Pink Water Bottles, Presents, and Hand Washing, Oh My!

I wanted to pick up another water bottle in preparation for our Thanksgiving trip. Considering I have three boys, I was a little frustrated by the fact that the style I wanted was only available in pink. Skyler told me that he didn't mind having a pink water bottle and then Jonah piped up saying that pink was his favorite color. They then proceeded to argue over who would get to use the pink water bottle! I went ahead and grabbed another to solve that problem, and then picked up another one for good measure. In a house full of boys, it's kind of fun to have three pink water bottles lying around!

We brought home gifts for the boys from their cousins. Jonah was very concerned that there was no gift for me or Jordan. I told him we'd get some from other people. That night, when he said the prayer at dinner, he added in "please bless Santa to bring presents for mom and dad". I love it when they pray about Santa Claus.

Oliver is currently very obsessed with washing his hands. But only when they are already clean. If they are dirty, he pitches a fit if I try and wash his hands.

Oliver Looks Like His Dad

When Skyler was a year old, we decided to try and replicate a picture of Jordan when he was about the same age. So, we dressed Skyler up in overalls and a red shirt and, well, not so much a match.





Sorry, dad, one year old Skyler looks not so much like you.


Fast forward to now. Oliver looks an awful lot like his dad.

Visiting the Birds

These are some pictures of our trip to Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge. It's supposed to home to like billions of birds (especially this time of year) but I guess they heard we were coming and left perhaps. We still had a great time and saw a good amount of wildlife (including some deer that were very, very close to us).

They were doing different things and watching how it affected their shadows

He Walks!

Ollie has finally got this walking thing down. He took his first steps shortly after he turned 16 months old, but it took him almost six more weeks to figure it and actually prefer walking over crawling.

Now that he walks, he thinks he owns the place. He's drawing on the walls, climbing on the table and throwing much more tantrums. Yippee!

Not Too Cold For Flip Flops

I normally don't condone such wardrobe choices (yet apparently I take pictures of them?), but Jonah is in incredible denial that it is cold outside and socks under flip flops is sometimes the best compromise that the two of us can make. Earlier, he tried to go outside with just his t-shirt and shorts and quickly came back in to put on pants (over his shorts) and add a jacket. It was maybe 50 degrees outside, if that. The kid just does not like pants or jackets and will only wear them if completely necessary. He used to tell me that since it's cold outside, he just wouldn't go outside. Now he'll at least put pants on while he's outside. Last week we went to the aquarium and the botanic gardens (they are right by each other - they share a parking lot and an entrance area). He insisted we bring a pair of pants for him to put on after we were done with the inside portion of our outing (the aquarium). Eventually he'll give in and wear warmer clothing, right?

I Tried Out for Wheel of Fortune and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

A few weeks ago, Jordan and I abandoned the children for half a day to drive to the Wheel of Fortune auditions. If you ever have a chance to go, I'd highly recommend it - it was really a lot of fun! The way it works is everyone there fills out a brief application form. All of those application forms go into a big box and several of them are drawn during the one-hour "show" that you get to watch. It is somewhat like Wheel meets Price is Right in the sense that five names were drawn, those people went to the front and played a quick round of the game. Then five more names were chosen. Neither one of us got chosen, but not all is lost, they will choose some names of those who were in attendance to come back for a second round of auditions early next year. Plus, we got a fabulous T-shirt!

Finding Nemo

Nemo is lost! We must find him! Super Guy is on the job.

Here's Nemo! Oh, wait, no that's a frog.

A frog that likes lollipops

A frog that wants another lollipop.

Okay, back to Super Guy - I think he's found Nemo!

Yup, there's Nemo

And he's over there!

And there!

And there!

What about me, you say? Well, someone had to find Nemo once Super Guy was off duty.

I'll save you all the comment - I did not make the costume, my sister-in-law did for her daughter several years ago. We were glad to re-use it!

How's Oliver Doing?

This is a question I get a lot, and one that I certainly don't mind answering! However, Jordan and I have put together a blog to answer just this question. We will keep it updated with how he is doing and also what we know about his disease (eosinophilic esophagitis).

http://hehaseoe.blogspot.com/

Oh Yeah, We Went to See Balloons

While taking pictures at this year's Balloon Fiesta, I realized that pictures (especially the ones I take) just don't do the event justice. And at nearly that moment, the battery in our camera died. Both Jordan and I thought the previous night that we should put in a back-up charged battery, but we didn't. Here are some pictures though. So as amazing as you may think this is, in reality, it's so much more so. We were so lucky to have Jordan's sister and her family with us this year - they can tell you how cool it is!

The special shapes balloon glow. We tried to go on Thursday night, but it was cancelled, we made it to Friday night's.

This is the pre-ascension glow and the Dawn Patrol. A few balloons launch while it's still dark to test out the weather conditions.

See! We were there!

Playing Pretend

The boys got hooked on the TV show Wipeout over the summer. They started creating Wipeout courses using the couch cushions and whatever else he could get away with. Jonah especially was very into this and was always wanting me to come to Wipeout school, where he would show me how to go through the course (which included elements such as the shak-alator and the motivator) and then have me do the course. Luckily, we seemed to have passed through this phase without any major injuries, there's always next summer, I guess.





After Balloon Fiesta, the boys started playing balloon fiesta. Skyler created some VIP tags for us and they put on a balloon glow and a fireworks show. I never saw the glow, but the fireworks show consisted of them throwing all the k'nex straight up the air (a few at a time) with a random paper airplane thrown in for good measure. Essentially, things I would never allow under normal circumstances, but since they cleaned it all up without complaint, it wasn't too bad.







And a round of applause from Oliver



Yup, he approves. What's not to like about flying toys?

Last Week and the Week Before

We made these lovely Halloween candle things, but had no candles that would fit in the jars, so I put flashlights in instead.

Skyler was convinced that this craft was too easy - therefore he didn't like it. I gave him a few ideas to make it more "advanced" (cutting shapes from the tissue paper or cutting out the words), but he still didn't approve. I asked if he had any idea, but he snapped at me saying that it was my craft, so I should tell him what to do. So, for those of you keeping score, he had no desire to do what I was telling him to do, but apparently still felt it was my responsibility to magically come up with a Skyler-approved idea. I ignored him and he happily participated, eventually.

Jonah's just took a very long time to dry.

This is Jonah's monster. Its name is Jonah because Jonah made it. Though according to that logic, it should be named Alison.

This is so blurry, but it still shows the pure joy that this felt-covered quart jar brings to Jonah.

Oliver finally gets a chance to explore the catalog in peace.

Sometimes it's just easier to let them keep playing while I clean up all their toys.

Balloon Chasing

Two Sundays ago, Jordan took the older two to chase down a hot-air balloon. They were lucky enough to catch two as they were landing and help them pack up. Later that week, the younger two and I helped one pack up as well. On Friday, while Jordan's sister and her family were visiting, we hit the jackpot. A balloon landed in a neighborhood south of us and the nicest pilot ever made sure all the kids got to help with every aspect of packing up that balloon. He was actually the pilot of one the balloons that Jordan chased when he went out with the boys.

Getting all the air out of the envelope (the fabric part of the balloon)

They are holding the envelope while it's being loaded up into its bag

Here you can see the kids holding up one end of the envelope while the other end is being placed into its bag.

Sitting on the bag to get all the excess air out

The kids are trying to hoist the 350 lb. envelope into the truck