Sentences

Aria is so full of sentences these days.  Dolphin and I were both shocked when she said "Daddy should help jacket on".  I asked her if she wanted help putting her jacket on and instead she walked over to daddy with those words.  Seriously, should a 1 year old know the verb "should"?

Children's Museum

On this chilly Decemer day, we went to check out the Factoria Mall Children's Museum.  The kids really enjoyed it.  There were water activities, tons of toys, and tons of activities.  Aria was very attached to the toys in the young child's area.  She enjoyed bouncing on a inflated donkey and dragging this mower (which she called a vacuum around). 

Xander and I had fun doing a butterfly puzzle up in the tree house/pirate ship.  I was so proud at how hard he worked to match the puzzle pieces.  He also enjoyed creating a log jam in the water activity fountain.

Wimoweh

Aria's not the only one to share her artistic talents. Xander's a car singer.

Turtle

Aria became a Turtle today.  Turtle is the name of her new class at school.  She's moving up to the two year old class a couple of months early.  I think she will enjoy it as she is super social and will have more kids capable of some social interaction in the two year old class.   I am excited because potty training officially begins in the two year old class, and I'm so looking forward to being done with diapers.

White Christmas

Down in Bellevue, Christmas looked just like any other day, rainy and chilly, but not too cold.  However, just 40min away, in Steven's Pass a winter wonderland was waiting for us.  This year, we got the kids snow pants and snow gloves for Christmas.  We took a quick drive up to a snow storm on to try them out.

Xander was a MASTER of the snow.  Without any instruction from us, at all, he immediately starting making and throwin snowballs.  He also tried to make snow angels.  He even climbed up big steep snow banks and slid down them. He was in total heaven in the snow.  Who would have thought this considering he's previous years have been in snowless-Texas.

Aria was not a huge fan of the snow.  She was upset in this picture because I took away her pacifier, but she didn't really enjoy the snow.  She found the gloves to be very restricting and the snow hard to get around.  She did give a snow man a big cute hug, but my fingers were too cold to whip out the camera in time.

After a bit of snow fun, we headed back down the hill towards home with some gas-station hot chocolate, popcorn, and talk of what snow sledding instruments we would bring on our next trip up to the pass.

Pizza for Santa

This year, Santa called Xander on the phone.  Yep, that's right.  One of Santa's requests was that Xander leave out pizza for a snack.  So, Christmas Eve, we made pizza so we could have a few slices for Santa.  Aria was an excellent spreader of EVOO and sauce.  Xander was the master of cheese.  They both ate way too much pepperoni.  Xander was SO proud of his pizza as we ate it for dinner.  He said "I think Santa is really going to like this pizza", and I'm pretty sure that Santa did.  He and his reindeer at all the slices we left.

Christmas Cookies

 

 We decorated sugar cookies again this year for Christmas.  Aria helped me in the pre-bake steps to make shapes.  We used store-bought dough.  She mostly liked to eat the dough and playdough, but she did make a few shapes to bake.

Xander was quite the decorator.  He was very serious about getting the right colors for the eyes, nose, mouth and buttons on the sugar cookie people.

 Aria was not so serious about the decorating.  She had one design pattern, frosting into mouth.

On this plate are two cookies deocrated by Dolphin and two decorated by Xander.  Can you guess which is which?

Mickey Mouse Club Audition

Uncle Chris and Auntie Laura got this dancing Mickey Mouse a couple of years ago for Xander for Christmas.  Aria loves it.  The toy weighs nearly as much as her but she hauls it around the house.  She absolutely adores anything to do with Mickey or Minnie.  Her most treasured toys are her Minnie Mouse dolls which she tries to bring everywhere.  It is absolutely no surprise at all that her favorite Christmas present this year was a Minnie Mouse shaped bottle of bath soap.

Christmas Star

 A couple of teachers at Xander and Aria's school have been making these beautiful Christmas stars.  I looked up the instructions online.  As complex as they look, the instructions are amazingly simple.  I think it is a little bit advanced for pre-K, but maybe next year, Xander and I can make these together.

Who Are You?

One of Xander's teacher's suggested letting him list to audio books at night to help him fall asleep.  It seems to work pretty well.  One of the first stories Dolphin played for him was "Through the Looking Glass". 

