Riverdancing?

Bubs Loves Mama

Owen Adam and I were on the way down to Tacoma to meet a friend for a play date at a water (spray) park.  Owen was doing his usual chattering about anything and everything and then I heard this:

“Mama, did you know that when you got married to Dada, you were a ballerina?”

I was confused at first and then I realized he was talking about our wedding pictures we have in our living room…He thinks my dress made me look like a ballerina.  I thought that was so cute.  Here was the rest of the conversation:

“Oh, Bubs…did you think I looked like a ballerina when I got married?”

“Yes.  But, uh, I didn’t see you then.  I didn’t come.”

“You didn’t come to the wedding?  You’re right, you weren’t there.”

“Do you know where I was?”
“Where?”

“At Nana’s.”

Later that evening, Steve was reading Owen his bedtime stories and I came in to listen after I put Adam down.  They were reading the Big Red Barn book and Owen has been very interested in birds lately.  He pretended he was a peacock at the zoo after he saw one walking around.  Did a great job too with putting his hands behind his back and bobbing his head when he walked.  He points out seagulls at the park, he likes pigeons because Burt likes pigeons.  So this book was about chickens and Owen likes chickens.

“I wish I were a chicken.”

“You do?  That would be cool.”

“I wish Mama were a chicken.”

“That would be funny.”

“No, wait…I wish Dada were a chicken.  I want Mama to stay like that.”

Awwwwwww

Another Santoki Holiday

It's Not A Tear...Just Playing In The Water

Afternoon At The Dog Park

As much as Charlie drives us crazy...she is a great dog and Owen loves her probably more than all of us.

First Year of Preschool...Done!

Owen's First Massage

So I'm trying to figure out a way to word this post without it sounding creepy.  I'm not sure I can, so I'm just going to tell you what happened tonight.

Owen has really dry skin.  I should take him to the doctor to find out if it's dry skin or eczema or what, but instead I just put lotion on it occasionally.  He has always liked getting his chest rubbed.  Even when he was a baby, we'd put Vicks Baby Rub on his chest when he was sick and he loved it.  He'd even ask for it before he could talk by handing us the jar and laying down in the "ready" position.

So the last few nights I've been putting lotion on his chest and it seems to be helping a little bit.  Tonight, I had him turn over on his tummy so I could put some on his back.  I sort of jokingly starting giving him a Swedish style massage.  His eyes rolled back in his head and THIRTY MINUTES LATER I called it off.  He let me rub his back, his head, his neck, his legs and his feet.  He was nearly falling asleep but he kept looking over his shoulder to see what I was doing.

Once I realized he actually liked it, I told him, "You know what this is called, Bubs?  A massage."  He replied, "Mommy?  Where do you GET a masssssssssaaagggggge?"  I couldn't really figure out what to say, so I said "Where Mommy gets her hair cut."

He would have seriously been game for a 60 to 90 minute massage.  Since it was 9pm, I had to cut it short...but next time I'm home when Adam is napping, I have big plans for another massage party!

Creepy, maybe.  Cute and noteworthy, nonetheless.

Someone Loves Watermelon

Love You

Brudderly Love

Hot Chocolate On The Deck

My Baby

Adam has been pretty sick lately and has been glued to me all day, every day.  I can't say that I mind too much.

Adam's 1st Impression

Oh, Adam...he is getting so cute!!!  He has definitely started to turn the corner from baby cute to toddler silly (which is totally cute.)  Here he is doing his Cookie Monster impersonation.  This is actually a terrible video.  He was really getting into the froggy voice before I got the camera out and of course, toned it down once I was recording.  But you can get the idea.

Cinco De Mayo - Something For Everyone

Hey, at least I celebrated.

 

Cupcake!

What Happens In Vegas

You know how kids can totally tell on you and bring light to what you would normally keep private?  For instance, the other day when Nana was babysitting, Owen offered up the fact that "Dada got mad and threw that toy and broke it yesterday."  Tattletale.

Well, it's times like these that make up for the embarrassing moments.  I've been making up lots of songs lately in order to keep me from going bananas when the kids won't listen.  Seems more productive than yelling.  I've been patting myself on the back because Owen has been making up songs a lot now too, which must mean I'm rubbing off a little on him.  Today this is the song he came up with...on his own.  The mama and the dada on the bus says "I love you."  Could have been worse...but I think I can buy myself a drink for this one.

