A Mother's Humiliation

I don't think I really need to say much -- this was how my shopping experience turned out earlier today...

Jack and his fire truck

We have had this fire truck for awhile, but Jack has recently discovered how much he likes it. Each night we take a walk around the neighborhood and Jack rides his fire truck all over the place!

A Day Out with Thomas

Last Saturday, we took Jack and Wyatt to "A Day Out with Thomas" in Felton, CA. They got to ride Thomas the Train into the redwood forest, along with pretty much every other little boy in the San Francisco Bay Area. They had a fantastic time!



Meeting Sir Topamhat, on the other hand, was not so popular.

What Sweet Boys...

The World According to Jack

Jack is definitely a talker (gee, I wonder where he gets that?) and he offers many opinions and observations on life! He has a great vocabulary and can usually get his point across quite easily. That being said, most of the things that come out of his mouth are quite hilarious because he is 2!!!

Here are some snip-its of our recent conversations with him:

-Jack fell on some stairs and cut his nose pretty badly while we were in Colorado. Usually during diaper changes, he asks for me to put "cream" on his nose. The cream I use is Neosporin. The cream Daddy used while I was away with Wyatt was Boudreaux's Butt Paste. When I got home, I wondered why Jack's scab looked whitish, so I asked him about it. Jack's response was, "Silly Daddy! He put poop cream on my nose!"

-Fairly consistantly, Jack asks, more like begs, to go to the toy store or Target. The other day around 8:30am, he told me multiple times that he wanted to go to Toys 'R Us to buy trains. I told him that we had other things to do, but we could go after his nap, which is usually around 2pm. Jack was quiet for a few seconds and then proclaimed "IT'S NAP TIME!!!". Finally I just had to tell him we'd go at 4pm!

-We have been working on potty training without much success. Right now Jack is scared of the potty, although he is very aware of when he is pooping. We have explained to him that when he feels like he needs to poop, he should tell us. We were out on a walk a few weeks ago and Jack noticed a dog pooping on the grass not too far from us. We praised him for recognizing what the dog was doing, however a few minutes later he squatted in the grass and yelled, "Look Mommy! Look Daddy! I am pooping! I am pooping in the grass like a dog!" Then we had to explain to him that dogs go potty outside, but people go potty inside. Oh, the joys of potty training.

-When I change Jack's diaper, we usually play silly games. A recent game we play is we name people Jack knows and he tells me if they are a boy or a girl. We went through a whole list of people that Jack got right, until we got to Grandma.

Mom: "Is Grandma a girl or a boy?'
Jack: Grandmas was a teacher.

First of all, I was shocked that he knew Grandma was a teacher. Secondly, Grandma retired from teaching this year and he used the word "was". I guess he must really be paying attention.

-While I was driving the boys home from one of our frequent trip to Target, Jack started kicking the back of my seat, which was actually really bothering me. I was about to raise my voice a bit and tell Jack to cut it out, when he said, "Mommy, my feet are dancing!" All of a sudden, I found it really cute!

-Jack continues to be a very picky eater, as most toddlers are. He is mostly surviving on junk, such as hot dogs, chicken nuggets, candy, fruit leathers and bread. While exiting Chili's the other night after dinner, where he of course had chicken nuggets, Jack turns to me and said in such a satisfied tone, "Mommy I LOOOOOOVE chicken nuggets!".

-Sometimes Jack freaks us out because it seems like he can read. He identifies so many signs while we are driving around town. A few weeks ago there was a huge Safeway delivery truck next to us on the freeway. Jack yelled out, "Mommy look! There is a big white truck with Safeway on it!" Now of course, we frequent Safeway 3 times a week, so it is all recognition from our frequent trips there, but it still throws me for a loop everytime. He can also identify Starbucks, McDonald's, Taco Bell (which is weird because we have only been there once or twice), Target, Marshalls (which was another one that surprised me since we don't go there very often), Trader Joe's, Gymboree, Red Robin (he even identified it while we were visiting Kansas) and Chilis. I am slightly concerned that most of the signs he knows seem to be fast food, but at least he the wheels are turning in his head.

-Continuing on the food topic, awhile ago, when I picked Jack up from preschool he yelled out in front of his class, "Starbucks time! I NEEEED Starbucks!" It was just so funny because that sounds more like something that would be said at "the office".

-During one of our walks, the sun was beginning to set and turned the sky orange. Jack noticed this and told me, "Mommy, it is time for Mr. Sunshine to go to bed. But first, his Mommy is going to give him a bath and put on his pajamas". Oh, the innocence of childhood.

-According to Jack, so far he has had 3 girlfriends. First it was an adorable little girl in his class at school, then it was his favorite barista at Starbucks and then it was his teacher.

-I bought Jack a really, really cute shirt with a shark on it. On the shirt, the shark has it's mouth open and you can see all it's teeth. Jack assured me that he really liked the shirt and he wanted me to buy it for him. He told me, "I am going to wear it to school and scare (a boy in his class)!" So I bought the shirt. Three months later the shirt has not been worn. I asked Jack why he hasn't worn it yet and he told me, "it's too scary. I am too afraid to wear that shirt. I am scared of big sharks -- and baraccudas -- not little sharks though." Apparently, his plan to scare his classmate failed, since he is too scared to wear the shirt himself!

