For those in the area, I would highly recommend visiting the Noah’s Ark exhibit at the Skirball Museum. We went last Friday with some friends and the boys had a great time. It’s an interactive exhibit with a lot for the kids to do. You can make all kinds of storm sounds, put animals up the ramp and into the ark 2 by 2, make food for the animals, climb up into the ark rafters, color animal pictures to make an ark to take home and several other things. There are all kinds of animals to see that the artist created out of recycled and re-used items. They are really unique and fun to figure out what they are made of. Even with the drive into Los Angeles, it was worth it.
Seth and a friend “D” sending the animals into the ark.
Evan waiting for the animals to come back out and send them up again.
Evan climbing up the rope ladder into the ark rafters.
Evan climbing in the ark.
Evan coming out of the ark.
Seth loves to help clean up.
The boys making their ark to take home.
Boys building an ark.
Jonny is in Monterrey, Mexico this week for work. The office there is moving and he is doing some of the technical/IT work. He was supposed to leave today, but because of hurricane Dolly the bosses decided to send the group on Wedensday in case the airports ended up closing due to weather. The hurricane was supposed to make landfall this morning and work its way east towards Monterrey. I’m not sure how I feel about the company sending them into the path of a hurricane on purpose. Thankfully, Monterrey is pretty far inland so they are only expecting rain and a big storm – no hurricane winds or flooding.
So I talked to Jonny Wed. morning and he told me he was coming home from work to pack and get ready to leave in a few hours. Needless to say, the day was a whirlwind and not at all what I had planned. But we got all the laundry, packing and errands done so we could get him to LAX and safely to Mexico. He made it to Mexico fine, and the hurricane turned north so there is even less rain than expected. Hopefully the rest of his trip goes smoothly (but I’ll still say a little prayer that there are no unexpected hurricane after effects).
Even though daddy is not here, the boys are excited for the trip because they get to talk to daddy on the phone every day. And it doesn’t hurt that Gama and aunt Kiwi are coming to visit while daddy is gone. So it’s like a double bonus for them.
I’ve mentioned before that Evan loves to watch reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show that come on our local PBS station (yes, we have our TiVo programmed to record them). I know, how many 4 year olds like old 70’s variety shows? He likes the dancing and the music. I’m sure there are worse things he could enjoy watching.
Well there is an episode that came on recently with a very lively musical number, complete with an accordian being the featured instrument (which is Jonny’s favorite instrument, by the way). It’s upbeat and perfect for dancing. So when Evan heard it, he couldn’t help but want to dance around the room. Of course, once Seth saw this he wanted to join in as well. So now they keep asking to watch the episode every day and play that song over and over. It tires me out just watching them. So for a taste of their dancing prowess, you can watch at the link below. I’m not sure if either will be a professional dancer in the future, but they sure have fun doing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12XJHxIi_a4
Happy Birthday Papa! We love you and are so thankful for all you do for our family.
We celebrated Papa’s birthday yesterday with a yummy steak dinner. The favorite part for the boys was blowing out the candles on the cake, ah, I mean pie (key lime pie is one of his favorites). They were also very excited to give Papa the birthday cards they made on Saturday. We got out the construction paper and the “sparkles” and had a great time with a little craft project. Seth drew a picture on his, but Evan wanted to write a birthday message. He wrote “Happy Birthday Papa, Love Evan” all by himself. He was very excited. I think we all had a lovely birthday evening.
Some helpful boys getting ready to blow out candles.
The birthday cards the boys made for papa.
We went to the beach again yesterday. It was a little overcast, but plenty warm to keep everyone happy. We went down to Baby Beach in Dana Point, which I like to call kid beach. It’s nice because it’s in the harbor, so it’s shallow and you are protected from the waves and heavy surf. Of course, I tried to convince the boys to go in the water for 2 hours but neither wanted to give it a try. They were content to play in the sand. Then as soon as we are ready to leave, they both decided to play in the water and complained all they way home that they couldn’t play in the water longer. They loved that they could splash without getting knocked over by the waves. I promised that we would go back again.
OK, so I’ve been fighting a panic all week, so I figured why not share it with everyone else?
