11 months

connor is 11 months old. we celebrated by going to the skirball cultural center with jen and bodhi. we went to visit the noah's ark exhibit. we have gone here before and the kids love it. they got to run around for two hours and miles and i got to escape the heat.

connor is 19 pounds. he was teething last month and now has four new teeth on top. going through the teething was horrible. he would just cry and want to be held all day long. he was pretty much cranky for at least a week. it was weird that all four teeth came in at once. poor little guy. boy am i glad we are done with that.

he is still not really standing. he will only let go of a table or chair for just a couple seconds. that is fine with me. i like him crawling. the crawling phase never lasts long enough for me. he is an angel. his little laugh can put a smile on my face no matter how bad the day has been. i just adore him.

pirate party for mason

we had a birthday party for mason over the weekend. he will be turning five on october 5th. we decided to celebrate early this year because we will be having another party for connor at the end of october. fall is a busy season around here.

we had a pirate theme. what a fun party theme. you can really go crazy with all the pirate stuff available. i was lucky that halloween is right around the corner and there is pirate stuff everywhere. this was our first real "kid party" where we had kid activities and lots of kids attending. usually our parties are mostly adults with a few little kids running around. it was really fun to see all the kids playing pirates.

we spent quite a while last week working on party decorations. we turned our swing set into a pirate ship by making a large sail and pirate flag to attach to it. this was made with old sheets and wooden dowels from the hardware store. miles did a great job with this. once we had our "pirate ship" we added a wooden plank off the side for the kids to "walk the plank." this was close to the ground so there wouldn't be any injuries. we also filled the sand box at the bottom of the swing set with plastic gold coins and beaded necklaces as treasure for the kids to dig up. they had to each find three coins and a necklace after walking the plank to earn their pirate gear. the pirate gear was a bandanna, foam sword and pirate tattoo. they loved digging up the treasure. i would have put more stuff in there had i known this would be so popular.

once the kids were all dressed as pirates they got to go on a treasure hunt. my brother in law ray was kind enough to be the mastermind behind this. he wrote up all the clues and hid the treasure. there was a series of four clues hidden in bottles that eventually led to a hidden treasure chest. the chest was filled with loot bags that i sewed from canvas and painted a skull and crossbones on using a potato stamp. the loot bags were the party favors for the kids. i filled the bags with a candy necklace, ring pop, skull and crossbones bouncy ball, skull necklace kit, and stickers. the kids loved the treasure hunt. they were not very good about following the clues though. they just wanted to run around with their swords and hunt for the treasure. kind of like real pirates i bet.

then it was time for cake. my sister jen was crazy nice and made this amazing pirate ship cake. it was delicious. thanks sister! mason loved his cake. all in all it was a super fun party. the only thing that was bumming me out was that it was so so hot. it was over 100 degrees and our air conditioner in the kitchen was not working. ugh. it was so hot that the chocolate coins on the table inside started to melt. oh well. i don't think the kids even realized it was hot. they were having too much fun. thanks to everyone who celebrated with us.

tinker bell

dahlia tried her costume on. i think this is the perfect costume for her. too cute.

the sand box

we are getting things ready for mason's birthday party. he is having a pirate party this year, so in preparation for a party game i finally convinced miles to fill our sand box with sand. we have had an empty sand box that is part of our swing set for over two years. miles has always been against the idea of putting sand into the box because he is worried that sand will be everywhere. mostly that the sand will be brought into our house and ruin the hardwood floors. he is right. i spent the evening sweeping up all the sand on our kitchen floor. oops.

i don't think mason and dahlia even knew there was a sandbox at the bottom of the swing set. we always kept the cover on it. they were so excited when we spent yesterday cleaning the swing set and then surprised them by filling their "new" sand box with sand. it was just like christmas around here. i really thought it was adorable when first thing this morning mason jumped out of bed and ran outside to play in the sand. even connor loves the sand box. today miles relaxed a bit about the sand mess and put a big bucket of water outside our kitchen door for them to wash their feet before them come inside. this seems to be working and i think we can all be happy now.

