Lowes & A Cookie

I took the kids to Lowes this afternoon after no naps, and before the farmers' market. I was too busy running around after them, and getting pee'd on by Vincent in the Honey Bucket, to take pictures of our fun outting. But, I got a couple of them in the fancy shopping cart at Lowes.

And, check out the cookie Vincent made for me at summer camp today! We had lunch together, just us, and he ate his, but didn't ask to eat mine. Tonight, at bedtime, he asked me why I hadn't eaten my cookie, yet. So sweet. Now I need to wait to eat it in front of him. Breakfast, for sure.

Comments

Have you been reading some of the comments left on this blog? Many are in Chinese. When I use the bing translator, the comments don't really make much sense. Today, I saw one in English from someone I don't know, and also made no little sense. I've been trying to delete these, but it is super annoying, and I don't know why it is happening. Any tips anyone? I'm thinking of making my comment settings limited to people who are members of this blog. What does that mean? Like you have to be a follower or something? Sheesh.

Anyway, if you see one of these comments, and wonder WTF?, know that I'm wondering the exact same thing.

Summer Camp & Dog Wood

Vincent had his first day of summer camp this morning. He did a great job at drop off, and was in a good mood at pick up. He announced to me that he ate all his lunch and wondered if I had a snack for him. I sure did. Since camp is at the beach house on Lake Washington, I decided we would sit down by the water while he ate his ZBar. He said, "After I eat my bar, I'm going to touch the water." And, that he did. Immediately after he finished it, he took his shoes and socks off, asked me to help him roll up his pants, and we tested the water. All this time, David was apparently nearby on an Argosy Cruise boat, and we never saw each other. Maybe his boat was making all those big waves that got Vincent soaked. Luckily, I had a tank top under my shirt, so I let him wear it. Still so cute in women's clothing.
After David's cruise, and my visit to the courthouse to get a parking citation waived (success!), we met up on Capitol Hill, sans children. I saw this amazing dog wood tree.

Fun-filled Weekend

It started off with Marination at Vasa Park on Friday evening for Nate & Kate's pre-wedding party, where we chased the boys around, ate delicious food, including SPAM sliders, and hung out with friends.

Saturday morning we went to the gym to work out, then I took the boys to Subway for lunch. What's with all the fastfood? After the kids took their naps and USA lost in the World Cup, we all got ready to go to Nate and Kate's wedding. We brought our nanny, Audrey, along to help man the kids and then take them home for bedtime. Thank goodness, cuz if we had to be the ones to take the kids home, I wouldn't have had the thrill of watching David show off his moves on the dance floor. I smiled so much, it made my cheeks hurt. Audrey said Tyler passed out right away, but Vincent did not fall alseep until just after 10pm. He must've been so wound up from all the fun he had at the wedding. Or, all the apple juice he drank.

Sunday, we met up with the wedding crew at Cal Anderson Park for a little picnic. While there, Vincent almost took out several people with a frisbee, Tyler tried to make off with a Costco tub of hummus, and Vincent walked a dog. Tyler cut open the inside of his mouth. It was right in that spot above his two front teeth, under his top lip. Lots of blood, lots of crying, lots of rejection of mommy trying to help make him feel better, and some smeared blook on his chubby little cheeks. Oh, and we were so lucky to see a pack of naked, painted bike riders, to which Vincent so innocently asked each one as they were riding away, "Why are you naked?"

After we got home, cleaned Tyler up & put him down for a much needed nap, and had a little lunch, Vincent and I caught a bus to the Children's Museum for Serenna's 4th birthday party. While waiting for the bus, Vincent took a cool picture of me. & Pinocchio. We got stuck in Pridefest traffic, so we walked the remainder of the way.

Vincent did a fantastic job there! It was almost too easy! I got him a plate of snacks: sliced peaches, sliced bread, cheese stick, carrots, and salami. He asked for extra salami and carrots, and didn't touch the peaches or bread. WHAT?! When it was time for cupcakes, I didn't even have to do anything. A mom walked around the table with the tray and asked each kid what they wanted. Vincent picked chocolate/chocolate and ate the whole thing...not just the frosting. Then, he ran around after Serenna, calling out her name if he ever lost sight of her. After the party, V & I rode the monorail to downtown, and did a little shopping. I got him a robot shaped bath bomb at Lush, and he helped me pick out a couple of shirts at Anthropologie. Okay, he sort of helped, but he was so good. He went into the dressing room with me, and commented on how the stuff I tried on looked. He mostly just repeated whatever I said, but he did seem to genuinely like the two shirts I ended up buying.

He fell asleep about 3 stops before we needed to get off our bus on the ride home. I carried him on my back 4 blocks home to our house, including 3 steep hills, while he slept. Now, that's love.

The rest of the evening was pretty typical...dinner, bath, bedtime. Whew! What a weekend!

Vincent Says

Vincent - "Mommy, does Stella (our cat) have a pagina?"
Mommy- "Yes."
Vincent - "A little, tiny pagina!"

