A relaxing day at the beach?

Though it may seem that we have it made living only 20 min. from Carmel Beach, I was reminded on Mon. why I never seem to actually go there. My friend Yvette was in town and I wanted her to actually get to hang out at the beach the last full day she was in Monterey, so we packed up the kids and all of our things, picked up lunch from Subway and we were off. We got a great parking space right in the front, made our way down the immense hill and got a great spot next to the water. We sat down and started to eat and of course had to weigh everything down so it wouldn't fly away in the wind. The entire time we are eating, Jack is running around our blanket, kicking up sand and knocking over our drinks. Drew on the other hand is planning the great blanket escape and trying to crawl across the beach to catch all of the birds. Jack refuses to eat anything but my Baked Lays and finishes his drink in 2.2 seconds. We are 15 min. in to our afternoon at the beach and Jack is already bored. I try to interest him in sandcastle building but he doesn't really get the concept. The minute I build it up he crashes through it with his feet. It's a constant battle to keep him entertained. Drew on the other hand is having a great time eating sand as if it were a giant bowl of Cheerios. He has sand in every orifice and is constantly working to get the hat off his head. Jack is now yelling, "Mommy it's time to gooooooooo!" We spend a little while longer trying to get them settled and realize that it's just pointless, so we pack up our belongings, strip the kids down to their diapers, shake off the sand and head home for nap time. Just another relaxing day at the beach. Maybe we'll try again in another month or so.

Wild Turkey anyone?

This morning a happened to glance out the window to find a bunch of wild turkeys inhabiting my backyard. I can't believe that Moxie didn't even notice them. I snapped a few pics before we let Moxie chase them away. I didn't even know they lived by the beach.

Vettie's visit

My friend Yvette came to visit us in California last week and fun was had by all. My kids just love her and it was nice to have adult conversation on a daily basis. We did all of the sightseeing in Monterey and even took a day trip to San Francisco. Here are some pics from her visit.

Cruisin' injury

Drew got his first (of many to come) cruisin' injury. He was trying to climb up onto the foot locker we have in the hall with our photo albums in it and cracked his face on the side. This is the day that it happened. As you can see he's fine. :) Chicks dig scars right?

Backyard fun

We spend most of our days in the backyard, enjoying the mild California coast weather these days. Here are few of the things the boys enjoy doing in their big backyard.

Jack enjoys playing hide and seek with Mommy but always chooses this bush to hide behind and repeats, "Where's Jack" over and over and I have to say silly places he might be hiding. He giggles and then when he can't stand it anymore he comes out and says, "There he is!" Then we repeat the whole thing over again until Mommy can't think of anymore places he could possibly be.Drew enjoys playing on a blanket in the yard. However, he can manage to get off the blanket now and crawl around in the grass so I have to watch him like a hawk because he will put anything into his mouth.
Jack can almost ride his trike by himself. He only needs a push to get started but there isn't much room to ride so we are soon going to go to the park so he can try out his new skill on a long sidewalk.

Drew's favorite mode of travel outside is his walker. He can go any direction these days and will soon be flying around the patio.

Bubbles are always a hit with both boys but now Jack gets even more excited because he can now blow them himself and chase after them.

The boys have started taking wagon rides together and both have permanent smiles on their faces as we travel through the entire backyard. Jack is always saying "Go faster, Mommy, faster!" It's a pretty good workout for Mommy, those boys are heavy!

More blanket fun

Jack likes to explore the shady side of the house AKA the forest. It has lots of leaves, ivy, bushes and pots for him to look at.

Our new house has a lot to live up to backyard wise. Jack really loves the one we have now. I hope DC has a good place for my boys to play.

Backyard fun

We spend most of our days in the backyard playing because the weather here is so mild and Jack and Drew are both little boys with nonstop energy. Here are some of their favorite activities.

Jack enjoys trying to make pictures and letters with chalk. He will do a few scribbles and then look to see if anything looks like the letter of the alphabet and act as if that's what he meant to draw all along. :)

Now that Drew is a bit more stable and mobile the boys can enjoy wagon rides together in the backyard. They are both all smiles the entire time and Jack always wants to go faster and faster.

It's OK, it was an accident

Jack has taken my words and twisted them again. Now anytime he does something bad (Knock Drew's hat off his head, knock Drew over, throw a toy and hit something etc. etc.) he says, "That's OK it was an accident." I think he thinks that as long as he says this phrase after the fact then everything is OK. Ugh! I guess we need to learn the difference between on purpose and by accident.

Teeny, Tiny things

I'm not sure how babies do it but they seem to find even the most minute little crumb on the floor, pincer grasp it and then put it directly into their mouths. Today Drew was rolling/crawling around the floor as usual when I heard him start to cough. I went over to see what he was doing and realized he had not one, but two things in his mouth. The first was a cellophane wrapping of some sort and the second was a tiny piece of pretzel that Jack must have dropped on the floor. I fished both out of his mouth then immediately had a flashback to the most disgusting thing that Jack managed to get into his mouth and swallow.
Jack used to love to play by the back door to our house in Albuquerque because he loved to push the doggie door and watch it swing back and forth, until he learned to crawl through it anyway. One day I saw him chewing on something and looked inside to see what it was. It was a June bug. YUCK! They used to crawl under our chair in the living room and die. Moxie would let a few in every time she went through her doggie door and Jack must have found a dead one and eaten it. Oh well, he's still around today, so I guess all is well. Let's see if Drew can top that!

Jack's ABCs

Jack has been working on his ABC song and has pretty much perfected it at this point. He knows all of his letters by sight, capital and lowercase.

