped eating chicken ever since she saw me picking the meat off of one of those roasted chickens from the store. She said "WHAT'S THAT??" and then "EWWWW, I DON'T LIKE CHICKEN!!".

Thor pushing the kids on the swings-

Gone forever

We finally threw the binki away. At 22 months, you'd think I was talking about Maison's binki, but we're not that ahead of the game. Madeline, at over 3 1/2 years old finally threw her nasty, broken, loved to the very very very end, binki away. It was a sad night.

It was time and I am sad about it. Sadder than I got when we moved her to her big girl bed. I was completely set against MAKING her give her binki up because it was her lovey, and if it was a teddy bear or something wouldn't it be cruel to just up and throw it away? It just sucked that it was affecting her teeth. I was hoping she'd just forget about it one day. 3 years old was my absolute limit. So at least we made it by 4.

Since about 18 months she's only had it in bed. Before she was 3 we started talking about how it wasn't forever and that it was for babies and la-dee-da. Then we got her some books about it and read them too her. Then I tried bribing her with toys from Target. Finally Thor took over and cut a tiny hole in it and we told her it was broken, and I started taking it out of her mouth at nights when she fell asleep. Then, not too long ago he cut a bigger hole in it.

Finally, the other night, he cut a giant chunk out of it. And when Madeline showed it to me, I thought it had come apart when she slept and it freaked me out. I thought she swallowed it. So I told her that we had to throw it away the next day, which she was fine about (she's thrown it away before, but then gotten it out before bedtime). The next afternoon I reminded her and she tossed it. This time I didn't let her get it back out.

At bedtime, she started panicking and freaking out. I gave myself an hour. If she didn't start to calm down by an hour I'd let her get it (I know, I'm a lost cause). At about an hour, we ate a pumpkin muffin and she calmed down. I let her stay up until 10 to get really tired and then I stayed with her in her bed until she fell asleep.

She woke up once that night (last night) and cried because "her breath felt funny" without her binki. So I layed with her until she fell asleep again. She woke up this morning and was happy to see that her new barking puppy toy that she had picked out long ago was waiting for her on the counter for being such a big girl. And tonight Thor put her to bed without a hitch.

Now, every bit of baby is gone from my little girl. Except for the snuggling, she still loves to snuggle.

Between 3 and 4

- She still calls the park the "parking lot".
- She calls her toy seal, a "ceiling".
- She still calls daddy, "da-yee".
- She can open the car door and buckle herself into her carseat.
- She can swing herself on the swingset and likes to push Maison too.
- She likes to make her own breakfast- waffles (in the toaster), and yogurt.
- She sleeps in a big girls bed. No more toddler bed.
- Some of her favorite sayings are, "Dang it!", "Don't talk to me!", and "You're killing me!"
- She likes to walk around the backyard holding Maison's hand.


- She rides a big girl's bike.
- Her favorite music is a toss-up between Elmo and house/dance ("fun") music.
- She loves peanut butter n jelly and ham n cheese sandwiches.
- She has started to drink milk again.
- She can take off her own jammies.
- She is the queen of goofy faces.


- She does not like her hair washed because water gets in her ears and eyes.
- She can use safety scissors.
- She can play computer games all by herself.
- She took it upon herself to develop a Maison-proofing system for my bathroom vanity using her stretchy headbands. (Thank you Darling)
- She loves Spongebob and Animal Planet- especially shows that are too graphic for my liking.
- She loves her grandma's dog, but our poor Sophie bugs the heck out of her.
- She calls most of the dinners I serve "disgusting".
- Once she swished all of her (kid's less sugar) yogurt around in her mouth and then spit it back into her bowl to make it taste better.
- She's a bag full of sugar, and a really big bowl full of spice.

Sandy Eggos

We were able to escape to San Diego again this year. Oh how I love that place. We mostly did the usual stuff, but this time we did a day at Sea World and spent a little bit of time down where the rides and games are on the boardwalk.

To my dismay, two days before we left our Denali had to go into the shop, so the kids and I crowded into my mom's and my grandparent's vehicles, and Thor drove down a couple of days later since he had to work anyways.

Maison was a brave boy and touched the sand and the water. Madeline was brave too, until a wave knocked me over while I was holding her, then she was only brave with her dad.

Here are a few pics of our trip, the rest are in my Flikr

On my 31st birthday

I donned my not so itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini and shoved myself into a wetsuit to take a surfing lesson. And now, let me tell ya, it kicked my butt. First of all, I'm not a huge fan of swimming in cold salty water (I'm not a fan of swimming in cold unsalty water, either). And that water was killer in my eyes, up my nose and in my mouth. But it was fun. I like a challenge. I just need to work out for a year before I think about trying it again. Maybe then I won't have to cut my lesson short because I don't have the stamina to get the board back out past the smallish waves to where the instructor is waiting for me. And maybe then I won't be so mortified when I find out I have to PEEL the wetsuit off, outside, next to a patio bar with a bunch of people sitting right there.

