Thankfulness

It has been ages since we have posted, but I wanted to write this down and didn't know where to put it.

We had some very cute quotes from our kids this Thanksgiving.

One evening I was putting Stanley to bed with Steve and I said:
"Stanley, I'm very thankful for my wonderful family and getting to spend time with them. What are you thankful for?"

There was a bit of a pause and Stanley came back very loud and clearly "Mommy, I'm really thankful for spiders." Hmm?? And, then he ventured to add that he was very thankful for daddy's scratchy beard.

And, then i got a cute little pumpkin from Amelia's class. On it, it says:
I am thankful for...
- Flowers
- Hairbrush
- Mom
- Clothes


We might need to work on what it means to be Thankful.

Kids Science

Stanley got a science kit from Ricki and Chase for his birthday. He made some crazy gooy stuff this morning when he first opened the kit. Then this evening he worked on making a glow-in-the-dark bouncy ball out of "globules" and putting them in water and then letting it dry. It was pretty cool. He called it his cosmic ray, after a book he has. 

When we were going to sleep, this was my conversation:

Me: Stanley do you like science.

Stanley: yeah, I'm learning how to do science

Me: You know who else is a scientist?

Stanley: Yeah, Daddy and Papa Doug

Me: Yes. (I wanted to add in engineering as an OK profession) Stanley I'm an engineer. Engineers build stuff
Stanley paused for a moment

Stanley: Mommy, you know who else is an engineer? Papa Doug. He is a better engineer because he builds lots and lots of cool stuff.

I'm guessing Stanley still remembers Papa Doug building the ramp and the box structure. Forgot my 10 years of engineering, Papa Doug's engineering clearly made more of a difference.

My family out for an adventure

The kids love spending time together. In sure enjoyed the morning while sleeping in too. 

Christmas culture

This year during the holidays, Stanley had quite a bit of culture. 

He loved the Rockettes in NYC! Thanks Lele for taking us. Here is a fan cam shot. 

And then the SF symphony that he also loved. It had Looney tune cartoons played during it. Stanley loves cartoons, even old ones, so this was also a success.  

 

Sailing

It's finally started raining in SF. The kids are prepared in their boat. 

Tahoe Wedding

We went on a family vacation to our friends wedding in Tahoe last weekend. We all had a blast at the party and playing with friends up there. A very good trip. 

Stanley even asked at one point if the house we were renting was our new house. He didn't seem like he would be disappointed if it were. 

Wedding dancing

Need I say more.

Face Paint

Out of the blue, Stanley asked for his face to be painted. Julia had to return stuff to the party store anyways, so she got some face paints while she was there. Take a look at her handy work. Pretty good if you ask me. It's a Batman day, in case you didn't notice...

New Words

Him: "What are those?"

Me: "Pits."

Him (after thinking for a while): "Just like the Rancor pit!" 

Me: "Yup, just like that." (Glowing a little)

He has a book with Lego figures that tells most of the story from "Return of the Jedi" and we have read it about 1.4 million times. Apparently he is learning stuff from it. He will grow up to be a good little Star Wars fan. Maybe. 

My concern at this point is that his Lego book is spoiling the plot and all the surprise of Star Wars. But I already know the story, and that doesn't stop me from wanting to watch the movies any more. 

Off to school

Stanley started school this past Tuesday. 

When he ended last year back in July, we were in a routine of 

- stanley happily eat his breakfast, but stall like crazy

- stanley whine about going to school and 

- Stanley cry and grab onto us when we go to leave him at school. 

He seems to love school in general once he is there and always talks fondly of his friends at school. However he sure didn't like the transition independent of how many 'maps' we drew of his morning and what was coming, or timers we would set for each action, or discussions the night before, or lack there of discussions. 

We were happy that at least the first day of school was a happy drop of. 

and it helped that his previous nannyshare buddy is now going to school with him. 

