11.12.2012

E Quotes

For me, these never get old. I’m sure that for you, they will someday. Bear with me. :)

One day E got grounded from TV all day. A little bit later, he came into my room with a piece of paper, gave it to me and said, “I am going to DIE because I can’t watch TV anymore. So I’m here to invite you to my funeral!!”


He was reading something about toy that said it would fly in the air, and he said, “They must not work in space.”

Me: “Good one, E!” (Thinking he was making a joke about there not being any air in space)

E: “No, Mom, I wasn’t kidding!”


E: “My new socks are molting and getting fuzzies between my toes!”

11.05.2012

E Quotes

Just to brighten your day a bit. :)

I can’t remember the story behind this one, but I wrote it down because he either showed me how to do something or proved that he knew something because then he said, “See? I know a trick or two!”


Telling me about a book he read, he said, “Mom, when _______ (a character I can’t remember) went around the world he visited Scotland (he made sure to say Scotland in a very Scottish accent).” Then he said, “Did you see my Scottish accent on that word?”


We were talking about the possibility of him walking home with his friend Drew and he said, “Walking home with Drew?? I love walking! It’s just my specialty!”

11.04.2012

Halloween time!

Well, here’s a recap of our fun Halloween time adventures.

Eli and I have been reading the Harry Potter series since the summer (we’re thisclose to finishing book 4) and so when the time came to talk about what to be for Halloween, he was adamant that he wanted to be Harry Potter. I tried to convince him to be Draco Malfoy (since his hair would be much easier to match) but he only had eyes for Harry. (Secretly I was tickled pink that he wanted to dress as any HP character!)

So I set out to try and put the costumes together. We talked to West about it and he was dead set against being anything remotely close to any character associate with my beloved book set. I was so bummed! We almost had him when we had him convinced (for about a week) to be a pumpkin from Hagrid’s garden, but then he must have figured out our plan and refused. For a long time he was set on being Captain Hook. But thankfully, as Halloween drew closer, he decided on being a ‘scary ghost’, which sounded good to me because I was fairly confident I could cut holes in a sheet and call it good. ;)

The next thing to figure out was what I would dress as, since I knew I wanted to make it a family theme. Nathan, of course, was always going to be Hagrid. :) I decided to go as Dolores Umbridge, mainly because she was such a wonderful character in the book series! This sums up how I feel about her:

Agh, it’s so true! To the point that I didn’t even want to continue reading the book because I couldn’t stand her. I can’t wait until Eli can meet her when we’re done with book 4. :)

Anyways, I searched and searched for a pink blazer or sweater vest or coat or ANYTHING that would work to go as Umbridge, but just kept coming up empty. And I wasn’t sure enough that I could tackle making one myself. So instead, I went with the easy fix and got a robe, put on a white shirt and grey skirt that I already had, and went as Hermione.

I have to give myself some kudos just a little here, because I’m pretty proud of myself, haha. I sewed Eli’s lined robe and grey vest, as well as Nathan’s brown vest and made his yarn beard and wig. Of course, it was way too hot during our California Halloween for him to wear the wig and beard for longer than a few photos, but I’m just glad I figured out a way to do it!

Finally, here we are in all of our wondrous, magical glory!

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My personal favorite? Eli’s glasses and wig. They were so great. :) And he absolutely loved it, which makes me happy.

And yes, it’s true – apparently I thought too much of my hole-cutting skills because obviously the ghost costume didn’t turn out that great, but at least it matched with our theme! :)

Here are some more fun photos from the night:

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Eli posing while saying his favorite spell

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Cupcake decorating! (And yeah, the minute the shutter clicked on my camera for the family photo, West took off his sheet and didn’t put it back on for the rest of the night. Ah well, at least I got the family picture before that happened!)

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Face painting

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Showing off his loot

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Our friend Shawnie tried on Eli’s wig :)

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Me with the Hogwarts: A History book I made because we all know Hermione is the only one who has ever read that book! :)

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Me and my magical boy. Gosh, I love that kid.

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Our friend “Waldo”

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And his sister, a Lalaloopsy doll (so cute!)

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Another friend as Minnie Mouse

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And her “Zombie Killer” brother, checking out how hot the chili turned out to be!

 

A few days later and it was the real Halloween night! The boys got ready and helped me pass out candy while we waited for Dad to get home. Because he always takes them Trick-or-Treating!

This time West wanted to go in his dragon costume from last year, so he was now Norbert!

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And my cute little boys!

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Nathan ended up taking them Trick-or-Treating and he said that Eli got lots of great reactions from everybody. :)

Happy Halloween, everybody!

