The Spirit of Giving

The week before Christmas I was taking a shower (and yes, I've had one since ... probably more than one ... maybe two?). T barged in, letting out all the warm air, and announced that he found my favorite fruit snack (orange) in his freshly opened bag of Mott's fruit snacks. I do find these orange snacks quite tasty and was about to open the door a crack to let him pass it in when he said he'd save it for me and ran out of the room. Some time later, probably at least 30 minutes I found him in the family room and asked if he still had my fruit snack. He excitedly handed it to me and I immediately thanked him and popped it in my mouth to find it much warmer and squishier than I expected. At this point it registers that it's been warming in his little paw for me all this time. The first thought that popped into my head ... "Do you want a gummy bear? They're all warm and squishy cause they've been in my pocket." What a sweet, sharing little man ... orange fruit snack, palm sweat, and who knows what else.

T4

I can't believe I have a 4-year-old. He's been four since last Thursday, and I'm only just getting the family birthday party photos posted. He's having a party with friends on Saturday, but we'll deal with that photo procrastination sometime after the fact.

Black Magic cake from Whole Paycheck

Unwrap in motion (or removal from cool party bags). I don't have a before picture, but one of the gifts was too big for all my party bags so it came in a pillowcase! Yep, I'm mom of the year.

ooooooh, admiring "Bucky" (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates). I bet you can't guess the theme of T's party this Saturday. K is espeically fixated on "Tick Tock Crock" who pops out of a trap door in the side of the boat when you push a button. He keeps bringing it to me to push the crock back in so he can pop him out again.

"Bucky" is the life of the party.

Cute cousins playing together. Luckily the "Jolly Roger" and a small battle boat also emerged from random party sacks so everyone could join in the fun. Boats and children stampeded up and down the hall until bed time and fun was had by all.

T sports his Halloween skeleton PJs while showing some of a toy power tool from the tool set he got from Grandma and Grandpa.

Garbage Man

K is the garbage man. He's been helping us clean for a couple of weeks now, but yesterday was the first time I heard him say "garbage" over and over when I handed him a something and asked him to throw it away. I'm so ticked that he took it from me in the family room and deposited it in the garbage can in the kitchen without help or extra prompting. He not only gladly complies when asked to throw something away, he also finds things to throw away all by himself. Gotta keep an eye on that one!

We have words!

Ever since K learned to walk he's taken a real interest in language. He's such an active boy I don't think he had any extra energy to devote to language until he was fully mobile. He's just started running and is quite the climber. It's not uncommon to turn my back and then turn around to find him on top of something I thought was too high for him to climb. In addition to the words below, he also communicates by shaking his head vigorously when offered something he doesn't want and he points and says "that" to indicate he wants something. He says more and all done in sign language and uses the "milk" sign to indicate he wants something to eat or drink.

• Dada
• Mama
• Uh Oh
• mmmmm (as in yum)
• owie
• thank you (usually when he hands me something)
• apple
• pumpkin
• kitty
• drink
• diaper
• that
• get
• all done
• hi
• cracker
• up
• down
• all done

Little Yellow Goes to Work

This morning I walked out of the bedroom after giving T a hug and telling him I was heading to work. He called me back just as I got out the door and held little yellow out for me. He told me to take it to work with me to keep me warm. It's 97 degrees outside right now, which means the air conditioning is running full blast and it's quite cold at my desk. I just put my sweater on and Little Yellow is keeping my legs warm. My little Hammy (T) is such a sweat boy.

Happy Birthday Vanilla Bean

K had an awesome first Birthday. Oma and Opa visited from California, and both K and T got to stay home with them for the day while The Scoot and I were at work.

K discovers the Saxoflute

A new car! (and also a talking shape sorter)

Uh Oh!

K checks out the yard in his Birthday Suit while the older kids (T and cousins) play in his new splash pool.

Hey! Who's in my splash pool?

It's T and the cousins

Picking grass

Yay grass!

That! (K's favorite word - I used to be Mama, but now I'm just "That")

Someone REALLY enjoyed his Whole FoodscChocolate ganache cake.

Charades

July 10, 2014

A Suitcase

K considers unpacking at the Bear Hollow Lodge, but decides it's more fun to just play with the suitcase. July 7, 2014

Berry Fun in the Rain

July 23, 2014 - T had his very first field trip and since it was the first each child was asked to bring a parent. I was the lucky parent! It rained the whole time, but we had a blast. I picked a lot of berries and T ate a lot of berries (most of which I picked). K and the Scoot also enjoyed the fresh raspberries and blackberries that made it home with us for dinner. When asked to choose his favorite part of the trip (The bus ride, picking berries, or spending time with me) he chose spending time with me! Yay!

