April 30, 2013

I needed to pick up a few things at Costco this morning.  A giant stuffed dog was not on my list but Luke was SO excited when he saw the big box full of them.  The dog did not come home with us, but he did get some good hugs before going back in the box.  

April 29, 2013

When it's time to get in bed Luke always runs away from me giggling and tries to hide.  Tonight he is "hiding" on the new sofa.  The funniest thing is that he really thinks I can't see him, you know since he can't see me.  I play along with it and ask "where's Luke?" and he has the best laugh.  Then finally he pops his head up and laughs even more.  He's also adopted Isaac's stuffed Curious George.  He asks for it by making monkey sounds and scratching his head and belly.  Somehow Isaac does not find this to be quite as adorable as I do.  

April 28, 2013

We got a call today saying that our new couch is going to be delivered tomorrow.  That means we had to get the old one out of here.  We tried having a Salvation Army type place come pick it up a few weeks ago, but when they got here they said it was "too worn."  What?  It's not that bad.  Or is it?  I guess that's when you know you really need new furniture - when you can't even give away the old!  Anyway, I posted it on Craigslist this afternoon in the "free" section.  But every time I tried to take a picture Luke kept jumping on the couch.  I sent him to go jump on Dad instead!  

A few college guys came to pick it up.  Isaac & Luke both thought this was really exciting, and after they left Luke thought he'd go ahead and pick up our other couch.  

April 27, 2013

Tonight we had dinner at La Sirena Grill.  It's on the other side of town so we don't go there as often as we should.  The food is fantastic.  But the boys' favorite thing is running around this fountain outside.  They will seriously just run in circles around and around for as long as we'll let them.  There are always other kids running too.  Tonight there was a little girl, about a year old, who liked Luke.  You could tell she had just barely started walking.  Luke stopped a couple of times to check her out, but then would run away again.  Each time she would get so sad and yell out "come back!"  It was super cute.  

April 26, 2013

Today was Isaac's last day of karate.  I have mixed emotions about it.  Isaac almost always puts up a fight when it was time to go (though he usually has fun when he's there).  Practicing kata at home is pure torture.  Trying to entertain Luke for an hour (we can no longer use the extra room) is tough.  And so for those reasons I'm kind of glad to be done with it.  But it's also a little sad.  We've spent two years at this studio and I don't want Isaac to think it's okay to quit something just because it's hard.  I told him we are just taking a break, but I'm not sure when or if we'll get back into it.  Hopefully we can find something else that is more enjoyable for him.

April 25, 2013

I found a new car wash place in Fountain Valley (near Luke's speech place) that I love and here is why.  The basic wash is only $5.  They let you use their vacuums for free.  You can stay in your car during the drive-thru and then just drive away when it's done.  There are guys in the drive-thru, not just the machines, so the car actually gets clean.  You can upgrade your wash and have them hand dry it, etc.  But for a quick wash it's perfect!  Isaac loves riding up in the front seat.  His favorite part is the "green slime."  

Isaac has also invented another type of drive-thru for cars.  It's called a "Bleh Bleh" and it's the place where you go to get your car dirty.  It will dump dirt, mud, bird poop, and smashed bugs on your car.  Sounds lovely, right?  He thinks he is hilarious and tells me all the time that he wants to take my car to the Bleh Bleh, and then he starts laughing hysterically.  

April 24, 2013

I try to avoid taking both boys grocery shopping, but Isaac doesn't have school on Wednesdays and I needed some things at Sprouts.  To my surprise, they were actually both pretty well behaved.  As usual, Luke saw the suckers at the register and went nuts, and Isaac wanted one too.  When we got to the car I thanked them both for being such good boys at the store.  Isaac asked "was I goodest as Jesus?" (this is his new line - whenever he promises us to be good he always says he'll be "goodest as Jesus"  Ha!)  "Almost," I told him.  "Except for shooting the vegetables with that claw thing."

April 23, 2013

I gave Cracker a bath today and Luke came in to watch.  Luke loves baths but hates getting his hair washed, so I decided to use Cracker as a visual aid for a teaching moment.  I talked Luke through how I was washing Cracker's hair and Cracker's ears, etc, etc.  He loved it and talked about it all day long.  But the real test was Luke's bath tonight.  To my surprise, NO tears during hair washing!

April 22, 2013

Turns out Luke has a thing for school mascots.  ECLC has this giant stuffed bear that is sometimes sitting in the lobby when we drop Isaac off for speech in the morning.  They move him around though, so sometimes he is around the corner or way down the hall.  Luke has made it his mission to find the bear every morning and give it a hug.

