Out of the mouths of children

The kids have been having a lot of fun lately. Nathaniel has been getting out his costumes and the two of them like to dress up and play pretend.

Here are a few pictures and a couple of fun stories.

Aaron likes to play with Nathaniel’s Iron Man mask. This thing has gotten quite a bit of wear since Halloween!

The other day Nathaniel was dressing up as a fireman and wanted Aaron to be his dog. So, they did that. Then Aaron went down for a nap and Nathaniel decided that he wanted to be a dog.

I think he looks pretty silly.

The other night Nathaniel was playing with a stuffed dog and pretending that he was a dog too. At dinner time he set the table and then got a bowl for “food” for his puppy. I then watched him grab the stuffed dog, put it next to the bowl and whisper in it’s ear, “You can’t eat until we pray, okay?” and then he put the dog’s face in it’s paws so that the dog could pray.

Nathaniel is also talking about how many siblings he wants. He keeps saying he wants another brother and a sister (four kids total in our family). I asked him today if he wanted there to be four kids in our family and he said, “No, I want ten.”

I laughed and told him that when he grew up he could have as many kids as he wanted when he got married as long as his wife agreed. Nathaniel said, “I want to get married.” I asked him who he wanted to marry and he said, “I want to marry Kaatje!” (Kaatje is his buddy).

I asked him some very important questions. 1. Does Kaatje love Jesus? (yes) 2. Is Kaatje your best friend? (yes) 3. Do you and Kaatje have fun playing together and let the other person play too? (yes). I then asked him if he wanted me to call Kaatje’s mommy and ask her if it was okay if they got married. He said yes, I should call her mommy.

I told him he needed a ring first.

Nathaniel is also officially reading. It's crazy how it's clicked with him. This morning he was sitting with a book and he pointed to a word (a small print word on a page with no pictures) and said, "me" which is what the word said. He can read several small words and is also really into rhyming. I can't believe my three year old is reading...yikes!

Aaron is officially only walking. It had gotten to the point where he would sometimes walk but mostly do his funny little bear crawl and scamper away. This morning I noticed that he was walking everywhere, even when he got a little wobbly. It made me sad.

Maybe it’s time to get one of those brothers or sisters Nathaniel’s always talking about.

Maybe not.

The family that runs together…

Yesterday we did a family run.  It was cool that we could do something like this together.  Sam and I ran a 5K while pushing the kids in a double stroller, and then Nathaniel did the 1K fun run.

You might notice the blue sky and puffy clouds.  Doesn’t it look like a perfect morning for a run?

Please also note the wet pavement.  It poured all night long and was still raining (pouring at points) as we drove to the race.  We could have easily decided not to do the run, but I think our thoughts were, “Well, we paid for the run, we might as well do it.”  The rain stopped the minute we pulled into our parking spot and then started up again when we left the race.  It was amazing!

But, because of all of the rain we had to run through some pretty amazing puddles.  There was one puddle that was easily three inches deep.  Needless to say, our shoes were soaked (and are still soaking wet).

Nathaniel was pretty excited to run a race of his own.  At least, he was until we got up to the starting line.  Then he started crying and saying he wanted to go home.  I told him that if he ran the race and didn’t like it we could go home and he would never have to do it again.

The horn blew and the runners were off.

And here is what Nathaniel looked like:

Luckily, he wasn’t the only kid crying (and we didn’t finish last).

Overall, it was a good day.  We got to get some family exercise and Nathaniel got to go home and eat popcorn and watch a movie.  Aaron had a blast, although we realized that he just isn’t in the stroller as much as Nathaniel was at this age.  He started getting fussy about 25 minutes into the run.  When Nathaniel was this age we were training for the half marathon so he was used to sitting in the running stroller for more than an hour at a time.

We’re looking forward to doing this again!

Happy Birthday Aaron!

Today Aaron turns one. I can't believe it! It was a fun couple of days (in between doing work and homework as a family). We celebrated at Disneyland yesterday for a few hours and today we went to the zoo and ended the evening with cake and ice cream with just our family (VERY nice). Currently, Aaron is trying to come down off of his sugar high from the cupcake we gave him. This was after he spent about an hour running around the apartment yelling and growling at the top of his lungs.

Here's a slide show of his day.



And here are a couple of videos of him eating cake and also his crazy "I'm a monster, rarrrr" growl.

Bye Bye Baby

It happened again. Once again I blinked, or sneezed or SOMETHING and suddenly I don't have anymore babies around the apartment.

Aaron has decided that he is a big boy and that means doing big boy things. Things like walking (step-step-step-step-wobble-step-fall-giggle-repeat), talking (mama, dada, bubba), signing (please, more, please in a frantic way whenever someone has food in front of him), and sound effects.

