Little Man

Andrew cracks me up.

He is 80% attiTUDE and then 10% lovey dovey and then 10% CRAZY...like the sorta "annoying laugh, out-of-control, reminds you of Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman" sort of crazy.

He loves volcanoes... and he loves drawing volcanoes. He will sit and draw volcanoes for 30 minutes. At church he will color volcano coloring pages for 30-45 minutes. I kinda love the independence. We sit and chat while I do my stuff (cleaning, organizing, etc.) and he draws. Today he made volcanoes with "Uncle" Tom and "Aunt" Laurel (my Uncle and Aunt) in the sandbox at a park in Walnut Creek. It was the absolute highlight of his day. If not his week.

He's Mr. Social at camp and loves making new friends. He's also going through a weird separation anxiety stage too... so he'll cry for the first 5-10 minutes whenever I leave him somewhere and he's always saying, "Don't leave me" or "Wait for me" if I go downstairs or leave the room without him. I like that he wants to hang out with me... to a point.

Below is how I feel half the day. Exasperated? The attiTUDE really kills me. Going to bed at 1am every night doesn't really help my patience at all. But he is super cute with Catie and will help try and make her happy if I need to get something done. Though if she is screaming really loud he'll yell, "Chill Catie bug!"

Little man LOVES pencils right now... and just discovered the eraser. He is constantly erasing and telling me what he messed up on and how he needs to erase it. He made a special eraser contraption to help him focus his erasing better.

Andrew and I made banana bread muffins today. I added half a bag of chocolate chips because I'm not a huge banana person and chocolate makes everything better.

When I left the room I came back only to discover that Andrew had grabbed the whole plate from the counter and was trying to stuff as many muffins in his mouth as possible. This is the kid that hates everything and throws a tantrum when I say it is time to eat. He probably ate five muffins... if not more. Success!!

Andrew also loves Legos right now. I am a fan of this obsession. He carries his tubs of Legos all around the house and picks up after himself when it is time to be done playing. I think I have him scared thinking that Cate will steal his toys (or destroy them) if he leaves them out. The Lego guys have names and he makes them talk and they love to build skyscrapers and put out fires.

I'm not a fan of my family room looking like this... but the quiet few minutes I get to wash dishes, make dinner, or play with Cate make up for my frustration.

I love my little Andrew. He is my favorite buddy and despite sharing my stubborn personality, we have a lot of fun together. He is helping me learn a lot about myself and how life is more fun if I'm not always right... or always running the show. He is so good at compromising with me and coming up with good ideas that occasionally I think he acts more mature than I do.

I love my little guy. I cannot believe he is almost 3 1/2! Crazy!

Catie on the move

Catie's been hiding some of her skills as if they were part of her secret identity. Every time I've gotten her from her nap lately she's been sitting up in her crib... before today she had never shown me how she did it.

In the two video clips below you can check out her new skills- trying to crawl and going from her crawling position to sitting on her behind. Mute the volume. Seriously. I promise you that you will thank me. Andrew is taking a bath in the background... just ignore him (and me) if you decide not to mute the volume.



I'm proud of her for making progress, though I am so not excited for this next stage. Just trying to change her diaper right now leaves me thoroughly exhausted and sweaty.

Food Trucks and Friends

Yesterday we packed up and headed down to the Peninsula to meet up with some friends. We went to Shoreline Park right around the corner from Kevin's office at Google. I don't know how I have never been there before. It was gorgeous! We basked in the sunshine, caught up with friends, and I attempted to keep Cate from inhaling too much sand.

I also bumped into one of my former students and his family. It was so fun to introduce them to Andrew, who they last saw when he was 6 months old when he went on his first elementary school field trip. I turned into a hugging machine. I was so excited! The boy had been in my class for three years and his family had gone through several major life events with me- engagement, marriage, and the arrival of Andrew. Love them!

After the park fun, we met up with Jessie and hit up Edgewood Eats in Palo Alto for dinner. It is a meet-up of gourmet food trucks serving street food. I had some Indian curry and Jessie got Thai food. Mmm! Next time we're going to bring our camping chairs and eat there.

Andrew was being a picky eater (surprise, surprise), so instead of staying there to eat, we grabbed our food, got him a McDonald's hamburger (ick in comparison!), and then went to Jessie's neighborhood park in EPA to chow down and play.

The kiddos and I finally rolled into our driveway around 8:15pm. Perfect timing for some quick playing with Kevin before both kids went right to bed.