After listening to that story, Dolphin played the Disney "Alice in Wonderland" one afternoon.  Xander seemed to like it ok, although, I have no idea why.  The movie isn't one of my favorites.  Since the movie, he's started quoting the caterpillar "Who R U"?  I think he was drawn to the smoke letters the caterpillar puffs.

Any other suggestions on good audiobooks for kids?

Sweet talker

My Aria's communication skills are blossoming every day.  She getting better with stringing 2 and 3 word sentences together.  She's got a few sentences that she uses quite frequently and adorably:

- "I'll do this" - She is such an independent girl and wants to do everything herself.  In fact, she has been known to throw a tantrum or two when we don't let her.

 -  "I love booboo" -- She sings this phrase, "booboo" her affectionate name for nursing, which we really don't do much any more, but she says it anyway.

 - "No Xander" - Yep, the sibling rivalry has begun.  She's not shy of asserting her opinion of what she thinks Xander should or should not do.

Mommy phail

Right before bedtime, Xander was hiding in the corner.  I asked him what was wrong and he said his tummy hurt.   I told him to try the bathroom, which he did.  He came down after a while and told me, "Mommy, while I was on the playground, I accidentally got a rock stuck in my ear.". At first, I was sure weather I should believe him.  I told him looking in his ear for a rock was going to cut into story time.  When that didn't phase him, I figured he was serious.  I got our a flashlight, and sure enough, the was a rock deep within his ear.  After some careful Dr. Mom surgery to extract the rock, we had a long talk about how it was good to tell the truth even when you think you will be in trouble.

The picture above is the rock...the keys are for scale.  Apparently, he thought his ear was a good place to hide a rock to keep away from the new girl at school.  Given how painful it was for him physically and emotionally, I'm sure it won't happen again.

So, there you go, I'm the mom of the kid who put stuff in their ears.  Ugh! Phail!  At least, it was a good learning opportunity.

Snowflake Lane

The cool thing about living in a major metropolitan area is that there is always something to do.  Of course, coupled with all that activity is the risk that millions of other people will have the same activity on their agendas. 

This weekend, we decided to go to the Belluvue Snowflake Lane event.  It's held every night for the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas outside of the gigantic mall in downtown Bellevue.  Apparently, most of Bellevue had the same idea as traffic was terrible.  In fact, if the Dolphin had been behind the wheel instead of me, we would have given up and turned around just for the traffic.

Parking was no easier than getting there so I dropped Dolphin off with the kids.  The streets were wall to wall people all waiting to see the Snowflake Lane drum core play.  After some amount of searching, I did find parking.  However, it took forever for me to find Dolphin and the kids again.  The whole show was over by the time we found each other.  Dolphin looked quite frazzled as he had to single-handedly keep track of Xander and Aria in a huge crowd of people.

I'm still glad we went to the event.  The music was great and the fake snow (made out of bubbles) very much got me back into the Christmas spirit.  The kids enjoyed the show and Xander liked the holiday candy.  I'm excited to try some of the other holiday events going on this month.

Happy Thanksgiving

I know it's quite belated, but I thought I would take some time to share our Thanksgiving update.  My work had been brutal.  I've had multiple nights of no sleep in the past month.  I was SO incredibly thankful to be able to take a full day off for Thanksgiving and spend it with my family and friends.  This year, we were blessed to have my roommate from college and her family join us for Thanksgiving.  They had recently moved from St. Louis to Portland, OR, just a few weeks after our move.  So, we had lots of moving stories to swap.

For our Thanksgiving meal, we had a few repeat traditions.  Dolphin made his caprese salad that we have had for at least 10 years now.  We also, for a second year in a row, made S'mores!  Last year, the marshmallows were roasted over our fire-pit in our back yard.  This year, we did it in our fireplace.  We are super excited that it is cold enough to burn a fire in our fireplace.  All three of the kids ate well during the Thanksgiving meal with the most popular menu item being fresh cherry tomatoes.

I am truly thankful that we were able to enjoy the day together!

Coloring

Ride it

Aria loves to ride everything...toy cars, Peanut the dog, Mommy.  She may fulfil Dolphin's rally racing dreams some day.

Gingerbread earthquake

We repeated the tradition of a gingerbread home the year.  Running low on time, I tried a store bought kit.  Shortly after decorating the roof, it fell apart.  Bummer!

