Spontaneous Family Fun Night

Being a parent can be hard. There are endless sources telling you how you should be running your home and what kind of a parenting results in the optimal child behavior. This all leads to wondering if what you are doing is enough. If what you are being is enough.

Then there are nights like last night that silence the world and we just have fun.

It was bedtime and Tidus was all ready in his PJs. I was feeling on the ball too because I had gotten myself completely ready for bed as well. Ted, on the other hand, had no interest in going to bed or putting on his PJs. We asked him to choose what pajamas he wanted to wear to bed and bring them out into the living room.

After bringing out his clothes he stripped down to his socks and nothing else. Ted is 2 so this is still cute. But his jumping on his brother's bouncer is NOT cute. I constantly have to tell him to get off it because he is too heavy. Naked Ted was still not listening so I threw the closest thing I could find... a dirty pee diaper (wadded into a ball). The entire family laughed. Tyler grabbed the diaper and hurled it at me. This turned into the three of us throwing the diaper at each other. Ted was still naked. Tidus was laughing hysterically and Ruby did her best to intercept the diaper. Could this scene be any more bizarre?

After a long while of laughter and diaper toss, we finally got Ted to put on his pajamas. Then we found an empty water bottle. Well, Ruby found the bottle. She loves to chase water bottles and pop them if she can get her jaw on it. So we spent even more time laughing and tossing the bottle around playing keep away. If was so much fun and so random. Being a parent is hard, but family is the most fun adventure you will ever have.

Tidus the Mightiest Head Update

Tidus has worn his helmet for 2 weeks now. Each week we have an appointment at the cranial specialist where the therapist takes a look at how is head is and shaves out the inside of the band on one side. this give his skull room to grow where it needs to and stops it from growing in the places that need to be rounded out. They say his head is already looking more rounded. 

A Very Merry Opfar Christmas

My favorite part of Christmas... having my husband home! Hooray! I love that he gets time off work and we can just spend time together as a family.

CHRISTMAS EVE 
Tyler and I are notorious for being super random and spontaneous. These traits are what lead us to Knott's Berry Farm on Christmas Eve. Have a mentioned I love living in Southern California? Well it is awesome. We can say things like, hey let's go to an amusement park it is just down the road.

The last time I was at Knott's Berry Farm was when I was 9 and Tyler has never been there.

One of the coolest parts was randomly running into our friends from church. We seem to always run into them when we are out and about. They are self-proclaimed seasoned professionals at Knotts. Kristen, the mom, gave us all the insider details on things to check out and do. Including the shows to watch.  Sitting in the splash zone of the bank robbery show made for a super soaker fun time. We loved it. 

Tyler and I are suckers for getting caught up in the theme park fun. And Ted is a sucker for a good hat. The trip ended with our family buying season passes to the theme park since they are super cheap if you buy them before the beginning of the new year. I am so excited and there will be more posts from Knotts in the future. :) 

The night ended with some Face Time with family. I am grateful for modern technology that lets us see our far away families. 

 

CHRISTMAS DAY

Christmas is so much fun with a couple little kids to spend it with. Ted woke up to a giant rock quarry train set to play with. He loved it and I love that there are no batteries necessary. I am an avid believer in avoiding obnoxious electronic noise toys. They are both annoying and I feel like kids are more able to use their imaginations when the toy is not yammering at them all day. 

Tyler spoiled me with so many new accessories for my camera. I got a flash which I used to take this beautiful picture of Ruby the glamour queen. 

And he got me a wide angle lens and a fisheye lens. How cool is that? I never thought I would own a fisheye lens. I am going to have to come up with some fun things to do with it. Things in the picture are smaller than they appear ;) 

And one of the toys Santa brought Tyler was a flying Millennium Falcon. It is so dang cute and flies really well. Tyler is no Han Solo yet but he is getting there. It was so much fun watching him fly this aircraft around the apartment and terrorize Ruby and the boys. 

Happy first Christmas to Tidus!!! 

We Made PEANUT BUTTER BALLS

Peanut Butter Balls

Source: http://www.twotwentyone.net/traditional-christmas-treat-peanut/

Mix 

2 cups smooth peanut butter

3/4 cup softened butter

Add

3 cups crushed crispy rice cereal

3 3/4 cups powdered sugar 

Put in Fridge for 1-2 hours

Shape into balls with cookie scoop

Dip in melted milk chocolate (two 12 oz. bags)

Put on wax paper and place in fridge

If ever there was a treat that I underestimated it was the peanut butter ball. Seriously! In my mind this sounds super gross. Like eating a giant hunk of peanut butter. But when I saw this has mashed up rice krispies in it I was sold. I have chowed down about 8 of these today... tis the season... to gain 10 pounds. Thank goodness for breast feeding. 

I filmed a Ted Makes with this recipe. 

Ted is getting older so the dynamics of our videos are changing. I am not sure what direction they will go in. I have thought of letting Ted off the hook and making videos with Ruby. She is not thrilled with this idea. 

