side by side 2009/2010

betsy's santa hat photo shoot

in keeping the tradition going of christmas pictures with nothing on but a diaper and a santa hat, here is betsy's debut:

santa cookies

we finally got the sugar cookie dough out of the fridge today and made my grandma's world-renowned sugar cookies, just in time for christmas eve. the kids don't really understand yet about santa coming to our house and enjoying the cookies but we told pete they were for santa anyway. and that he was coming to our house - and he just kept nodding and saying "house." as if to say, yes, i understand, santa is coming to our house, how cool!  we gave him his own little tray and own cup of frosting and his own sprinkle containers and he thought that was the best arrangement ever. he had a grand time particularly with the sprinkles, alternating between sprinkling the cookies, sprinkling the dog and taking the lids on and off. when he decided to eat his cookies, he broke off the tips of the star he decorated that didn't have frosting and gobbled it up saying "mmmm!" after each bite. but he was particularly careful not to touch any of the frosting on the cookie and didn't eat that part, how funny!??! we even managed to coerce him into wearing the awesome new apron from his cousins - i was wearing betsy's for the baking event too!  the rest of the day he kept trying to nab unfrosted cookies off the cooling racks where they are still waiting for daddy and i to finish frosting them together as part of our late night elving to-do list. happy christmas eve to you all. here's the movie-

rain, rain, go away!

we've been spending our time inside lately....lots of time inside. sounds like the sun should come out tomorrow and we'll be able to go outside again. it was a great excuse to wear our wellies out on the town today because water was pooling everywhere - we've exceeded san diego's drainage capacity.  its a good thing the sun is coming out because we've also exceeded our fridge's capacity - we've been doing lots of cooking, which is awesome because pete is really excited about it. i can't wait until he is a little older, a little more coordinated and a little bit better at following/listening to/understanding directions - i hope he still has crazy-excited attitude towards cooking that he currently holds. what fun we'll have when he can really be helpful. in the meantime, i'm trying to relax and take the its-just-another-mess-who-cares approach to our cooking time together - i'd rather wipe up spilled spices than crush his desire to be a part of something i value so much. looking forward to this year of "terrible two" because with each day that passes, we'll venture into new territories of areas that he can actually participate in activities!

new children's museum

rainy day rescue: the new children's museum downtown san diego. what a blast. the moment we walked in my heart was leaping, what a fun and beautiful facility for kids to explore their world! the building is just gorgeous. its absolutely appealing for kids and adults alike - and so much fun to watch all those little people running and touching and learning and doing. three levels of awesome. we walked in and pete was initially a little cautious - his face seemed to say "this is really exciting but there is a lot to take in...am i allowed to touch any of it?" once we gave him the go ahead to explore and he realized we were just going to follow him around and let him look at anything his heart desired, he went full steam ahead! animal inspired play rooms, a barn with light switches that each made a different animal sound, tables stocked with clay for modeling, a make your own christmas gift tag station from recycled cardboard and water colors, a jump house tunnel in the basement, a play house with a corrugated tin roof with a sprinkler on top called the rain house, a bang-as-loud-as-you-possibly-can-on-the-drum station that he adored, a huge trojan horse suspended over the main entry area you could walk inside and peek through to see all the activity below, a rock and rope climbing area and a room tucked away in the corner with all the musical instruments, books and strange bouncing horses you could handle. betsy loved watching it all go by and pete loved bopping from place to place seeing what he could discover next with a grin on his face the whole time. even better: the museum is offering free admission to military families through the end of the year. what a perfect morning - i'm sort of glad its been raining for days on end, its forced us to explore some of the indoor excitement san diego has to offer.

moments

we're all here together, all four of us (ahem, ok all five of us - sorry baxter). it feels so right to all be here together enjoying all the moments that make up our days. we're so grateful reid has a few weeks of dedicated time at home with us to reconnect and get-to-know-again and laugh and play and giggle and rest. it seems that reid being here each morning when pete wakes up has made things right in his little two-year-old world. betsy of course is busy wrapping her daddy around her sweet little finger. and i have been grateful both for the adult companionship and affection and the opportunity to step back a bit from taking-care-of-kids and more into the playing-with-kids as well as a chance to do some caring for myself (projects, yoga, running, reading) and dedicating time to preparing meals to share with the family without having to multi-multi-task. with such a luxurious 2 weeks of downtime it seems like we should have a grand and impressive list of things we've done together but honestly, much of our together time has been spent right here in our own little home and its been just perfect. i've loved watching all the moments our days have been made out of- walks, trips to the library and errands to the store, lots of book reading and playing with trucks and tractors and feeding all the animals in his barn and identifying the colors of things (this week everything is green), spouting out some words to a song he loves, teaching the concept of sharing and taking turns, lots of wiping up runny noses for both kids and a little bit of tylenol in the mix - although from their spirits and activity levels you'd never know it thank goodness.....and we've been dreaming up lots of fun things to go do outside together once the rain finally stops! oh, and reid and i even got to enjoy our first date night together which was so much fun to reconnect in that way.