He doesn't have a normal talking voice. Everything is sound effects. He uses a scary monster voice when he's talking to brother and everything else is "gun" sounds (buh-buh-buh-buh as he points whatever he has at you in a weapon form).

And he is all little boy for sure. Today he passed gas on my arm, looked at me and broke out in this funny little belly laugh. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world! He hates vegetables (oh, all of my hard work is for naught, he seriously only ate veggies and fruit as first foods) and will literally take them out of his mouth and throw them on the floor while giving us these "how dare you!?" looks.

And any chance he can get he gets his brother. He hugs him and tackles him and just loves on him as much as he can. It's true hero worship, that's what it is. One night we were getting ready to say prayers (which we say in Nathaniel's bed as a family) and I set Aaron down on Nathaniel's bed. He immediately crawled over to the pillow, laid his head down and said "Ni-ni!!" thinking he was going to get to sleep with his brother.

I can't believe that Aaron will be one on Saturday. He is such a joy and a blessing. He really adds such a great dynamic to the family.

Pictures and more stories are yet to come...

Boston: It’s more than just for Tea Parties

I seriously thought about posting three different posts chronicling three full days in Boston, but then I realized that no one could be THAT interested in every little detail of our lives so I thought I would try to condense it all.

First of all, we never got the kids adjusted to East Coast time.  We were going to, but by the time we got back from New York City we figured there were only a few days left and by the time they fully adjusted it would be time to go home.  That made for many late nights but also meant that we got to sleep in most mornings.  Oh, how sweet sleeping until 9:30 is…

What’s really great about Boston is that it isn’t a super-large city.  That meant that we could walk to the T (the train station) from our hotel and see pretty much whatever it was we wanted to see.  We also had the city’s best tour guides with us, so we were set.

On the first day we managed to walk most of the Freedom Trail.  Starting in the Boston Commons, walking past the old Granary Cemetery (where Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and a number of other revolutionaries were buried), past the place where they read the Declaration of Independence to the people (and also right where the Boston Massacre took place) all the way to Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church (where they put the lanterns to signal that the British were coming).  We did all of that in one afternoon, walking the whole way.  Bethany and Craig had “Sucker” written on their foreheads because whenever Nathaniel tired of walking he would simply walk up to one of them and say, “I want you to carry me!” and they would pick him right up.  That day was Sam’s birthday so it was a “do whatever it is that Sam wants to do” day.  It included having a snack in the country’s oldest pub (est. 1795), enjoying a lobster dinner and finishing the night off with a chocolate feast.

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After three very full days of doing the “tourist” thing, we decided that our last couple of days would be spent more low key.  So on Saturday we toured the Sam Adams Brewery (VERY interesting and fun) and met up with an old friend of mine (someone whom I’ve known since I was three) and then spent the rest of the evening at the hotel.  On Sunday we went to get some yummy hot chocolate and then went to the Science Museum (which our Santa Ana Zoo passes got us into free of charge, score!) and then out to dinner in the North End of Boston at a really great little Italian restaurant, where the waiter poured my drink refill on my lap and then gave Bethany and Sam extra refills as his way of apologizing.  We ended our trip with Cannolis from Mike’s Pastries.  Yum yum!

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All in all, it was a great trip.  We love the East Coast and adore our friends.  If any of my friends are wondering if they should travel with their children I would say yes!  It’s so fun to make those memories as a family, and never once did we go someplace where all of us weren’t having fun.  It’s all in the perspective.

Plus, it doesn’t hurt that our children are nerds just like their parents.  :)

New York, New York

I know it’s about a week past our trip, but I’m finally ready to write about the first part of our wonderful family vacation:  New York City.

Here we all are on the New York Subway.  At first when Sam whipped out the camera I thought, “Oh great, now we just SCREAM tourists!”  But, I think the itty bitty stroller and the fact that we were all bundled up in 20 degree weather pointed out our tourist-ness more so. 

It was fun getting the hang of the subway system in New York.  I love that public transportation is so easy, and after awhile the pee smell is hardly noticeable.   It wasn’t ever too crowded, and I loved seeing high school students on the subway obviously on their way somewhere from school.  One thing I really hate about So. Cal. is the lack of decent public transportation.  In order to get anywhere in the suburbs I have to drive or spend hours on the bus.  Ugh!

When we got off of the subway we found ourselves in Central Park by the Museum of Natural History.

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Nathaniel (my amazing little nerd) didn’t want to hang out in the park, he wanted to go to the museum.  Luckily, it was 30 minutes to close so we didn’t have to pay for entrance into the museum.  We had recently watched “Night at the Museum” with Nathaniel and so he really wanted to see “Dum-Dum” (the Easter Island Head).  We ran through the museum to get to it, and managed to see it.  We wished we could have spent more time there because it was AMAZING!