This is what Thor must have looked like most of the time, feeling my pain as I crashed off the board.


and here's what it looks like when I crash off the board-


But I did get up. Quite a few times. Not on any big waves, mind you, but I did stand on the board, and coast towards the shore. So, I guess it was more like mini-surfing.

Max's Birthday

My youngest nephew turned 9 a couple of weeks ago. Holy guacamole. He has eyelashes to die for and a great laugh. He got the standard cake/swimming/pinata summer birthday shindig, which the kids all love. Madeline thinks all birthdays are supposed to have a pinata, even her grandma's. I made him a dirtbike cake (which was cute AND yummy, a birthday miracle!) since he's an awesome dirtbike rider and he got some money, giftcards and tiny remote control cars for gifts.

Playing in the dirt

So, I'm sure this is a "you had to be there" story, but here it is all the same.

On one of our days in Utah, we decided to go out as a group on a ride up a mountain trail while we had a couple of machines rented. Thor stayed at the campsite with Maison and the rest of us went out- Dad in the ranger with Madeline and my nephews, Mom on the 4-wheeler, and me on the dirt bike. We were going up the hill and back. Well, a wrong turn, and another wrong turn, turned our little ride on the easy trail into a 2 hour trek on not so easy trails.

We had no map, no water, no cell phones. After awhile, I knew we were in trouble when my dad took us out onto a main, main road, which we weren’t allowed to be on. And we knew dad was really lost when he pulled into a Fire Station to ask directions. Too bad the station was closed. At one stop my mom told me we were on the other side of the mountain kinda by this town that I knew was far, far away. I started to get a little bit panicky because I knew Thor was back at the campsite with Maison wondering where his whole family had gone. So, we headed back out onto this road, which just so happened to be on the route of a bicycle race. As the bicyclists were huffing and puffing up this gigantic hill, here we all come buzzing along side them in our off-road vehicles. By this time, I had taken over the Ranger with the kids and Dad had jumped on the bike, and as we were slowly buzzing by these hard working bike riders in their spandex, the kids were laughing and waving at them. And some of them actually took their energy to wave back. Oh. My. God. Our ridiculousness was cracking me up. I could not stop laughing and my mom was doing the same behind me on the 4-wheeler. The kids, of course, thought the situation was totally normal.

We ended up cruising through this beautiful area with beautiful houses where we saw deer in someone's front yard. We eventually got back on an offroad trail and dad found someone with a map and figured out how to get back. By the time we got back, I was holding poor Madeline's head up in this huge football-like helmet with my one arm while I drove with the other. She somehow managed to fall asleep sitting up in an offroad vehicle while driving through the forest.

In the end we decided we had a blast. And that if we wouldn't have gotten lost we would have spent most the day trying to decide who was going to go where with who and on what.

Ahhh, memories.

Trip highlights with a zillion pictures

This was Thor’s first time towing a trailer and thankfully it went really well. Especially for how far we towed it. Once, on the way home, a gust of wind caught it unexpectedly, but that was the only scary thing that happened.

The first night that we stayed in the camper, the kids went a little cooky when the beds were pulled out. I tried to get a picture of them in their undies sitting nicely on the bed together, but by the time I got my camera they had turned into monkeys.

Our first night in Colorado we parked the trailer at Thor’s parents’ restaurant. We were a day early and the campground didn’t have any openings. We ate a lot of our meals at the restaurant over the next week and we discovered that Maison LOVES green chili (but try to give that kid a bite of chocolate cake and he just shakes his head, “no.”)

When we made it to the campground where we had reservations for the next 6 nights, up in the beautiful mountains of Colorado, it was not at all what we expected. All dirt, no trees, no fire pit, and our spot was right on the highway next to the large sign that lit up our trailer at night. Whoa, was Thor mad.

But we made the best of it for a night and found a better, prettier place for the rest of the nights where we felt like we were actually in a campground and not at a truck stop .

We had a really great time visiting and eating and shopping with Thor’s family. We got to see a semi-truck dumping asphalt tip over on its side in the restaurant parking lot, which was exciting. The kids got big kid bikes and I think Madeline’s vocabulary (and attitude) expanded just by her thinking she was a big girl with her big bike. And Maison put a lot of miles on his pink doll stroller.

We even took a trip into Denver to the zoo, which if anyone’s wondering, is a great zoo. Nearly as nice as the San Diego Zoo, but smaller and doable in a few hours, all for the price our tiny zoo in Las Vegas. Elephants, giraffes, lions, and a pig faced turtle. Everything we look for in a zoo. Madeline hurt her foot just before we went, and since she refused to walk we rented her a stroller. Which Maison decided to push. And Thor or I ended up pushing Maison’s empty stroller.

We left Colorado as early as we could on Thursday and drove 10 hours straight through to Duck Creek for a few fun days of playing in the dirt.