Thanksgiving

I was so excited when my sister Heather sent me a text a few months ago and asked to be invited to our house for Thanksgiving. I hadn't really made any plans, and absolutely didn't want to drive anywhere. But now, hooray! We would have a real Thanksgiving!

And then she said she wasn't coming. It's a long drive from Utah, you know, and such a short trip...I understood. I certainly wouldn't have made the trek. But I was still really sad.

But minds were changed again! And they were coming! Yippee! They had to drive south (which tacks on another 8 hours of driving), to avoid a storm through Tahoe, but they arrived safe and sound on the Tuesday before T-day.

That's when the cooking began. This was my first year hosting Thanksgiving, and I was a little nervous about everything. I had never made a turkey before. Usually I am strictly pies. We spent two days cooking, and made ham (ok, the Honey Baked Ham company made the ham. I set it on the counter to come to room temperature), a turkey (breast), parmesan-artichoke-sourdough stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, rolls (mmm, and honey butter, mmmmmm), green salad, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, apple pie, banana cream pie, and a pumpkin cheesecake. There were four adults. And six kids who don't eat. Yes, we had oodles of leftovers. After the meal, it looked like the food hadn't even been touched. We could have fed 18 more people. People who eat. But it was fun to make everything and it was all very tasty. Heather and I were quite proud of ourselves for making it all come together, without any help from, you know, adults (i.e., my mom).

Anyway, it was so fun to have my sister and her family here. I wish they could have stayed longer. We always love having people over, and it was especially nice to have family around for the holiday. It was great for me to be able to stay at home, since traveling is kind of hard these days. Not just physically, but I've found the closer I get to my due date, the closer to home I want to stay. Some form of nesting instinct, maybe?

Thank you Millers for coming! It was wonderful to have you!

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Me attempting to carve the turkey. Heather looking pretty while watching. Lucy looking on hungrily, praying that I will mess up and the bird will fly off the cutting board onto the floor, so she can scarf it down in two chomps and a lick.

The whole spread. This picture is hilarious. If you look closely, you can barely see Heather behind me and my belly. I almost completely eclipse my tiny little (but older!) sister. ;)

Heather and I are very proud! It all turned out delicious!

I asked Heather to take a family picture for our Christmas card. Uhh, it didn't go so well. Getting our kids to smile at the same time was a feat that proved to be impossible, and in most of the pictures Jake and I are making some bizarre face because we were trying to tell the kids to smile, while keeping smiles on our faces. I really need to learn how to photoshop other faces into a picture. I think that's the only way we are ever going to get another decent family picture.

We hope your Thanksgiving was great too!

Halloween Week o' Fun

Better late than never. Have I used that excuse enough during this pregnancy?

To kick off the Halloween festivities, we went to the pumpkin patch. Here in Half Moon Bay, there are TONS of pumpkin patches. Like, real ones. Pumpkins are one of the main crops grown here on the coastside. So up and down Highway 1 you just pass pumpkin patch after pumpkin patch. They have the ones with all the bounce houses and slides and petting zoos, but I wanted the real deal. You can buy other produce grown there, it was super cheap, and there are even lots of pumpkins still on the vine, but we didn't bother with those.

Wyatt was very busy running around picking out the perfect pumpkins for everyone in the family. Even for baby sister and Lucy the dog. Poor Micah was just about squished in the wheelbarrow by the time we left! Wyatt doesn't believe that the perfect pumpkin is necessarily the most symmetrically shaped, blemish free pumpkin. He likes a pumpkin with character. Character to match the person for whom the pumpkin is intended. Kidding. Anyway, it was pretty funny to watch him during the selection process. He took his job very seriously.

While we were there, Wyatt "found" this old truck. It's Mater! From Cars!

As we were leaving...

"Wait, mom! One more!"

A few days later, the pumpkin carving. Here's Wyatt reading the instructions to dad.

And finally, checking out his handiwork, and singing "Five Little Pumpkins."

Wyatt's preschool Halloween party. The first of three Halloween parties we attended that week.