Yesterday I reached the 30 week mark. That means only 10 weeks to go. Well, OK…for me it will probably be a little more than that if history repeats itself. But regardless, 10 weeks is not a long time. That will go by in a flash. And I still have a million things to do to get this house ready for another baby. I’m not worried about the stuff. The third time around there is not much to worry about – I’ve got a carseat, some onesies, blankets and diapers, and my nursing equipment (to put it nicely). The rest is gravy. But I have a ton of things to clean, organize, sort through, get rid of etc. I need to have this house running like a well-oiled machine so I don’t lose my mind (ya, right!). Whose bright idea was this anyway…having 3 kids under the age of 5??!! Oh ya, it was mine.
Well, wish me luck in my final weeks of preparation for this still unnamed baby boy (oh ya, another thing to add to the list - figure out a name…). Hopefully I won’t crack up in the meantime.
After a morning of relaxing and doing a few chores, we headed over to grandma and papa’s house for our annual trip to Heritage Park in Irvine for a picnic dinner and firework watching. Unfortunately this year, they decided to re-seed the fields during the holiday weekend so the fields were closed. Too bad they didn’t tell anyone about that ahead of time. We were all a little disappointed to not be able to spread out and let the boys run around like they usually do, and we certainly weren’t the only ones that felt that way. There were many people around us that complained to the staff that was working that night. We were confined to the very edges of the grass near the sidewalks.
We tried to make the best of it and spread out our blanket to enjoy our yummy picnic. We had sandwiches, fruit, juice and cookies. It was delicious. After dinner we took the boys to the playground (which was a little crowded since no one was playing on the fields) and tried to let them run around as much as we could. Evan decided to brave the big 2-story slide and he had a blast. Seth wanted to kick the soccer ball around and also enjoyed throwing it down the little slide then heading along after it head first.
Once it got dark the boys settled down a little and they watched a couple fireworks that the people next to us were setting off on the sidewalk. Evan loved them. Seth was not so sure. They both asked for what seemed like a million times when the real fireworks would start. Once they did, Evan was even more excited. Seth was still a little scared and wanted to stay on papa or daddy’s lap. At the end we had 2 tired boys on our hands. They both said they enjoyed their 4th of July holiday and want to see fireworks again soon.
Mommy and her boys.
Seth running back and forth to the flowers.
Evan following behind Seth.
Relaxing after dinner.
Evan on the big slide.
The big, 2-story slide at the playground.
Happy 4th of July and happy birthday America. Thank you to all the wonderful people who make this country great. We’ll be spending the day relaxing, having a dinner picnic with family and watching fireworks. I hope your day is fun-filled too.
With the upcoming arrival of baby #3, I figured it was time to get some work done. Our house is not the largest on the block and even though we have done a better job over the last couple years purging unwanted/unused items, there is still a lot of work to do to make room for another person in the house.
So I made a list (yes, I know, me and my lists) of all the things I wanted to get done this summer before the baby comes. In anticipation of the pregnancy yuckiness going away sometime in June, I told Jonny I wanted to work from Memorial Day to Labor Day on getting the house ready – going through each room and cleaning, purging items, reorganizing, finishing half-done home improvement projects etc. I haven’t made much of a dent in the list yet and it’s already July.
One of the toughest projects was outside. Last week I decided to tackle the backyard. It had been neglected since January when I started feeling badly. The plants were either dead or ridiculously overgrown. All the sand had been dumped out of the sandbox, mixed with dirt from the plants, and scattered around in an inch thick layer across the patio and everything on it. Sand toys were strewn everywhere. Terracotta pots were broken where children tried to pick them up and move them. It’s really hard to describe how bad it was out there, and of course I forgot to take a “before” picture. But I swept, pulled weeds, planted new flowers, hosed down toys and concrete, got rid of plastic chairs, put new sand in the sandbox…….it took me two days to get it all done and by the end I was exhausted and could hardly move. But it finally looks decent and the kids can acutally play out there again. I can only imagine how bad it would have been if we had a bigger backyard. So here are the “after” pictures and the result of my work. We set up some new rules about keeping sand in the sandbox, not touching the dirt etc. Evan even stacked up the toys nicely (an example of his obsessoin with lining things up). We’ll try hard to maintain a little cleanliness out there so that next time it will only need some touchups, and not the full, exhausting treatment.