On the bus

A beautiful sunflower bigger than T's head

Tasting the tall grass

The berry vacuum face (T: you put a berry next to my mouth and see what happens)

Did I mention some berries were tasted?

Proof that I was there

So happy together (I promise we are)

The Wee Hours

In the wee hours of the morning T occasionally have sleepy conversations.

T: Mommy ... I don't want to lose you
Me: I'm right here
(pause)
T: I love you so much, I don't want to lose you
Me: It's ok, I'm right here
(pause)
Me: I love you
T: I love you too

I wonder what he was dreaming about. We talked about getting lost, and getting lost together on the berry picking field trip that morning, so maybe that's where it came from.

The Torinado

T and the Scoot built this awesome bottle rocket at the extended family reunion on July 5, 2014. There were about 85 people in attendance at the reunion and many bottle rockets built (~20). The Torinado took 2nd place!

Too Sleepy for My Blankets

June 26, 2014 - Too sleepy for his blankets, but not his adorable dinosaur pj romper!

Shiny Love

I love it when T talks in his sleep. Two nights ago, I must have caught him in the middle of a really good dream: Cue 3-year-old dreamy voice: "Shiny! ... Love love love love love."

Interesting day

We had gotten a new shower last November. Last Monday I called the company who installed it to complain the caulking was coming off. They said they would be able to send someone the following Monday. Now that Monday is here and M asks if I can take the kids in to school so she can get to work a little earlier. I said sure, but didn't know when the shower repair guy would show up. I called the company and they said sometime between 8 and 9. That's precisely the time window we take the kids to school, so I can't take them after all and M takes them instead.

I figure I would work from home while the shower repairs are being done, only to find my laptop won't connect to my work network, so I can't actually get any work done. So instead I began working on some home networking cables since they aren't all finished yet. The repair man shows up just after 9 and I show him the problem. He gets to work and I go back to my laptop and reboot it since it is trying to install some software updates. After it reboots, it now connects to the work network. I work for 45 minutes, the repair man finishes up, and then it is time for a meeting. I call in and then go out to work on the car replacing a bad sensor since I need to get the car registered by the end of the month. I get the sensor replaced before the meeting finishes and attempt to clear the check engine light. Every time I clear it, it just comes back on with the same error.

The meeting finishes and I can now devote full time to the car because our only other backup vehicle has a bad starter and we need a second car. I pinpoint the problem to a bad electrical connection in the plug connecting to the new sensor. I decide to put it off for now and head inside for lunch figuring I would try to track down a spare connector so I can fix it that evening. I found a friend that had one that I could pick up after work.

Since I've been driving around with the check engine light for a couple of weeks already, I don't think too much about it and decide to drive the car in to work. The car won't start. Try, try again and still nothing. Eventually it starts up only to stall. Again it starts and stalls. I start it again and give it some gas. It is very hesitant to run and eventually settles into a very rough idle with the smell of gasoline hanging in the air. I don't dare try to drive this car because it will likely leave me stranded at work. The car has had the rare occasion when it wouldn't want to start, but every time once it did start, it would run just fine. I figured it probably needs a new distributor and spark plug wires since they are the original parts.

I track down a new distributor at a parts store and jump into the truck to go pick it up. As I'm driving down the freeway, I notice something moving out of my peripheral vision near my feet. I figure it was just an old paper towel or a leaf or some other piece of dirt as is typical in that old truck. I see it again and look down only to see a mouse scurrying around! Within the span of less than one second, I instinctively jerk both feet up in the air and then think to open the door and kick the mouse out onto the freeway. Rational thought reenters my mind and I realize if I try to do that, I'll end up crashing, probably killing myself and the mouse would live on unscathed. I decide to leave it be for now.

I arrive at the parts store without further incident and begin looking for the mouse. I can't find it, so I suspect it is tucked behind the gas tank. So I buy the parts and then make a second look for the mouse in the store parking lot, hoping I can just leave the mouse there. No such luck. So I decide to buy some mouse traps and set them in the truck when I get home.

Heading back out to the truck after buying the traps I make a third check for the mouse. Still no luck. So I hop in and the truck won't start. Should have bought a starter for the truck while I was at the store. I grab a part of my ladder rack and begin banging on the starter to get it unstuck. Fortunately I can reach the starter through the fender well and don't actually need to get dirty. Thirty minutes later it still won't start. I climb under to get a better look and find half of the transmission bell housing is missing. Well at least I can see into the starter. I grab a screwdriver and poke at the starter gear to find it moves freely in and out. Maybe there is a dead spot somewhere it the starter so I try turning the gear a few times to see if that will help free it. Sure enough, that did the trick. So not only do I need a new starter, but also a new bell housing.