Officially Summer 2010

The boys and I are officially on our summer schedule...whatever that means. I guess this is what it means:

Vincent's out of preschool, Mandarin is over, and Tyler's baby class at Seattle Central has wrapped up. I've switched our nanny to coming two mornings a week (until she leaves for her summer trip). We have camping trips planned. We have two other "summer" trips planned. Vincent will be going to a couple weeks of summer camp. I've applied sunscreen on the children, and will start keeping a "summer" bag in the car. And, the biggest change to our schedule is Tyler's napping...

T-man has been showing signs of dropping down to one nap a day, but I have been trying to keep him on two until this week. I have been aggressively trying to get him to take just one a day since Monday. It's been up and down. Monday he took two, though now I can't really remember for sure how it went. Tuesday he took two, but I believe they were shorter than usual. Wednesday was the tough day. He took an hour nap all day. By bedtime, he was overtired and cranky. Thursday I took the boys out first thing and tired them out in the sunshine. He napped from 12:30pm-3:15pm. He went to bed at the same time, falling asleep about 8:45pm, and woke this morning at 6:30am. Not bad. This morning, I took them to the gym 2 hours earlier than normal, and he went down at noon. Vincent fell asleep an hour later.

Speaking of Vincent, he is still taking one afternoon nap on most days. He needs it, otherwise he's cranky by dinnertime. I usually give him is Tag story reader and let him pick out a couple of books to read. This helps wind him down. When he has read for about 20-30 minutes, I have him put it away and I lie down with him and we both rest. Today, he fell asleep almost immediately. He did also wake up at 5:30am with soaked sheets...

Oh, after the gym, I decided to take the kids to McDonalds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least I'm admitting it to the world! Vincent declared that he did not want to eat his food in the car ("It would be too messy and I will be mad at you, Mommy."), nor did he want to eat it at home. He wanted to go inside the restaurant to eat. Whew! That was not as simple as I pictured in my head. At 11am, that place was packed! Tourist, apparently. I had staked out a booth for us, pulled up a highchair next to it, but failed to mark it any other way that it was taken. We lost our booth. Shoot! Tyler squirmed in my arms the whole time we waited for our food, and Vincent kept asking where his toy was, or saying, "Hey, Mommy! You forgot to give me my toy." When we did get our food, and find a seat, they had given us fries instead of the apples I ordered. I had to go change that out. BTW, they had to throw away the frieds, that I had not touched, and Happy Meal boxes. I was working up such a sweat just trying to get us started on eating. But, thank goodness I got those apples, cuz that seemed to be the thing the boys were most interested in. Tyler liked dipping his apples in ketchup. Vincent found that funny and decided to try it for himself. When I asked if it was good, he responded with a nod, then tured kind of red and gave a funny face. I guess it wasn't so good. We did have a good laugh of it.

3 1/2 Years Old!

Yup, that's the age Vincent turned today. I decided to try out the half-birthday idea today. I really talked it up with Vincent and even gave him a mini celebration.

We started our day with a walk on our street. Vincent rode is "mo-mo" scooter, while I pushed Tyler in the trike. Then, after a morning nap for Tyler, we went to U Village to meet Sheila for lunch. We ate at Sonrisa, which is this fancy Mexican restaurant. It was good, but our salads were a bit spicy. Vincent ate up his quesadilla pretty well, and Tyler did so-so on his meal. He did make a good mess, though.

As a gift from Mommy and Daddy, Vincent received a red envelope with $5 inside! He was told he could pick something out at Kid's Club with his money, but the first thing he said when he saw it was, "One dollar! I'm going to put it in my little bank." Man, $5 doesn't get you much in that store. He found a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur set for under $7. I had a small discount, and I spotted him the rest. He is quite enjoying his dinosaurs, and is sleeping with a brachiosaurus right this moment.

After we paid for his toy, we went to Trophy Cupcakes to get...well, the obvious. He picked out "Peanut Butter & Jelly." Nice choice, kiddo. Tyler and I shared a red velvet. We ate it at table outside next to the water fountain. I came prepared for the water today and let the boys play in it.
After naptime, we went for another ride with the scooter and trike. Then, had a delicious dinner of a whole roasted chicken I made. I tried brining my chicken this time, and it turned good! When we finished dinner, we headed to the old neighborhood and were so lucky to see everyone, minus Ruth. It was such a warm, pleasant evening out, and so good to see old friends.

Check out what Tyler wore this evening. He really wanted to wear those boots.

Vincent's Quote of the Day

"Mommy, I'm super than you."

I'm Cold

It's the middle of June, and I'm cold. I'm finding that I'm still bundling up the kids to go out. And, as I'm sitting here, online "window" shopping, I'm looking at clothes to keep me warm. I saw some sweaters on sale and imagined how cozy I would feel in one of them. I saw t-shirts on sale, too, and sort of shivered. That's sad.

Sponge, Panacea, and iPad

Yesterday, the boys finished up Mandarin classes at Sponge. It was Tyler's first year, and Vincent's 3rd. This may actually be Vincent's last class ever at Sponge. We're not entirely sure, yet. It seems like just yesterday when Vincent was finishing his first year. They've downplayed the "graduation" since Vincent's first year, but it was still fun. Here are the boys looking at their diplomas. We were so fortunate to have Wen Xing as their teacher this year. She's great & is always so nice to us. Vincent quite loves her.

