Four's Company ?!?: Fall Update

The fall season started out with Mike getting a new surfboard – for free! Some side-work yielded a laptop that we don’t need so we found someone to trade with on Craigslist. Now I don’t know much about surfboards, but I can tell you that it’s not a foamie, it’s around 6’10” and it’s much lighter and thinner than his first board. It’s much more of a challenge for Mike to ride, but I know he’s enjoying it. The surf here gets better in the winter so there should be even more opportunities for him to take it out for a ride as the air (and water) temperatures get cooler.

We attended our first wedding as a family in September and we pulled through without any physical or emotional war wounds, a feat considering the wedding and reception were smack dab in the middle of nap time. Josh did the best he could and when 3 ½ hours had gone by and the cake wasn’t cut and the dancing hadn’t begun, the parental units stepped in and gracefully exited early to take the kiddos home. We actually had two weddings to attend that month and the second one was formal so Grandpa stepped in and took Josh for the evening, leaving Mike and I with Abbie and the opportunity of partial alone time. We had several friends also attending the wedding so plenty of hands were available to help take turns with Abbie while Mike and I enjoyed brief interludes of dancing, eating and celebrating with the regular (a.k.a. no-baby) folks.

Abbie had her 2-month check up and she weighed in at about 11 ½ lbs and 22 inches, although this has most certainly changed. I’ll have official numbers next Wednesday at her 4-month check-up.

The day after Abbie’s 2-month doctor visit I was offered a teaching position at Heald College. I accepted and started attending faculty meetings that week. Weird to say that I’m a faculty member at a college considering that I was in college myself merely 7 years ago (oh man, I didn’t realize it had been that long!)… I’m teaching one class this quarter, Police Operations, to get my feet wet and to see whether or not I like teaching and so far, I do. It’s two nights a week and it gives Mike a chance to have daddy-time with the kids. He’s already established a bath-time ritual with Abbie and now that she’s willing to drink from a bottle, it’s smooth sailing. In fact, I came home from class last night to both kids fast asleep in bed and him sitting on the sofa with his book and a glass of wine!

Nana visited the last week of September, squeezing in a trip to Monterey to a Vegas itinerary that she already had planned. We celebrated her 70th birthday with a surprise visit from my sister and family photos. Man, it is some serious work to get an almost-2-year-old and a 2-month old to sit still long enough to take their photo – and it only takes a few seconds! I haven’t seen the pictures yet, but I’m told that the ones with the kids and Nana turned out and that’s what we were hoping for. We’ll try a family photo session again in the next few months and see if Josh having officially turned 2 years old and Abbie being able to hold her head up produce any better pictures.

While she was here, Nana took Josh (and me, Debbie and Abbie) to MyMuseum, a kid-friendly hands-on museum in Monterey. We had lots of fun as we watched Josh golf, have balls drop on his head and ride in the fire truck.

The ambulance was by far his favorite and he kept going back to it over and over again, wanting to hear the sirens and see the lights.

October rolled around and Mike visited his family in Delaware, surprising his Dad again to take him to the Annapolis boat show. After a long day of travel and some flight delays, Mike finally arrived safely and to say that his dad was surprised to see him walk through the door is putting it very mildly. Gene asked, “What are you doing here? Am I retiring again?” (referencing Mike’s surprise visit to Gene’s surprise retirement party) Mike replied with, “I’m taking you the boat show tomorrow and I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.” and thus the visit had officially began with a visit to Giacamo’s, a local pizza joint that is a must-visit anytime we’re in town. The boat show was rainy, but it didn’t stop the boys from having a good time. Also during the trip were a family dinner and a visit to see some old friends. Mike had a good time and we’re already looking at the calendar to see when he can visit again.

The following weekend my mom came in for a visit and her timing couldn’t have been better.

We were planning to celebrate Josh’s birthday with a party on Sunday the 25th at a local park and with my commitments to work and doctor appointments and taking care of the usual errands and housework, there was A LOT of preparation to do in just a little bit of time to do it in. Thursday was dedicated to making the decorations, which included a Sesame Street sign that measured about 6 feet wide, a life-size Elmo for pin-the-nose-on-Elmo, a big Elmo face and a big Cookie Monster face. She and I painted while the kids were napping and we were able to get it all done.