(Even if a few days late, ha.)

10.29.2012

E Quotes

So here are a couple of fun recent “E Quotes”.

 

Eating corn on the cob for dinner: “Dad, something’s weird. Every time I finish a piece of corn, it looks like a rectangle!”


Sometimes I go out jogging in the morning before the kids wake up. One day when I got back, E said:
"Mom! While you were gone I made you a fruit salad for breakfast! It’s got green apples, red apples, and fruit loops!”


One time when he was little, we were driving through In-N-Out and they had a big picture window so you could see all the workers inside preparing the food. Spotting this, E yelled, “Mom, look! It’s our friends in there!”


That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more E quotes! :)

9.26.2012

Janae got married!

Last week we were so excited to take a little family vacation and head off to Utah for a wonderful event – Janae and Topher getting married! Nathan took a few days off and E got to do an independent study program from school so we didn’t even have to miss any days, thankfully.

We had a great time driving up there, with the kiddos happy in the back seat and Nathan and I listening to a good book on tape. I’m not a big desert fan, so I don’t really love the drive, but having my hubby and family there with me the whole way made it better.

The first night we got there, we got to hang out with my sister Ang, and it was fun to get to talk with her for a while. She’s such a cute girl and is so good with our kids. I just love it when she’s around because she helps me out with them so much. Plus it’s great to have a chance to catch up with her and find out all about the latest twists and turns of her fun, college love life. ::wink:: We love Angela!

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The next day we went to a baby shower for Renee, and it was a lot of fun to get to see so many of Nathan’s family members that we rarely see. Renee and Lewis don’t know what they’re having (boy or girl) so it was fun to see what kind of gifts they got. ;) I can’t wait to see what they end up having! They’re going to make great parents.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures at the shower, I was more concerned about E not trampling over Lewis’ grandmother’s garden, ha.

Craving some yummy food, we met up with Angela and Tom to have dinner at Benihana. Outside the restaurant, there was an art installation with hundreds of rubber hoses buried in the ground and sticking up all over the place. The boys had the best time running around the tubes, pretending it was a jungle, an obstacle course, and a swamp.

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Of course, the dinner was delicious! I always love going there for the yummy soup. It’s one of my favorite things. The show is usually pretty good, too, and the boys love watching the food being prepared. It also seems like the chefs put a little more effort into it when there are kids around, too. :)

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We had such a fun night with them! I love getting to hang out with my siblings, it’s always so much fun. I sure do miss them!

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Oh yeah, forgot to include the Angela creeper photo:

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Part Two coming soon…

8.23.2012

E’s funny sayings

Sometimes it’s a roller coaster living with a child like my oldest, E. He’s remarkably smart, has a mind like steel trap, and he likes to store new vocabulary words or phrases that he reads or sees on TV. And while he thinks he understands the context in which they should be said, he’s still not that socially mature, and tends to repeat these new words or phrases at random times, which can either be funny or embarrassing – sometimes both.  And then other times he just says funny stuff because he’s E and that’s part of his personality.

A friend of mine suggested I start writing down these funny things that E says. I have to admit, I’d thought about doing this before (and have a few scraps of paper with quotes on them that I just couldn’t resist writing down) and that was just the reminder I needed. So, please enjoy, some fun and funny E quotes:


E: “Mom, can we go to Ralph’s (our local grocery store) tomorrow?”

Me: “Why, bud?”

E: [He slams down four quarters on the kitchen table with his hand.]

“So I can spend these four bad boys!”

 

--Pause for dramatic effect--

 

“That means these quarters.”


While eating his frozen lemonade at Disneyland, E realized it was starting to melt in the hot sun.

E: “Mom, I’m going to wait until it’s all beverage, then drink it up.”


At the salon, waiting to get his hair cut, looking through a look book (with a lot of examples of haircuts).

E: “Mom, you should get your hair cut.”

Me: “Should I get it cut as short as yours? Maybe just chop it all off?”

E: “Yeah. Or you could look through this book, there’s a segment for girls too!”

Still at the salon, while I took W into the bathroom to go potty.

E: (to the hair stylist) “I want to cut my hair like this!” (points to a faux-hawk in the look book)

Stylist: “Is that OK with your mom?”

E: “It’s OK with me!”


There are a lot more where these came from, so I’ll try to get some more written down. For posterity, right? And maybe this will garner me some sympathy points when he is older and realizes what it was really like to raise him! ;)

8.15.2012

Oldies but goodies

I came across some old photos tonight that I just had to share. They’re from March of ‘09.