Aria do it

Aria is such an independent girl these days.  She insists, and sometimes demand, that she do her own buckle in the car or at the dinner table.  Her first semblance of a sentence was "Aria do it!"  She was SO completely pleased with herself when she got her own buckle together.

I can tell you that Xander has never been this way.  He's perfectly content to be babied forever.  We have to constantly push him to be more independent.   He wants to act even more like a baby when we make special accommodations for Aria.  He wants us to dress him because we dress her.  He wants a cup with a top on top of it because she has one. 

It's almost like my kids are trying to converge to be equivalent in skills so that they can get equal amounts of our attention.

Ode to Everyday Suede

I have been working some pretty crazy hours at work lately.  One night, since I wasn't there to keep an eye on the kids, Aria got into a little bit of trouble while Dolphin was paying the bills.  She got a hold of a purple marker and drew all over the couch, pillows, her clothes, and her hands.  Purple!

Fortunately, these were washable markers and fortunately our couch is made of this wonderful stuff from Pottery Barn called Everyday Suede.  It has been so helpful with the kids.  I can take the cushions off and throw then into the laundry.  Awesome!  Bye-bye purple!

Indoor Fun

I can't how many consecutive days of rain we have had!  Of course, we're in a rainforest, but seriously!  This is more rain that I have seen in the past 10 years.  We try to make it to playgrounds as much as possible, but this particular day was too cold and wet.  The kids still had plenty of fun playing in doors.  The dumped and picked up these balls in pretty much every room in the house.

A side note, thank you to our old Texas neighbors for Aria's dress in this picture.  It was one of Angela's old dresses.  I've taken to layering Aria's TX close with shirts and tights to make them a little more appropriate for the weather here.

Another creepy Halloween thing

Here's my Locks of Love donation.  10 inches of hair.  It's infinitely more disturbing to look at detached from my head.

Happy Halloween

Xander and Aria had a great Halloween.  Big Grandma Margie and Grandma Carla sent some yummy treats.  Dolphin carved the kids pumpkins.   On the day of Halloween, we dressed the kids up before school so they could enjoy the costumes all day.  Xander chose to be Bumble Bee the Transformer.  I'm pretty sure he's never seen transformers but he likes robots.  Aria, for the second year in a row, is Minnie Mouse.  She wouldn't keep the ears on though. 

I drove both the kids up the street to a neighborhood that had a lot of Halloween decorations.  Some of the displays were quite elaborate with motion detection, lights, fog machines and such.  One of the motion detection skeletons scared Xander so much that he almost refused to go knock on a door.  After that house, he decided that we shouldn't go to anymore scary looking houses.  Aria was fearless though.  She totally got into picking out her own candy.

Nature walk

Rain will not stop us!  Last weekend, the kids and I took a nature walk, in the rain, around the trail at our apartment complex.   We collected all sorts of nature of an art project.  Aria stuffed hers into her brand new, pink trick-or-treat basket.  Xander put his into his trusty backpack.  Then we brought our bounty back home to dry off.

It was quite a fun walk.  My favorite part was when I pulled some needles off of an evergreen tree.  The shaking of the branch caused a huge downpour on us, which the kids thought was hilarious.  I subsequently had to various branches again to repeat the rainstorm. 

The east side really knows how to do playgrounds

Hands down, this is the coolest playground we've seen yet!  We spotted it has we were driving to a restaurant one day.  It's a giant castle that some how manages to incorporate a train, a space shuttle, a firetruck, a climbing wall, and bouncing areas.  I anticipate a lot of visits to this one in the future.

Brrr...

The weather has finally turned a little chilly here.  At the stores, are all sorts of snow related products that remind us that we're not in Texas any more.  While shopping for the kids, I found snow-pants, boots, toboggans, and sleds.  I've also seen some new snow products that I have never seen before.  Target had these snow marker and art kids.  That sounds kind of fun.  Although, I'm not sure I really want to go find some snow in the mountains to try it out.

Just in the nick of time, we managed to acquire coats, hats, gloves and scarves for the whole family.  Of course, we had to do a fashion show right away.

Chowder

The good news is that Aria really likes clam chowder.  The bad news is that she is a toddler.  We went to Ivar's which is a local famous chain known for their fish and chips and chowders.  Aria wanted none of her fish and all of my salmon chowder.  Unfortunately, she insisted on feeding her self and made possibly the hugest mess ever.  Chowder was everywhere.  I wish I had a picture.  For now, chowders are going to have to be an at-home food where I can throw her in the bath after her meal.

