Christmas Conversation

Before we embark on our yearly holiday quest I just wanted to leave you all with this holiday message that the boys shared with us the other day in the car:

Sam: Once upon a time the sheperds came to see baby Jesus and his mommy and daddy.  And then the shperds took baby Jesus!  They were mean sheperds!  
Ben: And then the angels came and got them!  They were super angels!  

The story didn't end there, but it got a little gory after that.  I hope this Christmas tale from the mouthes of babes resounds with all of you as you remember the reason for the season.

Merry Christmas!

Santa Claus is coming to town

The boys are pretty obsessed with Santa Claus. They like to pretend to be him and wear the tiny Santa hats from when they were babies.  And the hats are much the worse for the wear.  They put little toys in boxes and then ask me to tie them up in a ribbon and then give them to me. Then I open it, and act really surprised, and then they take it away put everything back in again and then I have to tie it up again. Our arm chair is Santa's sleigh. The fill it with presents and then sit on the edge and fly to all the houses. It's pretty awesome.

Santa Claus was at our ward Christmas party. We waited in line for a while and then Ben decided that he didn't want to sit on Santa's lap after all, so we went and ran around and tried to touch all the decorations taped to the stage as fast as we could.  And then Sam decided the same thing and he came and ran around, too. We were about to leave, literally walking out the door, when Sam said, "I didn't get to see Santa yet!" and ran with Zach back to the line. Ben and I followed, because Zach had the keys. So, we were the last in line, but the line was significantly shorter, so it didn't take as long. We got up to Santa and Ben absolutely refused to sit on Santa's lap. Sam wouldn't either, but he would look at him at least. And smiled a lot.  And happily accepted the gift Santa gave him.  They were not very cooperative when it came to taking the picture, but it was taken, and I think it defiinitely captured the moment.

Gingerbread Houses

Last week a group around here was having a gingerbread house decorating event and we went.  And it was fun.  The "gingerbread" houses were actually made out of graham crackers, which we did when I was a kid, so I was cool with it.  But, instead of just using hard setting icing to glue the crackers together, they had orange juice boxes as a sort of frame for the house.  They worked okay.  The boys liked them, anyway.

Ben and I started out trying to do it without the juice box, but nothing doing.  It collapsed on us.  Luckily, there were no injuries.

Zach and Sam finished a lot sooner than us, because they didn't have any architectural setbacks, and they ran off to play and eat from the cheese platter.  Ben and I finally finished and then I managed to get these two pictures:

The back of the house and Ben being posing for the camera and being silly

The front of the house and Ben posing for the camera and being exuberant

And then he proceeded to eat off almost all the candy.  Sam heard the sound of sugar being converted into energy and came to investigate.

Sam muches away on the house.

Here Ben's house after he had picked a hefty portion of the candy decorations off the side.  

We decided to head home after this, because the boys were jazzed up and it was getting too crowded for the likes of us.  So, we went outside and chased each other around the fountain.

Good times.

(P.S. Those Santa hats?  They say "Baby's first Christmas" on them and are stretched to oblivion)

In the morning, the boys came downstairs and found the remains of their gingerbread houses on the table where I had left them.  They were completely devoured before breakfast.  

See Zach Run

Zach ran a 17k this weekend. He came in 5th in his age group! It was on a trail up in the hills, so the terrain was a little different than he was used to, but he still managed to run it all in about an hour and a half. He did great!

After parking the car, the boys and I got there right in time for the race to start. I thought we were standing out of the way, but it turns out we were right where they were going to be running. The guy starting the race yelled out, "Watch out for that kid!" because Sam had wandered off into the running area. I had to grab him out of the way. Thankfully, no trampling occurred.

Luckily for me and the boys, there was a playground right by the finish line that the boys happily played on for the whole time. They were pirates. Sadly they decided to be mean pirates when some other kids showed up and went around saying, "Arrrr!" in their scariest pirate voices. And the poor two-year-olds playing kept starting to cry and run away. So, instead I got 8 cents from my purse and we hunted for treasure and completely froze our finger tips. Good times.