I get home and set a mouse trap inside the truck. It's 4pm. I do actually have to get some work done today, so I spend the next hour working. Then I cook dinner and play with T before bed. Time to go get that sensor connector and a timing light. I get back close to 9pm and get the new connector soldered on by 10. I clear the check engine light and it doesn't come back on immediately. Whew! I decide to try starting the car just to get a baseline of where the current timing is set. Car starts up just fine and idles and revs perfectly. I check the timing and it is spot on at 16 degrees.

Now it's time to replace the distributor. I take the new one out of the box and compare it to the original. Looks similar but the mounting bracket is upside down. And the connector is wrong! This distributor is the wrong one. At least the car seemed to run fine. I decide to replace the spark plug wires and take the car out for a test drive. Car is working perfectly, but I'm still going to replace the distributor just in case. Now I get online to notify the parts store of the error in their database and it's finally time for bed just before midnight.

Father's Day #3

Started Father's Day at 2:30am. Wife woke me up saying "there's a noise." Got up to investigate. At first I thought it was a cat in the litter box. Then traced the noise to the kitchen wall. Sounds like a mouse eating through the wood. So into the attic I crawl. The noise is coming from the only 5ft. section of the attic I can't actually get to because the space is so small and completely filled with a heater return duct. I'll deal with it later. On to the web to find mouse traps and exterminator services, just in case.

Back into bed by 3:30ish. Wife let me sleep in until 7:30 - THANK YOU! Before kids, I had trouble getting out of bed before 8, and now I'm usually up by 6.

I had spent Thursday morning at daycare with my oldest making a Father’s day project with him and took it home with me the same day. My youngest, at the same daycare, brought home the projects he had been working on and I got to open these at breakfast. The oldest one was sad he didn’t have anything to give me, so he went upstairs and colored me a new card. Spent the morning with the kids, mostly watching movies, while the wife organized photos & videos on the computer. Then the wife took the kids out shopping, so back into the attic I went. This time I found a hole in some plywood with teeth marks around it away from the kitchen wall. Also found mouse turds and piles of sunflower seed shells. Since I didn't have any mouse traps and I was already dirty from the attic and my wife was going to come home soon, I decided to prep for running more network cables for the upstairs. Got all the holes drilled and verified the holes went where I needed – between two attic spaces that can only be accessed on your belly.

Wife comes home with groceries and we call her dad for Father’s Day. By the time we hang up, we have to get dinner going. I get the coals going in the grill and begin on the cabbage (garlic, butter, salt, pepper, & paprika on cabbage wedges). Wife works on the chicken (peanut) and dessert (blueberry-strawberry-rhubarb crunch). It all turned out quite well. We usually have dinner with nearby family every Sunday, but one of their kids had a fever. They brought us a pair of extra mouse traps in exchange for some of the dinner we had made.

Played with the kids some, and then they are off to bed. Back into the attic I went and pulled the network cables. Once I finished that, I set the two traps – one where a pile of sunflower seeds were, and the other along a path I suspected the mouse was travelling. Closed up the attic and headed downstairs. As soon as I got there, more mouse scratching in the kitchen wall. Guess I took too long to set the traps. Out into the garage to put tools & dirty clothes away and then into the shower just before 10pm and then to sleep.

Monday evening I went back to check on the traps and found the mouse had taken the bait. No more scratching in the wall!

A Whale of a Pool

Last Saturday we visited a friend's house and played in their inflatable whale pool. Everyone had a blast and I had my first experience with a camera lens polarizing filter. I love the colors, but the lighting in the play space wasn't awesome and I'm still a novice photographer.

June 7, 2014

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Continuing the spider theme: June 6, 2014

More T and K cuteness ...

A Spider!

Two nights ago T sat bolt upright in the middle of the night:

T (confusion, pointing): "There's a spider!"
Me: "Where"
T (pointing): "Right there!"
Me (picking up little yellow): "Here?"
T (snuggling little yellow, pointing): "A spider!"
Me (confused, pointing): "Here? This is Bee?
T (laughing): "Oh! Yeah!"

K Takes a Stroll

June 10, 2014 ~ six minutes of K cuteness - K pushes the walker, K falls down (it won't be the last time), K cries, K climbs on mommy, K does some construction work, and K plays tongue click call and response with mommy.