Exploring

 I learned something new today.  Do not look at the waves while riding a ferry. (Motion sickness!)  Dolphin took us all on an exploration of the ferry system today.

 After riding one ferry and a starbucks pick-me-up (they truly are everywhere), we found a beach.  It was pretty windy and hard for Aria to toddle around, but we explored.

Xander and I collected a few shells, mostly clams and scallops.  Dolphin found a live oyster which we did not bring with us.

If I were to guess, the kids' favorite part was probably having rainbow sherbert while waiting for the ferry ride back.  It was first for both kids.

Xander has turned into quite the ham for pictures these days.

My BRAVE Boy

I am so super proud of my little Xander.  This weekend, we stopped by our local Target pharmacy to get flu shots.  This year, Xander is old enough to get them from the pharmacy also.  He was super brave getting his shot even though I could tell he was very afraid. 

In addition to his fearless approach to shots, he also did a wonderful job getting his hair cut this weekend.  If you will recall, a couple of years ago I vowed that daddy was going to have to give him hair cuts from the terrible experience we had.  However, after surviving the shots, I figured he be fine with a hair cut.  I was right.  He was fantastic despite the fact that there were no video games at the salon as we had promised...oops!  He enjoyed it so much that he keeps asking to go get some more cut off in the front.

Who is Alex???

Someone has decided that writing "Alexander" or "Xander" is too much work.  He's started signing all of his papers as "Alex".  By the way, that stick figure is his drawing of himself.  The book he has here has one page for each family member in the order of Xander, Aria, Daddy, and Mommy.  The most hilarious part, which I did not put in here, is that the mommy picture has breasts.   I saw them and totally cracked up.

Pumpkins!

We are so very fortunate to have a pumpkin patch very close to our home.  Xander and Daddy picked out two very nice pumpkins for us.  Aria had a little bit of trouble getting around the field.  In addition, we all went through a corn maze, rode a tractor pulled train, and raced ducks with a water pump.  It was a blast.

For Grandpa

This past week, Grandma Carla came for a visit.  It was so wonderful to have her here.  The kids adored spending time with her and really were sad to see her go.  Grandpa Tom could not come because he had to work.  However, we think we've found just the place to take Grandpa Tom when he comes to visit.  This place is called Gasworks Park.  It's an old refinery that has been turned into a park.  There are lots of machines and what-not that people can crawl all over.  The kids mostly enjoyed picking flowers and exploring.

The Sound

A couple of weeks ago, we were exploring and we stopped by a beach on Puget Sound.  We had bought Xander his first pare of galoshes.  He loved using them to splash at the beach.  Lesson learned: you need to tuck pants into the galoshes to keep them dry. 

I didn't let Aria go in the water because the waves would knock her over and she didn't have galoshes (they don't make them small enough as far as I can tell).  She enjoyed playing and digging in the sand though.  

Freemont Troll

 We recently took the kids to see the Freemont Bridge Troll.  Xander was a little scared at first.  Then, he saw another little girl climbing all over it and then, he wanted to do the same.

Aria couldn't have cared less about the Troll.  She wanted to plan in the sand.  I love her little peacoat jacket in this picture.  She's my little Beatle.

Thank you Angela

Aria is just starting to get some use out of our previous neighbor Angela's old close.  Thank you, Aijuan and John.  Aria continues to grow in leaps and bounds.  Dolphin is taking her in for her 18month appt. a bit late (19 months) so we'll get to see just how big.

Playgrounds

Playgrounds, playgrounds, playgrounds!  We've been checking out a whole new host of playgrounds in our new home.  Aria loves to yell "pay-gown" when she spots one while we driving.  We've done playgrounds on the beach and playgrounds in the woods.  The one thing that is totally awesome is that we have a playground that is just a short walk from our town home.  It's the perfect place to burn some energy when the kids are restless.  There are always tons of families there.

One last harvest

Right before I left often, I picked one last bounty from our house there.  These pecans were growing in our front yard.  They were just starting to crack.  Last year, a creature of some sort ate all of our pecans.  I grabbed these and stuck them in our luggage right before we moved.  They were really quite yummy.