This was the first year that Wyatt picked out his costume. He wanted to be a ghost. I was a little surprised. I thought that he would want to be a race car driver, or McQueen, or Thomas, or something like that. But no. A ghost. Which was great, because it was the easiest costume ever.

Wyatt had a hard time staying in the costume parade. Twirling was irresistible. I understand, Wyatt, I really do.

The next fun party we went to was the party for the residents and staff at Jake's work. Micah was dressed as a puppy, because, well, if you've ever met Micah, you know that he IS a puppy. Jake was a dog catcher ("animal control officer"). Cute, huh?

There are no pictures of me (for what should be obvious reasons), but I was a black widow spider. I channeled my 7 year old self ("Going Buggy," anyone?), wore black leggings and tunic, filled black tights with stuffing, attached them to a black tunic, hung them from my arms, and then put a red hourglass cutout on my belly.

The boys (the little ones), were the hit of the party.

Micah's costume didn't stay on very long. He is a very sweaty boy. We don't usually require him to wear clothes.

Next up, the church party. Here are my boys in the parade.

After collecting some loot at the Trunk-or-Treat, we headed home, where the boys couldn't resist a little more time with the jack-o-lanterns. And a few more spooky Halloween songs.

Wyatt LOVED Halloween this year. He's finally old enough to really get into holidays and special events. He's only just stopped requesting and singing Halloween songs. Its so fun to watch him get excited about it. He's since transferred his excitement to Christmas, which he is even more pumped about. We can't wait!

The Stewart Family Comes to Visit

My cousin Jeff (and Jake's bff) and his family came up to visit us two weekends ago. They were here for three days, two of which were rainy. Boo. But that's San Francisco for you.

We met them in Santa Cruz the first day, and hung out there, letting the kids bark like sea lions while Kim and I tried not to throw up from the horrible smell. Sea lions stink. That afternoon, back at our place, we went down to the tidepools where Christian caught a sea star and brought it back to our house. Where it is still drying/dying in our front yard. Thank you, C. Its a nice addition.

Sunday was nice to just sit around and catch up. Our kids totally entertained each other downstairs holed up in Wyatt's room. Wyatt absolutely adored Christian and followed him everywhere. Everything Christian said or did just cracked Wyatt up. They just couldn't get enough of each other. Pretty cute.

Monday we went to breakfast at our favorite local restaurant. It got a little wild with 5 kids under the age of 4, but still fun. Afterwards, we drove up to the city to see some sights. We went to the Golden Gate Bridge, drove down Lombard Street, went to Fisherman's Wharf, took a bay cruise, and finished up the fun at Ghirardelli Square for some ice cream.

It was so fun getting to hang out with our friends again, we miss living near them. Hopefully they'll come back soon! And here is an invitation to anyone else who wants to come visit: Please come visit us! We love having visitors!

The foul-smelling Sea Lions of Santa Cruz:

At breakfast:

Brothers:

Wyatt wanted to do everything Christian was doing:

Can you feel the love?

Even on his day off, he can't stop working. He and Jeff were doing this all day.

This is a video from the bay cruise. Sixty minutes of complete and overwhelming nausea. I wanted to die. But instead, I sat down on the deck and focused on deep breathing and keeping my clam chowder in my stomach. People kept having to step over me and I know I ticked a lot of people off, but I couldn't get the strength the stand up and go inside. Plus, when I finally did go inside, it didn't really help matters.

Helpful tip: Turn off your volume for this one, the sound is LOUD and windy with obnoxious soundtrack music.

This last one was taken while we ate ice cream. It has nothing to do with ice cream. The only reason it is included is because I think Micah is cute. I could just eat those cheeks for breakfast. :) And yes, Micah does have a shiner. He was flopping and going crazy at church (the usual) and smacked his face on the pew in front of him. Two weeks later the bruise is just starting to fade.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Finally, the Hawaii post. I know I promised this post a while ago, but blogspot hates me. I have attempted several times to get these pictures loaded, only to get multiple error messages resulting in me cursing and banging my head against the computer keyboard. Well, the blogspot gods finally smiled on me, and I got the pictures loaded. So without further ado...