Friday was dedicated to a doctor’s appointment followed immediately by shopping. It takes an enormous amount of patience and courage to enter a store with both kids in tow and my stress level was too high with an overwhelming list of things-to-do to attempt this on my own. With my mom covering the kids when I ran out of arms, we tackled the stores and were able to get everything we needed for the big day. Saturday was prep-day – the final touches on decorations and pre-cooking and baking for the party. I made an Elmo cake using a cake-pan that Ginny sent back with Mike and made additional cupcakes too. Both the cake and cupcakes turned out so cute!

I don’t know if you can see it in the picture, but the cupcakes were chocolate and half were decorated in blue with “Cookie” written on them and the other half were red with “Elmo” on top. I know they came out tasty because Mike ate one before it was cool enough to decorate and then another ½ cupcake from the second batch (although he had permission on the second one since it was the runt cupcake that didn’t have enough batter to be as big as the others). You can see Josh eating the cake in the picture, but what you don’t see is the red joker-like face he had when he was done. Red icing had dyed his fingers for days!

At the party, Debbie was in charge of s’mores for the kids and everyone had a good time. We had been trying to get Josh to say “Elmo” for weeks leading up to his party and he chose his party to debut his new word! Now he says it all the time, pointing to the decorations, finding him in his books and letting us know when he’s wanting to watch a video. The party was a hit and everyone had a good time.

The day before Josh officially turned 2 he had his 2-year doctor visit. He weighed 23 lbs, 6 oz, was 33 inches tall (taller than most kitchen tables now) and I am proud to say that he has officially moved up in his weight percentile! As many of you know, Josh has been in the 3rd percentile since around the 9-month mark. Both the doctor in Texas and the doctor here have asked me repeatedly if he was eating and if I was concerned about his weight. My answers have always been that he eats like a horse (those who have witnessed can attest to this) and no, I wasn’t concerned about his weight. Neither Mike nor I are very big people and since he was consistently in the 3rd percentile, I just figured he was going to be a skinny kid. Well ladies and gentlemen, drum roll please… as of his most recent appointment, Josh officially weighs in at the 4th percentile! Yeah!

Halloween was low-key as I had official wedding business to attend to (we’re both in Blake and Sarah’s wedding and I had an appointment at David’s Bridal) and we were invited to a friends house for a bar-style dinner. We munched on chicken nachos, steak fries, wings and washed it all down with some yummy Blue Moon… none of which will help me fit into a bridesmaid dress! There were only two trick-or-treaters that night so needless to say, they hit the candy bar jackpot at this house.

November has arrived and we spent the first week house-sitting for Dad and Debbie while they cruised the Mediterranean and visited France, Spain and Italy. We’re told that Italy has by far, the best and freshest pizza available. I recently read “Playing for Pizza” by John Grisham and Mike is currently reading it and the book makes us both want to visit Italy. Couple this with Mike’s pizza fettish and the country is rapidly moving up our “places to visit” list!

The biggest news around here so far this month is that Abbie has learned to roll over, suck her thumb and finally has a bed-time! YEAH! The past few weeks have been slow for me with regards to class since I was preparing and administering the mid-term and didn’t have any homework to grade (just a side note, it’s never slow with regards to the kids), so I’ve finally had a chance to do some scrapbooking again, this time for fun. I found a really neat blog that I enjoy reading and one of her projects is to scrap the month of December on a daily basis. To make it easier, she creates the album in November and keep it very simple so that when December comes, all she has to do is print a picture and write a short journal entry for the day – 5 minutes total. I thought that I could spare 5 minutes a day to journal my life for the month of December so I’m currently in the process of creating my pages. I had forgotten how much joy it was to scrapbook when you don’t have deadlines to meet!

Josh has become my official helper in the kitchen. While I can’t assign him big tasks just yet, he’s one of the best stirrers around and doesn’t give any lip when I tell him to do something. In fact, he likes it!

He’s also apparently gotten over his hat phobia, as now just about anything is made into a hat. Just today he used the diaper changing mat!

I’ve also started to experiment with new recipes and since it is fall, pumpkin has been my favorite ingredient lately. I made chocolate pumpkin cheesecake squares last week and today I made chocolate pumpkin granola. Let me know if you want the recipes to either – the cheesecake squares were DELICIOUS and the granola is cooling now so I don’t know how it officially turned out, but the leftovers on the spoon were yummy! Josh is my taste tester too, in addition to my helper, as can be seen by the chocolate chip pancake remnants on his face.