We've been so fortunate to be getting dinner made for us on Mondays. A couple of my friends started a business called Panacea. They make the dinners, we pick them up, reheat (if necessary), and eat it up. Last night's dinner was this Asian noodle soup. It was such a fun meal, and the broth was amazing. Check out the boys enjoying.

Father's Day came early this year. I had planned a major surprise to give David and iPad, but it was foiled by the FedEx guy when he showed up at the door, asking for a signature, before David headed out to work one morning. If he had only been 10 minutes later...Oh well, D was still surprised with the gift and has been happily playing with it since. Ooh, and Vincent's pretty excited, too.

Kindie Rock

There was a free music festival in Seattle today. It was called Share The Music and it was put on by a group of musicians who call themselves Kindiependent. Check out their webpage at www.kindiependent.com, or click on the link from the previous sentence. We think this is pretty great. Indie music for kids and parents to enjoy. "Kindie rock" will probably one of those names, like "Foodie," that'll annoy some people that such a name exists, but we are into it. It's clever and it totally fits.

On a whim, we decided to go to this mini-music festival. We packed up some provisions and got the boys on a bus headed downtown. It was great. We even had to transfer busses. We stopped at M Street Grocery for lunch items to take with us. To make our lives easier, we got both boys a corn dog each.David sent his mom a picture of Ty and his corndog, and she guessed he would eat the whole thing. He didn't! Neither of them did, but Vin ate more than Ty.

We made it home in time for naps, and then headed back out to Vincent's preschool class' end of the year potluck. Tyler wanted to get right in with the big kids, but stayed on the sideline shoveling dirt instead. Vincent ran around with a couple of bigger boys, too. Later, once everyone else had left (somehow we're always the last to leave), Vincent played with the twins whose house we were at. They were all have so much fun, Vincent peed in his pants, and Rhys, the boy, didn't want to go inside to pee, when it was clear he really had to go. So funny how bodily functions are secondary to toddlers.
Lastly, it's been over a week since the boys started sharing a room. Evenings are better. Vincent ends up getting to bed pretty late, like 9pm. Tyler has been waking earlier in the mornings. Most days he wakes Vincent, too. The other day, both boys got up, but definitely needed more sleep. David successfully got them both, and us, back to sleep. Seems that was a one-hit wonder.

Summer, Are You Here To Stay?

The sun came out today. And, it was warm!

The day started out with a POD being dropped off for our neighbors who are moving. The boys were so excited, expecially David. He took Vincent and Tyler outside to watch the truck unload the POD. After Tyler's morning nap, we all went to the gym, then to a pizza place nearby to watch USA vs England in the World Cup. Since it was so nice and warm out, we decided to let the boys play with water on the porch before taking a late nap.

We (kind of) sat on a bench and watched them play. Every so often one of us would get up and tend to their needs, like helping fill a water toy, or making sure one of them doesn't eat dirt...

Got a fancy set up here.

Painting With Tyler

I rarely do art projects with my boys. Why? Because I always have this fun image in my head of how it's going to go, and it never ends up that way. I picture myself calmly helping one of them create a work of art. Instead, I am rushing around picking this up, cleaning this, and in today's case...washing paint out of a certain toddler's mouth.

Yup. Yesterday, I purchased a set of mini paint cups with lids and brushes. I was super excited. And, since we're going through a nap transition for Tyler, I was trying to buy us time before putting him down for his morning nap. I thought, "Oh, a quick paint project will be a good idea." So, I got us all set up, and the first thing Tyler did was pick up the paint brush, draw one stroke on the paper, and then stuck the brush into his mouth. "AHHHH!" Was my response. I picked him up, and then didn't really know what to do. Ah, the sink! Wait, no, paper towels first! Ahh! I don't know! I stuffed paper towels into his mouth, trying to wipe out the thick amount of paint, all with him jerking his head side-to-side. I did have to pin him down on the floor at one point. Finally, when we were all done with that, I walked him back to the paint, picked up a brush, and asked him if he'd like to try that again. He shook his head. We continued on with the painting, making more of a mess, but no more paint in the mouth.

And, finally, we have Tyler's first frameable piece of artwork.

By the way, when I first did the paint-on-the-hands thing with Vincent, he couldn't wait for me to wash the paint off. With Tyler, he kept trying to paint more on.

Orcas Island Highlights

Awesome mini vacay we had. What a beautiful spot we stayed.

Tyler loved the sand & rocks, and kept making a mad dash for the water whenever he found a chance. Vincent got to row a boat. That's our cabin on the far left.

After lots of effort working on our campfire, we finally had success! S'mores. Mmmmmm.

Vincent and I had a nice walk along the beach to check out the tide pools. We picked up shells & crab parts along the way. Back at the cabin, we built a sand castle & decorated it with the pieces we collected. It was the highlight of the trip for me.

My second highlight was when David and I took a couple of hours to ourselves & went to a boutique shop in Eastsound. David found the hat he has been searching for since we began dating, and I got a couple of new tops. Doesn't he look like such a hip daddy with it on.