We take Isaac to Meadow Park Elementary for OT and speech.  Their mascot is a Mustang and they have this stuffed horse sitting in their front office.  Luke loves this horse almost as much as the bear, and grabs it off of the table every time we go in.  Then he usually take off running with it down the hall at full speed.   

April 21, 2013

The kitchen is finally all put back together!  The new cabinets are a bit smaller than the old.  And we had waaaaay too much kitchen stuff anyway, so we ended up doing a big clean-out.  We used to have tools & gadgets in two separate little drawers that were overflowing and it was always a treasure hunt to find what I was looking for.  Now it is just one big drawer, with less stuff, and I love the new organizers that we bought too.

April 20, 2013

Tonight we had dinner with some friends at Cucina Enoteca - an Italian place at the Irvine Spectrum.  The food was good - Charlie and I shared two dishes.  The one with the braised short ribs & pappardelle pasta was fantastic.  We all shared a bruschetta sampler too that was super yummy.  Isaac was somewhat well behaved and Luke was terrible.  Here he is eating fruit snacks out of the back of a Matchbox pick-up truck, but moments later he was actually climbing the shutters on the window behind me, kind of like a ladder.

Afterwards we let the boys burn off some energy by running around the fountain and this Cadillac display.  Luke wanted to get inside the car really badly.  He tried his hardest to open the door, but it just wouldn't budge.  Ha!  This picture cracks me up.  

April 19, 2013

Charlie mowed the lawn this evening, so we all ended up in the backyard.  Charlie & I worked together to get the yard cleaned up and the boys mostly just played in the dirt.  I unintentionally dressed them in almost identical shirts this morning.  Here they are admiring some sort of worm/slug thing that Isaac found.  I'm not a big fan of worms.  Maybe someday I'll have a little girl...  But meanwhile I'm so very grateful for my two handsome, worm loving boys.

April 18, 2013

While I was showering this morning, Luke thought it would be fun to make a giant pile of Charlie's & my shoes and then crash into them with a train.  He thought he was so hilarious.

Isaac and I went to Fashion Island while Luke was at speech.  I hadn't been in the C Wonder store yet, though I did go to one in Atlanta a few months ago.  While I was browsing Isaac came and grabbed me because he wanted to show me what he'd found.  Yep, we are a family of dog lovers.

And here's something else I found at Fashion Island.  There is a new little macaroon bakery.  It is a tiny little store with a gorgeous display of brightly colored macaroons spanning the room .  Charlie loves macaroons so I decided to bring home a box for us all to share.  We'd already eaten half of them before I thought to take a photo.  But I'm sure we'll be back.  

April 17, 2013

This is not a flattering picture of either one of us, but tonight my sister Sandy took me out for a belated birthday dinner.  I picked Nordstrom Cafe of course and opted for the lemon coconut cake rather than the boston cream tonight, just to change it up a bit.  Afterwards we did a little shopping and then just sat in the car and talked because we could!  No interruptions.  It was a fun night.

April 16, 2013

Today my friend Erin and her two boys Cody & Dylan came over to visit.  Erin and I worked together at Kaplan years ago, right after I graduated from BYU and moved back to CA.  We've stayed friends and try to get together every few months.  Isaac had a bit of a meltdown at first about sharing Legos, but he eventually got over it and the boys had great fun building fighter jets together.

April 15, 2013

Luke has been begging to go to the beach.  I don't even know why he is so obsessed with it, but for the past two days he has been telling us repeatedly "go bee."  And then he lifts up a leg like he is stepping into a bath tub to show us he wants to get in the water.  It is kind of hilarious.  So Charlie suggested that we go to the beach tonight when he got home from work.  We went down to Crescent Bay and explored the tide pools for a bit and then walked back to sit on the beach.  The weather was overcast and it was colder than we expected.  But we all had fun until Luke was running from the surf and a little wave got his feet wet.  Drama!  "Oh cold, cooold!  Shoes cold!  Feet cold!" For the rest of the night he kept bringing up his cold feet and would start crying again.  The water was cold but I don't think it even reached his ankles.  I think he was more upset that it got his (water) shoes wet.  Hopefully we can get over this trauma before our trip to Hawaii next month.  

April 14, 2013

Luke loves going to the nursery at church.  I went with him for a few weeks leading up to his 18 month mark, and after that I was assigned a new primary class to teach so he was on his own.  It is so nice that he goes happily each week.  Today I was peeking in on him through the window between classes and a friend asked me to go in and ask about her son (he doesn't like going and would cry if he saw her again).  Luke was all smiles and sitting so nicely in his chair waiting for snack time.  I couldn't resist snapping a quick photo before heading back to Primary.

