Fall Fun

We've been having a great fall this year. I can't believe that Christmas is around the corner!

this doesn't really have anything to do with fall, i just love the picture!

making pumpkin seeds is slimy business!

enjoying food at their preschool Pumpkin Party with Peter's friend, Mason

Peter's preschool had their annual "Pumpkin Party." This involved a parade in which all the preschoolers walked around in a short oval. Each class made a different mask to wear for the parade.

After the parade, the preschool had a little carnival with about 10 booths. They had really cute age appropriate games for them to play. Each booth had a prize. Matthew tagged along too and he was so happy to be there!

fishing fun

this booth was the hit. they had to move ping pong balls back and forth between the buckets. who knew??

they had to spray the rubber duckies with a spray bottle

A few days later, we had a little costume party here at the house. I figure that us moms spend so much time looking for the costumes that it is fun to give the kids a chance to wear their costume for more than just 1 day.

Dinosaur and Rango

Indian Princess

Lady Bug Leona

It was pretty funny watching a dinosaur, a Rango without a mask cowboy, and an Indian Princess running around our backyard. Matthew didn't feel like wearing his costume...although I finally got him to put it on for a minute and he did the courtesy of showing me his "roar." 

The moms were amazed at how long the kids were willing to keep their costumes on. It got pretty hot at one point and Peter asked if he could take his off. Shortly later, "Rango" came up to me and asked if Peter "shared his clothes?" It was so cute! "Rango" wanted to get out of his costume so badly that he wanted to wear some of Peter's clothes. We worked out, but it cracked me up! 

Matthew also had the opportunity to go to the library and wear his costume. He gets to go to the library every Tuesday and Thursday while Peter is in pre-school with Omi. He loves going! 

 Our Fall season would not be complete without a trip to the Pumpkin Patch. We always have so much fun.

This year, the Pumpkin Patch had Pony Rides, a Bouncy House, and a Petting Zoo. It was a lot of fun! Matthew loved feeding the animals. He could not get closer if he tried. However, he hated the idea of a pony ride. Peter hated feeding the animals. He did not want to get super close. However, he LOVED the pony ride. I don't get it.

this is Matthew's favorite smile these days. I love it!

a somewhat decent family photo

Then came actual Halloween. They were so excited to go Trick-or-Treating!

Since we went so early, there were not a lot of people home. That was fine by me because that meant less candy to manage. :) We went to one house and this cute little older man and older lady answered the door. You could tell we were the first ones of the evening because they took a bit getting to the door--I think they were getting their own costumes assembled! The man was supposed to be an elf I think because as we walked away I could hear him say to his wife, "where is my hat??" They were so enthusiastic. I thought it was really sweet.

It was fun to go trick-or-treating with my kids on the same street that I went trick-or-treating on when I was a kid.

On our way back to the house, Matthew as cracking me up. He kept grabbing his dinosaur tail and saying "Waggy, waggy, waggy." I managed to get a little bit of it on video.

We have really enjoyed Fall 2011!

Bunkbed

Recently we got the boys bunkbeds. Peter was getting almost too big for his crib so it seemed like a good time. I had searched and searched online for awhile and couldn't find anything. We wanted a twin over twin with a trundle and had some other preferences about the look of it.

Thankfully, my mom spotted one at Walmart. I ended up buying manufacturer direct and it was a little less expensive plus free shipping.

It happened to work out that we were going to assemble the bunkbeds on the day of Halloween.

 

So I snapped some pictures of the room in its existing condition for posterity, packed the kids up and headed to my parents' house. Since we had to take apart the cribs and put together the bunkbed, I thought it would be easier if the boys and I spent the day at my mom and dad's house while Mike did all the grunt work (it was a lot of work! so thankful to have a nice husband that will do that stuff!) 

 

The boys had no idea what was up, so we had a lot of fun surprising them. They were super happy because they had just had a great time trick-or-treating in my parents' neighborhood. Then they got home and were informed that they were getting bunkbeds! 