crayon art

arts and crafts today. miles and i were reminiscing about how we made crayon art out of crayon shavings and a warm iron when we were kids. we decided our kids would not be robbed of this experience so he spent at least an hour shaving crayons into ziplock baggies. mason was very distraught by this. "not my crayons from the restaurant, those are my special crayons." he was very against the shaving of the crayons even though he never uses these "special" crayons from california pizza kitchen. i usually only let them color with washable crayons because dahlia will still color her clothes and the walls.

after miles finished ruining the crayons we set up the project. the kids were supposed to take the shavings and make some kind of pattern or picture on wax paper and then put another piece of wax paper on top and melt the crayons with a warm iron. miles was in charge of the iron. this whole project held their interest for at least ten minutes or was it only two? they did manage to each make one picture. i can't wait to try this again. i am going to do a little research and figure out what else we can do with shaved crayons. i feel like we need a little more direction for them. perhaps it was a little too abstract.

first day of school

mason had his first day at kindergarten yesterday. he was so cute and woke up at 6 am all excited to go. i was so relieved to see him in a good mood. we loaded up the whole family to drive him to school. miles and i were a bit shocked at how much traffic there was and we ended up parking the car so far away that it took 20 minutes to walk him to class. we were ten minutes late. ugh. i was really feeling like a crappy parent. not only is my kid starting school a week later than everyone else he is now late for his first day. oh well, it will not happen again. i am determined to get him to school on time from now on.

today was much worse than yesterday. we made it to school early but apparently the excitement of the first day has passed and mason did not want to go to class today. he was really upset and ended up screaming and crying the whole time while we waited in line for his teacher to get there. he was having a complete meltdown. i felt so bad for him. he really is very young and has never been in any preschool. he just kept saying he wanted to go back to the car and screamed. it really took all my willpower to not just take him home. the teacher told me the best thing to do is just to leave him and let him adjust. i did just leave and she later told me that he stopped crying in about fifteen minutes. i still don't know if he is ready for kindergarten.

the teacher tested him on his letter recognition and sounds and told me he did very well. she said that was very good but she also feels he is young compared to the other students and might do better if he started next year. she did tell me it was really too soon to tell though and we would just see how he does in the next couple of weeks. personally i think i would much rather wait and enroll him next year. i never intended for him to start this year and then at the last moment we decided to just give it a try. i also have a biased opinion. he is my baby and i can't tell if i am just being over protective by wanting him home with me for another year. is it mason that is not ready for kindergarten or just me?

last day of summer

so what do you do on the last day of summer vacation? wash the cars. oh yes. this was something that really needed to happen around here. i did not want to drop my kid off at kindergarten (gasp) with a super filthy car. luckily the kids didn't realize this is a chore. they just think it is a fun activity to do with the hose. we somehow managed to sucker jen, ray and bodhi into helping us. we did help them wash their car but we had two cars that needed washing. i think we got the better deal. for sure. we bribed them with dinner and wine. it was actually fun to wash the cars with everyone helping. after all that hard work we enjoyed a nice dinner of barbecue chicken and potato salad. such a classic american meal. noooo summer can't be ending. it is too soon. more, more please.

unpacking

uh yeah. we brought all that stuff.

home from the river

we just got back from our family vacation to the colorado river. we usually go every year but skipped last year because we were so broke. this year my dad was super generous and decided to treat the whole family. yay. it was so nice to have a vacation. we only stayed for five nights and the time just flew by.

we had two camp spots with my parents motor home and a rented trailer. everyone came this year. we shared our trailer with jen, ray and bodhi. it was so fun to have all the little kids together. every morning they would wake up and (after the dreaded sunscreen rubdown) run down to the water where they would pretty much stay and play until sundown. it was great for me because i got to be outside all day.

the weather was pretty nice this year. only around 100 - 110 degrees. we were lucky because last week the temperatures got up to 116. so happy to have missed that. i was proud of myself and actually got up and water skied. it has been at least three years since i have done that and i was a little worried that i would have have trouble getting up. luckily that was not the case.

we did all the usual river activities such as the boat ride to parker dam, pizza night out at buckskin, swimming in the pool at little paradise, building lots of sand castles, fishing, riding jet skis, and staying up late playing games. so fun. i can't wait to do it again next year.