Last night Tyler finally opened up his Snoopy Snow Cone maker. The new improved design. Since we all know this toy was recalled a while back for its life threatening qualities. 

Tyler won this gem at the office gift exchange. Along with being an incredible upper body workout, Snoopy makes pretty decent snow cones. I can't imagine any 8-year-old being able to operate this thing. I tried grinding down the ice cubes and could barely do it. I understand why the cups that come with this toy are so small. 

We each tried one serving then Snoopy was retired. Our family can always look back on this memory... remember the time you spent like 30 minutes grinding 5 ice cubes to make a snow cone? Good times... 

The reality check from Southern California

We pay more to rent an apartment in Southern California than we paid on the mortgage on our house in Washington.This should have been the tip off when we decided to look at houses around the apartment complex we live.

Saturday morning came and the entire family was loaded in the car following a church cleaning service project. Tyler and I voted to keep driving and look for houses on the market. (Ted was voting to go home but 2 to 1 sorry Ted.)

I had no idea how ridiculously overpriced houses are down here. My assumption was that we would perhaps be able to afford maybe a condo. There is a new condo development being built in our area starting in the 600,000s! Yowza!

The next thought was going further from the beach and looking at ramblers... 400,000s... sigh... Oh, the best part of the day and the one that solidified I was done looking. And done hoping for a miracle. We drove around a neighborhood. Not a super fancy neighborhood. We saw an "open house" sign and wanted to take a look. As we pulled up to the house I noticed it was 2 stories.

"We can't afford this Tyler."

Not even stopping the car to get out we drove over to the next street and pulled up the address on Zillow.... Are you sitting down for this one?

$1.7 million!!!!!!!!!!!!! (yes this price deserves that many exclamation points). This is a house that looks smaller than my parent's house and theirs would go for somewhere in the low 300s in Washington. It was drilled into our skulls from Washington friends that California is expensive. Yet, this was still a pretty big smack in the face. And with that, we headed home, defeated, and rethinking our plans... I will let you know....

On a much more positive note. Ted is amazing. :) I have been buying work books for him to practice his pencil grip and writing. These books have little mazes for him to do and he is so great at them. He also has books that use dry erase markers for learning to write. The other day I came up on Ted working in his book and following the outlines to write his letters! I had not taught him to copy these letters. He just figured it out on his own from practice following lines. I will mention, he normally holds the pen correctly in his left hand but he hurt his fingers on his left hand (so yes, I realize he is not holding the pen right). He is 2 1/2.

And now I am constantly finding him going through his book and writing all the letters. He may not know all his letters yet but he can copy them like a boss!!!

I'm sorry did you want to fold these clean clothes? Cuz I'm kinda tired so maybe you could come back later. 

Two Babies and a Pug

We walked to the store. This is normal since we are a one car family. It is funny to look back to when we were a two car family. I could never fathom only having one vehicle to navigate around in. How can people like that even function???

We made the leap, after I became a stay-at-home mom, to save money and it has been one of the better money choices we have made. You can't go shopping if you can't get to the mall. And there are all the benefits of no car payments, no insurance, no gas and tons of exercise when I do venture to the local grocery store.

Once again, we walked to the store. I baby-wear Tidus exclusively to keep him off the back of his head. Even though he has his helmet I still like to do all I can to get him rounded out. Ted rides in the small stroller and Ruby came along since the store allows dogs... and why not? Most people would probably think this is crazy. They are right. There is no way to justify my decisions, I just make them.

As we strolled (because when you are pushing a stroller, you are strolling) along the 6 lane road we live off of, we passed a girl wearing knee high black boots, a short leather skirt and long blue hair. My initial reaction was, wow she is a character. And then I paused and realized what I look like.

Let me tell you.

I forgot to mention we also stopped by the newspaper stand to pick up our free weekly local paper. It has all the goings on of Huntington Beach.

I am a 30 year old woman wearing a baby with a helmet that looks like something off of Tron. Ted is a 2-year-old with Star Lord ball cap and sunglasses. He is holding up his newspaper reading it. And we have a pug ('nough said). Our little possy probably looks like quite the group. ESPECIALLY when we rolled up to the store.

Ted insists on riding in the grocery cart shaped like a car. With a heave and a ho Ted and Ruby are packed behind the two steering wheels. Three attempts later and the stroller is folded up in a way that fits it into the oddly shaped cart.

"You've got your hands full," was mentioned about 5 different times.

"Wow two babies and a pug," came from an employee.

"What a cute little group you have there," was my favorite. It came from an older couple who passed as I was still finagling with the stroller-into-cart task.

Yes, I had my hands full. Yes it could have been much easier had I left the pug at home. But it went well. Ted was awesome, Ruby never succeeded in leaping from the cart, and Tidus slept (like a boss).

The hero of the day is the genius person who invented the car shaped cart. He (or she) and the person who started handing out free cookies at grocery store bakeries are my two favorite shopping friends.