I had been talking up bunkbeds a lot prior to getting them so that Peter would be informed as to how they worked and what they were. It definitely helped that their girlfriends had just gotten a bunkbed recently as well. And we went to visit some other friends and Peter had had a good time climbing up and down.

 

Here is a little video of them seeing their bunkbed for the first time. 

 

i love my bunkbed!

i love my thomas sheets!

 The boys love their bunkbed! Peter tells pretty much every person that comes over to visit our house that he has a bunkbed. He always wants to take the person into his room and show off his climbing skills.

I was a little concerned about the height and the climbing up and down, but Peter is reaaalllllly careful. And Matthew is scared to climb up. He doesn't even really like sitting on the top bunk. After about 30 seconds he wants to climb back down.

One of my favorite memories will be the morning after they slept in their bunkbed for the first time. Peter went to preschool very concerned as to whether or not his bunkbed would be there when he returned. I remember saying, "you are going to have this bed for the rest of your life!" I hope they last that long!

Accidents Happen

The title of my post happens to be a Thomas the Tank Engine song. My kids love to watch this silly youtube video about Thomas engines having lots of accidents. They love Thomas the Train so when my dad saw that the actual life size engine was visiting Southern California, he suggested we make a day of it.

We had been looking forward to the trip for over a month--we had not told the boys until this morning because we knew it would be too hard for them to contain their excitement. Us adults were pretty excited for the adventure.

We left the house at 8:30am this morning, half an hour later than I wanted. I am pretty anal about time....I was having a hard time with how long it was taking us to get out of the house...but finally when I stared at the map long enough, I realized we would make it in time for our 11am train ride.

We had a very uneventful drive--it was rainy but not too bad. We arrived around 10am--plenty of time to wander around before hopping on a real life size Thomas Train.

The parking lot was already filling up and we were directed to start parking on the side of the lot. We were parking our cars directly behind each other. I couldn't believe how crowded it was! I was so relieved to get to the event---I had been driving my parents, my husband, and my kids.

I jumped out of our mini van to go get the stroller while the rest of my family started unloading the kids. I opened the trunk, pulled out our big Bob double stroller. I opened it up and began pushing it towards the right side of our mini van so I could put Peter inside.

I noticed that the emergency strap for the double stroller was laying on the ground, so I knelt down to pick it up. As I leaned over, I saw a white mini van heading straight towards ME.

As with all accidents, everything happened very slow and very fast at the same time. I saw the driver was not facing forward, he was looking at his kid in the back of his mini van. My brain quickly processed that he was not going to be stopping his van anytime soon and I better get my you know what in gear.

Well, I didn't move quite fast enough and before I knew it, the mini van hit my you know what and I was down on the ground. Then I heard a huge CRASH and my whole family yelled.

Next thing I know, Mike--who had been sitting in the way back of our mini van leapt out through our open trunk and said, "what happened?? are you okay??"

I jumped up immediately and realized that I was okay. Super freaked out, but okay. Poor Mike--the first thing he saw was me sitting on the ground--he thought that I had really hurt my legs.

We estimated that the guy was going about 15mph. Apparently, he thought we were all moving--I am not sure why--since our trunk was open and I had a stroller.

Anyways, the guy gets out of the car and I am not joking...the first thing he says is, "It was only a tap." He continued insisting that he barely hit me. My husband politely explained that he obviously hit me hard enough to knock me over. The guy was ridiculous. He never asked if I was okay. I have been in accidents before and I get that you don't want to say, "I am sorry" because that admits guilt. But you could at least ask if I am okay. Nothing. All he kept worrying about was whether or not we were going to make a claim with our insurance company.

Our car was not damaged at all, but you can see the imprint of the screws of his license plate in the bumper of our car. Which freaks me out because that shows how hard his impact was.

those 2 circles are the imprint of the other car's license plate frame

I still don't quite understand why I was not injured more seriously. But I think his mini van nudged me enough so that when his van hit ours I was out of the line of fire.