The Spawn Of College Roommates

Sheena flew up for a girls weekend and we got all the kids together for a play date so she could see everyone.  We had my boys (2), Katie's boys (3), Meika's kids (2) and Allison's kids (2) so nine children all together.  You can see what 9 kids ages 1 through 5 looks and sounds like.  Next time we need to add Sheena's girls.  The count is up to 11 with one more arriving in December!

Now that I think about it...there isn't much difference between these kids now and our house when we all lived together when we were 18.  We were just taller.

Little Bam

For those of you who are familiar with the PBS documentary (ok, MTV reality television show) "Jackass," you would also be familiar with one of the main characters, Bam Margera.  I *might* have had a small crush on Bam (for no reason other than that we enjoyed the show and he seemed like the most attractive of the bunch) which Steve loves to tease me about.

Anyway, the whole concept of the show is that there are a group of men (boys) who just like to jump off of high things, smash their head into hard things, break lots of bones, and basically have no fear when others might raise at least an eyebrow.  Bam is one of the more "physical" guys in the bunch apparently, according to the Wiki article, received his nickname because he used to run into walls when he was 3 years old.

We call Adam, "Little Bam."  He will be getting stitches before Owen.  Mark my words.

Mom and Bub Errand Day

Next week, my good friend and old college roommate Sheena is coming to town!  We are doing a girls weekend and I'm SO excited to see her.  I needed to do some errands this weekend in order to get the house ready for her...just the usual errands...Costco, Target and the Grocery Store.  Owen asked to come with me and I hesitated for about a minute and then said, "Sure, Bubs...But we have to do a LOT of shopping so I need you to be a good boy!"  He promised he would so we went off together.  Ok, sure...these errands would have taken me about 1.5 to 2 hours to do if I went by myself.  With Owen, it took about 3 hours.  But he was GREAT the whole time.  Sometimes I need to remind myself that even errands can be quality time with your kids - if you make it fun.

The couple of highlights:  Owen REALLY wanted flip flops "like dad."  So I said we'd pick some out at Target.  He looked at the wall hanging with dozens of flip flops and picked out the most rainbow, sparkly and girly pair they sold.  I am not above letting my kid wear sparkly flip flops, but I did want to try and steer him toward a more gender appropriate pair.  So I explained to him that the ones he liked were supposed to be for girls and I showed him all the boy ones.  We found a cool pair of Shaun White brand black ones and he was satisfied (he doesn't know what a snowboard half pipe is, but someday he'll read this and know that his mom was "cool" for getting him the Shaun White ones.)  But as we were leaving the shoe area he spotted another pair of sparkly pink bedazzled flip flops for adults and he stops me and goes, "Mom!  LOOK!  I have an idea...we should get YOU a pair of flip flops too and YOU can wear pink ones because you're a girl!"  I said, "You're right!"  and he pointed to the ones he wanted me to buy and we walked out of there in our brand new cool shoes and did the rest of our grocery shopping in them.  My first present that Owen picked out just for me.

Later as we were cruising down the aisles at Target (because please tell me who can go into a Target and not go down every single aisle?  It's like shopping crack for me) Owen somehow realized if he stood on the side of the shopping cart he could pretend to be a garbage truck guy.  I protested at first because I thought he was going to pick up things off the aisle displays and throw them in the cart, but he said "No, Mom.  I'm just going to PRETEND."  So I said, ok and let him direct me in his garbage truck reenactment.  He said, "Stop!" at the end of every aisle...stepped off the cart...grabbed a pretend garbage can...pretended to dump it in the cart...put the pretend garbage can back on the pretend curb...and then climbed back on the cart where I drove to the next "stop."  You see why the errand took an extra hour now, right?  But I have to say...I'm pretty proud of this kid's imagination.  And we had fun and still finished everything we had to do before dinner.  Success!

Bonding Cousins

Owen and Audrey are starting to get to the age where they enjoy being around each other!  Not that they didn't before, but until age 3 or so, kids are just parallel players and who is with them is not quite as important as what they are doing.  Now, Owen asks about whether or not Audrey is coming to some of the events we do and when we say yes, he gets excited and looks forward to seeing her.  Some of the conversations they have are just too cute.

Here are some recent pics from a couple outings.  The one on top is at the Woodland Park Zoo where they spontaneously started holding hands after the merry go round ride.  The two below are from the Puyallup Spring Fair where they rode the rides together.  Ador. Able.