Too cute for my onesie

May 25, 2014

Peesy Grin

May 17, 2014

The Pushers

The boys think it's funny to push things off the bed.

May 25, 2014

If you didn't get enough little boy laughter in the previous video, try this. Synopsis: Hedgehog (porcupine) skydiving. Daddy, I dropped my mobile phone AGAIN. Catch that baby! Little boys laugh. 3-year-old whines (no, really?)

May 25, 2014

Park Face

May 24, 2014

Serious Hammy

This is my little Hammy. I kept calling him a ham and one day he said "I'm your little hammy," so Hammy he is now. When we drop him off at school he usually gets a ham sandwich (formerly a hug sandwich). The Scoot and I hug him from opposite sides with the Ham in the middle. In this picture, my Hammy shows his serious face. Yep, this is what serious ham looks like. Photo taken on May 17, 2014.

Dizzy

T wanted me to record him spinning. I almost cropped the video near the end where it goes out of focus, but T's dizzy response was too funny to cut.

May 18, 2014

Kitty!

I walked into the bedroom to hear muffled whining ... pulled K out from under the bed where he has somehow army crawled to about the middle of the low clearance king sized bed ... after the cat.

Sandals

T got a new pair of sandals today. He was so excited that he had to try them on right away. Turns out they are a little too big, which is fine since he'll grow into them, but then he was determined to wear sandals anyway. So I got his older ones that still fit and decided he wanted to play outside. He bolted for the garage and I opened the door for him before going back inside to get some jackets. It took me a little longer than expected, and as I was about to go out through the garage, M asked where T was. I commented "He's probably over at C's" since anytime he is left alone out front, he heads over to the neighbor's house. I step out into the garage and grab my shoes. I turn around only to find T moving the laundry from the washer to the drier. He even emptied the lint trap but had trouble getting it back in. I explained how to turn it so it would fit and then taught him which buttons to push to start the drier. I love it when kids do chores without being asked.

Little Dancer

T is taking a dance class and school and here he demonstrates his turns down the hall. If only I had a video of his leaps to go with it.

March 8, 2014

Peekaboo

K plays Peekaboo with dada

April 28, 2014

This little guys want to walk so badly. He's crawling all over, pulling up on low objects (or people), and trying to stand from a crawling position. He very effectively gets into a bear crawl like he's going to stand, but he doesn't have the core strength or balance to do it yet. Two days ago he took his very first assisted steps. I held his hands and he moved his feet all by himself. In the past, I've put his feet on mine and walked, but now he understands the mechanics of walking, yay! Yesterday he was taking a huge step with his right foot and a normal sized step with his left. Its so cute to watch those little tiny walking feet.

Ahoy Ladies!

Yesterday The Scoot informed me that T was at the top of the stairs shouting "Ahoy Ladies!" Over the last couple of days I've heard him singing the "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" theme song and amazingly, I caught him on camera ... performing ... looking right at me! Amazing! In case you're wondering, the lyrics actually say "mateys" not "ladies"

April 28, 2014

At the end I was trying to get him to say that I love him "a bushel and a porcupine." He loves the song "A bushel and a Peck" and the answer to my question "How much do I love you" has evolved from ...
"A bushel and a peck" ... to
"A bushel and a porcupine" ... don't ask, I don't know ... and now
"A bushel and Jake and the Neverland Pirates"
Do you think he has a favorite TV show?

Scared of the dark

T: "I'm scared of the dark. I don't like being scared. It makes me sad. But I like playing with you, Dad. And I like treats like Parmesan cheese and string cheese. Those are my favorite treats."

Beaver

A middle of the night conversation with T (last week):

T (groggily): I have a beaver.
Me: What does the beaver do?
T: It makes me sick.

He told me he had a beaver several times during the night, and he was almost correct. He had a fever, poor kid.

Kisses

T: Mommy, do you like it when I give you kisses?
Me: I LOVE it when you give me kisses

Tiny teeth

Last night while hanging with the cousins, Aunt A commented on K's teeth. Teeth? What teeth? We suspected he was thinking of teething due to the crazy amount of drooling and gnawing on everything within reach. Although The Scoot noted his recent decrease in drool, neither of us thought to check for teeth. After Aunt E's comment, we took a peek and sure enough two tiny teeth have recently breached the lower gums.

Bacon in the Hall

Bacon and eggs are a favorite breakfast at our house. Me: I'm a baconaholic T: Bacon in the hall

We have feet!

K found his feet! ... And on a mostly unrelated note, I love his fuzzy little blonde head.