The boys were great--they were a little worried about their Mommy but they were so excited to see Thomas. They waited patiently in their stroller for 45 MINUTES while I got checked out by the staff EMTs, met with the police, and filed a report. I swear, the whole time, this guy was in Mike's face, trying to convince him to not file a report.

At one point, I walked over and I heard Mike saying to him, "I am trying to not overreact here, I don't want to file anything with the insurance if I don't have to. But if the situations were reversed and it was your wife that had got knocked over, I am sure you would want to have a report made out." The guy was clueless. It was so weird. Like Twilight Zone weird.

At one point my dad couldn't contain himself any further and he let the guy know that he didn't appreciate his attitude...and who knows what else. :) Would you believe that the guy came up to Mike after that and said, "is that your father in law? He just came up to me and told me he didn't like my attitude. Do you think he knows that I am not a native English speaker?" Whaaat?? yeah, the guy was Asian but he definitely did not have any problem speaking English. So weird.

The police were really helpful and were awesome--especially when we whispered into their ears what Mike's profession was. They were also amazed at the guy's attitude.

Oh, and while we were standing there handling all of this, there was another fender bender! One sedan rear ended a mini van on the main road to get into the parking lot. Apparently adults lose all concentration when in the vicinity of  a real life Thomas the Train.

Anyways, after 45 minutes of talking to police, event staff, and this crazy guy, we headed to see Thomas the Train. Us adults were all quite shaken and we just tried to not talk about it. Everytime we started discussing it, Peter would ask a whole bunch of questions and we were trying to not make a big deal about it.

It was pretty hilarious though when we were getting in the van to head back home, Peter said, "Mommy, is your butt okay?" Awesome.

I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo thankful that the Lord was protecting my family today. One of my greatest fears is that a car will hit our stroller when I am unloading/loading kids into it. I am careful, but now I will be even more careful with where I position the stroller.

I spent a lot of the morning when I was not enjoying the Thomas festivities with the "what ifs?" What if we had left on time? What if one of our kids had been in the stroller when he hit us? What if my location was just slightly a few feet in one direction or another? Honestly, if I had been a little bit over to the left (I know it is hard to visualize), I would have been hurt a lot worse.

At a certain point, I realized I had to stop with the what ifs and just be amazingly thankful that it ended up being a minor thing. I have a sore bum, but that is about it.

on our way home after "the tap" ......thankful for God's protection!

Spaghetti with Simple Tomato Sauce

I have to tell you that I am a huge Spaghetti fan. Were it not for how messy it makes my kids, we would eat it a lot more than we already do.

I just found this recipe from Cooking Light that I really like. I love it because the sauce is so simple but it tastes like it has been simmering for hours. And the shaved pieces of parmesan reggiano don't hurt either.

Preschool Update

One of the fun things about Peter's school is that the teachers take pictures during class and they post them on a private account online. So fun to see what he is doing at Pre-school. I can tell that he is really liking his classmates and teachers. It is a fun time.

first day

This was taken the first day of class. They use it for their cubby boxes--the teacher laminated each of their pictures on the front of their cubbies so that they would know which one is theirs. I have to say, he looks a little over excited here. :)

hanging out

I have no idea what they are doing here, but it is a pretty cute picture. I like how happy he looks.

reading books

Ms. Colleen and Ms. Anna

Ms. Colleen has been a teacher at Peter's preschool for at least 15 years. Her son went to preschool there and is now a senior in high school. Peter really likes Ms. Colleen and Ms. Anna!

This is not of Peter obviously but I went to high school with each of these boys' mothers. I also think it is a pretty sweet picture of boys playing together. Peter has not quite mastered how to pedal a tricycle although I am sure once he does he will want to give the kids rides around the playground.

They have a big pipe that the kids can walk or bike through on the playground. He looks pretty proud.