Meanwhile... poor Kev had a rough day at Google sailing around the Golden Gate Bridge on a catamaran and eating the Earthquake at Ghirardelli Square with his co-workers. His job is so demanding sometimes! ;)

Stuck inside Saturday

Our weekend has pretty much looked like this

The kids haven't gotten to see the light of day. Kevin and I spent all day sorting through closets, putting away laundry, cleaning out areas of our house that still have boxes (almost 2 yrs after we moved in), cleaning out kid drawers, and donating lots of outdated clothes to DI.

Not every Saturday can be an exciting one.

Cate ate blocks and cheerios, watched Baby Einstein on the iPad, and bounced in the johnny jump up.

Andrew sang songs, stole blocks from Cate, stole the iPad from Cate, jumped on our bed, and ran through all of the piles that we made.

We're still not done with all the organizing we want to do... but after a day filled with hard work, we treated ourselves to a date night out at the movies.

The Help was seriously the best movie I've seen in awhile... though that isn't saying much because we don't get out that often. But it was really really good.

We ended the night with homemade cookie ice cream sandwiches with homemade hot fudge. Yum!

I love date nights, I love organizing my house, and I love babysitters than can drive.

My First Triathlon

Yeah... those of you who know me well know that I will never actually do a triathlon. I can't swim or bike to save my life. But I did one once... and today I was reminded about it when Kevin found this t-shirt in his closet.

I had completely forgotten that not only did we run in this race, we ran it together.

When we were in the Stanford singles ward in Palo Alto we did the Read, Redeem, Run triathlon. We read the whole Book of Mormon, went to the Oakland temple to do baptisms for the dead, and we ran a 5K around Stanford campus.

Kevin hates running... but when we were dating he would do anything for me :) So we trained for this race together and we almost made it to the bitter end without Kevin needing to stop. He says that I was nice and waited for him when he needed to take a few breaths and walk a bit... but we finished together.

My memory is pretty foggy of that day, but I remember it being beautiful and I remember having fun. I also remember feeling proud that we accomplished this goal.

I love how a little t-shirt can bring back such a fun memory. I cannot believe we've been married for 5 1/2 years already. I am pretty stoked that I FINALLY got my wedding album this week. It is gorgeous and I put it somewhere so that I can see it every day.

Looking forward to many more years of accomplishing little goals together.

Piggies & Pops

Cate loves popsicles. She can eat an entire one all by herself. She has been a grumpypants all week because she is teething... so when I give her one I can guarantee five minutes of silence.

Yesterday I even made her some baby food popsicles. She is going to love me today when I let her have them. Frozen summer vegetables on a stick. Could anything be better.. especially when you are teething? ;)

New teeth and lots of standing... that's been the excitement around here this week.

I know she has at least one new tooth on top. She might have two. I stopped inspecting after she bit me.

Summer Street Festival

The little guy was in heaven with our evening adventure tonight- the Summer Street Festival.

At first when I realized Kevin wasn't getting home till 7:30 or 8 or 8:30 (he new usual get home time)... I was just going to have us stay home, get to bed on time, and just veg... 

But then I decided that there was no reason I couldn't take the little people to the Street Festival all by myself... so we packed up the car and trekked downtown. 

We bounced

Rode the overpriced train to support the local train museum... we were a little skeptical

But they definitely gave us our money's worth in terms of time on the ride... 

Caitlin disagreed... but Andrew and I were ready to get OFF when one ride was done.

We people watched

Attempted to get a kid family photo... unsuccessfully

Do you feel the love though? ;)

Andrew drew on the chalk area 

Supported the local HS football team by downing some hot dogs.

They weren't too pleased when Andrew yelled, "Hey! There are the basketball players!"

They thought Andrew was so cute though... 

so his picture may end up in the HS cheer video at the end of the year. 

We also browsed lots of local businesses, ran into friends and neighbors, and spent some time talking to the Firemen. Andrew was fascinated by the hoses and can now tell you which ones are for fires on the mountain (they wear hose backpacks) versus regular hoses that they use around down town. 

Just as we made it back to our car to go home (right as Cate was melting down), Kevin arrived. He grabbed Andrew and they went and played for a little longer while I went home and got Cate to bed.

Love our town. Love the cute activities that are always going on. Love bumping into friends and neighbors when we are out and about. Love that I can take the kiddos out and Andrew is obedient enough to not get lost in a sea of a hundred people. 

I don't love that I am always staying up too late trying to catch up on blogging... so goodnight! :)