Drew's a Crawler

Drew has been putting a couple of knee moves together to get something but today is the first day he actually crawled and he's off!!!!! Life as I know it is over!!!! :):)

Jack attack

Last summer in Albuquerque, when Jack was about 1 1/2, he used to throw things over our neighbor's wall. Thank goodness we had really nice neighbors who loved kids. They used to call it the Jack attack. All of his backyard toys would end up in their yard and they would kindly just throw them back when they got the chance. Today, I had just put Jack down for a nap in his room and could hear him still playing. I asked Nick to go check on him and put him back into bed. All I heard from downstairs was, "That's bad!!!". Oh no, what has he done now? Apparently he had thrown almost his entire arsenal of toys, shoes, socks and baby wipes out of his upstairs window onto the roof, driveway and street. It was a mess. I couldn't believe how much stuff he had gotten out of the window in so little time! At the time, I was extremely annoyed and started putting all the stuff into bags. These bags then went straight to the guest room where they will remain until he earns the right to play with them again. In retrospect however, I wish I had taken a picture of the mess outside with Jack's face in the window. For now you will just have to imagine and chuckle as I'm sure all of our neighbors were doing as they watched us fish everything out of the gutters.

Drew sat up 8/8/2008

Drew has been very close lately to getting to a sitting position from his tummy. He pushes up on his side but can't quite get the arm out of the way to sit up. Jack was watching his nightly show, which is now Super Why instead of Wubbzy, and I was making a menu for the week. Drew was rolling around the floor as usual and kind of paying attention to the show. He loves the main character Wyatt and giggles everytime he's on the screen. I looked over a few minutes later and the little turkey was sitting up and giggling. I had missed it!!!!!! Oh well, he's done it for me many times since then and after his afternoon nap he was sitting up in his crib waiting for me to get him. Thankfully, we lowered his crib weeks ago, we saw this coming!

My little jumping bean

Drew loves his jumparoo just as much as Jack did.

8/6 C'mon baby!

Today we went to storytime at the library and Jack had some troube sitting still for the stories so we went out to the playground early to burn off some of his energy. Since we went early however there were no kids to play with. So we sat on a bench and had a snack while we waited for the other kids to arrive. Finally a little girl about 5-6 years old came out and Jack ran right up to her and said, "Hi, baby. OK baby hold my hand and we go on the slide. C'mon baby, let's go!" He calls every kid he meets baby, however in this situation I had to really laugh because it sounded a bit like he was sexually harrassing her by calling her baby. I hope this isn't a glimpse into his teen years.

In loving memory of Margaret Champlin

I regretfully could not attend my Grandmother's memorial today but this is a picture from the last time that I saw her and how I'll always remember her as the happy, caring person that she was. I love you Grandma.

8/5 Stupid Mom

Moxie was driving me particularly crazy today with incessant barking. She seems to always have something to bark at when Drew is sleeping. She stands on the side of the house right under his window and almost always wakes him up. When she came in the house after guarding the backyard from what was surely the dangerous UPS man, I said, "Thanks a lot Moxie, you just woke up the baby." Then I hear a little voice behind me say, "Stupid dog," which I'm sure I've said on many occasions and just didn't realize that little ears were listening. I smiled to myself and didn't make a big deal of it but now I'm dreading the day that something inappropriate those little ears heard will come out of his little mouth in public.

8/5 Drew pulls up

Drew has been trying to pull up for awhile now and could never really get past his knees. He would pull up to a kneeling position and stay there for quite awhile. While giving Jack a bath tonight, I had Drew in with me on the floor. He immediately pulled up on the tub to see what was going on and got to his knees, but then one extra little pull to see what was in the tub and he was on his feet for the first time. He proudly flashed me a huge smile and I now know that this is the beginning of the end of babyhood.

8/4 Bugs Bunny

It has been diffucult to get Jack to eat his vegetables lately. He'll eat a couple of cooked carrots or green beans but only to get to dessert which lately is Sugar Free Jello. He out of the blue asked for a carrot the other night. He wanted an entire raw carrot. Nick asked me if he had ever seen Bugs Bunny. I didn't think so, so we pulled an episode up on the computer and Jack sat and watched and laughed and ate an entire carrot. Who knew a cartoon bunny could get my 2 1/2 year old to eat his veggies. Next up, Popeye the Sailor man!

8/3 Drew on the move

Drew has not perfected the crawl yet, but through a series of very complicated moves can get anywhere he needs to go. He was after what I thought were Nick's books on the shelf tonight, but after he got to the shelf, he pulled his body up and reached way inside above the books and pulled out a soccer ball rattle. He's definitely a baby who knows what he wants and how to get it.

8/3 Jack the stinker

Jack had me convinced today that he had thrown my camera over into the neighbor's yard. He helped me to get the ladder to look over and was so convincing, that when I didn't see it, I thought that maybe he meant the yard on the other side of the house. So we dragged the ladder to that side and looked over, no camera, but there was one of his Tonka trucks resting nicely in the fallen leaves. I finally found my camera in the couch cushions. Did Jack just learn to lie? And why would he lie about something that would get him into trouble? Just to get the ladder? HMMMM

Jack 7/31 Brave little monkey

Jack has a habit of getting up on the coffee tables in our house and jumping from them to the couch. Today the table was a little further from the couch than usual and he was afraid to jump. He kept saying "One, two, three" and then when he got to three would crouch down and say, "oh, just a minute." Stalling because he was afraid to jump. Nick finally coaxed him into jumping and was brave the rest of the afternoon.