Here’s our little W as a baby, wasn’t he just the most adorable thing? Looking at these now, I can see lots of the facial expressions that he does today are the same as when he was a little goose. Too cute, I tell you!

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(And seriously, posting with LiveWriter strips away all the yummy color that is supposed to be in these photos and I don’t know how to make it stop. It’s frustrating! But just imagine these pictures with gorgeous, saturated color instead of this bland mess you see before you. Ugh.)

I swear, babies are freaking adorable. Especially when they look like little old men. And speaking of little old men babies, my seester Ali is due to have her own very soon and I’m super excited for her! I’ll be so happy to get to go visit her and hold her little guy, and then I’ll be so happy to give him right back when he needs a change. I mean, what are aunts for! ;)

I really can’t believe my little old man baby W is growing so fast! I mean, he’s actually out of diapers and has graduated to the ranks of underwear-er! Miracle of miracles! I just know I’m going to blink and he’ll be off on his mission to some foreign land with no internet access. Craziness.

6.20.2012

San Diego adventure

Today turned out to be a surprisingly fun day. Last night we headed down to San Diego to meet up with Nathan as he’s staying there all week for a client down there.

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So we woke up in the hotel, got Dad off to work, tidied up the room, and left for our day’s adventure. I had wanted to surprise the kids and take them to the Children’s Museum, but found out it was closed on Wednesdays. Bummer for bad timing. Also, the plan to swim in the pool’s hotel was scrapped when I realized I had packed only W’s swimsuit and not E’s. Needless to say, E was devastated, since that’s what we had planned, so we needed to find something “just as fun” to make up for it.

So, we hunted for this little, well-reviewed bagel shop for breakfast, and after a few U-turns [Side note: Boy, do I miss my Droid incredible and its turn-by-turn navigation system. That’s one of the only things I miss from when I switched to an iPhone. I swear, I’m not fast enough to memorize a map nor do I have the capabilities to sit and watch my map to see when I have to turn and which way, etc. while I’m driving. So I tend to have a lot of wrong-way turns and exclamations of “Dangit!” or “That was the left I needed…” while driving in unfamiliar territories…] we finally made it to the bagel shop, which ended up being worth the crazy trip. I had a bagel with cream cheese and the boys had croissant breakfast sandwiches with an apple each. Yummy!

After that fun adventure, the kids kept asking what we were doing next when we happened to drive by a cool-looking park. Ding ding ding! We turned in, got out, and headed up to play. It was a really fun park, full of new equipment and seven or eight freshly-delivered mountains of new sand. Yeah, that was going to be everywhere. But at least the kiddos enjoyed it, and the weather was perfect so we had fun.

Once the kids got semi-tuckered out, we left the park. Of course, only after changing W’s massive poop explosion, complete with a new pair of pants. Yeah, that bad. And yeah, we’re working on potty training so I don’t have to worry about those anymore, but we’re still in-progress…

Anyways, I decided to head south a little more to Old Town San Diego and see what kind of fun we could find, and while driving around, I saw a sign for the Mormon Battalion visitor’s center, run by the church. I had wanted to check it out, but wasn’t planning on it this trip. I was excited that we just sort of happened upon it, so we decided to go visit.

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The presentation was really fun, and it’s just a well-done production that tells about the history of the Mormon Battalion while keeping everything entertaining, especially for the kids.

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I was duly interested, however, since the hubby and I had gone through the “Mormon Battalion call for volunteers” during our Trek experience in April, so I wanted to learn more about it and felt a little connection to that.

The boys were excited to pan for gold,

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work the well,

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make and build with bricks,

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and wash some clothes the old-fashioned way.

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They also enjoyed the view from the top of the tower.

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But I think they enjoyed sitting in these rocking chairs the best! :)

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Later, we walked down the street to the main Old Town thoroughfare and saw our fair share of maracas, cowboy hats, Mexican wrestling masks, and other silly souvenir-type stuff. Or at least I did. The boys could have stuck around all day perusing the “treasures”. By this time, however, we were all hungry so we stopped at a place called Fred’s for lunch. The food was good, and I was glad to sit in some shade for a little while.

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W enjoyed practicing his photography skills:

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Then we went over to a cute state park area that had a bunch of buildings facing a nice open area where the kids climbed around and used up some of their great energy stores. :)

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After that, we were tired and wanted to head back home. So we walked back to our car, and discovered it was time to change poop explosion number two! Two pairs of pants in one day! Craziness. Thankfully we were heading back home and didn’t have anywhere else to go for the day.

The boys loved the trip and I’m hoping we can do it again, with the hubby joining us for the fun family day next time. :)