Date Night Dinner

You may have noticed that little poll I put up at the side of the blog asking how much on average you would spend on a date night dinner. The reason? A couple of weeks ago I was watching America's Test Kitchen and Chris Kimball of bow-tie fame said that you couldn't even eat out for less than $120 these days and I said.............."Whaaaaat?" And then after my heart started beating again I wondered if some people really do spend that kind of money on eating out. I know that he is in a different part of the country, and that a lot of that expense is probably coming from bottles of wine, and that Chris and I are at very different stages of our lives, but still, I think he is spending way too much on dinner. And according to the results of my super-duper scientific study, so do you. Of my multitude of participants, most spent only $10-$20 on date night dinner. Conclusion? Either Chris is out of touch, or the readers of this poll are really frugal. I'll let you decided on that one.

Visitors!

Last week we got a visit from my brother Chris, his wife Jen and their boys, Mikey, Mathieu and Marc. I think the picture below is evidence enough that a good time was had by all.

Clockwise from top: Marc (in red shirt), Sam, Mathieu, Mikey, Ben, Chris' feet.

While the grownups chatted downstairs, the five boys proceeded to systematically destroy any semblance or order upstairs and have a grand ol' time in the process.

Ben took this picture of Marc.

We showed them the sites and Stanford, which was nice and uncrowded because it was Thanksgiving holiday and all the students were either gone home or sleeping somewhere. So, luckily, we weren't injured by any careless bikers, which is all too possible at other times.

Chris, Marc, Ben and Mathieu playing in the fountain. (It had been dyed red for the big Stanford/CAL game, but it really just looked pink. And disturbing.)

Sam and pink fountain. It is amazing that no one fell in. Amazing.

The entourage

Mikey, Chris and Marc in front of Memorial Chapel

It was so much fun to see them. But too short. Next time come and stay for longer guys! We all had a blast and the boys cried and cried when they left. It was sad.

And here is a picture Ben took of himself. Just for fun.

Garden Update: Holy Peas!

Planting snap peas may have been one of the smartest things I've ever done. They are growing like crazy. They are delicious. Ben will eat them, and Sam is considering it. And they make me look like I know what I'm doing. Which, of course, is completely true.

Morning sunlight through pea pod.

They've actually outgrown the bamboo stakes I was using as supports, but they've gotten quite strong and don't seem to mind. If they get too much taller, though, I'm going to need to support them with something else. I don't know what yet. (Click HERE to see what they looked like before) It's very encouraging to have things actually growing. I wish I had grown more now.

Here is an explanation of what is growing (Click on it to see it bigger).

The Tour

My lettuces have been eaten quite a bit by unidentified creatures. I'm going to try to home style remedies to keep them away. We'll see how it works. And they're kinda bitter. I haven't been overly faithful with my watering. Domage.

Cut-and-come-again lettuces

Now, the real question is, what do you use bok choy/choi for? And is this already too far gone? And why are there so many different spellings for bok choy?

Enormous Bok Choi

Chit Chat

Ben: Ma, you wanna come play puppies with us?

Me: Puppies?

Ben: Ya, it's a fun game where we pretend to be puppies and be puppies.

(while Ben was using the potty and Sam and I were right outside the door)

Ben: Ma, I need some privacy.

Me: Oh, I just love you to pieces!

Sam: No, I don't want to be in pieces.

Me: Oh, okay, well I'll just love you then.

Sam: Someone can't love their child when they're broken into pieces!

(I only caught the end of this, but they were interviewing each other with their little microphones.)

Ben: And what's your other favorite food?

Sam: Cereal!

Ben: You already said cereal.

Sam: Ya, I know.

(And here is a continuation of the above several minutes later. For the record, I don't think Ben has ever knowingly eaten cabbage.)

Sam: What's your other favorite food?

Ben: Cabbage.

Sam: What's cabbage?

Ben: it's a favorite food I like.

Tales from all Hallow's Eve!

I haven't gotten into Halloween for many a year. It's just never really been my holiday. I like the candy and the dressing up part, but that's about it. I'm not into scary. Or being scared. Or ugly things. I do like pumpkins and their seeds, but not their guts. I will say this though, Halloween is infinitely more fun with kids who care about it. Ben and Sam really got into Halloween this year. In the days and weeks leading up to it, the boys kept closing all the doors and turning off all the lights upstairs so that they could play Halloween. They would come downstairs and say, "Ma, come and play Halloween with us. Let's go upstairs to Halloween!" There are often spooky voices involved. It's been fun.