Ted just barely allowed me to take his picture when we arrived home. This was only after I promised he could take my picture too. A little visual for you of our hands-full group.

Ted's Friends

There are pieces of childhood that I cherish more than anything. Ted bringing out his 3 stuffed animals and saying, "My friends!" is at the top of the list. It was so adorable, I asked him if I might take their picture. He said sure and sat on his big blue bean bag.

Lunch time approached and I asked Ted what he wanted to eat. With a shake of his head he informed me he was not interested in eating lunch. "Well, what do you want to do?" I asked. Ted's face lit up and he began to hop about the room announcing, "Make cookies!" This is even more funny to me since I have been trying to cut back on my cookie consumption. We have found my enabler. 

No cookies were made. Instead I offered a piece of chocolate. 

Ted then brought all his friends to lunch with him. Lambie, Pooh Bear, and Frog (a green bear my sister made him for Christmas 2 years ago) all sat on the table and were fed Ted's lunch and the piece of chocolate he received for dessert. Ted would take a lick, then Lambie, then Pooh, and finally Frog. I intervened when Ted's face became completely covered in chocolate. 

"Just eat the chocolate Ted!... But it was very nice of you to share with all your friends."

Tidus has been such a champ with his helmet. How annoying would it be to wear this band all day long? Especially if you have to lie down while eating. Babies are just awesome. They don't care. They just love. 

Tidus the Mightiest Gets His Band

Yesterday was the big day. Tidus received his new head band (helmet). I was so nervous the entire day leading up to the appointment. I blame it on the fact that the lady I know whose child wears a band said it put a barrier between her and her son. Also he was refusing to nurse while he wore it. :( Being able to bond with my two boys has always been super important so I was really worried.

Tyler stayed home with Ted so he could take his nap and I braved the California traffic to make it to our appointment. The office is only 20 minutes away but I have to leave an hour early to make sure I get there on time.

For our appointment we were placed in a room and the new helmet was set on the table.

 It is a lot smaller in real life. The therapist put the helmet on Tidus's head and took measurements of where it needed to be shaved down. You can see the blue marks in the picture. At first he was not too sure what to think of the band. He kept reaching for it and looking around, but he did not seem overly stressed out.

Each time the therapist needed to shave down the band she would leave for about 15 minutes and Tidus would play with a table toy in the room. It was so cute. He can't stand on his own so I had to bend over and hold him up while he played. Then I would get tired and put him on my lap, but as soon as I did he would look longingly at the toy and try to reach for it. He LOVES toys! Even more than his big brother did at this age. 

As soon as we arrived home I made sure to snap some pics of Tidus for the family back in Washington. Ted saw Tidus was wearing his new special helmet and he insisted on wearing his helmet too. He wore it all night while we ran some errands. 

Ted saw I was looking at a website that sold decals you can buy to put on baby bands He ran to grab his sticker book. Ted put Cars stickers on his and Tidus's helmet. Later that night we stopped for fast food on the way home and Ted was trying to share his food with Tidus while they both laughed. I am so happy that my two little guys have each other. I hope they always love each other and stick up for one another. 

I 100% promise these pictures were not prompted by me. I was just able to catch Ted being ridiculously cute with his baby. 

The first two days of wearing the helmet I am required to take it off every few hours. This gives an opportunity for me to check for redness. Tidus's head needs to get used to the helmet. The first night went fantastic. Tidus slept exactly how he always does and he has been able to take his naps like normal. In fact maybe even a little better. My one concern so far is that I can no longer just rest my face into his cute little soft baby head. :( But he still has his happy Tidus personality. 

Oh, and Tyler felt so bad about baby Tidus having to wear this helmet that we went out the Babies 'R' Us and bought him a few new toys. :) 

An Unplanned flashback, pics with Santa

It is that time of year again. When children are forced to sit on a strange looking stranger's lap and we keep this treasured memory always. Ted hates Santa. A pretty obvious statement. Our ward had a breakfast with Santa party for all the children. Church parties are really the only time I get a picture of my kids with Santa. Partly because it is not my ideal to torture my children unnecessarily and because I just don't care.

But after I took the pictures I remembered that Ted wore the exact same outfit as Tidus for his very first church Santa picture. That made me so happy! I was also happy that I got a picture of just Tidus with Santa to compare to Ted's pic. Aww! 

Ted in the baby carrier so Tyler could load all the groceries into the house without having to worry about the toddler running into traffic :) Very creative 

         

Ted building sand castles at the park with some broken toys that were left behind by another child. 

Does southern California have fall? Why yes it does. Fall comes in the middle of December here. It is a little chilly and windy with leaves drifting slowly to the ground. Pretty different from what we Washingtonians are used to.  

The grocery store had mini pineapples! So of course I made Ted take a picture while holding one... after about 10 pictures, Tyler informed me the produce stocker was standing behind me waiting to resupply the fruit... eek sorry...