Back in September, Jake and I took a slightly belated 5th wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii. Our anniversary was in March, but because of work, we weren't able to get there until September. We (mostly me) had been planning this trip since Micah was born (dreaming of Hawaii got me through many colicky nights when Jake was out of town for weeks at a time). It was fabulous and exactly what this pregnant girl needed.

We stayed in Maui for a week. I had been having some major anxiety about leaving the kids for a week (although they were the most capable of hands with Jake's wonderful mother and sister...thank you again Laraine and Hollie! We owe you big time!!!), and when I am anxious about one thing, I get anxious about everything else. Which resulted in a minor panic attack on the airplane. Not at all embarrassing. I swear I get more and more neurotic and weird the older I get. Or maybe its just the pregnancy hormones. Yeah, I'm going with that. Anyway, our first stop after arriving in Maui was here:

What can I say? We love Costco.

This was the view out our room. Beautiful. I loved waking up to this every morning. So peaceful and gorgeous.

We drove the Road to Hana. We stopped at several places along the way, swimming, hiking, eating, hanging out on various beaches.

The water in all these waterfalls and pools was pretty chilly. Jake was brave and went swimming in all of them. I only went in the water in a few of them.
This is a black sand beach. It was stunning. A long time ago, when there was lava being flung into the water, it turned into rock upon hitting the water, and that's how these black sand beaches are formed. Or something like that. I had a few embarrassing moments here. It looks peaceful enough from here, but the waves were pretty strong. Also, most of the "sand" is actually rocks. Smooth and round. The waves were pounding, and while trying to come in from the water, I could not grip the bottom with my feet. Jake had on water shoes, so he had no problem getting a grip, but I kept getting knocked over on my butt, or hands and knees. Jake kept trying to pull me up, but I just could not. I was laughing so hard (as were several people on the beach. Can you blame them? I mean, I was laughing at other people when they couldn't stand up.). Can you imagine the sight? A 7 month pregnant lady who keeps getting knocked over by the waves in 3 feet of water? It was awesome.
This is the view from the other side:
I am intrigued by banyan trees. This was on the walk down to some pools off the Hana highway.
We did some snorkeling:


These are from the Luau:

More snorkeling pictures. One of the days we were out, we saw two sea turtles and a bunch of eagle rays. My two favorite animals.
This picture is kind of blurry, because its from far away, but thats a turtle swimming next to Jake.

This is the Nakele blowhole. It was pretty awesome. The water comes in from a hole on the side of a lava formation, goes through a tube, and then shoots up out of this hole, the water sometimes spraying as high as 70 feet. We got completely soaked.

Okay, I loved this so much, I even put up the world's most unflattering picture of myself just to show you how cute it was. The lava rock in the area has been eaten by seawater, making really crazy jagged formations. It looked like we were on a different planet. And this hole was formed somewhere along the way. Awww. I love it.


We had a great trip, lots of relaxing, eating delicious food, lounging, getting massages, eating shave ice, watching surfers, seeing sights, and generally enjoying our time off. It was such a nice vacation. We can't wait to go back!

Pre-School

Wyatt started pre-school a few weeks ago. To say he was out-of-his-mind excited is a bit of an understatement. And I was even more excited. And its not because I wanted to get him out of the house (which I know you were all thinking), but because I knew he was going to love it and have so much fun. I've been feeling kind of bad lately because things are so boring for a three-year-old around our house. Micah is kind of a whiny pain of a younger brother sometimes, and mom is fat and lazy and doesn't ever want to get off the couch. I could tell Wyatt was getting sick of the daily grind here, and that's why I was excited to give him some structure, some friends, and just something new and fun. Plus, Wyatt needs the socialization more than anything else. He is kind of a shy kid, kind of hangs back, and from what I have seen so far, pre-school has been helping him come out of his shell. Since he started, his language has come a long way, and in general just seems happier.