-Jack NEVER shares his toys with Wyatt. I can probably count on one hand how many times Wyatt has played with Jack's collection of trains or cars. During one of our many trips to the Target toy section, Jack found just what he wanted, however it was almost an exact duplicate of what he already bought the week before and he was carrying in his hand at the moment. He REALLY wanted the toy though. We kept telling him that no, he couldn't have that one and that he would have to choose something else, or nothing at all. Finally, after thinking a moment, Jack decided, "I am going to give my toy to Wyatt. Now can I have the new one?" He seriously must have REALLY wanted that toy because he never offers to share, much less give, his toys to his brother.

-Finally, this is an oldie, but one Saturday afternoon we were at IKEA in the kid's section. Jack always stops to play with the demo toys they have out on display, as do most of the other kids in the store. He noticed a little boy with a Thomas Train shirt on and finally started to make friends with him. We asked the little boy's dad what his name was, so he and Jack could get more comfortable with one another. After a few minutes of playing, Jack shouts out, rather loudly I might add, "Look Daddy! Brian is brown!!!! Brian is brown!!!" With red faces from embarrassment, we tried to change the subject and said something like, "look, Brian likes Thomas Train too!". Then we made a very hasty exit from the toy section. I know Jack was only telling us what he saw in the most innocent of fashions, but it was one of those "moments" where kid's say things at the most inopportune time!

New Flip video recorder

This week Peter and I treated ourselves to a new Flip video recorder. It is so small and can fit in my purse! Today I practiced using it and got this short video of Wyatt.

Colorado 2009

We had a wonderful trip to my parent's condo outside of Vail, Colorado for the 4th of July holiday. Peter stayed for the long weekend and the boys and I stayed for 8 days. Although for the beginning of the trip, the weather wasn't the best, we still did lots of fun things! Jack and Wyatt enjoyed playing in the numerous parks around the Vail Valley and had a great time with Grandma & Grandpa.

I thought I would post some photos from the trip!

Getting ready for the historic Georgetown Loop Train:

The bridge we went over on the train!
Mommy enjoying the train ride with Wyatt:
Wyatt practicing walking with Grandpa:
Daddy and Jack relaxing in Vail:

Jack enjoyed going on the Bounce House climbing wall and slide at the Avon Fireworks:

Family Photo at the fireworks...We waited so long for the fireworks that Jack fell asleep and Wyatt was terrified and screamed through the entire display.
Jack and Daddy at Piney River Ranch meeting the pony. Jack was too scared to ride the pony, but Wyatt wasn't!

The beautiful scenery of Piney River Ranch:


What better setting for a playground???

Wyatt at the park:

Jack checking out the train tracks (that are no longer in service) on the way to the park:

On the top of the mountain in Vail (11,000 feet) after a gondola ride:

Better Blogger

I know I have become really, really bad about updating the blog. I have decided that I am going to become a better blogger and try to post new updates at least once a week. The boys have been keeping me so busy that by the time we get them to sleep, I clean up the dishes, fold the laundry and check my e-mail, I am so exhausted that I just can't stay awake long enough to update the blog. Honestly almost every day I write imaginary blog entries in my head that I plan to put here, but they never come to fruition.

In the meantime, I will share a couple of recent videos of the boys from our trip to Colorado.

Happy Father's Day

We didn't do anything too exciting for Father's Day, but we are happy to have such a wonderful father in our family!!!

The boys and I took Peter to breakfast at one of his favorite restaurants and then we played in the park with the boys.

I tried to snap some pictures of Peter with his boys, but unfortunately this is what we got.


I think we had a similar Father's Day picture last year too!

Bath Genius

Yesterday at Target, I bought Jack & Wyatt some new bath toys; they are colorful foam letters and numbers that they can stick on the wall. Wyatt enjoyed chewing on them, but Jack would pull letters out of the bath water, tell me what they were and then stick them on the wall to look at them.

I let Jack play while I washed Wyatt and no kidding -- this is what I saw on the wall!


He managed to dig through all the letters and numbers floating in the bath and make his name! There was no parental involvement whatsoever. While Jack does have a nice short name, I was impressed that at 2 years old he can spell his name with the foam bath letters!

Birthday celebration fun!

We had an early birthday celebration while we were in Kansas for Wyatt. Mommy made Wyatt a special birthday shirt with a "1" on it to commemorate the occasion (with help from Grandma of course, because I can't sew) and Grandma made Wyatt a gorgeous Elmo birthday cake with red frosting that stains...

Just as our party was about to start, a thunderstorm rolled through -- but we still had a great time inside!


The birthday boy decided to show off his climbing skills, while the rest of the party-goers were busy...the next thing we know, he is standing on a chair and quite proud of himself!


Finally, it was time for Wyatt to blow out his candle!


The only problem was that Wyatt wasn't so sure about having frosting on his hand and promptly wiped it on Grandma and Grandpa's new carpet. And, unfortunately, after quite a bit of time trying to treat it, there is still a pinkish tint to it...(sorry Grandma and Grandpa)


Next was the fun part for Wyatt -- his first bite of his very own birthday cake!


Needless to say, he loved the cake, but definitely needed at bath!


Finally, all clean after a fun birthday celebration!!!