Ben and Sam showing off their muscles in a small portion of their costumes

The boys decided quite a while ago that they wanted to be space robots. I made them felt armbands with '"controls on them and jet packs out of plastic water bottles and paper mache. The jet packs were, if I do say so myself, pretty spectacular. I took a series of pictures if anyone is interested. We combined those with their letter shirts (from their super hero costume last year). Total cost = $0. And the boys loved them, which was the whole point.

Ben working on carving his pumpkin

Ben and his Jack-o-Lantern. If I called it a pumpkin after it was carved I got into trouble. "It's a Jack-o-Lantern, Ma!"

I mentioned to the boys that I could dress up as well and they jumped right on that. So, I went as a fairy queen. My neighbor let me borrow the wings and the wand and I used my old prom dress for the... dress. And yes, if I held my breath when Zach zipped me up I could still fit into it. Except I had a bunch of little bruises at the tops of my arms. I think the sleeves were too tight.

Sam, Me, and Ben after leaving a trick-or-treat.

They did pretty well about saying "trick-or-treat" and thank you. If anyone asked what they were they said, "space robots with masks."

Zach went as a bummer.

Sam, Zach and Ben

Ben, Zach and Sam. Too adorable.

It was very much fun. We let the boys stay up with us past their bedtime eating candy. They are doing a very good job sharing. I asked Sam if I could have a piece of candy and he said, "Yes, but just one!" The magic is in the inflection. They're also sharing with each other, which of course does a mother's heart glad. The only problem is that I should have snuck the package of Runts last night, because they wouldn't let me have any of them today. But, despite an almost total lack of banana Runts, a good Halloween was still had by all.

A Work in Progress

The Dresser as it was

As you may recall, I've been wanting to paint the boys dresser. For those of you who didn't want me to paint it, sorry, but if I was wavering at all, it all got pushed over the edge because Ben and Sam kept making me cover the dresser with a blanket at night because the squiggles scared them. Seems like good enough reason to paint to me. So, I finally got around to it. But it's not done. Why isn't it done? Well for a list of reasons. You'll hear about them shortly, first off, here is the dresser as it is now.

The Dresser as it is (in sunlight)

The Dresser as it is (with flash)

The actual color is somewhere between these two shots. So, the reason it is not completely finished is because:

1. I accidentally picked the wrong color (I originally wanted a shade darker than this, but I didn't bring the paint chip with me, so I picked the wrong one).
2. We got the cheapest roller we could find and it left little hairs all over the front of the drawers.
3. We didn't use a primer and, though you can't really see it in these pictures, a lot of the squiggles are showing through the green paint.

So, I'm going to need to sand down the drawer fronts again to get rid of the hairs, prime them, and paint them again. Now, the question is, do I stick with the same color? Or do I paint the drawers in the shade darker that I was planning? I'm going back and forth.

I'm also going to do some little tweeking to the inside of the drawers and the cupboard. I think it will be awesome. So, give me your two cents. Unless you don't like the color, then keep your comments to yourself.

Strawberry Jam Forever

A while ago I decided to try and make some freezer jam because I found some of the pectin stuff on sale at Target. The first batch I made was amazing and we went through four containers in about two weeks. Maybe less. So, I decided to make some more. And this time, because I'm a little bit crazy, I decided to add figs. It's delicious, by the way.

A word on figs. A good fig is amazing. But there aren't too many out there. At least there haven't been for me. So, you should always try them, because you may be in luck. Oh, and you eat them by just biting right into the skin or cutting it into quarters and biting out the flesh. That is all.

Cutting the strawberries

(How do you like my can shelf?)

Cutting the Figs (a messy and juicy process)

Two filled jam containers

Freezer jam is ridiculously silly. It's just cutting and mixing basically. And yet, I found, as I jiggled the jam jar, that this jam was not setting up. Hmmm... How could I have messed this up? I asked myself. I kept checking the back of the package to make sure that I had followed all the instructions. I decided it would set up if I just put them in freezer, but I kept checking. I was staring at the package, willing it to show me my mistake, staring at that unopened package, staring, staring. Oh. I'm a moron. Ya, I hadn't opened the pectin. And I definitely hadn't mixed it in. Just sugar and fruit. Yep, total moron.

Anyway, I added it later and all is well. Luckily, freezer jam is a very forgiving preserve. And tasty.

It's Threeeeee-D!

Another event we participated in whilst Zach's family was visiting was to see the re-release of Toy Story & Toy Story 2 in the theaters. In 3D. I'm not much into movie gimmicks and what not, and I really can't tell the difference between high-def and regular-def television. Nor can I really see the difference between film and digital if you are film-snobbishly inclined. But this was... awesome. Especially the beginning of the sequel, which takes place in space. I would highly recommend the experience.