Aria's language

Aria's ability to communicate continues to grow with leaps and abounds.  She knows so many words and loves to repeat new works.  Her pronunciation is still pretty rough, but she gets the point across.  Everyone once in a while, she'll string together a couple of words like "mama peez" (mama, please).  She still has plenty of times where she forgets to use her words and gets very frustrated.  I think we're getting an early start on those terrible twos sometimes.

Keeping up with the movers

I feel bad that I haven't been posting on the blog all of our fun tales of getting to know our new home.  I really have been just way too busy with my new job.

We have done some fun things with the kids.  We have visited many beautiful parks and playgrounds.  One had a zip-line that Grandma Carla, Xander, and I absolutely loved!  We've also visited both the Puget Sound (salt water) and Lake Washington (fresh water) beaches.  There was a little swimming; although, I suspect that'll be done for the year as its a bit chilly.

The kids are doing well in their new school.  All the teachers love Aria.  She is apparently quite a ham doing goofy things to get attention.  Xander's teachers are impressed with his computer abilities.  I'd say most of his ability arises out of complete lack of fear in technology.  He will trial and error any piece of software (since he can't read) to figure out how it works.

Dolphin has accepted a new position at a game development company and will be starting his new position in a few weeks.  The new company is very lucky to have him as Dolphin has been quite the hot commodity once he unleashed his resume. 

Back in Austin, our home is quickly moving through the sale process.  We received 3 offers within 12 hours of putting our house into MLS.  Two were higher than we were asking.  We quickly accepted one contract and had a back-up contract as well.  We've passed the inspection phase on the house and based on the good progress with financing, it looks like we'll be closing early.

I surely do miss some things about our old home.  Aside from our wonderful neighbors and friends, I miss having a two car garage (we have to park in open spaces here because our garage is full of stuff).  I really miss our awesome dishwasher (so quite, so effective).  I  miss knowing where everything is.  Right now, I wish I had X-ray vision to see into all the boxes to find what I'm looking for.  I kind of miss 75 MPH speed limits, too.  Not that traffic would ever be clear enough here to go that fast.  There's lots to love about our new home, too, so I'm still glad we did move.

New home

The kids and the dogs loved checking out our new townhome and the backyard. Right behind the fence, through the gate, is a blackberry bush.  They grow like weeds here!

I didn't notice when picking this place, but it is right next to a park.  The kids played on the playground and there were lots of  other families.

Good-fry Austin

 

On our last day in Austin, we had an hour to kill and needed to go so place dog friendly. So, we hit up our favorite sausage place at Uncle Billy's.  It was so hot that I was worried that Aria wpould overheat .  I took her shirt off.  Will we come to miss this kind of heat, I wonder.

Best husband

I write this post as the best husband ever tries to sleep on a bed much too short for him. His feet are literally hanging off the bed.

My amazing husband has supported me not once, but twice through career relocations.  He gave up jobs that he loved to do this.  Granted, he's been nagging me for 10+ years to move to the Pacific  Northwest.  So, I would say this recent move to Seattle is rather win-win.

During our trip to Seattle, he was amazing.  We would not have made  it without him.  We knew that flying with two dogs, two kids, 4 checked bags, and carryons was going to be challenging, but we did not anticipate me getting a raging sinus infection right before the trip.  Dolphin had to do a lot more kid entertainment on his own because I was  wiped out.  He let me sleep for a good hour on the plan and a good half of a day the next day.  With this recovery, I might just make it to my first day of work on time.

For a 4 year old

I recently took a house hunting trip to Seattle.  While I was there, I tried to take photos of things that Xander would like.  What simple things can mean so much to him.  At a breakfast diner, they had a full basket of fruit jellies that I could just imagine Xander drooling over.  I showed him the picture, and he immediately said "I want to go there.  Can we go there in Seattle?"  So, we keep telling him all the good things about Seattle to help with the transition, but we have to remember to think like our 4 year old.

Please

Whoever invested the sign for please, surely was not envisioning the average toddler.  Aria is a messy eater like most toddlers.  When she asks for more of some food, she says "peez" (please) and then swipes her hand across her chest to sign "please".  This results in whatever food she's been eating being plastered all over her shirt.  Stains galore!  I remember Xander did the exact same thing.

What I'll miss about Austin the most

I think this may be one of the things that I will miss about Austin the most.  Austin has a plethora of days where it's so hot that nothing beats cooling off with a sprinkler.  More over, most homes, like ours, have a high privacy fence so when the kids strip down to nothing, no one cares.  Xander and Aria had an absolutely blast after dinner on Friday playing with the garden hose.  It was certainly more entertaining then giving them a boring old bath, and they came out just as clean.