This morning when I was reviewing the letter "D" with Matthew and Peter I was going over their bible verses as well. Peter was able to sing to me both of the verses they have learned so far--"A friend loves at all times" (to the tune of Farmer in the Dell) and "Listen to what God says" (to the tune of London Bridges). It was really sweet.

We are really thankful that such a great preschool is so close by!

Words from the "Wise"

One day I was telling Peter that he needed to be nice to his friends. I quoted a verse we have been learning, "Be kind to one another." He told me that "Lightning McQueen says that, not Mommy." I told him Lighting McQueen must read the Bible.

Peter has a habit of asking me what is for dinner way in advance. Like after lunch. "what's for dinner?" Today I told him that we were having Pizza. Pizza is his favorite food. He told me he was glad because pasta tastes very very very very bad. And he said that it hurts when it goes down his throat. I don't get it.

At lunch the other day, Gramps got a big Peanut Butter shake. Peter kept wanting to have some and I kept reminding him to share. After many, many sips, I said he would have to ask Gramps again if he could have yet another sip. He said to my dad, "Gramps, God wants us to share." At least what we're saying around here is getting in that noggin at some point!

Matthew has a hard time with his "ing" words. "Where are you go-ning? What are you do-ning?"

Matthew likes to cook. He asks me for pots and spoons while I am cooking dinner and stirs them and says, "I cook-ning, mama."

Peter says in the morning, "My light turned green, mama! Time to get up!"

Yesterday, a 10 year old was asked some questions by our Pastor so that she could have her first communion. I thought Peter might be interested since he knew the 10 year old, so I was watching his facial expression. He looked very serious. I whispered, "Pastor Paul is asking her some questions about God." He whispered back, "Mommy, why do you paint your toes?"

Peter walks around the house saying the names of his preschool classmates, "Mason, Benson, Sophie, Gavin, Tobin." 

Peter asks everyday now, "What are we doing tomorrow?"

My dad told Peter he was tired and Peter said, "You should take a nap, Gramps."

One of our friends likes to say, "Kookypants." A lot. Tonight Mike tried to call one of the kids "kookypants" and Peter informed him that only Uncle Larry can say that word. Mike asked if it was okay for him to say "kookyshorts" and Peter informed us that it was not.

Matthew's 2nd Birthday

Cripes! It has been exactly a month since Matthew's 2nd birthday! I gotta get on the ball. I didn't think my friend over at KandidKiwi would be so timely and post her 2 year old's party pictures the next day!

I had the house all decorated for Matthew's party the night before, so when Peter and Matthew woke up they were VERY excited to see the house decked out with Thomas the Engine stuff everywhere. We started a tradition of bananas and chocolate syrup (I try to artfully "spell" out the age with the banana slices) on our birthday mornings. Here is Matthew feasting on his special breakfast.

enjoying his birthday with his Omi. he LOVED this train

playing in the sandbox with his girlfriends...

always good for a laugh...

Thomas the Train cake

When it was time to blow out the candles, Matthew was more interested in grabbing the Thomas engine off of the cake than blowing anything out. I had to grab the engine off while we were singing "Happy Birthday" to avoid a major freak out. It had frosting all over the bottom and he smeared it all over his shirt. Pretty funny.

He barely ate any of his cake because he was so excited about the Thomas engine.

Peter was super excited about cake. It was all he talked about all morning.

the birthday boy was found wandering the party in someone's ugg boots at one point...

opening presents

He was most excited to get a soccer ball. It was really sweet. He was ready to stop opening presents and play with it. I had to remind him he had a lot more to open.

hanging out...

One of my favorite parts of his party was that we were surrounded by our friends and family. The year after Matthew was born was very challenging for me and I was so thankful to have most of the people that were such a support celebrating Matthew's 2nd birthday with us.

sweet friends

We capped off the day with more present opening and a skype session with both sides of the family. Here is Matthew chatting with Tante Heidi....

It was a great day! So fun to see Matthew so excited and it was nice to be able to celebrate what a blessing he is in our lives.