Nick and Brian in California

So I get to take a turn putting a post or two on the blog (this is Brian). In August I flew with Nick and my mom to California for my uncle's 60th birthday party.

I spent the better part of my youth in the Santa Cruz area of Northern California, so I thought that it would be fun to go back and see family and to show Nick where I used to spend a lot of time.

We had a great time. Nick was a really good kid. This was Nick playing at the beach. He really loved it and I wish that I had planned the beach trip out better and we could have spent more time there.

Here is a video of Nick having the time of his life playing at the beach.

I decided just to take Nick because we didn't have that many miles for the airline. Once I arrived at the airport, I was glad that I had just one kid to keep an eye on. Don't get me wrong, Nick was great, but there are just so many fun things to explore and touch in an airport for a two year old.

My Aunt Gail was also nice enough to let us stay with her. Nick had a great time at her house. My cousin (4 years younger than me) lives just up the hill from my aunt. My Aunt Gail told Nick that Chris (my cousin) likes cars, just like Nick. A few hours later when Chris came down for dinner, Nick greeted him at the door: Nick - "Hi, I like cars!" Chris - "Oh, hey there, I like cars too."

Nick really loves trains. So I decided that I had to take Nick to Roaring Camp. Roaring Camp is in the mountains above Santa Cruz (Felton). They have restored old logging narrow gauge trains that were used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The ride that we went on goes up through the Santa Cruz Mountains through a redwood forest. The train climbs up a 9-10% grade over trestles and sharp switch-backs. We thought that we would get the best seats and sit in the car right behind the train. We couldn't understand why no one was lining up for that car. Then we realized two things; from the back you could see the train better around the sharp corners and that old train makes a lot of noise. Nick had a lot of fun, but I think that whistle was a little bit too much for him and he pulled my arm over his head every time the conductor blew the whistle.

While visiting a park that my mom used to play at, and that I played at when I was a kid, we passed a fire house. One of the firefighters happened to hear us walking by and invited us in.

While the photo is a little bit blurry, you can tell from the look on Nick's face that he was pretty excited. I would like to claim that I planned this great treat for Nick, but it kind of just fell in our laps.

Tot School

The twins aren't quite old enough for preschool, but I thought they were ready for a little more social interaction. So some other moms and I decided to try a co-op kind of play group/school (mostly play). The twins have loved this so far. Here they are on their first day:Last week was my turn to host. The theme was "My body". We made paper dolls that looked like each child. The kids loved glueing on all of their pieces.

I traced each kid on big sheet of paper and then they got to color.

We practiced giving babies a bath to reinforce the names of body part i.e. wash babies arms, legs, toes, etc.

We also played with Mr. Potato head

Snack one day was different things that made up a face...

The other day snack was sugar cookie "men" that I let the kids decorate. The Pampered Chef decorating set is great for kids. They loved this part!


It was fun, but I'm glad my turn is over for a little while!

Stitches

Our first stitches!

Alli was playing on the bouncy stairs at Big Dry Creek Park, fell off, and sliced her skin above her eyebrow. I took her to the doctor, just down the street (how convenient!) and she got 3 stitches. They tried to glue it back together first, but this didn't work. Lindsey and Kenna were with us too. Luckily my mom had the day off work and was able to come help me.

Alli makes me laugh. After I got all the blood cleaned up and some nice moms at the park helped me get her bandaged up, she ran off to play again. I told her we had to go to the doctor and she was so upset, she just wanted to stay and play!

Potty-Training

After reading a book about potty-training in 1 day (!) I decided to try it out with Alli. One Saturday near the end of June I made this amazing snack tray and made several other preparations. I was excited. Alli was excited. And it failed miserably. After 7 accidents in 2 or 3 hours I gave up. Mostly because she didn't have any clean underwear left. I think she thought it was so much fun to put a new pair of *princess* underwear on after every accident!

Since then we practiced a few hours here and there until she got the idea. Then a few weeks ago when we were going to be home most of the week, I made the commitment and she has done really well. She's only had one accident in the last week! This is her playing with her big reward (a doctor's set). She loves this set. Nick was outside playing and got hurt. She ran inside, grabbed her doctor set, and ran out to help! For the past 3 months she has been obsessed with doctors and has told me several times that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up!

I {heart} summer

I love so many things about summer...We had a busy summer and had so much fun. I'm sad to see it come to an end.

Trips to the zoo. We have a membership and we must have gone at least 6 times.

Treats

Swimming and picnics. Just being outside.

Making mischief of one kind and another

My children truly are wild things. There is a reason why I refuse to take all 3 of them out in public by myself...

Nick must have been worried that Kenna would get bored in the crib by herself- he dumped the contents of at least 4 baskets plus lots of books and stuffed animals in the crib. This occured in the space of 3 minutes while I was doing Alli's hair.

Nick was *starving* and couldn't wait for dinner. He stole the cheese off the counter

and tried to open the package with his teeth.
Yes, even Kenna is trouble. We don't let her sit by the paper towels anymore.

Alli and Nick snuck outside and ran through the sprinklers with all their clothes still on


Kenna somehow opened up her puffs and threw herself a big puff party

Dress-Up

Alli loves to dress up. Sometimes Nick joins in too. We have a dress-up basket with several random idems, but most of the time she just uses whatever she finds around the house. She is so excited to be Cinderella for Halloween. I had to hide her costume because I know if I didn't she would want to wear it everyday until then. Hope you get a few laughs.

She added a firefighter hat and a pirate eye patch to this get-up later

Mr. Trucks - he often tells me "I love trucks"

Glad-ware hat and mommy's shoes

Not sure how to describe this look???

Baby Kenna

I'll start by catching up with Makenna. She is 7 months old now and oh, so cute. I just can't get enough of my roly poly baby. She's on the move - crawling, rolling, and sitting. She started crawling a full month before the twins did...I think she's trying to keep up with them. Most of her awake time is spent crawling around the living room playing with/trying to eat whatever toys Nick and Alli have out. She loves her baby food and any kind of "food" she can get ahold of including wipes and paper. She is still not sleeping through the night and I can't bring myself to do sleep training (crying) with her, especially since her room is right next to the twins' room.

At her 6 month appointment her weight was 17 lb 7 oz (75%) and her height was 27" (90%). Looks like we have another giant child that will be taller than me by the time she is 8.

With newborn cousin Taylor - 3 months old

3 1/2 months old

First time eating solids - 4 months

4 1/2 months

6 months

At her 1/2 year birthday party

Playing with Nick and Alli - 6 1/2 months

It's been a while...

So I've got some catching up to do. Back in May we took our office out of a bedroom and made it into Makenna's room. We moved the computer and everything to the basement. Our desktop is old. We got it 8 years ago; its on its last leg and we didn't get it hooked back up until a month or so ago. So I couldn't really blog. BUT we got a new laptop and I'm back in business. Yay! Warning - backposting ahead!