Microsoft Land

An update on our move.  I have found a 3bed/2bath townhome in Bellevue right next to about a 1,000 Microsoft buildings.  It's amazing is that there is a little fenced yard for our dogs, and the 3 bedrooms will really work out well for our family.  I'm still quite unclear how we will fit everything in our texas sized home in this townhome, but I'm working to get rid of things left and right.

I had been looking at 2 bedroom apartments where the kids would share a room.  I thought it would be kind of cool for them to share a room.  Maybe make them feel more safe in a new place to have someone right next to them.  We can still do that with this new place but we have the option to keep them separated also.

I searched through 9 properties in person and countless others online before finding this place.   Let's home we don't drive eachother crazy living in a smaller space.

Moving West

So, if I am not blogging much over the next few months, I'll apologize in advance.  We are moving to Seattle, which involves a great deal of work and not a lot of time for blogging.  The Pacific NW is a place that Dolphin has wanted to live for a very long time.  He very much dislikes the heat in Austin so Seattle will be a great improvement in terms of climate.

I am very nervous about the move.  New day care, new day care germs, new jobs, new home....all of these news things will be challenging for the kids to deal with.  I'm super excited about the new and I hope that my children have the same appreciation for change that I do.

The job change is going to be huge for me personally.  I have worked at my current company, IBM, for 13 years.  I met Dolphin at IBM, met wonderful friends, had first international trip (to Israel) with IBM, had my two children, and so much more.  I even shot a real gun for the first time with some IBMers out in the AZ desert, and I probably won't do that again, but it was one of many, many firsts in my life.  My new job is super exciting, but there will be more to come on that later.

We've lived in Austin for 7 years, which I think is the longest I have ever lived in one place.  I have met wonderful friends here.  To be honest, I don't think I will find as nice as a neighborhood as I have hear in Austin anywhere else on the planet.  That said, I know there are other benefits to living in a metropolitan area so I hope that helps with some of the loss.

Dolphin has already received 3 immediate interviews for jobs in Seattle so I'm excited for him as well.  I know he is really talented and I hope he enjoys one of these many new opportunities.

I'll try to take time to keep you posted on the move, but no guarantees!  

Language

Aria is growing in leaps and bounds in communication.  She's a great non-vocal communicator.  Today, her teacher told me that she was flipping through a book and doing signs for all the pages in the book (mommy, daddy, puppy,etc).  Dolphin's favorite sign that she does is doggy, which looks like a dog panting.

On the vocal side of the house, she's also quite the fan of animal sounds.  In fact, I'd say she knows the animals more by the sound they make than their name.  If we point to the farm animals, she will say "baa" (sheep), "moo" (cow), "neigh" (horse), and so on.

Her favorite words (used most frequently) are "no", "yeah", "booboo" (for nursing), "more", "bin" (bink/pacifier), and "mine".  Oh the life of a toddler...simple needs!

Messy little munchkins

Grandma Jo brought finger paints for the kids on her most recent visit. I took the kids out to the driveway for an all out finger paint-a-thon.  Unfortunately, Xander wouldn't let me take a picture, but Aria didn't mind.  She was pretty much a full body painter.  The garden hose was generally employed after this picture.

Happy Birthday to Xander

Xander is turning 4, and I can hardly believe it.  We celebrated this year with a treasure hunt.  I made little clues and left them around the house for Xander to use to find his birthday presents.  He was so excited when he figured out the clues by himself.  At the end of the hunt was a real treasure box that I found on Etsy and stuffed with various treasures.

His cake this year was a Minecraft cake. Dolphin had the idea of using rice crispe treats.  I'm not particularly found of the rice crispe treats and making this cake made me even less so.  The cake is made of chocolate rice crispe squares for dirt, green frosting for grass, vanilla rice crispe squares for sand, cake dipped in grey colored white chocolate ganache for stone, butterscotch candy for gold, red sprinkles for red stone, rock candy for coal, chocolate truffles and icing for spiders, and blue jello for water. Ugh, too much sugar!  I'm glad Xander liked it though.

Teething

Poor Aria continues a hard time in the teething department.  Xander never seemed bothered by teething but he drooled a lot.  Aria has never drooled and is in obvious pain from teething.  At least, they both like to brush their teeth.