 betsy is working with all her might to conquer the art of crawling forward. make no mistake, she's extremely mobile, but you can't exactly call it crawling yet. she spies pete's dearest treasures from across the room and scoots her way there in a hurry. and oh my is she proud when she finally has that special object fixed in her hands, exploring it with her mouth. we just keep watching her motor around with awe and grin thinking how much things will change when she can really go full speed ahead! such a joy to watch her discover their world.

pete's favorite things:

hanging out in the "tunnel" with daddy - the two of them drape a giant quilt over themselves to create the tunnel and they just hang out in there - cuddling, tickling, chattering away. its the most precious thing i've ever seen. and i've literally seen them do that for an hour. pete always brings the green trash truck and his juice along. sometimes they are sitting on the couch. sometimes they are lying on the carpet. but wherever they are, pete and his daddy are snuggled together under a blankie and he feels safe and loved and happy.

cooking! pete helped me make pizza the other day and in the process he learned how fun it is to add ingredients and seasoning to the recipe. i emptied out a spice container and gave it to him to add to his kitchen. and oh my how this small trinket has captured his imagination. he is adding spices to just about everything around the house now!

flying. another trick he and daddy share together is flying, whether playing airplane on daddy's legs or requesting daddy toss him up in the air, pete is just thrilled. over and over pete will say "ready?" and then wait to be launched into flight. he's also really loved the opportunity to play rough with daddy, climbing on him, pretending he's a horse, tickling and tackling to his heart's delight. betsy gets a quick turn to play airplane while pete eats his lunch.

 reading. he's really into reading books right now and its just fascinating how much information he's able to spout out as we're reading to him. he asked reid to get one of the books with real paper pages down the other night and reid opened the book to the first page and pete said "baby bear, baby bear...." and yes, those were the first words on the page. there is a dr. seuss book called "hop on pop" and that dear child essentially knows the words that are on each page. i can ask him to get a book by title and he'll walk over to the book shelf or basket and bring it down to me. he's also really enjoyed opening the new christmas/holiday themed books each day of december and adding some new stories to the mix.  i've taken all but 10ish of his books and put them away in the closet, there were just too many of them and i think it was too overwhelming. now that there are less books to choose from, we read more often. in a few days i'll take the ones we're reading and swap them for some of those stashed away in the closet to keep things interesting.

 this afternoon after a few days of being cooped up, we decided something had to give so we experimented with finger painting. he seemed to like the idea of it but got bored quickly. i'm wondering if it was because his freedom was so restricted? we just don't have a good area conducive to potentially messy crafting as our kitchen table sits on a carpeted area. my solution was to put a cardboard box on the kitchen floor and then tape paper to it for painting. still, it just seemed like there was too much redirecting and correcting and "no's" to really let him get into the creative flow of it. am hoping our next house will have a room or space that let's us be more creative without worrying so much about the mess involved.

the rain continues to fall and this evening even reid got stir crazy (which never happens!) so we escaped to the mall to let pete explore and give us all a change of scenery. one of my favorite moments of the day happened in the van. betsy was upset and crying pretty hard because her hood had slipped and was covering one of her eyes and pete kept saying in a sweet little voice "its ok, baby". what a sweet brother.  we certainly got a change of scenery tonight, the mall was packed! pete and reid greeted all the animals in the pet store and pete stopped to admire every single window display filled with christmas trees (when he says it, it still sounds a bit like his version of "trick or treat"). he is absolutely enamored with christmas trees and was particularly taken by the 2 story tree at santa's house in the center of the mall. on the way to the mall he seemed excited by the prospect of seeing santa again and kept exclaiming "santa!" with great joy but when we got there and realized he had gone home to see mrs. claus for the evening, he didn't seem to mind. we enjoyed a family dinner at panera with both kids sitting up in their own high chairs at the table - betsy looked oh so big sitting there like that (and man she has lightning quick hands, we quickly had to clear an area around her because she was grabbing everything and cramming it in her mouth - napkins, my plastic cup, the potato chip bag...). then we trekked back across the mall and pete got more of his wiggles out along the way, stopping to point out more christmas trees in the shops with good window displays. it makes my heart so happy that he can stop and enjoy the beauty of a christmas tree in a shop window - he walks right past some of the gaudier, glitzier more jazzed up holiday decor, breezed past a santa in the apple store display but them stopped to admire a tiny tree in a jewelry store window, pointing to the tree and saying "look! trit-ma tree!"
i'm just so happy to be together as a family again. by society's standards, these stories aren't newsworthy, but they are so very dear to my heart and i am so grateful to be making these sweet memories with our little family. and i'm thankful to take pause at the end of the day to remember all the little moments that made me smile and filled me with joy and happiness when i watched them unfold. and now in a very public forum (public in the sense that at least my parents and reid's parents reid this blog), i have to thank him - he's jumped right into the midst of all the beautiful chaos of life with two littles with a smile on his face. he's so wonderful with the kids and his joy when he plays with them is so very real and contagious. he's shown such patience and understanding and insight when interacting with a sometimes-fragile two year old and i've been impressed and blown-away with gratitude - my awesome husband is an even more amazing father. i am the luckiest.