We had been talking about pre-school for a few weeks, and he kept saying "I go to pre-school...just like the Wonder-Pets!!" Wonder-Pets is this obnoxious Nick Jr. show that I kind of hate, but he LOOOOOOOOOVES, and the characters are pets in a pre-school. And FYI, the real reason I tolerate the show is because Wyatt always wants to eat salad now. At the end of every episode, they eat celery. Whenever I serve salad or anything like it at dinner, I tell him its celery, and then he eats huge amounts with gusto. "I eat celery, just like the Wonder-Pets, mom!!" Yep, just like the Wonder-Pets, dear.

Here are pictures from his first day. He was so cute and so excited I kind of wanted to eat him for breakfast. I had a hard time getting him to take pictures, he just wanted to get to school.

The back pack is empty. We were at REI the weekend before, and he absolutely insisted he get a back-pack. I wasn't even planning on getting him one, because why on earth would he need it? I'm not quite sure how he even knew that back-packs were part of school, I had never brought it up. He must have picked up that information somewhere, because he kept telling me he needed a back-pack for school. And Jake couldn't resist getting a tiny Kelty back-pack. Its a big moment in a boy's life, getting your first Kelty. I'm sure my dad will be proud as well.

Here we are at the front door of the school. He was a little unsure, but mostly, didn't want to stop for pictures.

Showing off his cubby:

Playdough is one of Wyatt's top five favorite things about pre-school:

And it was about five seconds after this picture that I started to tear up, so I had to get out and go home. I mean, I know I am emotional, but I really didn't think I would start to cry. I wasn't sad, so I don't know where it came from. It was just looking at him, with the other kids, he just suddenly looked so big and grown up. It just really overwhelmed me all at once. Since then, when I look at him in pre-school he and the other kids look like tiny kids again, but at the moment, I don't know. I'll blame it on the pregnancy.

We've been at it for over a month now, and it is still the highlight of his week. I'm not going to lie, I love having the three hours twice a week to run errands and get the house "clean" with only one kid bugging me. I like having the time to bond with Micah. He is so fun when I can devote all my attention to him! :)

We all love pre-school!

Poop Charts and Terrible Threes

Wyatt poos in the potty. Ahh yeah. He is potty trained. This was, by far, the BIGGEST event at our house this summer. Several months ago Wyatt was displaying all the signs of "toilet training readiness" that I read about in my development books, so I was all excited to give it a go. It was a massive FAIL. He did great for a few days, then started refusing to go in his potty, and then when he would go in his pants, he would throw a huge fit, start crying and screaming and refusing to let me take off his pants to clean up. Fu-un. I don't understand where that came from. I also don't understand why potty training had to be so emotionally-charged. Anyway. That was the end of that. The experience kind of scared me off, and honestly, I am lazy. Changing three diapers a day is a lot easier than constantly asking, "do you have to go potty? do you have to go potty?" and then hanging out in the bathroom for ten minutes 25 times a day while he does three drops of pee and then spends the next ten minutes trying to get his pants back on, flush the toilet and wash his hands. Meanwhile, Micah is crawling all over the bathroom, playing in the trash can, picking up hairs off the floor and trying to stick his hands in the toilet and then in his mouth. You can see why I didn't want to mess with the status quo. I was happy to have him in diapers until he is ten. But then...preschool. Wyatt and (mostly) I have been so excited for him to start preschool. I knew we had until September to get the kid out of diapers. So we started slow, going in the potty before bath, when changing clothes, and then one day, just bit the bullet and put him in underwear. And...it was easy. All the sudden he was doing all his pees and poos in the potty. He did pull-ups at night for about a month or two, but after a few weeks was waking up dry, so we don't do that anymore. He has had a few accidents (including one truly horrific experience at Target...I don't even want to talk about it), but mostly it has been great. I'm relieved it is over.