And to add to the enjoyment, the boys sat completely spellbound the whole time. They absolutely love Toy Story. And they were also wearing hilarious 3-D glasses. It was definitely a great time. Thanks, guys! It was awesome.

P.S. See! I told you they like Toy Story. And they've mostly stopped fighting over who gets to be Buzz. Mostly.

Space Ranger Ben and Sheriff Sam

San Fransisco and Running

Zach's family came in a couple of weeks ago for Scott/Grandpa to run his second marathon in Oakland. It was great to see everyone and we had lots of fun. We went into San Fransisco, got completely stuck in traffic, got Hannah scared to death about earthquakes, walked down by Fisherman's wharf, remembered how there were a ton of sea lions down there, had lunch, forgot about the sea lions, went to see the Ghirardelli chocolate factory, found out that they had moved it to San Leandro, got several hot chocolates anyway, and then got the gitters. It was great.

Sam, sampling the chocolate

Ben, loving life

Shauna, Hannah, Emma, and Scott partaking of the deliciousness

Scott ran a good race and we all were impressed and a little in awe of the endurance and insanity that you must have deep down in your bones to want to do something like this.

Coming towards the finish line

The best part of this race was that they let the friends and families of the runners (that's us) have some food too. And that was awesome. That has always been my main gripe about races is that they are so stingy with their food. I've been sitting around forever waiting for my runner to come in, I think I'm entitled to a bagel. And maybe some juice.

Luckily, these guys had plenty of food and handed it out quite generously. It was great.

Eating and Chillin'

While they were here Shauna was busy making these little crocheted robots for the boys. Aren't they so cute? The boys love them. They are very into robots, astronauts and space right now. They picked a bunch of planet books out at the library.

Sam's Robot

So, we had a great time. And people should come and visit us more often. We like it.

Ben and his tongue

Welcome, Welcome!

So, I managed to get this video to work, but still no pictures. Hopefully I will figure out this problem ASAP. Before Zach's family arrived, I decided to let the boys make a welcome banner for them. (Sorry, I didn't think of this for your visit Gma! I hope you still felt welcome :). So, here are the boys trying their hands (and later feet) at painting.

Excuses, excuses...

We've had several guests over the last couple of weeks. My Grandma came several weeks ago and Zach's family came last weekend. And we did all kinds of fun things. And I've got pictures. But for some reason, I'm having all kinds of technical difficulties with said pictures. So, bear with us. We apologize with the delay.

Pre-School Craziness

I don't know how it is where you live, but here people get a little crazy about pre-school. I remember going to someone's house for dinner when the boys were about one and a half and getting on the discussion of preschool. I hadn't thought much about it at the time. The hostess told me I was a moron and that I should already have them on a waiting list if I really loved them, which I clearly didn't. I'm paraphrasing only slightly. I also found out that night that some people pay almost as much for a month at one of the really good pre-schools in our area as what I paid for a semester in college.

I've been trying not to freak out, I mean, I never went to preschool. And neither did Zach, which is a better comparison, because I'm not really doing a whole lot with my degree right now, except pretending to be cooler than I am.

So, I'm trying to spend the time creating an educational environment, but, I'm not great at this kinda thing without some kind of outside force that I can let down to motivate me. Because I'm the kind of person who spends an hour or so working on a new blog banner, just to post it, chicken out, because I used an image with a watermark on it that I bypassed, and then spend another half hour coming up with another, though less cool one. This is all during the time that I was planning on using to prepare some kind of preschool activity. Luckily, I found one in the process. But what are the chances of that happening every time?

Anyway, here is Attempt #1 at some kind of pre-schooly thing.

We glued some of the fallen leaves onto the tree trunk and I talked to the boys about autumn and seasons a little bit.

Ben and Sam were actually pretty interested for about ten minutes. They really enjoyed using the glue, which they'd never used before. But of course, I only had one, and that caused a few problems. But it actually went pretty well, I'd say.

I hear that the part that really matters with kids at this age is the process, not the completed work. Which is great for us. Because they tore all the leaves off the paper once they were dry. So, no pictures of completed works. Sorry.