From there we went to FAO Schwartz, 5th Avenue, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Plaza, and Time’s Square.  We finally headed back to Sue Anne’s at 11:30 that night.

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The next morning we all slept until about 10:30 (what?  We were still on California time!) and after a yummy brunch we headed for the Financial District where we saw Ground Zero, St. Paul’s church (where the rescue workers rested during September 11th), Wall Street (we waved to our money), and Battery Park where we saw the Statue of Liberty.  We also headed down to Greenwich Village for coffee and to NoHo to Katz’ Deli for some yummy pastrami sandwiches (the deli is from When Harry Met Sally).  Then we headed back to Boston.

Two favorite stories from our trip that day.  We were on Wall Street and there was a statue of George Washington at the building where he had been inaugurated as president.  Nathaniel and I climbed up on the statue and waited our turn while a group of Chinese men got their pictures taken (as well they should have, the center flag on the NYSE is the Chinese flag).  The men waved Nathaniel and I over so I thought they were done getting their picture taken.  Then, they all lined up with me and had me in their group photo!  Somewhere in China there is a picture of Nathaniel and I floating around.

My second favorite story is from the coffee shop.  Nathaniel had to go to the bathroom but there wasn’t one there.  So, Sam asked if he could use the private one.  At first they weren’t going to let him, but then Nathaniel said, “I’m going to pee in my pants!”  He was quickly ushered back to the bathroom.

Ground Zero was impressive.  They are rebuilding (finally) so we couldn’t see the site where the towers stood, but we went to St. Paul’s and looked around and then went to the memorial building.  It was all really powerful and still very sad.  Nathaniel was pretty somber himself and was looking at a children’s book there.  They showed a picture of planed flying by the towers and then a picture of an explosion.  He shut the book and put it away.  I couldn’t believe that they would have that in a children’s book!

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All in all it was a very busy, but awesome day in NYC.  Our kids are fabulous travelers.  I am so glad that we are able to travel as a family!

 

Sorry for the super long entry, in a few days we’ll blog about Boston!

Why do children attract the crazy people?

We had a good week in New England. So many fun adventures with the family and WONDERFUL friends. We went to New York for a day-ish and spent time in Boston for the rest of our trip.

All of that time meant traveling on public transportation (i.e. the Subway and Trains).

I don't know if I'm just hyper aware of my surroundings now that I have children that I'm in charge of keeping safe or what, but it seems like on nearly every train there was some crazy person creeping nearer to my children. Thank goodness my kids are pretty unaware of what is considered "normal" and not. It saves me a lot of questions like, "Mommy, why is that man yelling at that other man?" (There was a man yelling incoherently at someone who was holding one of those sign advertisements. It was really awkward because we were stuck at the corner waiting for the crossing signal and this man was seriously irate and looked like he was going to try to get Sam to join the tirade next).

Yet, of all of the people we saw this week, the lady on the plane this morning took the first place trophy for crazy.

Although, I don't think she was certifiably insane like many of the people we actually saw on public transportation.

First of all, we got up at 4:40 this morning (that's 1:40 California time). We were tired beyond belief and the boys were on the verge of meltdowns since they hadn't had much sleep last night either. (for the record, they were great this whole trip, even on the plane today with little sleep and some slight delays). As we were getting settled into our seats the lady behind me started grabbing at Aaron saying things like, "Oh! What a yummy, yummy baby! I could just eat you up! Yes I could! I could just eat you up!"

Huh. That's kind of strange.

Then, she starts pulling on his arms through the seat and grabbing at his whole body. I had Aaron in the Moby wrap strapped to me (because I figured if he was strapped to my body he would fall asleep easier) so not only was this lady violating my kid's personal space bubble, she was also violating mine.

As Aaron was getting fussy (as he tends to do before he falls asleep) the lady all of a sudden says to me, "Let me have your baby. Just give him to me and let me hold him."

Uhhhhh....NO WAY!! I told her that he was going to sleep and that I couldn't get him out of the wrap because it was too complicated (total lie).

She kept bugging me to give her my kid! Finally, we pulled away from the gate and started getting de-iced so she had to stay in her seat.

Later, when Aaron woke up from his 3 hour nap (praise God) and Sam was holding him the lady says again, "Let me hold him for a minute!" Sam and I looked at each other and Sam grabbed a pretzel and shoved it in Aaron's mouth saying, "Oh, he's eating right now."

Sheesh people! We were really glad to get off of that plane (and seriously, as we were waiting for the stroller two more people got grabby with Aaron as they deplaned. What happened to the Swine Flu scare?).