April 13, 2013

When the workers re-installed our appliances yesterday they discovered that our dishwasher has a leak.  There was some mold and warped boards when they pulled it out originally, but we assumed it was from a previous leak that we fixed about a year ago.  Nope, it's still leaking.  We have been to Lowe's and Home Depot nearly every day since starting this kitchen project.  The look on Isaac's face pretty much sums up how we were all feeling by this point.  We had to pick out paint, a new dishwasher, and a few other things and the boys were not very patient.  The enormous plastic car cart is only entertaining for so long.

April 12, 2013

The kitchen is still under construction, which means another night of eating out.  Tonight we went for pho and Charlie gave Isaac one of his rice noodles to try.  Obviously Isaac has figured out the best way to go about eating very long noodles.  

April 11, 2013

Isaac is still on Spring Break (week 3!) and I'm doing my best to keep these guys entertained.  I needed to shower after the gym and wanted to make sure the boys were busy for a few minutes.  This is one of the few things they can do together without any fighting.  Sit in the rocking chair and watch movies.  Luke loves these Baby Genius DVDs (sing-a-long childrens songs) and Isaac for some reason always wants to come watch too, even though he lost interest in them years ago.  

April 10, 2013

Luke is finally tall enough to reach the door knobs - and has learned how to open them!  Luckily he has not tried to actually leave the house yet, but he has opened the front door a few times on his own when we were getting ready to go somewhere.  Time for the child safety knob.  As you can see, he was not very happy when he discovered that he could no longer open this door.  

April 9, 2013

We were originally planning to re-use our old hardware on the new cabinets, but then we realized that the old owner did it all wrong.  We had handles on all of the cabinets and knobs on the drawers.  After doing some research we realized it was supposed to be the other way around.  So after dinner we made another trip to Home Depot to pick out new hardware.  The boys were fascinated by these little pull-down cubbies.  I think they could have stayed there all night opening and closing them.  Especially Luke.  In fact when it was time to move on to another aisle, he threw such a fit that Charlie eventually had to take him to the car while I went to check-out.  

April 8, 2013

Demolition day!  Our kitchen is pretty tiny but I was still a little surprised how quickly it all went down.   Luke and Isaac pulled up chairs in the dining room to watch as the workers took sledge hammers to the cabinets.

April 7, 2013

Happy Birthday to me!  (And to my Dad.)  Charlie bought me a Boston Cream cake from our favorite local bakery.  We were planning to celebrate at home, but in the afternoon my sister Sandy called and invited us over for dinner.  It was nice of her - especially since our kitchen is all boxed up - but I have to admit I was a little sad not to have any leftover cake.  Ha!

April 6, 2013

Today Charlie sent me out shopping for my birthday.  My boys are not patient or cooperative in stores, so it was such a treat to be able to shop by myself.  I found this dachshund top at Anthropologie, and though I don't think I could really pull of wearing it, I decided to try it on just for fun.

April 5, 2013

Charlie did most of the work of packing up the kitchen while I was sick the other day. It's pretty much all boxed up now, except for a few basics.  It's made our living room such a lovely place.  The remodel hasn't even started yet and I'm already counting the days until we can put everything away and have our house back to normal!

April 4, 2013

Back at Prehistoric Pets again.  We fed the tortoises and then we spent some time checking out the pet store.  As soon as Isaac saw these baby tortoises his face lit up.  He told me they look just like the Ninja Turtles when they were babies!  And he now has his heart set on getting one for a pet.  He insisted that he was not leaving the store without one.  We did eventually leave, without a turtle, but later on tonight he brought it up again with Charlie.  The ruling?  No reptiles allowed in the house.

April 3, 2013

I woke up this morning around 5:00 am with the stomach flu.  Charlie was my hero for the day because he took the day off of work and stayed home to take care of the boys.  I was completely miserable but so grateful that I could actually spend the day in bed instead of being mom.  The boys came in to visit me every so often and roll around on the floor in the pillows. 

April 2, 2013

We are on week two of Spring Break and Isaac is loving being able to go to the gym with me every morning.  Actually, I'm lucky that they both love going to the kids club.  Every morning when I drop Luke off he runs straight to one of these cars.  And when I come back to pick him up he is usually still sitting in a car.  I'm not sure if he ever gets out!  

April 1, 2013

We always love going to visit "the cousins" in Chino Hills, but we don't get out there often lately because our schedule is pretty full.  Today it finally worked out to go and spend the afternoon.  Katie & Hailey got these ribbon twirler things in their Easter baskets.  It's not the type of toy you'd find around our house but Isaac & Luke both had fun waving them around.  We spent a long time playing out in the backyard too.  Luke could have spent hours in this pink swing.