Glues sticks and leaves, classic childhood

So, hopefully, somehow my darling children won't be scarred by not being in some kind of pre-school we can't afford or for not having a more put-together type mom. But, if all else fails, at least we'll have these beautiful projects. Oh, wait. Ben tore them up when he was done.

Huh.

In the Garden

One of the many things that have been keeping me from this here blog is our garden plot. We got one in the spring and had a friend take care of it for us over the summer. But, apparently the ground was cursed or something, because almost nothing grew. So, when we got home we dug up 3/4 of the garden and laid a bunch of chicken wire down (to discourage gophers) and then put the dirt back in. It was quite a bit of work, since the ground was like a rock. Luckily, for me, Zach did a pretty hefty portion of it.

Now, the hard work has paid off, because the seedlings we planted are growing beautifully.

Those are snap peas on the left on the bamboo trellises and on the right are lettuces and a bok choi.

In fact, dozens of the radish and carrot seeds that I planted in the spring are coming up now. Go figure. Of course, they are coming up with a bunch of weeds, but such is the way of things.

I've been trying to have the boys help me, but it is slow going. They enjoy the idea of gardening, as far as it pertains to digging and watering things, but not always the in such a way that will keep things alive. Which is one of the goals.

Ben, playing with a piece of eucalyptus bark, after "helping" me in the garden.

Those are the lettuces on the left, then some marigolds and spinach and a strawberry plant, that is not looking great. And I planted a bunch of garlic bulbs over in the area that looks like just dirt.

Once I took Sam with me, and he helped by filling his mouth up with the water that Zach had sent with us and then spitting it onto the plants. The following is a documentation of the event:

Sam is spitting water onto the dirt from the water bottle

Katie: Stop it, Sam. That's not funny.

Sam: Mom, it's a little bit funny.

(he said this about ten times for each plant)

Sam: I think this little fella needs a drink.

He fills his mouth with water and spits it out on him.

So, here's the thing..

Ya know when you have some big event that you feel that you really need to blog about before you can move onto something else or you'll forget and then you'll be doing one of those long-after-fact type blogs, which can be cool, but are often pretty lame-o. Are you familiar with this?

Anyway, I've been waiting to move on till this silly trip back to California was documented. And in all the hubbub of life, I just haven't gotten to it. And I've finally decided that I'm not going to. At least not for a while. I'm going to move one to the rest of our lives. Starting.....now! Well, in a little while, anyway.

Monhegan Island

Despite the great outcry for more pictures and information about our trip across this great and very wide country, I'm going to go back a little bit and tell you about our trip to Monhegan Island.

Now, for starters, Zach and I have not been away from the boys for more than a couple hours since they were born. So, we decided to take advantage of the time while we were with my parents. And we decided to go to Monhegan Island, which is ten miles off the coast of Maine.

View of the village from the dock

The whole village is just dirt roads and there are only a couple cars that the hotels use to shuttle bags back and forth.

We got some lunch right after we checked into the hotel and headed down to lobster cove

Lobster Cove and Moxie

(Moxie is a drink from Maine. Zach really likes it. I don't. It's okay at first and then there is this terrible, terrible after taste. It's like Satan's plan.)

Me, taking a break after hiking along the rocky, misty trails.

Unidentified beautiful cove

This is me showing how lost we were. The maps are not terribly specific and in an effort to keep everything "pristine" there are almost no markers. So, we were never really sure where we were.

Zach above the crashing rocks and waves.

(Scary note - according to local legand, they have never been able to save someone who fell into the water on this side of the island. Step carefully.)

Zach and Seagull

As I was taking the above picture this seagull swooped in about five feet from my head and landed right by Zach. Uncomfortably close. And it stayed there. So we left.

But it followed us. Luckily we lost him once we got into the trees.

Zach and Fog

I don't know if anyone else will think this sign is as funny as we did, but we were laughing about it for quite some time afterwards.

Monhegan Island Lighthouse

We found these swept up on the beach. Hey Chris, are these yours?

Our hotel room.

It was basically just a bed and a dresser and there was a shared bathroom that was outside in the hall. But it was terribly quaint.

Lace Curtain Window

One of the island traditions is to build "fairy houses" out of woodland elements. This is a pretty sweet fairy pad we saw.

Me and the crashing waves. We saw a seal swimming around in this cove.

Misty Mountains

There was supposedly a hurricane coming in that was going to cancel all the ferries coming to the island. If that had happened we would have stayed an extra two nights. But it didn't. But we had fun anyway.