Potty sitting continues

Much to my surprise, Aria continues to want to sit on the potty.  Nothing coming out yet, but if this keeps up, we might get a lucky break.  She seems rather obsessed with the concept of flushing though she is not strong enough to do it.   Such a weirdo!  So, now I'm starting to worry that if I encourage this it will cause potty training issues later.  It just seems so early, but she seems so interested.  What to do!

More on fairytales

Xander has become increasingly demanding in his bedtime stories.  We usually read at least one kindle story and then he asks me for a fairytale.  However, not just ANY fairytale will do.  There's always a laundry list of requirements that must be in the fairytale.  One night, he told me so many requirements that he basically told me the whole story.  The requirements are so long, I'm a bit beyond my creative abilities sometimes.

Here's an example of the lists of things I'm supposed to incorporate into a fairytale:
Numbers
Letters
Fruit
Minecraft
Keys
Treasure boxes
Magic
Animals that turn into people

At the end of my fairytale, he had been asking "is that as long as you could make it?"  However, he has switched to telling me "that is only half of the story, you have to tell me the rest tomorrow."

He's SO demanding, but in truth, I love it.  After a long day of being the boss, I don't mind being bossed around and using a little more creative side of my brain.  Some days, I come up with some pretty good stories, and others I just have to steal from Hans Christian Andersen, Joss Whedon, or JK Rowling.

Games

It's hot!  So, Aria and Xander have to find cool, inside ways to have fun.  A few of their silly games:

1)  The Circle - Our home has a nice circle including the kitchen, living room, and dining.  The kids play chase around this circle.  Sometimes Mommy joins in.

2)  The Whoah - Daddy invited the Whoah game.  He plays a motorcycle jumping video game and the kids yell Whaoh when the motorcycle jumps in the air.  Aria LOVES this one.

3) The Blanket - Blankets are really the ultimate toy.  Those on mommy and daddy's bed serve as a pirate ship, space ship, and tent.  Most of the time, it's to host one of Xander's parties.

4) The Dough - Yes, Play dough makes a regular appearance at our dining table, along with crayons and paper. 

5) The Dictator - Xander calls in the "listening game".  Everyone listens and does exactly what Xander says.  No one likes to play this except Xander.

6) The Jump - Xander's bed is not very old but is already super screechy.  I suppose this is probably because it is used as a trampoline on a daily basis. 

Gosh, I hope it cools off soon so we can head back to the park.

Sorting

The older that I get, the less I like stuff.  In fact, very recently I was contemplating switching to only 7 outfits to reduce clutter and laundry.  I am not always successful in getting rid of clutter though so my home's contents are a constant nuisance to me. 

Today, I worked on Xander's training in this regard.  He was quite helping in sorting things into piles.  We had a pile for trash, a pile of clothes to wash and give away, and a pile of toys to give away to other people.  I was so proud that he excitedly volunteered items into the pile to donate.

To be honest, he's been quite generous in the past as well.  He easily gave up many of his toys to give to Aria.  Sometimes, I have to double check.  Are you REALLY sure you don't want to play with this anymore?  Of course, he hasn't give up 1 stuffed animal yet.  He's got A LOT of animals. So, that is something to work on.

All and all, I think this is a healthy attitude that he has on possessions.  I read somewhere (cannot remember the source) that materialism and high regard for possessions are associated with insecurity.  So, I choose to believe that today's activities are a sign that Xander feels secure and happy.  That makes me happy, too....not to mention the lack of clutter in his closet!

Pop

Xander is always fascinated when the same song comes on the radio in both Mommy AND Daddy's car.  "You both have that song!"  Yes, it's amazing that Gotye could be heard in more than one car.  Recently, he asked me to turn up the volume on "Call Me Maybe".  Of course, that got the Carly Rae Jepsen song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.  I hummed it, which lead to Dolphin breaking out this parody.



Aria LOVES Sesame street characters though we've never watched an episode.  There are lots of Elmo books and toys around the house.  So, after the Cookie Monster parody, we had to watch this Elmo one.

Aria sat on the potty

I KID YOU NOT.  I couldn't believe it but she wanted to sit on the potty.  I put her up on the big potty with a little seat ring after she asked (non-verbally of course).  Then next day she sat on the potty at school. 

