Evan got a marble run game from grandma a few weeks ago as a prize for being nice to Seth. Well, he absolutely loves it! And Seth does too. Every time they go over there, one of the first things they do is start building towers so they can see what the marbles will do. Evan is really good at figuring out when he needs a spacer and which way to turn the peices. Seth loves to climb up on the table so he can look down on the tower from the top. Evan has even decided that the colored marbles are his and the silver marbles are Seth’s.
Seth on the table feeding marbles down the run.
Evan building a tower.
Have I mentioned that I can’t believe Christmas is on it’s way already? Well, having a full week after Thanksgiving doesn’t help anything in our house. While the rest of the world is decorating and gearing up, we can’t mention the “C” word in our house yet. Jonny has a pet peeve about anything Christmas before December 1st. So all the lights and garland and music we see at the stores gets a eye roll or some other negative “I can’t believe this” reaction. But I can be patient. I actually think it’s kind of funny. And I generally agree that all the Christmas stuff goes up a little too early most of the time (although I’m OK with everything as soon as Thanksgiving is over – I just hate to see Christmas deco in the stores during Halloween). But this weekend I’ll definitely start getting everything out. Well, after we see BYU beat San Deigo State at their football game on Saturday. Go Cougars!
We spent a lovely Thanksgiving with Jonny’s family in Irvine. We also took my grandma, and it was great to have her with us. We ate a delicious turkey dinner any my MIL made the yummiest cranberry stuffing. Of course, as tradition holds, I brought the pumpkin pie. It’s the one “big” thing I do all year by making a pumpkin pie from scratch (yes, I actually cook real sugar pumpkins to make my own puree, make the crust etc.). The boys had fun running around, but didn’t eat too much. Of couse, they loved the desserts and Evan could eat a whole can of cranberry sauce if I let him.
We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too.
My pie. Yummy!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We are so thankful for all of the blessings the Lord has given us, including the wonderful friends and family that love and support us every day. Have a great day!
Seth is getting bigger and is acting more like a big boy every day. He wants to do things himself and isn’t afraid to try something new. But sometimes I guess he just wants to be my baby. I was walking around the house today and he came up to me and put his arms up and said, “up.” I told him, “I don’t want to pick you up. You’re a big boy. You can walk.”
His reply: “No, I bebe” (which translated is no, I’m a baby). It was so cute I had to laugh.
So for the rest of the day whenever I told him he was a big boy, he told me that no, he was a baby.
Earlier in the year we got the Sea World Fun Cards, which let you go back for free for the rest of the year after you pay once. So now that the year is winding down, I though I’d take the boys one last time on Wed. When we got there, Evan looked that the park map and had a very specific order that he wanted to see the animals in. Seth was just happy to be along for the ride. So we saw a lot of Evan’s favorites, like the dolphins, clydesdale horses, penguins (the exhibit was finally open this time after being closed for a year for remodeling), and flamingos. We also saw the Shamu show for this first time, which was really cool. Both the boys enjoyed seeing the big whales. We had a lot of fun.
Evan is so creative. He loves to make up songs and stories. He loves to draw and paint. His imagination actually amazes me sometimes. Today he was playing with a sheet of smiley face stickers and arranging them ever so exactly on some paper. I was cleaning up the kitchen when he asked me to look at him make a funny face. It was hilarious. He told me he was making a face like the sticker. So I asked him if I could take his picture and he smiled and replied, “ya.” So I got out the camera and took his picture while he was doing his impression of one of the stickers. Then he said he wanted to do a lot of them, so I kept snapping shots. He would point to the sticker then try to make the face. At some points it was hard to focus the camera I was laughing so hard. Well, perhaps this creativity will lead to a life in stand up? Or maybe he’ll be bitten by the acting bug? I kind of hope not, but you never know. Either way, it was really cute.
I got home from a day at another Hush Baby photo shoot to find Seth walking around with a diaper in his hand. Since he loves to empty out the diaper box (where we keep the clean diapers and wipes so they are conveniently out of plain sight) and throw all the diapers around the room, this is not an unusual sight. However, this diaper looked a little different. So I took it out of his hand and discovered it was a wet diaper. Of course, I immediately threw it away. But that got me thinking, where did he get this diaper? So I walked back towards him and lifted up his shirt, which was hanging down to about his mid-thigh. And what do I find? A naked little boy. Evan never tried to get his diaper off himself. I knew I was lucky, but I guess my luck has run out. So now there’s one more thing I have to watch out for before my little streaker takes his act public.
Evan just gets funnier as he gets older. The more he learns about the world and the better he communicates and articulates his thoughts and feelings, the more fun it is to listen to him.
Here are some things he has done recently that brought a smile to my face:
—We are sitting down at family dinner and Evan (who used to love broccoli) says, “You have to let me not eat my broccoli so I can be happy.”
–He lays down in the pile of pillows on my bedroom floor and gets between the 2 king sized pillows, which have cream colored pillow cases on them, and says, “Look mommy, I’m a hot dog and this is my bun.”
–”The trees and the sky got their color back” after reaching as far as he could in his carseat with his foot to wipe the fog off the window.
–Running away from me and yelling, “You can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man” after I’ve asked him to come here to…(get dressed, brush teeth, clean up toys, eat lunch etc.)
I admit it, I’m proud to be from California. Born in the LA basin, raised (mostly) in Orange County, and I’m proud of it. I also admit that one of my pet peeves is the completey ridiculous notion that the rest of the nation seems to have about Californians. We don’t all have blond hair, live on the beach and surf all day (or more importantly, live like “The OC” or “The Real Housewives of Orange County”). While there are some people like that here, there are plenty of us normal folks who are just trying to get by every day – we go to work, raise our families, and do what can to make a good life for ourselves, just like everyone else. So I was cracking up when I came across this column while reading the newspaper on Sunday afternoon. If you are proud to be a native Californian (or have adopted our lovely state as your own) and consider yourself to have turned out normally despite that, read this column about some of the “crazier” folks we’ve got living here.
http://www.ocregister.com/column/california-born-jobs-1914148-nut-people