Wyatt loved his sticker charts. Micah loved them too. Wyatt would put the stickers on, and then every chance he got, Micah would pull them off. Survival of the fittest stickers. It saved me from having to make 47 new charts.

As you can see, Wyatt prefers to wear underwear backwards. It drives me nuts on his behalf, but he chooses to be able to see Mater and Lightning McQueen and Thomas when he looks down, rather than be comfortable. Why don't underwear makers put the stupid characters on the front of the underpants, rather than on the backside? It doesn't make any sense. The only real problem it causes is that Wyatt has a hard time getting his underpants back on after potty time. I keep telling him its because they are on the WRONG WAY but whatever. Maybe he is just trying to accentuate his butt. It is so cute, no?

Part Two

Another big change occurred in our house this summer. Wyatt turned into a giant booger. Truly. I was feeling so happy and relieved and maybe a little smug that MY child never went through the "terrible twos." Oopsie. You know what they say about pride going before the fall and all that. Basically what happened is this. About five minutes after Wyatt turned three he morphed into the devil. I don't know what happened. As a two year old he was great. A little spacey, but great. He turns three, all of the sudden, TANTRUMS! FITS! SCREAMING! DEFIANCE! FLOPPING! HITTING! SHOVING! THROWING THINGS AT INNOCENT BYSTANDERS! Whew. It isn't pretty. After asking everyone I know, and many people I don't, I have come to the conclusion that this is "normal." Pretty much everyone said the same thing. Their two year olds were great, and then a dramatic change at three. Things are getting better, but he has learned how to throw a proper fit, and isn't afraid to do so at the drop of a hat. So beware everybody. The rest of the family has learned to ignore it, which helps, but we are all quite eager for this fun phase to phase out. One positive, he makes Micah's dramatics seem like a sunny day at the park with floating bubbles and chocolate covered strawberries.

I just hope he returns to normal before baby sister comes. Is that way too much to ask? Pretty please?

Even more summer catch-up!

Sometimes I feel like blogging, most of the time I don't. I apologize for bunching all my posts up, but the blogging bug just hasn't been biting this Bug much lately. This is the first post of several more to come, in which I will write about some really exciting things, including our fabulous trip to Hawaii, and culminating in a post about my pregnancy-induced herniated belly-button and my hemorrhoids. Stay tuned, I know you don't want to miss any of it!

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Summer in San Francisco is not the best. It is cold. It is overcast. It is foggy. The average high all summer was 55-57 degrees. This is kind of depressing for a solar-powered girl from Fresno. We went to my parents' house several times to soak up sun, go swimming and enjoy a normal summer. If you call 100+ degrees normal, that is. The boys were a little timid around the water, and they liked swimming with grandma more than they liked swimming with me. Wyatt especially liked making a pool-side car wash for all his favorite cars.

Wyatt and Micah in the "floater boats."

Our last trip to Clovis was Wyatt's favorite. Grandpa took Wyatt on a train ride from Fresno to Hanford (about 40 minutes), where Micah and I drove down to meet them for lunch and ice cream at Superior Dairy. Wyatt was beyond excited to ride the train, and couldn't wait for it to arrive at the depot. However, when the gigantic and very loud train pulled up to the station, he burst into tears. I think it was part fear of the loud noise and immense size, but also, I think he was worried it was going to leave him at the station (it pulled in really fast). Once he boarded the train, the tears dried. My dad said that he was really excited about the whole thing for about five minutes, and then got bored. Fortunately, the passengers across the aisle had donuts. Wyatt got the stares, started doing his "mmm...MMMMMMM!!!" noises, and the people took the hint and offered him a donut (like they had a choice). So, yeah, the donut was the real highlight of the trip. Once we arrived in Hanford, we had HUGE ice cream sundaes, and Micah ate us all under the table. I mean, wow. Its impressive when a one year old can eat more ice cream than me, especially pregnant me.

The above picture was obviously taken pre-donut.

After seeing these pictures and seeing all the stains on the Amtrak seats, I have to say, I'm relieved I didn't make the train trip. Yicky.