I think this behavior is inspired this "Elmo can use the potty" book we've been reading lately.  It has buttons that play Elmo sound clips.  She is particularly found of the flush noise. 

I don't really expect this is sign of potty training readiness, but I can hope this will turn into some kind of early interest. 

Officially a toddler

Aria is definitely exhibiting the toddler personality these days.  She's got a bit of a virus or cold of some kind.  The illness symptoms are not too bad, but oh, she is SO cranky.  She had her 1st temper tantrum, lying on the floor kicking and screaming.   I wish I could press fast forward to when she is well.

First night away

For the first night since her birth, I was away from Aria for a night.  Daddy and Grandma Jo, who was in for a visit, took great care of her while I was a way for a very quick trip to Seattle (36 hour trip).  It was kind of nice to have a break from the kids, but I missed them both so much.  I didn't really have time to shop in my whirl wind trip, but of course, I had to pick something up for them.  So, the airport gift shop it was!

When I came home Xander was so sweet.  "Did you get these things for us because you LOVE us?  We [now he's speaking for Aria these days] really love our gifts."  They both gave the biggest hugs.   I'm glad to be back to my babies.  I'm also glad to be back in my warm bed with Dolphin instead of trying to sleep on an uncomfortable red-eye flight.

One more event from the trip is worth sharing here.  I witnessed a sad event on my flight out.  I didn't really see it, but I heard it.  In the row in front of me, there was a repeated baby cries, smacking, and a women sternly saying "stop it".  Each time there was a scream following a smack sound.  I thought "that CAN'T be what I think it is".  Unfortunately, what unfolded hence forth confirmed that it was.  Immediately, there were two women arguing, but I only caught bits and pieces. "It's not illegal"  "Mind your own business".  Eventually a steward was called over.  Basically, a mother was hitting her lap child on the plane.  Two people next to her saw it and were arguing with her to stop.  The steward tried to get the two women to separate seats, but they would not.  With one women saying, "I don't want to move.  I want her to stop hitting her child."  The child was a little boy who looked very close to Aria's age.  It was so awful.  The good news is that for the duration of the light, the mother did stop hitting her son.  That poor, poor little boy.

Tennessee Trip

On the 4th of July, we hopped on a plane to Nashville.  Amazingly enough, we were able to get a direct flight.  We survived the plane trip without annoying too many of our fellow passengers.

On the 4th, we were able to visit with my parents, my great grandma, my brother and his family.  Aria stayed inside with Grandpa while we saw the pyrotecnics for the holiday.  My brother's boys are all teenagers who were very good at blowing things up. Xander enjoyed sparklers but kept his distance from the big booms.

On Thursday, Great Grandma recommended a play fountain in downtown Cookeville.   It was SO hot.  We brought the Texas heat with us.  Aria was a little afraid of the loud noise of the water so she didn't get wet.  Xander got very wet though.  Then, he laid out on his towel for a few minutes to get dried off.




 

In the evening, we choose to stay in doors since it was just SO hot.  Great Grandma read some stories to Xander.

Aria and Xander really loved sharing the mechanical recliner.  Xander suggested that we get one for our house.

Nothing beats the heat like some indoor play-dough time.

Aria was really interested in this metal flamingo.

 Back at our hotel, Aria and Xander had a picnic of late night snacks.

 On Friday and Saturday, more family showed up. My aunt, uncle, and my cousin's family.  My cousin as a 4month old, 2 year old, and 5 year old.  Xander immediately hit it off with 5 year old Audrey.  They initially disagreed on whether to play Princess or Space so I suggested Space Princess.  Great Grandma rented a bounce house for all the munchkins and it was put to very good use. 

 On Sunday, we had a little bit of time before our flight so we went to the Nashville Zoo.  Aria and Xander shared a double-wide stroller. 

Aria was SO excited to see all of the animals.  Each time she saw a new one, she would say "WOW".  She really liked petting some goats and a PYTHON.  Xander was a little afraid of the python, but after all the other kids petted it, he touched it for a whole second.

The Nashville Zoo was a really nice zoo.  I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had a flight to catch and we were all melting from the heat.

All and all, we had a great time with family.  The trip home was pleasant as the kids both fell asleep on take off.  Aria, most especially, was really happy to get home to her normal routine.  Although, we were surprised to find that our AC was broken in our house and it was 89 degrees inside our house.  Summer!  Fortunately, we've since had the AC fixed and we can cool off for a bit.