Bday celebration at the Russian River

We had a great time celebrating Peter's 4th bday near the Russian River. Peter. Is Stanley's previous nannyshare buddy.  Granted there was very little water left in the stream, it made for some good hikes down the stream bed and a great cookout in the river bed. 

The '4' year old crown and the BFF friend crowns were critical for a bday celebration. 

And all three of the kids took naps and slept in the same room together. 

Amelia enjoyed it too. 

Amelia enjoyed the dirt and rocks. She still wanted to put a few 'good ones' in her mouth, but would open up her mouth to take them out when we said 'too big'. 

The cake was a fun creation by the kids. Without cake pans, the cast iron skillets worked wonderfully for the round head and square body of Spider-Man. 

Amelia helped in her own way.  

The final creation I though was pretty impressive done by 3 kids and 2 moms with limited utensils. 

Amelia at 10 months

This was never published.  A blast from the past. 

Amelia is a mover at 10 months. She enjoys pushing things around, stools, her high chair, a little walking toy. And she is quite adept at it. She can push it until it gets stuck and then pull it out to move the other way. She also makes lots of sounds. She makes the sound of cars and if I make a growel sound of a lion she will try to copy me.

She also is quite a tough cookie, she loves he brother dearly and even if he by accident takes her feet out from under her, she just gets right back up and keeps going. 

The big thing also is she just started being able to eat without vomiting and Now she realizes how hungry she really is!!  Boy she can eat and she will eat everything besides kale. 

At 10 month 

- Amelia can push a cart around 

- she can crawl up and down stairs easily

- climb up into the couch and then stand on the window ledge 

- hold onto drawers or other ledges and lift her feet up to try to get ontop. 

- make a few sounds to match someone 

- make her brother laugh and keep him entertained 

- 2 bottom and 4 top teeth 

She definitely likes playing with the toy kitchen.

Our only concern with Amelia is that she is small. Really small on the weight chart...well actually just down right off the weight chart. Her height is 50%, She is really active and seems to be doing fine in all other ways, but she definitely doesn't like to keep down food all that well. You can sort of tell how small she is in the video above.

Happy #1 Amelia

We will try to catch up on posts, but happy birthday Amelia! 

Loving having people and balloons around for her birthday. 

Her version of a kiss, a version of eating my cheek. 

Doing her work. If the dishwasher opens, she puts everything down to come help! She also likes to stand on the door and take the cups out of the top rack. We end up with foot prints on the door. 

Sailing

We went sailing with our friends Sam, Brenna, Wheeler, and Uncle Jackson. It was super fun and the boys had a blast sleeping on the boat. Check out the pictures. 

Papa Doug's museum

There was a museum in Rochester that was boring when I was a kid. It was filled with a lady's old toys that you could see, but not play with.  It is all redone and Papa Doug took Stanley  and me. It was amazing. 

Stanley shopping and working at Wegmans

Big brother Stanley bear...

Having papa Doug by his favorite food, hamburgers and hot dogs from a carte 

Papa Doug was done with the game after 10 minutes but Stanley kept going and even brought him back! 

Working at a chicken coop..

And driving a Sesame Street taxi 

Thanks strong museum 

Yoyo and Papa Doug's

I took the two kids to rochester and we had a great time. 

I didn't think much of the trip since I've travels lots with stanley and a bit with both kids. However, I guess it isn't comment because the amount of people that commented and helped me was amazing. It was a very easy trip thank you to everything g being late. We got to bart and it was 39 minutes late. So we joined another couple to get in a taxi. At the airport the plane was late. I was worried about missing my connection to rochester, but no worries that plane was late too. The kids were golden. They both slept a little here and ther, but were awake most of the time, until we started the decent into rochester and they both fell asleep. I had two gracious people carry my stuff while Amelia was in the front carrier and stanley on my back. 

On the at back it just as smooth but Amelia choose to spit up every time we took off, so we did end the trip a bit smelly. 

Here are a few pics. 

Little dragon

Amelia all dressed up as a little dragon